All this talk of being a natural was nice, but my life before this…It was hardly unicorns and princesses, was it? It was trolls and demons and fucked-up nightmare shit.
Unnatural.
Devon opened his eyes and smiled slightly, gently. “It’s not such a terrible thing, you know.”
I couldn’t stop the snort that came out. In his collegiate sweatshirt and easy smile, Devon did not look like someone who’d experienced much that was hard and painful, nothing like months in a psych ward. “It’s been pretty terrible so far,” I said, thinking of all the days that had led up to this one.
“Your past doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Jack said, his voice soft and full of concern.
Not necessarily, but maybe it did.
I kept my eyes focused on Devon because I was afraid of what I might see in the others’ faces. It was a strange thing. This morning I discovered magic was real and I was a part of it. All the shame I’d ever felt about being different had been erased, lifted.
Yet, in the same day, I found out I was very possibly something not natural, and all those old, dark feelings threatened to return. I wanted to go back into hiding, return to being invisible.
Jack patted my thigh lightly, awkwardly. “I still think the jury is out,” he said, clearly pitching his voice to be heard by those in the front seat. “The tattoo was a trap, maybe it’s still acting on orders. Perhaps the necromancer wanted us to find the head.”
Seemed like a stretch to me.
Jones nodded, though. “The tattoo is clearly maleficium. It’s influencing Alex’s polarity.”
“Exactly,” Jack agreed. “Until it’s removed or completely neutralized, we won’t know her true nature.”
“Should we worry that it will have undue influence at this early stage in her development?” Stone wondered, looking up from the book.
“It is pretty deeply bonded to her,” Jack agreed with a deep frown, which was oddly juxtaposed with the silliness of the Yoda ears flopping as he shook his head.
“I think we can just keep watch,” Jones said. “We’ll reserve judgment.”
Devon sighed and closed his eyes again.
I said nothing, happy to be talked about as though I wasn’t there.
“Well,” Jones said, his eyes skimming off me before turning around in his seat. “I think we’ve done what we can here. Let’s head back to the precinct office.”
Jack made his good-byes. He made a point of touching my leg again and saying, “Maybe we could talk later? Call me?”
“Sure. That would be nice,” I said by rote.
Instead of going with the rest of them, I had Jones drop me off back at the morgue. I told them that I wanted to follow up with the lab rats to see what came of all of the tests I’d ordered. Plus, I’d left the morgue in a terrible state. I needed to do some cleanup. However, I agreed to join the team for the morning meeting the next day at eight. Jones reminded me that I needed to give him the details I could remember about my demon stepmom, so I should come in a bit earlier. I nodded in agreement, and made a note of it in my reminder app: “Tell cop about demon bitch.”
I stood on the curb as the squad pulled away. Devon gave me a little wave from the backseat, and our eyes held each other until the taillights disappeared around the corner.
When they were completely out of sight, I shuffled off to my basement refuge.
I was pleased to find it still devoid of my assistant. I checked on Mrs. Finnegan, but she had nothing new to say.
Finding my supplies, I began to clean and organize. It had been a strange day. I let the routine of work wash over me. Pulling up music on my iPhone, I let my mind go blank as I scrubbed and labeled and organized.
I pulled up the e-mailed report. The name on it was Boyd. I was right. I made a mental note to tell Jones about it the next time we met.
When I finished all that, I called my contact at the hospital about the toxicology report. I knew there was no way they’d have even preliminary results yet, but I had to let them know that there had been a problem with collecting all the samples from the liver, and that the body had…er, been moved before I could get tissue from the brain. They were not happy, but said they’d do what they could with what they had.
I spent the next several hours composing drafts of two autopsy reports—one for Jones and his crew, the other for the folks upstairs, the ordinarium, as I was beginning to think of them.
I’d left my tape recorder at the precinct office, but I remembered most of the pertinent information. It bothered me that there was so much unfinished in the usual procedures before the necromancer had walked away. I ended up concluding both reports with “cause of death: uncertain.” I saved the files on the desktop computer with a frustrated sigh.
The clock on the wall told me I’d missed lunch by a mile and, if I didn’t go home soon, dinner as well. I locked up the office, the lights switching off with an electric crackle.
I spent the drive home considering all the unnatural things in my life, and in life in general. Roads had to be unnatural, what with all the asphalt and concrete. Houses, cities, they were all man-made and artificial…though Devon had said that city magic was neutral, because cities had equal parts of both. I supposed that roads could have been laid on old wagon tracks that had been driven over deer trails, or maybe aligned with grids that followed the natural rising and setting of the sun.
I shook my head.
I didn’t want to think about this stuff anymore. I just wanted to sink into a nice, hot bath and go to bed.
When I pulled up in front of my place, I was surprised to see the lights on. I shared the house with my roommate, Robert, but he normally worked the second shift at the hospital. I was disappointed because I wanted time alone to wallow in my increasingly melancholy mood. On the flip side, Robert was a fabulous cook and I might be able to mooch some of whatever he was making himself for dinner.
