Chapter 2
James seemed to take great pride in being the one chosen to walk me to my car. I let him think he was doing me a favor, but in truth I had managed to walk in alone just fine. As we neared the main entrance to the park, I saw Sharon arguing with the wanna-be zombie boy at the ticket window. She was hard to miss. Her cocoa colored skin, dark black hair, and height made her look like a supermodel in cop’s clothing.
I sensed James tense up with the anticipation of trouble. As much as I disliked the idea of walking around at night with a vampire with pink tips, I liked the idea less of him attacking Sharon. "Relax, I know her," I said this as if this statement would solve all the problems in the world. I had to hope he was confident enough that I was non-violent and through guilt by association, think Sharon was too. James let out a slow breath and started to relax.
I smiled as we got closer because I could plainly hear Sharon telling zombie-boy that he was ‘a pathetic attempt at pulling off the dead.’ As entertaining as this was, I had to put an end to it, for no other reason as to save Sharon the risk of developing high blood pressure. "Hey, are you hassling the help again?" I called out to her. Her head turned quickly in my direction.
"GWEN! I have been trying to get pea-brain here to tell me where you were." She shot him a look that made him squirm a little. Sharon’s attention fell to James who was walking a couple of paces behind me. Her eyes narrowed. "Who’s the vamp?"
Sharon’s ability to pick up on the dead was uncanny. "Sharon, this is Jameson--James."
James walked up to her and extended his hand to shake hers. Sharon looked at him a moment then met his handshake head-on. I could have sworn that I saw her gripping his hand extra hard, but James made no sign that he was in pain. She released him and turned her attention back to me. "What in the hell were you thinking, Gwen? Weren’t you told to wait for me?" She was closing in on me quick. If I hadn’t known her for most of my life I would have been terrified of her. "God, Gwen I have half a mind to bite you myself for taking that kind of risk."
The thought of that made me snicker, and this, of course, infuriated her more. "Sure, laugh, but if you’d wound up dead, I would have really been pissed." That comment didn’t make me want to laugh any less, but I managed to hold it in.
"Well, if I’m not needed anymore, I’m going to head off and have some fun," James said, making me jump at the sound of his voice. He’d been so quiet that I forgot he was there. I almost asked what his idea of fun was, but I really didn’t want to know.
"Thanks."
He nodded at me and strolled away towards the main way. I turned and looked at Sharon with the biggest ‘I’m sorry’ face that I could muster. She tipped her head a bit, allowing her dark hair to fall forward a bit. "You know you are really hard to stay mad at."
I smiled. That was all I needed. I’d known Sharon long enough to know she was over it. As we walked out to my car I filled her in on the night’s events. She shook her head in disbelief. "You mean to tell me that a dead guy was putting the moves on you?"
"Your tactfulness always stymies me, really!" I had to laugh a bit. She had a way about her that had always been blunt. Her head tipped back slightly. I think she was absorbing the reality of it all.
As we approached my car, Sharon came up with the idea of going out to breakfast together. Since it was pushing sunrise I thought it was a great plan. "There is no way that I’m getting in that death trap!" Sharon had never been big on me driving my old junker, so that news wasn’t exactly earth-shattering. I laughed and agreed to ride with her in her new Taurus.
Chapter 3
After breakfast I had Sharon take me into the office with her. Our office is set up to look extremely normal to John Q. Public, but once you are through the reception area and into the other levels, you knew right away that it is anything but that. Only strongest magic can get in undetected.
Sharon worked on the first floor. Being a detective with the PR Dept. had given her a lot of pull. She had her own office now. I loved to tease her about going corporate, only because of how much she seemed to hate the idea of selling out.
I was standing in Sharon’s office doorway when someone grabbed my backside. I flung around and found Ken staring at me. His brown eyes glistened with delight at having gotten a free feel. Normally, I would have backhanded someone who did that, but Ken was Ken, and I was used to him.
