by Susan Harris
Susan Harris
THIS book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
NO part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Skin & Bones
Copyright ©2016 Susan Harris
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63422-061-3
Cover Design by: Marya Heiman
Typography by: Courtney Knight
Editing by: Chelsea Brimmer
Everything that I am,
And everything that I aspire to be,
I owe to my parents.
This one’s for you guys.
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Playlist
The day was just another ordinary day, dull and overcast, the grey clouds threatening to unleash a torrent of rain down amongst those who meandered about. In the heart of winter, the night drew in quickly as evening approached.
A rumble of thunder grabbed his attention as he studied his next victim while she rounded the corner. Vibrant and full of life, the young girl was on the cusp of her maturity, reaching the tender age when all creatures came into their powers. He licked his lips in anticipation as he scented the ambrosia in the air. After weeks of preparation and patience, it was finally time for action.
His ruby-haired girl hugged her companion, a human girl, and bade her farewell. Straightening up in the seat, he slowly guided his run-of-the-mill car into the terrace. He knew his Carly’s routine, he knew it by heart, and he had everything planned down to the last second. He was nothing if not meticulous, and it had never steered him wrong before.
Adrenaline pumped in his veins at the thought of feasting on unbridled power as the curly-haired teen bent over to stick her laces back into her shoes. Teenagers these days were willing to put their safety at risk by wearing unlaced sneakers. Her stalker slowed his car to a stop. His mouth watered as rain began to dance on his windshield. He would enjoy this, he always did, and as time went by, he realized he craved it more and more.
As Carly straightened up and, almost on instinct, cast her gaze in his direction, he smiled, drinking in her frightened, green eyes and opening the car door…
Derek Doyle slid under the police tape, his heavy footsteps crunching over the gravel as he made his way down to the crime scene a short distance from the Garda station where he worked. He held back the growl that clawed at his throat. The smell of blood and urine disturbed his already-heightened senses, and he clenched his fists as the lingering scent of fear threatened to unleash his temper. Going all wolf in front of a dozen or more cops with silver rounds in their guns might not be such a good idea, but Derek wanted nothing more than to catch the crazy monster who had slaughtered an innocent. The idea of making the perp scream like he had his victims was running rampant in his mind.
Traffic had halted on the bridge above him as crowds gathered to catch a glimpse of what had happened. Derek cracked the bones in his neck as he nodded a greeting to some of the uniforms, who, in turn, eyeballed him. The world might have come to terms with the fact that werewolves, witches, and all the in-betweens existed a few years back, but there would always be bigots, especially on the force.
Ignoring the officers, he let his nose guide him. His eyes soon focused on the teenager’s body. She lay half in, half out of the little stream of water, her vibrant hair tangled with blood as her green eyes stared blankly up at him. The growl he had been holding back bubbled to the surface. His chest vibrated with the sound. The few men and women who were not in his special task force took a step away, none of them eager to be near an angry werewolf. Not that he really blamed them. As old as he was, Derek had a handle on his inner beast, but a human would never be a match for a pissed-off werewolf.
He held his hand up in apology. They relaxed, the tension evaporating slightly from their scent. Derek slipped down the short embankment, digging his heels into the muddy ground. The medical examiner for all things paranormal—a young witch who had a knack for seeing inside a victim’s body and assessing the damage—was examining the girl. She looked up as he stepped up next to her.
“Poor dear, whoever did this wanted her terrified, Derek. It leaks from her… just like the others.”
Derek put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll get him, Anna. I swear it; I will get justice for all of them.”
Anna brushed a tear from her eye with her arm and nodded. This was the third body in three months, and they were no closer to finding a suspect. From the trauma, it was obvious a supe was responsible, but why attack human teenagers? Most of those in the supernatural community wanted to live in harmony with the humans and would not do anything to jeopardize that, especially considering a few years back, when their existence had become known and the world leaders had wanted to round them up and tag them like animals so they could keep tabs on them. Well, that was until one of the most powerful men in the world had turned out to be one of his kind.
Derek squeezed Anna’s shoulder before he dragged his gaze from the slain girl and headed over to join his partner. Tall and thin, with black hair pulled back into a ponytail, Richard ‘Ricky’ Moore looked like he was a member of a Goth rock band rather than one of the finest cops and supes he had the pleasure to work with. He and Ricky had been teamed together and had quickly become friends. The other members of the Paranormal Investigations Team, or P.I.T. as Ricky liked to call it, were like Derek’s family. He would die for any of the men and women on his team.
“Yo, D, we really need to nail this monster.”
“Preaching to the converted, Ricky. What have we got?”
Ricky narrowed his eyes as he spoke. “Young female, age approximately fifteen years old. Been out here maybe four to five hours—tops. Rainfall overnight washed away most of the evidence, so not even your keen smell can pick up on much. Unsub must have dumped her during the shift change. Same dumpsite as the other two victims. All three drained of blood with bone marrow extracted.”
Ricky stopped as another snarl rumbled from Derek. This unsub was sick and twisted.