Robert’s house was a typical 1950s, one-story, ranch-style place with white aluminum siding. We had scrubby yews on either side of the steps that would be in need of trimming once the last of the snow melted. The yard was small, but Robert kept the sidewalks tidy and clear of snow. Actually, I insisted that he did since despite having a two-stall garage I was expected to park on the street. To be fair, his car was much fancier than my beater. In my keep-it-to-myself opinion, however, that meant that my car needed the heated garage more in the winter, when my ancient battery was likely to die.
I didn’t fight over those sorts of details with Robert, though. I let the homeowner win. Besides, he’d taken me in when I was fairly desperate. He’d even helped pay some of my moving costs. Considering we met playing an online game, he’d turned out to be an amazing friend.
He could have his heated garage. It was a small price in the great scheme.
I followed the path around the house to the back.
The smell of curry met me at the door. Inside the mudroom, I hung my coat up on the peg and kicked my boots onto the rug. “Smells great, Robert,” I told the creaking linoleum floors and the sound of sizzling coming from the kitchen. “Did you get a day off or something?”
At the same moment, I happened to look through to the living room and recognized the battered duffel bag slung over the arm of the couch.
Valentine stepped into the archway. “No,” he said. “You called and I came.”
ELEVEN
I probably should have asked him how the hell he got to South Dakota so fast, or what part of his brain thought it was sexy to break into my house—not to mention ferreting out my street address somehow—but I didn’t. Instead, I ran straight into his open arms.
Burying my face into the fabric of his cotton tee, I smelled his familiar scent: a combination of wood smoke and leather.
I tilted my head to look up at him. He had a long and graceful neck, and such proud features. Dark hair cropped short, though just beginning to curl at the edges. His fathomless black eyes searched mine, but I wasn’t quite ready
to talk.
Laying my head back down, I cuddled close to his heart. His chest was solid, massive, and strong—though not hard like stone, more like supple sinew and muscled armor, but cold, too.
I was about to tell him that he shouldn’t have come, when his hand, which had been gently massaging my back, strayed down my shoulder. He stepped away with a hissing breath. Holding my arm out, away from my body, he frowned as he examined the snake tattoo. “What’s this?”
Where to even start?
He’d begun chuckling darkly before I could respond. “This is what you do to yourself when I leave you? Go all death-metal Goth chick on me?” Dropping my arm, he gave me a sly smile. “A dragon would have been more your style.”
“Funny. I was just saying the same thing to Jack this morning.”
“Jack?” His voice was full of teasing jealousy, but I sensed a tremor of the real thing as well.
“Just this guy from work,” I said.
He turned back to the stove, and stirred whatever he had cooking here. I pulled a stool from the island and sat facing him. “Work, yes,” he said. He pulled an onion from the bowl and sliced it on our cutting board. “Did your dead guy ever come back?”
“No,” I said. I got up and fetched two beers from the fridge. I twisted the tops off the bottles and set one on the counter for Valentine. I took mine back to my seat.
He chopped with the speed and precision of a professional chef. “You’re a lot less upset about it now, I see.”
“They believed me,” I said, peeling the label on the bottle. “Every single person in this town believed every word I said.”
Valentine added the onions and then turned the gas down to low. He leaned against the counter and took a long pull of beer. He was wearing a shirt I’d bought him at the Navy Pier in Chicago. “No wonder you moved here.”
Of course, the truth was that I’d moved here to get away from all the things I thought were driving me crazy, including Valentine. Only now it turned out those things were real and I had never needed to run out on him.
I should find a way to apologize, but, instead, I said, “I met a half dozen people today who believe in magic. They think I’m magical.”
“I have always said so. And so you are.” He set his beer down. Standing in front of me, he lifted my chin. His kisses tasted of hops and memories.
The curry smoldered into sludge while we rekindled our romance. The fire alarm went off while we were in the throes of passion. Valentine rushed out and doused the smoking pan in the sink. I ran to the windows and opened sash and storm, and then waved my arms around frantically trying to fan the smoke outside.
When the beeping finally subsided, I fell back onto the couch laughing. I was sure the neighbors got quite the sight of us running around in various states of undress trying to air out the place.
“Robert is going to kill me,” I said.
Valentine moved aside his duffel bag and sat down beside where I sprawled. He tugged at the spikes of my hair playfully. “We should order a pizza. I’m starving.”
I pointed a finger at him and shook it halfheartedly. “You’re supposed to say something gallant, you know, like how you’d never let Robert hurt me.”
He grabbed my fingers and kissed them. “It’s a given,” he said. After kissing my knuckle near the snake’s outstretched tongue, he let my hand drop. “I don’t need to say things you already know.”
Except that was always one of our problems. He would never say what I most needed to hear. He returned to absently playing with my hair, massaging my scalp. I looked up the long expanse of his body, wondering if I should destroy the moment and tell him my feelings. As I considered, I was struck by how much more like a vampire he looked than Devon. His skin was pearly white, almost alabaster, and unusually hairless for someone who clearly possessed plenty of testosterone. He was strikingly handsome, or at least I always thought so, but some of my girlfriends back in Chicago used words like “wicked” or “cruel” when describing his features. As much as I loved him, I had to admit his eyes were cold. I have no doubt that the jury of his peers took one look into those black eyes and made the decision that sent him away. The biggest argument had probably been, “How long of a sentence are we allowed to give him?” Of course, they hadn’t misread his character or his guilt. I’d had to beg him not to kill my stepmother.
