by Sasha White
“Understood. Sending Black Angel Teams One and Two to support.”
“Thanks.” I turned off the com.
“Black angels?”
“Literally. The best day fliers around.”
“Real angels? You’re serious?”
I rolled my eyes. “You’ve seen everything else, or heard about it, and yet the existence of angels seems hard for you to fathom?”
“I guess I didn’t associate them with –”
He stopped himself, but I knew what he was thinking. “With ‘my kind’? Yeah, I know. They’re pure and holy and we’re the evil undead.” I tried to keep the hurt out of my voice. Figured I didn’t succeed.
Jack stopped, grabbed my arm, and pulled me against the side of the building. “That’s not how I meant it.”
“Yes, it is.” I tried to get away. “Look, we need to see the Chief.”
“No. We need to get this straightened out, right now.” Jack was a lot taller than me and bigger all around. He was using his body to keep me in place and struggling meant I was rubbing up against him. I tried not to like it and failed completely. Or course, I had werewolf strength, but I didn’t really want to send him flying into the parking lot. Besides, feelings hurt or not, being this close to him made my senses go haywire. He was in a form of supreme manly-mode and it was all I could do not to start that doggy begging whine he seemed to be bringing out in me more and more.
“There’s nothing to straighten out.” I tried to look away but he had big brown eyes and they were hard to avoid. They were also flashing.
“I don’t think you’re evil,” he said through gritted teeth. “Or weird or frightening. I don’t even think you’re all that strange.”
“What do you think I am?” This didn’t come out in the strong, authoritative voice I was shooting for. It came out like a little girl whisper. Sadly, I wasn’t covered with fur, so as I felt my cheeks get hot, I knew Jack could see me blushing like an idiot.
He gave me a slow smile. “I think you’re one of the best cops I’ve even known. You’re smart, gutsy, funny, and loyal, and you have the best instincts going. I also think you’re the hottest woman on two or four legs.”
Then he bent and kissed me and I started blushing all over. At least, my whole body felt like it was on fire.
Jack kissed me for a good, long while, until I wasn’t trying to do anything but hump his leg. Hey, there are some things you can’t help if you have a drop of canine in you. He pulled away slowly. “Now, are we past that?”
“Ah, past kissing?” I was okay with moving fast, but even I had speed limits.
Jack rolled his eyes. “No. Are we past you thinking I don’t like you because you’re a werewolf?”
“Um, dunno.”
He kissed me again. “How about now?”
I really wanted to tell him I wasn’t sure again, because if his method of convincing me was to kiss me, I wanted to stay unconvinced forever. But we were in the middle of a case with horrifying ramifications and I’d been in law enforcement for several human lifetimes. “I guess so.”
He stroked my face. “I think it’s kind of sexy.”
“What is?”
“You turning into a hot-looking wolf.”
“I had no idea you were into bestiality.”
“I’m not. Ken explained, it’s not the same thing at all.”
As ex-boyfriends went, you couldn’t get better than Ken. “Um, what else did he explain?”
Jack grinned. “That if I wanted to make a move, I had a good chance of not having my throat ripped out.” He let me go but took my hand. “Think we need to pretend that we’re still just professional partners, at least as far as the rank and file here are concerned.”
“We’re an item?” I wasn’t arguing, but we were back to moving faster than I’d been prepared for.
He pulled me to him and kissed me again. Okay, yeah, we were an item. My butt wagging was a clear sign.
Chapter 15
Jack and I finally stopped making out and went into headquarters. I was glad I didn’t bother with makeup, because if I’d had any on it would have been all over my face and his.
We supposedly looked the same as we always did. I mean, we’d straightened our clothes and fixed the hair and all before we went into the building. And I didn’t think we got a lot of looks from our fellow officers.
However, the moment we were alone with the Chief, we got the superior glare of disapproval. “You know you’re not supposed to become involved with your partner.”
I did my best “innocent puppy has not piddled on the rug” look. “What do you mean, Chief?”