“D, I have more bad news. There was a girl took about a mile from her house in Waterford. He dumped her schoolbag with her, and this time, we got an ID. Girl’s name is Carly Saunders.”
Derek raised an eyebrow. “As in Graham Saunders, head of the Munster banshees?”
“One and the same. Anna needs to do more tests, but it looks like the girl hadn’t evolved into her powers yet. She wants to go over the tests again to see if the other two vics come from supernatural families, ones who may still be in the closet.”
Derek nodded. “It’s possible. The perp has never taken a victim from Cork, but he has dumped them here. We have to assume this is his comfort zone. It helps. Let’s just hope it helps enough to track this sicko down.”
&nbs
p; A beep interrupted them. Derek pulled his phone from his jean pocket and read the text before looking back at Ricky. “Sarge wants us back at the station for a briefing. Anna’s going to be taking Carly back to the morgue now anyway… Come on—the uniforms can keep watch.”
Without another word, Derek turned and headed up the embankment. Flashes of light blurred his vision as the social media nation on the bridge above him took snaps of the grisly murder to upload to the web. He shook his head in disgust. Making his way up the grassy hill, he soon stood on the concrete bridge amongst the vultures.
The reporters spotted him. Their voices melded into one entity as they screamed at him and asked him for comments or information. Not even bothering to say no comment, Derek crossed the road and jogged around the corner to the Garda station.
The brazenness of the killer bugged him. He dumped the bodies five minutes away from the police station as if to taunt them. Things had been much simpler in his day. When he had been human, the bad guys were the bad guys and the good guys were the good guys. Nobody had had a clue that werewolves and vampires existed. After a childhood where it seemed possible that he was more likely to end up on the opposite side of the law, he had joined the army at eighteen. Being in the army had straightened him out. When he was just twenty-four, he was recruited to a special operations team. He had gone on many covert missions, but one night in Cambodia had changed his life forever.
After he was made lycan, he had been forced to serve under a brutal alpha who demanded he keep the fact he was alive a secret. So Derek told no one. He’d made no contact with his family, not because Neville had ordered him to do so, but simply because Derek hated what he had become—a monster who reveled in blood and death. He had fought through the ranks until Neville became afraid of him and set him free.
He’d wandered for a bit, unsure if he would be welcomed home, but when Derek had shown up at the barracks back in Ireland, the men who had once known him were stunned that he had not aged a day in ten years.
After intense questioning and debriefing, and after telling his commander the truth about what had happened to him, they honourably discharged him due to PTSD. It was something they did not put in his medical records, however, which allowed Derek to apply to the guards. This worked out for him for a couple of years until questions about his youthful looks threatened to unleash his secret, and he was forced out. At that point, the world had found out about his kind and wanted to hunt them down. It wasn’t until Sarge had phoned and offered him a job on the new task force that he’d felt like he had a purpose again.
Living until you were almost a hundred while looking twenty-seven would do that to you.
Derek shook off the demons of his past as he walked through the gates of the station and bounded up the steps with a gasping Ricky hot on his heels. Silently, they shuffled down the hallway before coming to their operations room. Derek pushed the door open with a loud creak, and Ricky slipped in under his arm, flopped down at his desk, and propped his muddy boots up on his desk.
“Sarge will have your guts for brekkie, bro.”
“Pfft. D, you worry too much.”
“And being your partner has aged me like ten years.”
Ricky grinned up at him. “D, you’re older than most of us combined and look younger than all of us. Stop flaunting your youthful grace at us, pretty boy, and sit your fine ass down.”
Derek smirked despite the horror that still lingered in his mind and eased himself into his own chair. Checking his email, he frowned as he spotted another ‘invitation’ from the Munster pack to come speak with them. Derek had been a lone wolf for half a century, keeping himself free of pack politics as much as possible, but the latest alpha seemed overly keen to have him join the pack. Derek deleted the email as the door flew open. In filed the rest of the team with Sarge hot on their heels.
The rectangular room had one solitary window, and because everyone had a desk, the tiny space often became cramped. There was a series of whiteboards on the wall behind each desk, with the main suspect board freestanding in the center of the room. It didn’t leave a lot of elbowroom.
Sarge must have called them all in because even members of the night shift had braved the sunlight for this. Donnie and Caitlyn, the resident vampires, wore dark sunglasses and heavy clothing to hide their skin from the sun. Hollywood directors had gotten some of the truth right—vampires had fangs, had an aversion to sunlight, and needed to drink blood—but they tended to exaggerate a little. While his friends preferred to be one with the night, the sun did not reduce them to ashes on the wind. It did burn their skin so they looked like victims of a terrible fire, but kill them… it did not. However, a stake to the heart would do the job nicely.