He chose that moment to ask, “What are you thinking?”
“I met a vampire today,” I said, because I had been thinking of Devon in a roundabout way.
“During the daylight? That’s unusual,” he remarked dryly, smoothing the frown lines from my forehead.
“He’s also a werewolf.”
“We should lock the door on Wednesday. It’s a full moon.”
His complete lack of shock made me realize that talking to Valentine had prepared me for Precinct 13 in a way. Following the advice of my therapist, I’d cast him as an “enabler,” but now I asked, “Have you met any vampires?”
“Russia is lousy with them,” he said.
Yesterday, I would have laughed at this point, sat up, socked him in the arm, and told him how much I loved his sense of humor. We would have kissed, fallen back into bed, and I would have thought no more of it.
Now, when I pulled myself into a sitting position, I anxiously searched his face. “Are you shitting me?”
“No. They’re everywhere back home. One of the first recorded uses of the word ‘vampire’ was in a Russian book in the ninth century or thereabouts. Many people believed Rasputin was a vampire, as well.” He was very casual when he answered, very conversational, but my stomach began to knot.
“So, you’re saying you’ve met vampires before,” I said, and, though it was a statement, my words hung in the air like a question.
“There are a lot of bloodsuckers out there. Some people say they’re running the government.” There was a tiny bit of a mock in the smile that played on the edges of his lips.
Now I did sock him in the arm. I hated the way I always lost control of the conversation whenever I tried to talk to him about something important. I could never pin him down and get a straight answer from him. “God, you frustrate the hell out of me. I don’t want to play this game with you because you always win. Forget it. I don’t even know what we were talking about anymore.”
He leaned in and kissed my pouting lips. Then he got up and ordered pizza.
We’d eaten, finished what we’d started earlier, and were lying spooned in my bed when Valentine surprised me by saying, “I think this place is good for you.”
We’d heard Robert come in about an hour ago, and we’d had trouble keeping from giggling. It seemed we were destined for interruptions tonight. I smiled and hugged Valentine’s arms encircling my waist. “Yeah, I like Robert’s house a lot. It’s very comfortable. He can be kind of a June Cleaver, but I’m really thankful he offered it to me when I suddenly…”
I had to stop or I’d have to find a way to apologize for running out on Valentine.
“I didn’t mean this house, I meant Pierre.”
“Oh?”
“It’s an unusual city. It seems just large enough. Or maybe just small enough that less is hidden.”
“You mean things like vampires and necromancers?”
“Yes.”
His breath was in my ear, soft and steady. I felt him drift easily to sleep in a moment. Meanwhile, I lay awake for a long time. He’d told me, after all. He’d answered the question I’d been so desperately trying to ask earlier, even though I hadn’t figured out quite how to formulate it. With that simple idea that there were things hiding in plain sight, extraordinary bits that people might pass by, unthinking, in a larger city, he told me everything I needed to know.
Valentine understood magic.
He had known the truth all along.
A phone call woke me up at five fifty-six the next morning. I fumbled around until I managed to get the receiver in proximity of my face. “Mmm?”
The
sharp, succinct voice on the other end could only be Jones. “Jack is picking you up. We’ve had a new development out at Jerry Olson’s ranch.”
“Nnnn?” I asked, but Jones had already hung up.
I pulled my feet over the side of the bed and sat there for a long moment, working up the energy to find some clothes. I considered the pile at the end of the bed. It was a mix of mine and Valentine’s, but I was pretty sure my underwear was still somewhere in the living room. I should probably wear fresh, at any rate. Luckily, the closet was less than a step away. I pulled something on in the dark, and stumbled out of the room, careful not to wake Valentine.
In the kitchen, I started the coffee as quietly as my morning clumsiness allowed. While that brewed, I scrawled a note on the Post-it pad on the fridge. “At work. Explain later.”
Looking at it, I wasn’t sure who the note was even intended for—was I planning on explaining Valentine to Robert, or Precinct 13 to Valentine?
I decided it worked either way and left it.
The loudness of the knock at the door made me jump. Thank God Jack hadn’t thought to ring the bell. I ran to open it. It was still dark outside, but the corner streetlight illuminated his broad smile. The Yoda ear hat flopped as he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. “Crop circles,” he said without preamble. “Cow mutilations.”
“Coffee,” I said continuing the list of random words beginning with “c.”
I was turning back toward the kitchen when he stopped me with, “No, your coat. Get it. We’ve got to go now while the readings are fresh.”
I did as he asked with a grumble. As I jammed my boots onto my feet, I wondered, “Can’t we at least drive through some place?”
Jack, it turned out, was a tea drinker, and he told me all about his favorite “monkey picked” oolong tea while I ordered a super-duper venti mocha to go. The barista seemed as bleary-eyed and annoyed by Jack’s chipperness as I was. Though I had to admit I was happy not to have to carry much of the conversation. I just let his monologue roll over me as we got back into his car.
Precinct 13 Page 11