The Chief was short and stocky, pretty much all muscle and coiled energy. I’d never been able to figure out how anyone had managed to convince him to take the highest desk job available on the force. He always seemed like he was ready to trot over to the holding cells and beat a confession out of the perps, probably all at once.
He glared at me. “I mean you two have crossed the line.”
“How do you figure?” Jack asked calmly.
The Chief rolled his eyes. “I’d say it was the fact you both look guilty, but really, how stupid are you?” He pointed to the video monitor screens to the left of his desk. To the one trained on the parking lot, in particular.
“Oh.” Well, I felt stupid. And forgetful. Hey, a lot was going on.
“It’s not a normal situation, and you know it,” Jack said.
“Fine, whatever. What’s actually going on, now that we can, I assume, all stop acting?”
“You could have told me you knew a long time ago.”
The Chief shrugged. “I didn’t want you getting sloppy. If you had to fool me and Wagner, then you were going to fool anyone else you came across. As this morning has just proven, the moment you got to stop pretending you also got stupid and careless.”
I tried to apologize and yawned instead. Widely.
“Vic got hurt tonight,” Jack said. “She had to go the hospital in Necropolis Enforcement.”
“I’m fine. My kind heals fast.” Under most circumstances, anyway. However, much as I didn’t want to admit it, while stifling another yawn, I was dog-tired.
And not hiding it well, if the Chief’s reaction was any indication. “Go home and get some sleep.”
I considered our options. There were a lot of options, of course. But all the vamps were out now that the sun was up. The Black Angels were top-notch, so were Hansel and Gretel. Monty and Edgar, too. So if something were going down with them, I’d know soon enough. Ralph I wasn’t so sure about – he had a tendency to make high-level decisions without asking first – but he had Dirt Corps with him, and they knew better than to keep Monty in the dark about anything. So, all trails covered. But we had four cops and two hookers in the hospital and they needed to be sniffed, at least.
I shook my head. “Can’t. Need to question the survivors and make sure they’re not carrying something…extra with them.”
“Is there anyone else you can trust with it?” The Chief didn’t look like he was going to take no for an answer.
I gave it a shot anyway. “No. How about this? Jack and I go take a look at City Hospital. If everything seems secure, we’re fine and heading home. If we’re not sure we have a possession, I’ll have Enforcement assign a tail. If things are bad, I have a feeling that’ll wake us both right up. Okay?”
“No, but I’ll take it. I want you two extra-vigilant and I want you, Wolfe, to stop relaxing. You’re still undercover, and I expect you to stay that way. As for you,” he glared at Jack. “You watch yourself. You’ve already overstepped your assignment and put yourself and your partner in danger.”
“I know the rules,” Jack said. He sounded tired, too. “There are always reasons to break them.”
The Chief snorted. “Oh yes. Of course there are.”
“We don’t have the ‘no partnering with your significant other’ rule in Necropolis Enforcement.” We didn’t. We also didn’t have
the “no partnering with your sibling, parent, family member, ex, or wannabe lover” rule, either. Point of fact, we didn’t have the “no partnering with your unlifelong enemy” rule, either. In Necropolis Enforcement, the main rule was “whatever works”. In some cases that was great. I’d have done a lot to get a rule that allowed me to never work with Ralph, though. But no such luck. My wrist-com beeped, and sure enough, it was my least favorite werewolf on the line.
“Vic, trail’s gone dead.” Ralph sounded tense and disappointed.
“For real or because it was time to go dead?”
“I think the latter. But we’ve got nothing.” There was something in Ralph’s tone that made the hair on the back of my neck rise.
“Where, exactly, did the trail die?”
“Right in the middle of the Prosaic City National Cemetery.”
“Fabulous.” We were going from bad to worse. “Okay, stay there. Contact Monty. It’s not a cause for panic unless one of the other trails ends there, too.”
“You got it. Uh…what’re your orders in case, ah, we run into difficulties?”
