by Nova Archer
Caine nodded to the woman. “Mahina.”
“Valorian.” She turned her scrutiny onto Eve. “Who’s this?”
“This is Eve Grant from the San Antonio lab. She’s helping with the case.”
Mahina smiled. The woman’s grin made Eve’s stomach clench. She swore the woman was eyeing her as if she was a late-night snack.
“Eve, this is Captain Mahina Garner.”
Mahina stuck out her hand. Eve took it reluctantly.
“Nice to meet you.”
Eve had to stifle a gasp as the police captain nearly crushed her hand. Finally, she let go, and Eve nearly sighed in relief. “You too.”
The man in the suit grunted. “Can we move on to my problem, please?”
Caine turned his attention to the man. Eve could see a slight rise in the way he stood, a shifting of his shoulders, a tilting of his chin. A predatory stance? She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised by it. Males of any species showed aggression when confronted by another male. It was natural. However, for some reason, she really seemed to notice it in Caine.
“And what is the issue Mr. Porter?”
“I’m losing money keeping this room quarantined.”
Eve glanced sideways and looked into room 210. She was itching to get inside and look around. She imagined Caine’s team had done a thorough job of collecting the evidence, but sometimes fresh, even foreign eyes, could pick out things that they couldn’t see.
She tapped Caine on the arm and motioned to the room. “May I?”
He nodded briefly. “Just look, don’t touch.” Dismissively, he then turned his attention back to the uptight man in the suit, the hotel’s owner, she assumed.
“Mr. Porter, this room is a crime scene, and it will continue to be blocked off until we are satisfied that we’ve collected all the evidence we need to solve this case.”
Eve opened her kit, snapped on a pair of latex gloves and wandered into the room, leaving the men to argue. As she took small measured steps on a straight path, she took in everything. The way the room was arranged, the smell of disinfectant, and the sharp metallic odor of blood. She set her kit down on the floor and neared the bed.
Back at the lab, she had looked over the crime scene photos briefly. But she remembered the way the girl looked sprawled out on the bed, as if she were viewing it right now. The grisly image had been ingrained in her memory. The way her arms were splayed out to the sides, and her legs spread. To Eve she had looked like a five-pointed star positioned like that. A pentagram, Eve had thought. The symbols written on the girl’s bare chest and stomach had been foreign to Eve. She’d never seen anything like it. However, she didn’t need to be a witch, to know that the girl had been an unwilling part of a spell or sacrifice of some sort.
Why and how had the girl come here? Where would she have met a vampire?
For the most part, the existence of the Otherworld community was a guarded secret from the rest of the world. Because of its proximity to San Antonio, some people knew of the undead city and its inhabitants. Those in law enforcement had been made aware, and each of them had to sign a contract that kept their silence and prevented them from speaking about the Others to anyone. If that silence was broken, the perpetrator was severely dealt with.
Eve had signed such a contract when she was hired as a forensic investigator. There had been lots of speculation of what the Otherworlders were like, lots of misinformation and prejudice. She had read the files on each of the species, on each of the OCU members, but it didn’t prepare her at all for the reality of the situation. She was as ignorant about them here as she was before.
So, how did this young seemingly innocent girl hook up with a killer vampire? Maybe she had been kidnapped or seduced by his vampiric charms. But if that had been the case, then the vampire had been in San Antonio.
On a hunting trip.
That thought brought shivers over Eve’s body. Shaking her head from her dangerous thoughts, Eve turned from the bed, intent on leaving and finding Caine, and nearly collided with the weasel like man from the hallway.
He was grinning at her. “Do you need some help?”
Immediately, her heart started to thump in her chest. All kinds of warning bells sounded in her head. “Um, you shouldn’t be in here. This is a crime scene.”
“I know,” he sniveled, then wiped his mouth with his hand. Had there been drool slicking his thin lips?
Eve distanced herself from him and tried to remain calm. “Would you please leave the room?”
He moved toward her. “You smell good, human.”
Eve took a step back, right into her field kit. Two seconds later, she was falling backwards. When she landed on her back, the little scrawny vampire loomed over her, licking his lips. He grinned, showing his fangs. Saliva dribbled from his open mouth and down his pointy chin.
Scrambling for anything to protect herself, Eve grabbed the ALS flashlight fastened on her belt. She unhooked it and bashed it across the vampire’s head. The impact of the hard plastic didn’t even make him flinch. He continued to press down on her, baring his elongated teeth. She flicked on the light and flashed it in his eyes. Ultra violet in the face had to hurt. The vampire shrieked and closed his eyes but continued to advance on her. She opened her mouth and screamed.
Faster than she could see, the little man was lifted off the ground. Caine stood above her, his hand wrapped tightly around the weasel man’s throat. The vampire’s shoes didn’t reach the ground as he dangled there, held up by Caine’s pure brute strength.
“I could crush you like a cockroach.” Caine’s voice was hard and cold. Eve had to suppress a violent shiver, as the room’s temperature seemed to drop rapidly.
Mahina moved around to Caine’s side, an amused look on her face. “Hey, Valorian, put the little bloodsucker down before he pisses his pants and ruins your crime scene and your three-hundred-dollar shoes.”
