“Nothing,” Jonah answered, ensnaring Jake’s attention again. “It would help if you knew where she was born.”
“I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Be careful, bro. If she’s a cop,” Jonah began, but Jake interrupted him.
“If she was a cop, she probably wouldn’t have beheaded a flying vampire in midair.”
“She really did that?” Jonah asked.
“In one slice.”
“Sweet.”
“Yeah, but unfortunately the vamps kept us from doing what we’d set out to do. We couldn’t dig up Janie’s body, so I don’t know what those markings on her were. I need copies of police reports and photos of all the victims.”
“That’s a pretty big order, Jake.”
“I could get them my usual way . . .”
“Dammit, Jake, I keep telling you that you’re going to get yourself in one hell of a mess if you keep screwing around like that.”
“Yeah, well, I gotta do something. My gut is telling me there is something off about this entire situation. If there’s some kind of clue being left behind on the victims’ bodies, I need to know what it is.”
“Maybe what you and this Nyla chick saw were just scratches. There wasn’t anything in the police report about odd markings, other than the fang holes.”
Jacob rolled his eyes. “No offense, Joe, but you guys don’t know what to look for in cases like this. This is my territory. Now are you going to get me the info I need, or do I have to pose as a fed and march right in to the LMPD and get it myself?”
He watched Alley move up the mattress until she was at his waist so he could scratch the fur between her ears.
“Don’t do it, Jake.”
“Well, I can’t go back to the cemetery and dig up Janie Paxton’s body. The vamps might have killed the guards. Even if they didn’t kill them, they definitely bled them. The place will be crawling with cops, and I need to head down to Hicksville as soon as possible. I’m not left with much choice.”
“Give me a day before you do something stupid.”
“I don’t do stupid,” Jake said, glancing at his watch. It was two in the morning. “I do whatever it takes to get the job done. I’m leaving here at first light, or whenever Nyla gets back. I have to have the pictures by then or I’m going to the LMPD to see what they have.”
“Jake—”
“Relax, bro. I do this stuff all the time.”
“I didn’t hear that.”
Jake grinned, amused by how much it bothered his detective brother to hear about the illegal things he did. He seemed to get more upset over that than the fact that Jake was out fighting monsters.
“I’ll try to get you the pictures by then, but I doubt I can do it. Are you sure you can’t wait?”
“Would you wait if it meant another innocent life might be taken?”
“No, I wouldn’t.” Jonah expelled a long breath. “Don’t get caught, baby bro. Watch yourself.”
“Always.”
“And play nice with Peewee.”
Jake chuckled, and he could imagine Jonah rolling his eyes.
“I’m out. Take care, idiot,” Jonah said.
“Back at ya, dickweed.”
“Bitch.”
“Pussy.”
With the dial tone sounding in his ear, Jake snapped his cell phone shut and tossed it on the nightstand, rising to a sitting position. He had a badge in his stash of fake IDs which would get him through the doors of the Louisville Metro Police Department, but it was always risky posing as a fed. He hoped Jonah would come through for him.
“Come here, sweetheart.” He gestured for Alley to crawl onto his lap, and he scooped her up in his arms once her little paws landed on his thighs. “You and I are going to have to work on this attitude of yours. I can’t believe you bit me.”
He raised her in front of his face, meeting her eyes with a stern look. Gazing into her eyes, he realized why Nyla had seemed familiar to him when they’d first locked eyes at the club. “I’ll be damned. You both have violet eyes,” he murmured softly.
He lowered Alley onto the bed, shrugging off the prickling sensation crawling up his spine. The black cat sat there, cocking her head at him as though trying to figure out what was going through his mind. Good luck, he thought, knowing his mind was a jumble of confusion.
He needed to focus on the job and quit trying to imagine what it would feel like to bed Nyla. It was screwing with his head and messing with his train of thought. Determinedly, he pushed the case to the forefront of his mind.
He knew Curtis Dunn was the killer, but everything inside him said there was more to this situation than he’d first believed. The man had killed a shifter—a creature ten times stronger than himself. And he and Nyla had been attacked by flying vampires, young ones at that. Was Curtis trying to create a better serum? A serum not only promising immortality, but greater strength? Had the man created something that gave those vamps the ability to fly? If so, why would he do that?
He glanced at Alley, sitting there watching him curiously, and he couldn’t shrug off the feeling he was missing something, some piece of the puzzle which was probably right there in front of his face, but he was too blind to see it. It had to be his attraction to Nyla throwing him off. He should have caught Dunn by now, but he was wasting precious time playing cat and mouse with Nyla . . . or maybe it was cat and horny dog, he thought wryly, reaching back to pet Alley.
But, to his surprise, Alley wasn’t there. Where had the damned cat gone now?
“CURTIS . . .”
Curtis huddled beneath the blue-tinged trees in the open forest, trying to chase away some of the bitter cold enveloping him, but with no success. It was always cold here, in this cerulean world of shadow where she roamed.
The Dream Teller.