“If the Prince manifests, Ralph, I want you and the others to run like hounds out of Hell, you got that? You do not engage the Prince!”
“Okay.” He sounded relieved. Ralph was annoying and overly into the whole pack thing, but he wasn’t an utter moron. He had a tendency to grandstand, but only if I was there in the audience. And self-preservation was an animal instinct.
“Let me know if anything happens, even if it’s a minor thing.”
“Will do. Over and out.”
My wrist-com went dead and I looked at Jack. “We need to get moving. No telling what’s going on.” We got up and I headed out the door.
“Wagner,” the Chief called. “I want you, alone, for a minute.”
Jack shrugged and I closed the door behind me. It took a lot of willpower, but I forced myself to move down the hall and hum, so I wouldn’t hear whatever it was the Chief wanted to say to Jack. Some of this self-control came from the fact that it always seemed wrong to me to eavesdrop on people I liked. More was because I didn’t want to hear the Chief warn Jack about the stupidity of this kind of inter-species dating.
I leaned against the wall and hummed good old “Werewolves of London” again. There was a concert coming up soon. I hadn’t wanted to go without a date, and while Maurice and Ken had both offered to be my escort, and Ralph would have leaped at the chance, I wasn’t into pity dates on either side of the fence. But now…maybe. Then again, as I watched Jack slam out of the Chief’s office, maybe not.
He strode over to me, looking angry. “What’s wrong?” I figured I knew, but why not pretend, right?
“Just how damn many surrogate fathers, brothers, and uncles, not to mention far-too-interested ex-boyfriends do you have, exactly?”
“Uh, no idea. Why?”
Jack took my arm and started moving us along. “Oh, I just got the ‘you treat her right or I’ll make your life a living hell and I have friends who know how to ensure that’s meant literally’ lecture. I got similar from Ken. And the Count, via Ken’s wrist-com. I got it from Amanda, and Maurice. I got it from Monty and, from what I gathered, Rover. Lord, even the white worm’s giving me lectures.”
This wasn’t exactly what I’d expected. I felt kind of warm and fuzzy that so many beings cared. “Sorry?”
“Not your fault. You know, I’m not that much of a jerk, or that much of a womanizer. Am I?”
“I don’t think so. Then again, you know us werewolves. We’re loyal to a fault.”
He managed a snort of laughter. “Thank god. I’m okay to say that, right? No smiting, per the lectures?”
“Right. Though a lot of them like to take the thanks. But, nothing to worry about.”
“At least that’s one worry I can write off.” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “I guess it’s flattering.”
“How so?” I was going for cool. Cool isn’t a canine trait, however. I was pleased I wasn’t panting at him and my butt was only moving normally for walking.
“That everyone thinks you’re so into me that I could break your heart without trying.”
“Oh.” I wondered how to respond to this. “I so totally am” was the truth, but I’d always understood you weren’t supposed to say that before you’d even had a first date. “Oh, not at all” was both a lie and probably not destined to start any relationship well. “We’ll see” seemed bitchy. “I don’t know” was stupid, since I absolutely did. “Doesn’t matter” was a lie.
Jack slid his arm around my waist. “I don’t plan to break your heart.”
“No one ever plans that.” The words slipped out before I could stop them.
He hugged me. “Yeah, I know. How about, I’ll do my best not to break your heart if you do your best not to break mine.”
“That seems fair to me. Not that I don’t like it, but didn’t the Chief want us pretending for the rest of the squad?”
Jack sighed. “Yeah.” He stopped, pulled us into a supply closet, and kissed me. “You know, I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first time I saw you.”
“Really?” My butt was doing its thing. Sometimes it was easier to be in wolf or werewolf form.
“Yeah. Figured I didn’t have a chance, considering who you were dating at the time.” I’d been dating Ken, point of fact, and I could see how a human would look at him and figure any girl who was with a guy that suave, sophisticated, handsome, and charming wouldn’t be looking to trade in any way. “Then I got you as my partner and knew I didn’t have any chance at all.”