He leaned in to kiss my cheek, and I turned my head away from him. "Ouch," he said, while gesturing that I had just shot him through the heart. I had to laugh because the idea of him having feelings to hurt was amusing unto itself. He was the hardest son of a gun I’d ever met. He was six foot two, two hundred and ten pounds. When I first met him, he had a tight crew cut. I had finally convinced him to let his sandy blonde hair grow out a little. I didn’t want to add to his already overly inflated male ego, but he had great eyes. They were dark brown and the only thing that could have made them sexier was if they weren’t attached to him. He was so smug and cocky that it could choke a girl if she wasn’t careful.
He looked down at my attire and smiled. "Hmm, I wasn’t aware that it was casual day, Gwen."
"Well, I’m not here to work today. I haven’t been to sleep yet, remember." I had to fight the urge to stomp on his foot. He was the jackass that had called and woke me up to go question vampires, and I wasn’t about to let him forget that. Lack of sleep really did turn me into quite the little sweetheart.
Ken’s face softened. "What did you two find out?"
I looked at Sharon, who was now typing something on her keyboard, to try to catch her eye before she spoke, but I was too late. "Gwen was the only one who spoke to anyone. By the time I got there, she was already done with them. Or should I say him?" She looked up at me, smiling, caught the look of horror on my face, and immediately realized what she had just done. "Well, I got held up on the job, and was about three hours late, so I really can’t blame her--"
"You fucking went in there by yourself!" there was no questionable tone in his voice, just anger. He grabbed hold of my upper arm and ushered me into Sharon’s office to try to avoid an even bigger scene in the center of the office. He stared at Sharon and glared. "Why the fuck didn’t you or Rick meet her down there?"
"Well, let’s see … hmmm…. There was that pesky little hellhound murder that got in the way last night."
Ken and I both stopped to stare at her. I had no clue that another murder had taken place.
"What?" Ken said in disbelief. He had been at every one of the murder scenes from the start. He liked to oversee all the cases, and make sure it was covered up from the public.
"Well, if you would answer your Goddamn pager you would’ve known!" Sharon yelled at him as she stood. I wasn’t sure who would win in a fight between Sharon and Ken, but my money was on Sharon. "I paged you at least ten times, and I know that Rick tried too. I also tried your home phone and your cell … nada!"
Ken smacked his forehead. "Shit! My Grandmother must have shut the ringers off again. But my pager should have…." He looked down at his side, and pulled his pager from its clip. He let out a small groan, running his hand through his sandy-blonde hair in the process. "Batteries dead." He held it up for us all to see. "That still doesn’t explain why Rick didn’t go down to see Gwen."
Sharon shook her head. "Well, he was bringing in the clean-up teams and staving off the media. It was a mess."
I could totally believe that. I had ridden along with Ken to crime scenes before, and they were always insane. The Medical Examiner was there, a photographer was always catching every angle known to man, and some rookie cop was usually puking his guts out. Ken was always on his cell coordinating clean-ups, which left me free to sit on the side lines. Ken had no desire for me to see the carnage, and I couldn’t have agreed more, so I stayed out of the way. I had become good friends with the guys from the PR dept. because I was always around. I’d be on the sidelines helping them out with whatever I could. Cold compresses to the forehead were
my specialty. Most of the veterans didn’t need me. Every so often a scene would get to them so bad that they’d stagger out to toss their cookies. I also served as a friendly face--someone they could cry in front of and never have to worry about it going anywhere.
"Where is Rick this morning? I didn’t have a report on my desk. Did everything go all right?" Ken asked.
Sharon looked at him, puzzled. "What do you mean? When I left last night Rick was on his way back to the office with the crime scene photos and statements from the witnesses who called the report in."
She looked at Ken and he looked at me. We all had the same bad feeling in the pits of our stomachs. I spoke first. "I’ll go check his office. He’s probably still typing it out."
Ken nodded at me. "Good, yeah, you’re right. Hey, Sharon, call Rick’s house. I’ll call the city police department."
I headed out of Sharon’s office and down the hall. Rick was the Chief Investigator of the PR dept. He was pushing fifty and in perfect health. I always enjoyed being around him.