He’d heard stories about her in his other life, when he was known as Alfred Dunn. She was like the vampires’ sandman, only appearing in their sleep, warning them of danger. So why had she started appearing in his dreams?
“You are a part of it,” he heard her rough, crackling voice whisper through the trees. “You must call them.”
“Why?” he asked, letting his voice float to the sky. He couldn’t see her, the fabled old hag with her unseeing platinum eyes, but she saw everything despite her blindness. “Why must I be the one?”
“You must pay for your sins, must make amends.”
“I don’t want to kill anyone. I don’t want anyone hurt.”
“Then stop Demarcus.”
“I can’t.”
“You are weak!” Her voice was a roar, rumbling through the sky like the roll of thunder. “You owe us this. You must call them.”
“He’ll kill me if he knows I’m warning her.”
“It is your destiny, Curtis. It has been written since before you were Alfred or any of your other names. Now, you will help them.”
“Yes,” he whimpered, curling into a ball on the cold, frosty ground. “I will help them.”
He lay on the blue forest floor, soaking up the cold from the moon’s rays, waiting for the Dream Teller to release him. He knew that when she did, there would be one more body and one more part of the message waiting for him in the waking world.
JAKE WOKE TO THE sound of running water coming from the bathroom. He turned his head, looking for the clock on the nightstand. It was just after ten in the morning.
He pulled himself off the bed, stretching out his tight muscles. He hadn’t meant to sleep so long, but he’d had that damned dream he’d had since childhood, the first time shortly before Bobby’s death. He was in a blue forest, shivering with cold, and someone was calling to him, telling him it was time.
He raked his hand through his hair, trying to dispel the dream, but it still clung to his
mind. He didn’t know what it meant or who the old woman was who beckoned him there, but it always creeped him out when he woke up feeling as if he’d really been there. His body was covered in goose bumps, the cold from that blue-tinged dream world still lingering, its only light coming from the silver-blue moon hovering above. He always woke from the dream this way.
He grabbed a black T-shirt out of the duffel bag lying on the floor and pulled it over his head, just as the shower stopped in the bathroom. Apparently, Nyla had come back while he’d been asleep. Looking around the room, he discovered Alley was still gone. Great.
He walked over to the small table and leaned down to boot up his laptop, signing on to the Internet to retrieve the directions his brother had sent him, hoping he’d also sent him some pictures.
A manila envelope lying next to the laptop caught his attention. There wasn’t anything written on it, and it wasn’t sealed, so he opened it, shocked to find copies of the police reports and photos from not just the first two murders, but the third one as well.
As he laid them on the table, Nyla stepped out of the bathroom, her curvy but slender body encased in snug black jeans and a tight black T-shirt. He felt himself grow hard at the mere sight of her. She raised her hand to towel dry her hair, the action causing her shirt to rise, exposing an inch-wide strip of bare flesh, and he nearly burst out of his zipper. He ignored his libido, reminding himself he had to focus on finding Curtis. It didn’t matter how badly he needed to get laid, the job came first.
“How’d you get these?” he asked, tapping a finger against a police report from the envelope.
“I got them from the LMPD. Since we weren’t able to dig up Janie’s body, I thought we could look at all the victim’s pictures to see if there are any odd markings on their bodies. Apparently, another body has been found,” she said, obviously referring to the one Jonah had told him about on the phone after she’d left. “Pictures and a copy of the report on that vic had just been faxed in when I got there.”
Jake stared at her in disbelief, watching as she casually dried her long, black hair and then folded the towel, draping it over the back of a chair.
“You have no ID on you and no fake badges, and you’re telling me you just walked into the LMPD and got copies of this stuff?”
“Yes.” She held onto the back of the chair, returning his stare. They stood before one another, only the table separating them, and Jake had the strongest urge to knock the table out of the way and grab her, but that would have to wait. He had to put the job first. He owed it to the victims.
“How did you manage to do this without getting arrested?”
“I showed ’em my boobs.”
Jake grinned, then paused. She wasn’t grinning, not even a smirk. “You’re serious? That actually worked?”
“I have great boobs,” she said with a shrug.
Jake couldn’t help lowering his eyes to where those full, perky mounds rested. He’d have to agree with her, but she hadn’t really flashed the cops, had she?
He cursed inwardly. Staring at Nyla’s chest wasn’t going to help him find Curtis Dunn, and how she’d managed to get the information didn’t matter. It was there, which was all he needed to know. With a shake of his head, he dragged his gaze away from her breasts and lowered himself into a chair to review the materials.
“Curtis is killing women faster than Carter,” he mentioned, while flipping through the reports. There was no mention of strange marks on Janie Paxton’s body, and none of her pictures showed the inner fold of her elbow well enough to determine what the marking was.
“Not necessarily. Remember, some of Carter’s victims weren’t found for quite a while,” Nyla responded, sitting across from him. Her legs shook under the table, and when he glanced up at her she was fidgeting with her hands.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine. Why?”