Donnie was built like a rugby player, all broad shoulders and thick thighs. He had played professionally for Ireland until one night of celebration had ended with him getting stabbed and turned by Caitlyn. They were loyal as hell to each other and the team, but as far as Derek knew, the two weren’t romantically involved. Caitlyn held all the grace of a movie star from the fifties—à la Dita Von Teese. Even now, in ripped, faded blue jeans and an olive-coloured, hooded sweatshirt, the female oozed sex appeal. Black curls framed her face, and eyes of slate grey were behind those sunglasses.
The vampires perched on the edge of Ricky’s desk, Caitlyn pushing his muddy boots off the desk with a tsk. Ricky muttered something in Latin under his breath, and his boots instantly cleaned themselves. The warlock grinned and set his now-clean boots on the table again. Derek grinned as he waited for Sarge to speak.
Melanie quietly slipped into the room and sat down in front of her computer. Unlike the rest of the team, Melanie was human. She was gifted with computer skills. The youngest member of the team at twenty-two, the girl had been recruited to join just about every task force in Ireland and more. But she had settled on their little operation. Derek had never asked why, and Melanie had never offered an explanation, but he thought she was brave. She was a tiny wisp of a thing with Christina Hendricks’ red locks and big-rimmed glasses that took away from the subtle beauty behind them, and she had the courage to join a team full of supes.
Just as Sarge cleared his throat, the forever-late Fionn burst through the door. Derek wrinkled his nose as the smell of cat stabbed the air. The ginger-haired cat flushed the same colour as his hair. “Sorry, Sarge.”
Their boss just snorted as Fionn padded to his own desk and tucked his legs under himself as he sat, resting his chin in the palm of his hand. When the unit had first started out, they’d had almost a ten-member team from various backgrounds, but some had died in the line of duty and some in conflicts from their own species. Now there were three shifters, a warlock, two vamps, and a computer geek, giving the team seven unless Anna was included as a team member, which rounded them to eight.
Sarge cleared his throat again and the room hushed, the bear discernible in that authoritative voice of his as he said, “Three vics in, and we’re still no closer to getting a hit on the unsub. Mr. Saunders has already barged in here, demanding we pull our heads out of our…” Sarge paused, glancing at Melanie before continuing. “Anna is running tests on the previous two victims to see if there are any traces of supernatural in their DNA. Ricky, I want you and Fionn to drive to Clare and ask the family of the first victim what they are, face to face.”
Ricky made to protest, but Derek caught his eye and shook his head. Fionn and Ricky did not get along, and it was quite possible the two would kill each other before they reached the victim’s house. Donnie and Caitlyn smirked.
Sarge stared at the vampires. “I need you two to stay here until dark and help Melanie try to see a connection between the victims. We know they all come from different counties, different sections of society, but there has to be something that links them all together. I’ve got people from all over breathing down my neck about our lack of progress, so we need to find this SOB now.”
Fionn hissed but got up and headed for the
door. Ignoring Ricky, he let the door slam behind him, and Ricky groaned.
“C’mon, Sarge, you know the cat hates me… let one of the vampires go instead.”
Sarge stared him down, and Ricky lowered his gaze. “Maybe if you hadn’t broken his sister’s heart, he might like you more. You have a job to do, so do it—that’s an order.”
Derek stood and clasped his friend on the back. “If you told Fionn the truth, he might feel more receptive.”
Ricky shook his head, keeping his secrets to himself before turning and storming out as well.
Derek spied Melanie watching as Ricky left, and the young girl blushed when she noticed she’d been caught. Poor girl would get her heart broken if she ever became the subject of attention from his friend. Derek loved him, but Ricky had more demons than he did, and that was saying something.
As the vampires began rearranging the suspect board and putting up a school picture of Carly Saunders, Sarge beckoned Derek forward. He followed Sarge’s lead, sitting when the bear sat, folding his arms across his chest.
“Ricky and Fionn don’t work well together.”
“Ricky will have to get used to working with a new partner in the near future. I’m easing him into it.” Sarge sighed. The bear was younger than Derek by almost twenty years, but something about the aging process with bears meant his lifespan was shorter. Sarge, whose real name was Tom Delaney, had been threatening to retire for years and wanted Derek to take over; Derek was happy being a cop and did not want to be a leader.
“We’ll see. What do you need me to do?”
“I need you to go speak with a consultant. She teaches various subjects over at the College of Paranormal Studies and is expecting a rep from the team to escort her here after her twelve o’ clock lecture.”
Derek groaned as his wolf growled inside him. “I’m not a babysitter, Sarge… let me work the case.”
“Derek, it is four days from the full moon, and according to reports, you have been a little on edge this week. All I need you to do is bring the woman here so I can babysit her. Maybe you will change your mind after meeting her.”
Snorting, Derek asked, “Why this lecturer? What is so special about this woman?”
Sarge stretched his arms over his head. “Girl is all kinds of smart and has an eidetic memory. She holds degrees in criminology, psychology, paranormal anthropology, and paranormal species. Our unsub leaves no trace of himself and drains the vics of blood and marrow. A fresh pair of eyes may help.”
Derek wanted to catch this monster as bad as Sarge did. He let out a defeated breath and said, “Tell me the details.”