Rick’s office was the big one at the end of the hall. We liked to tease him about being the "big cheese" just to get him going. I tapped lightly on his office door. No one replied. Out of habit, I tested the door handle, expecting to find it locked. It wasn’t. I twisted it and opened the door. "Hey, Rick…." It took a minute for my eyes to register what I was seeing. I had been in Rick’s office at least a hundred times over the last year, and now, everything was different. Everything was wrong. A sickeningly strong smell filled my nose. My eyes scanned the room. There was something all over his office. It looked as if someone had taken brownish-red paint and smeared it all over his desk, computer, chair and walls.
My gaze fell to the top of Rick’s desk--a small, round, white object that looked like a ball lay there. I looked at it and was horrified when I realized that it was a human eye looking back at me. Nerve endings dangled from it, and the foul-smelling substance that I had assumed was paint was really blood, and the eye was lying in a pool of it. I tried to back out of the room, but the floor was slick from the blood, and my sandals provided little traction. I slipped and fell. I could feel blood all around me. It was soaking through my jeans and all over my hands.
I started to stand and caught a glimpse under Rick’s desk. A chunk of bloodied meat was lying under it. I stared hard at it as the smell of death began to creep towards me. It was a human torso lying there. It looked as if it had been mauled by a lion, but I’d seen enough crime scene photos to know a hellhound murder when I saw one. I felt vomit rising in my throat, I tried to scramble to my feet, but ended up on all fours vomiting profusely. My long hair fell forward into the blood. I heard someone screaming and pushed myself up to get out of the room. I realized the screams were coming from me. It felt as if time stood still for a moment. Ken came around the corner into Rick’s office. He had on designer dress shoes and damned near fell, too. He looked at me and around the room.
"Jesus, oh Jesus!" he muttered as I felt his strong arms moving under mine.
"What the?" I heard Sharon’s voice faintly. "Oh, my God!"
"Seal the building off! This isn’t that old!" Ken was yelling as he lifted me effortlessly into his arms. I wanted to tell him I was fine, I could walk, but the truth was I didn’t think I could. My legs were numb, my hands were shaking. I was suddenly getting very cold.
"Come on, Gwen! Hold it together, hon." I could feel Ken gently laying me on the floor in the hallway. "Gwen, can you hear me?" He was shaking my shoulders.
"Gwen!"
I wanted to answer him I wanted to shout ‘Of course I can fucking hear you!’, but no words came out. The image of the blue eye on the desk hit me, and I knew that it was Rick’s. I didn’t need the coroner to confirm that for me. I could feel more vomit rising up as Ken turned my head to keep me from choking on it. My body seized and my head threw itself backwards hard. I felt something tugging at me from inside. I couldn’t see Ken around me any longer and there was no more urge to vomit, and no more pain. I sat up. I wasn’t in the hallway anymore. I was lying in a bed of flowers. I picked one up and brought it to my lips. Delicate, perfect, glowing and green and yellow leaves made me feel calm.
I started to stand, and found that I was wearing no clothing. I had never had much of a problem with nudity, but I was suddenly feeling very naked. A small gust of warm wind blew past me. My hair swept up in front of my face. I looked, expecting to see Rick’s blood all over me, but there was nothing. I looked down at my hands. They were clean. "I’m dreaming." I heard the words come softly out of my mouth. I was intelligent enough to know that I was probably in shock. I had always had a keen ability to dream and be fully aware that I was doing it.
"Are you feeling better now?"
The sound of the voice made me jump. I stood quickly, and turned to see Pallo standing behind me. He was perfect. The white light in the room seemed to radiate from him. His skin looked tanner than I had remembered. But it was my dream, so I guess I was compensating for the whole pale, dead guy thing.
I smiled. If I was going to dream about someone, a few-centuries-old hottie like Pallo would do just fine. He was incredible. I had made him every bit as beautiful as he had been when I first laid eyes upon him. He was wearing a dark olive-colored pair of loose pajama bottoms and no top. His curly brown hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. I wanted to undo it and run fingers through his hair. I didn’t. Instead, I let my eyes trace the contours of his chiseled face, and soak in the beauty of his dark eyes.