“No reason.” Jake shrugged, not wanting to set her off on one of her tirades again. She’d made it clear she didn’t like being fussed over when she looked sick. He had a feeling she wouldn’t like it if he asked her why she was suddenly acting like a junkie in need of a fix. The thought gave him pause, and he glanced across the table at her, again noting the way she couldn’t seem to sit still. She kept flexing her hands, then she’d run them up and down her arms. She was either freezing or trying not to scratch. Was she a junkie? Other than the fidgeting, she didn’t show any of the classic signs of drug abuse. But there were so many designer drugs these days that he wasn’t sure he knew all the signs. However, if she was a junkie, he’d have to find out soon. You couldn’t trust a junkie to watch your back.
“What are you looking at?” she suddenly demanded.
“Nothing,” he said quickly, returning his gaze to the papers spread before him. “We’re going to have to leave for Hicksville soon, where the third body was found. I was just wondering if you were ready.”
“No.”
“No?” He looked at her again. He hadn’t expected her to say that. Her only possessions were her clothes and weapons, and she didn’t appear to be high maintenance. From what he could tell, she didn’t even wear makeup. “Why can’t you leave now?”
She blinked, as if she hadn’t expected the question, and shrugged. “We need to stay here and find something. The first two victims were found here. We haven’t even scoured the parks for any overlooked evidence.”
He smiled wryly. Normally, scouring the parks would have been his first move, but he’d gone to The Crimson Rose on a tip and got hit by Hurricane Nyla. “Yeah, I was going to do that, but I got sidetracked by a woman with a gun.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s not my fault that women with guns make you lose focus. We can do it tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes, tonight,” she snapped. “I haven’t slept.”
“That’s not my problem. You’re the one who stayed out all night,” he pointed out, more than a little irritated by the memory of how she’d got him all hot and bothered and then ran away, leaving him with a hard-on and nowhere to put it. “What were you doing anyway?”
“Getting you those reports and pictures you’re looking at.”
He looked at her askance. “And it took you all night? You left here a little after one.”
“So?”
“So I didn’t fall asleep until around five. That must have been one long tit-flashing session you gave those cops.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and fisted her hands. “Whatever gets the job done, right? I got you what you need.”
“And then what did you do?”
“What do you think I did?”
“Did you go get a fix?”
Her eyes widened, and she looked at him as if baffled. “A fix? What kind of fix?”
“You tell me. Crack, heroine, meth . . . you’re shaking like a video whore. What’s wrong? Couldn’t find a dealer?”
She was silent for a long moment, and then she burst out into laughter so uproarious that tears ran from her eyes. “You think I’m a drug addict?” she asked between guffaws, as if the thought was the funniest thing in the world.
“You’re shaking and acting weird,” Jake mumbled, feeling stupid, and he wasn’t sure why. She had all the signs of a junkie gone too long without a hit, but she seemed too amused by his accusation for it to be true.
“I don’t feel well, you idiot, but I’m not a crackhead.” She laughed again, rose from her seat to walk to the bed where she fell onto the mattress. “Wake me at sundown, and we’ll check out the parks where the victims were found.”
“I want to be in Hicksville before nightfall.”
“Then go without me. I’ll catch up later.”
“Nyla.”
“I’m not going anywhere until nightfall, Jake,” she stated firmly. “I’m tired, and I’m goi
ng to sleep. Good night.”
Jake opened his mouth to argue, but closed it, concluding that nothing he said would change the infuriating woman’s mind. With a muffled curse, he grabbed the contents of the manila envelope and his car keys. Maybe he’d focus better on the case if he got away from the woman, and it wouldn’t hurt for him to patch up the bullet hole in the roof of his car while she slept.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Jake leaned back in his car and surveyed his work. The generic patch he’d made from duct tape would have to work until he had time to put his car in the shop. It wouldn’t keep a vampire out, but at least it would save his car from a flood if it rained.
He settled into the driver’s seat as comfortably as he could, and reopened the manila envelope. Nyla had sidetracked him earlier so he still had material to review, and doing it in his car was safer for them both. There was no way he could control himself in the same room with her stretched out on a bed. He could kid himself into thinking that he was just horny and any woman’s body would do, but deep down, he knew he’d still hunger for Nyla.
Forcing thoughts of her perfect body out of his mind, he focused his attention on the second victim’s police report. It was the same as the first, only the women had been found in different parks. The second victim was a fair-skinned, blue-eyed blonde named Minnie Davis. She didn’t have any strange physical attributes, like claws for nails, so she may have been a regular human being. She didn’t have any markings around her inner elbow either. She did, however, have scratch marks around her ankle.
Jake peered closer at the photograph of Minnie Davis’s ankle, studying the marks. They swooped out into arcs; one on top, one on bottom. If the scratches were connected, they would form the shape of an eye.
He sat that file aside and lifted the one for the third victim, an unidentified brunette. Only a headshot had been faxed to the LMPD. Like the others, the police report didn’t mention any markings other than the fang holes and “typical scratches as found in an attack.” He’d have to get better pictures of her from the Hicksville police department, where his cousin, Peewee, ran things. Knowing how Peewee felt about him, he’d probably have to dig up the third victim’s body to get any information.
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