Eve watched as the feral look on Caine’s face faded. She could see him start to relax, letting his shoulders droop. Slowly, he set the weasel down, and then took a step back, his breathing labored, but slowing. The room seemed to warm at the same rate that his breathing slowed.
“Take him in,” Caine demanded.
Mahina raised her eyebrow, but said nothing. She took hold of the little vampire’s arm and dragged him toward the door. “Okay, Chuck, we’re taking a ride.”
“But I didn’t do anything!” Chuck sputtered.
Once they were through the door, Caine turned and looked down at Eve. His face seemed to soften as he eyed her. “Are you okay?”
Sighing, Eve closed her eyes and let her head fall back onto the carpet. Relief surged over her. For a moment there, she thought she was going to die. Slowly opening her eyes, she swallowed down the residual panic. Then she paused, spying something foreign under the bed.
Craning her neck, she squinted and tried to make out the shape lying on the carpet a few feet away.
Caine reached down and grabbed her arm. “Here let me help you.”
Eve pulled away from his grip and rolled onto her stomach. “Get me some tweezers and a plastic bag will you?”
“Excuse me?”
She glanced at Caine and raised an eyebrow. “An evidence bag please.”
He took her case, opened it, grabbed a pair of long tweezers and a bag, and handed them to her. Taking them, Eve shuffled on her belly toward the bed and reached as far as she could underneath. Carefully, she plucked the white object from the shag carpet, shuffled backwards, and rolled over into a sit, bringing the object up into view.
It was about two inches long, blanched, and sharpened into a point. She’d seen one before on several occasions, but never like this. Usually, they were attached to the rest of the skeleton.
“It’s a phalange,” Caine announced.
Smiling, Eve bagged the bone and sealed the sack shut. “Good thing I was attacked and ended up on the floor. We might have missed that.”
Caine offered her his hand. This ti
me she took it and allowed him to pull her to her feet. Still holding her hand in his, he remarked, “Interesting tactics, but good work.”
She gave him a little smile, but pulled her hand from his. Heat had suddenly enveloped her, and she didn’t want to even consider where it was coming from. She took a step back, and reached for her kit to stash the evidence she retrieved away.
Caine cleared his throat. “I shouldn’t have left you alone. I wasn’t thinking when I left the crime scene unattended.”
“It’s all right. I would never have seen the bone if I hadn’t been on the floor.”
“It should never have happened, Eve. I have to remember that you are not...Other. Leaving you alone is dangerous, negligent even, and I won’t do it again.”
She waved his apology away. “I don’t need a babysitter. I’m fine. I can take care of myself, you know. I have training.”
“Not for Necropolis, you don’t.”
With that, she noticed his eyes flashed like blue flames reminding her that she was indeed an outsider in a foreign place with unfamiliar people. People that could kill her in a blink of an eye. Even Caine possessed that power.
Her stomach clenched again, and she had to swallow down the rising panic of being here, in this place of strangeness, with a vampire. Once a creature of myth, but certainly now as real as she was. Maybe she wasn’t completely prepared, but she refused to be scared away. She refused to back down from this challenge. She was here until the end, whether she, or Caine, liked it or not.
Squaring her shoulders, she picked up her kit. “I’m fine. Now let’s get back to the lab, and figure out this puzzle piece.”
With that, she brushed past Caine and walked toward the door. The fact that her wobbling knees still supported her and she was able to walk without passing out surprised her to no end. Just as it probably surprised Caine when she felt him following her close behind.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Blood spotted the stone steps of the dais like crimson raindrops.
The cloaked figure in the shadows watched as his servants prepared the sacrificial altar, splashing the human’s blood over the gray consecrated stone. His body thrummed with excited anticipation of the events to come. It wouldn’t be long before his purpose was fulfilled and he could finally go home.
He’d come to Necropolis years ago, quickly adapting to the city and integrating himself into the Otherworld society. He worked and played just like everyone else. No one had any clue of his true purpose, or his true identity. He had successfully fooled everyone into thinking that he was one of them. Little did they know how wrong they truly were.
One of the servants, an eager young witch, scurried over to where he waited shrouded in the dark. She bowed to him. “Everything is just as you instructed, Master.”
“Good.” He touched the top of her head. “Soon you will be rewarded for your dedication.”
She bowed again, even lower. “Thank you, Master.” Then she scurried away to finish the last of her tasks.
So eager his servants were to please him. Willing to do anything he asked of them. And he had asked many things. Others he had paid to do his bidding, like the vampire that had acquired the human woman’s blood, and paid well. Money meant nothing to him. He had plenty of it and it was for this purpose only. After the ceremony took place, he’d have no need for money, or anything else he could acquire in this world.
Everything he ever wanted, ever desired, lay within his reach. Soon, he would have more power than any amount of money could buy.
Soon, the world—human and Otherworlder alike—would bow to him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“It’s not vampire, lycan, or human.”
Caine frowned at Givon, as he inspected the bone they had found at the crime scene. Givon had it under his magnifying glass.
“An ape, then?” Eve piped up from her perch beside Caine.