"Why’d I let you wear clothes?" I asked, expecting him to be a fountain of wisdom in my own dream. The edges of his lips curved into a tiny smile. He took a step closer to me. He looked over my body like you would look at a piece of artwork--studying it, examining it, admiring it.
"If you insist," he said waving his hand out in front of me.
I expected to find Pallo standing nude before me. I was actually a bit disappointed to find that I was now wearing a long, sheer white night gown. I didn’t wait for him to touch me. It was my dream, and I was going to run it the way I saw fit, and right about now I wanted him in me. I reached out and let my fingers slide down his rippled chest. He shuddered slightly and clasped my wrist quickly. I could feel his pulse beating. I looked up into his eyes. That’s why he appeared to be darker, and not allergic to the sun around us. I had made him human in my dream. He was alive.
Knowing that I had recreated him as a human made him all the more appealing. The few reservations I’d had about him being walking death, were now gone. There was nothing stopping my desire for him. I grew damp standing near him, and ached for his touch. It was obvious that my mind agreed with my body--Pallo, minus the vamp thing, equaled the perfect man.
"As much as I want to take you here and now, you would not be pleased with me later." His head fell forward slightly. I took my other hand and brushed it along his cheek. I couldn’t understand why I was letting him fight me so hard in my own dream. Hell, I was ready to get busy, why wouldn’t I want him to be too?
"Don’t fight me, please!" I let my hand slide around and trace his jaw. His lips met the palm of my hand and he kissed it gently. "You can have me. I want you to take me, really!" I said this so quickly that I took myself by surprise as well.
Pallo continued to kiss my hand, and moved slowly down to my wrist. He pulled my arm up and around his neck. I had to stand on my tip toes to avoid having my arm pulled too tightly. Our lips were so close that I could feel his soft, sweet breath upon them. I made the first move. I put my lips to his and pushed my tongue into his mouth. It was every bit as warm and wonderful as I had envisioned it to be. There were no fangs to be found in there, only his tongue caressing mine. His arms came around my body and pulled me close to him. The sensation of his warm body against mine made my knees give out. Thankfully, he was there and pulled me close to him. I drew in a sharp breath as I took in his fresh vanilla scent.
I felt like a schoolgirl with butterflies in my stomach. I wasn’t s
ure if I wanted to giggle and write him a love note or take him to the ground and have mad animal sex with him. The latter of the two seemed more likely. I had never had a dream of this nature with this much intensity before. I knew I’d been missing out all my life. If I could pull this off every night, I’d never need a man.
I pressed my head to Pallo’s chest and let the coolness of his skin soothe me. My fingers went to the tiny scars under his nipple and I toyed with them, running my fingers across them softly. It was his turn to gasp as I slid my fingers up and over his erect nipple. My five foot five frame fit nicely against him, and left my mouth lined up with it. My tongue flickered out and over it as my mind pleaded to push the dream to the next level and have Pallo make love to me.
Pallo pulled back from me slightly, still managing to hold me in his arms. "Ahh," he said, more a sigh than anything else. "I must go now, you are safe."
He started to back away from me. "Wait! Don’t leave yet. I don’t want to wake up … I…." The thought of Rick’s office came to my mind. I didn’t want to wake up. I didn’t want to ever wake up.
"No, I must go now. We will be together again." As I heard the words come from his mouth I felt myself sinking. I looked down and felt my body being pulled gently down into the bed of violas. The glowing and green and yellow flowers met me head on, swallowing my body whole. Pallo never moved. He stayed standing above me as I sank away.
My eyes flickered open and I laid there staring at a very familiar ceiling. I had spent too many nights in Ken’s apartment not to know what his ceiling looked like. I started to sit up and the pressure in my head threatened to split it open. I let out a small grunt as I noticed the smell of violas still clinging to the air.
"Now, that’s the spirit!"
Daughter of Darkness Page 3