“Because you knew I was a werewolf?”
“Because I knew you were a good cop and good cops don’t get romantically involved with their partners.”
“I guess we’re both bad cops, now.” I tried to feel guilty about it and didn’t manage it. Probably because Jack was nuzzling my hair.
“No. Per the Chief, these things happen.” He hugged me tightly. “It’s going to get ugly fast, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“I just want you to know that I can handle it. I’m sure there are going to be things I’ve never imagined coming at us, but you’re still my partner, no matter what. And partners back each other up.”
“You’re the best partner I’ve ever had, Jack. And I’ve had a lot. Our Enforcement team is great. We’ll all manage.” I hoped.
Of course, I’d been wrong before. But even the Count said I needed to let that one go. I still hadn’t, but maybe someday.
My wrist-com went live. “Vic, it’s Monty. Guess where I am?”
“At the cemetery with Ralph?”
“You’re so good with guessing games.”
“Yeah, it’s one of my gifts. Jack and I are headed to City Hospital. Keep me posted.”
“Will do.”
Jack opened the closet door. “I know. Romantic moment over. Time to roll.”
Chapter 16
We drove to City Hospital like good human cops – seatbelted and not snuggled. I reminded myself that Jack could be killed by a car crash and snuggling was best left for the privacy of one of our apartments.
My virtue was flying high by the time we got into ICU. I wondered about Darlene’s concept of the term “pull through”, though, because none of our six injured looked good. I wasn’t a medical professional, but unless they converted to an undead way of life, they weren’t leaving the hospital any time soon.
I dutifully sniffed each one of them. Well, I sniffed one of them, gagged and barfed into a nearby wastebasket, and then tried again. Supposedly they’d been cleaned off, but you couldn’t prove it by my nose. The cop we were with was covered with Slimy innard goo, blood – his own and the others’ – and something else.
“Sulfur.” I sniffed again and managed to control the gag reflex. “Dung.”
“Dung makes you barf?” Jack sounded worried.
“This dung, yeah. It’s Depths of Hell Dung. Special designer scent.”
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“Can’t wait.”
“You can’t really smell it. Thank Yahweh, or whoever you’re into, for that one.”
“From what you said, I’ve been with Yahweh, so I’ll give him the thanks, in a big way. You’re green.”
“Bet I get greener.”
We moved on, but it was the same in each room. By the time I got to the sixth one there was nothing in my stomach so I was able to keep my gagging under a semblance of control. I knew I’d be hungry, but not as long as I was near any of these people.
Jack rubbed the back of his neck. “What does it mean?”
“Well, I’m not sure yet.” I sighed. “We need an exorcist.”
“They’re possessed?” Jack’s gun was out of his shoulder holster faster than I could blink. I controlled the impulse to crawl to him on my belly.
“I’m not sure. I don’t think they are now. But I think they were.” There was nothing for it. When it came to this kind of stuff, you really did have to call in the best. I called the Count. “I need Martin.”
“You’re sure? You know how he hates to be called out for nothing.”
I snorted. “In my experience he likes to be called out for a routine blessing, let alone to verify demonic possession.”
“I think he pretends.”
“I think you’re stalling. Where is Martin that you don’t want to send him here?”
“At the Prosaic City National Cemetery.”
So not good. “So, who called you that didn’t call me?”
“None of your team. Routine daytime patrols spotted some oddities. They investigated, called in, and Martin and H.P. agreed it should be investigated.”
“Can he leave? I really think we need an expert here.” I gave the patient we were with another look. She didn’t look like an evil demon was about to burst forth from her being, but then again, I wasn’t an exorcist.
“I’ll request it.” The Count hung up. I got the feeling he was tired of hearing from me. I was instantly sorry I’d thought the word “tired”, because I was already and getting more so every minute.
“Do you need to stay here if you’re calling in someone else?” Jack asked.