Givon shook his head. “I’m not an expert, but I’d say not.” He pointed to the bone. “If this is a distal phalanx bone, which I’m sure it is, it’s way too short to be human or ape.”
Impatience thumped at Caine’s head giving him the beginnings of a killer headache. “What then? An animal?”
“I don’t know.” Givon lifted his glasses and rubbed his fingers over the bridge of his nose. Caine knew his friend’s tells. This one was screaming aggravation at not knowing the answer.
Sighing, Caine rubbed a hand through his hair. He was hoping for a break, something, anything that would lead them somewhere on this case. So far, they had nothing.
No hits on the Otherworld DNA or fingerprint catalogues. So far, nothing on the human ones either. He was hoping this bone would lead them to the next clue, then to the next, like a treasure hunt. Except they were on this one without a map to guide them.
“Do we know any anthropologists?” Caine asked.
Givon nodded. “I might know of a guy who can help us. A civilian, though.”
“Call him, Givon. We need something.”
The door to the morgue opened, and Jace peeked his head in. “We got a hit.”
Minutes later, the whole team gathered in Caine’s office while Eve pulled up the results of her search. The vic’s prints showed up in the system from a prior arrest, a drunk and disorderly.
“Lillian Ann Crawford, 20 years old.” Eve read off the screen. “86 Soleada Way, San Antonio.”
Caine wanted to feel some relief that they had identified their victim, but instead a sense of melancholy washed over him. As he looked around at his team, he could see the same sadness on their collective faces, except maybe Kellen’s. He never seemed fazed by the crimes.
They had a name, which was a good thing, but somehow that seemed to make it more real. Death was always a maudlin matter, but when it happened to someone so young, Caine always felt a sense of loss creep over him. Sometimes he felt downright miserable.
Shaking off the feeling, Caine addressed Eve. “We need to talk to her family and friends. Someone knows how this girl ended up in a motel room with a vampire.”
“I’ll call Captain Morales.” Eve picked up the phone on Caine’s desk.
As she dialed, Caine motioned to the rest of his team to follow him out into the hallway. Once assembled, he looked at each of them.
“Someone needs to go with Eve into San Antonio to talk with the family. The right questions need to be asked, and I have no faith in the human police to ask them.”
Lyra sniffed. “Don’t look at me. I still have those symbols to decipher. I think I’m really close.”
Caine moved his gaze to Jace. The man’s face was so stern, his eyes so fierce, that Caine didn’t even bother to ask.
Kellen raised his hand. “I’ll go with her.” He grinned. “She’s just the type of distraction I need.”
“Not likely, Kel. You’re a lab man, not a field man. You’d scare the poor residents of San Antonio.” Sighing, Caine shook his head. “Save it. I’ll go. You’re all acting like children out on the playground.”
Jace snorted. “Hey, you’re the boss. You’re the one that’s supposed to be the professional and set an example for the rest of us.”
“You had better have made some progress on the hair and fiber analysis when I get back,” Caine remarked, then marched back into his office.
Eve had just hung up the phone and glanced up at him as he neared the desk. She looked harried, strands of hair framing her face. He noticed that she didn’t try to tuck them back behind her ears. Obviously, she was too preoccupied to worry about it at this moment. A slight twitch at her right cheek beside her lips indicated a nervous tension. He could just imagine what her captain had said to her about one of them coming into San Antonio to question some humans.
“He’s sending someone to meet us at the east entrance.” She lowered her gaze, and tapped a finger on his desk. “They’ll escort us to the Crawford residence where Detective Salinas will meet us.”
Nodding, he hadn’t expected anything less. He was actually
surprised that they were allowing any of them to enter San Antonio. It had been over ten years since he’d been in the human city.
“I’m surprised.” He lifted his brow with an unasked question.
“I told the captain that the case couldn’t possibly be solved without you...without your questions I mean.” She cleared her throat. “That only an Otherworlder would be able to ask the right questions to get the answers we need to solve Lillian’s murder.”
“What’s this Detective Salinas like? Do you know him?”
She nodded but refused to meet his gaze. Was she hiding something? “He’s all right. Fairly straight up.”
Caine stiffened. Was that hurt he heard in her voice? Possibly anger? He didn’t have as good a hearing as say Jace, but he could decipher a lot in the way people spoke, and the words they used. He had extraordinary sensory perception. And right now, it was telling him that there was obviously some history between Eve and Detective Salinas. Romantic history, he assumed by the way her cheeks turned pink when she spoke about him.
“Is there going to be a problem working with him? Is your past history going to interfere with this investigation?”
Her head snapped up and the color of her eyes darkened. It was obvious he had hit a nerve. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m assuming you’ve had some sort of relationship with the detective. Is it going to be an issue working with him? We can’t afford any more liabilities on this case.”
Standing, Eve straightened her shoulders and glared at him. “First of all, it’s none of your business if I’ve had a relationship with this man or not. You are not my boss, thank God for that.” She rounded the desk and stood directly in front of him, her hands on her hips. He could feel her anger float off her like heat waves. He could almost taste it in the air on the tip of his tongue. “Secondly, I am not a liability. The biggest problem with this case is the hostility here. I sense it with your team—and now with you.”
