by Lexi Blake
“Ignore him,” Henri said with obvious affection for his friend. “He’s always required his beauty sleep. Me, I can go for days when focused on a problem.”
That was when I noticed the new guy. He was tall and lanky, with dark-blond hair that reached to his shoulders. His back was to us, his head moving to some music only he could hear. Henri slapped him upside the head, and the man turned around.
“Hey,” he complained, pulling out his earbuds. He had a phone in his hand. I could hear the music from across the room. It sounded a lot like complaint rock. You know the type. It’s a lot of whiny boys talking about how girls don’t love them. It made me want to claw my ears off.
“Casey, you must pay attention,” Henri said with a frown. “We have a guest.”
Casey turned to me, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was looking at a brand spanking new vampire. That dude had likely turned in the last year or so. I would have pegged his age at around twenty, but unlike Donovan, who exuded power, this one was full of the raw idiocy of youth. He also dressed like an emo disciple. He had on a black and purple striped hoodie and jeans that really needed to be pulled up. I appreciated the Converse, but everything else about him was way too Hot Topic for me.
“Now we’re talking, Henri.” Casey turned on the charm, which for him included what I think was supposed to be a seductive smile. “Hello. It’s so nice to get a girl in here. It’s a complete sausage fest, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t,” I replied flatly.
The baby vamp eased up to me, and I caught the edge of his persuasion. It wasn’t the first time some idiot vamp had hit on me. Acceptable females were few and far between in our world. “I’ll explain it all to you, sweetheart.”
Henri rolled his eyes. “You’ll have to excuse Casey, dear. He only turned last year. I’m afraid his vampire life has not been what he expected.”
Casey frowned. “It kind of sucks, forgive the pun. I got killed in a professional accident.”
“You were skateboarding,” Henri corrected.
“It was going to be a profession. I was getting good. I should have worn a helmet…and maybe watched for oncoming eighteen-wheelers. So anyway, I wake up and there’s this big, scary dude standing over me.”
“We tend to refer to him as Your Highness,” Henri pointed out.
Casey ignored him. “He tells me I’m a vampire and…that’s like totally awesome because I thought I was dead and shit. I’m thinking, yeah, vampire. They get all the chicks, and they are so hot in Hollywood right now. They have to drink blood and at first, that’s like whoa, yuck, but then…wow. Awesome stuff. Only then I find out I’m some sort of egghead vampire.”
“I prefer the term academic.” Henri turned to me with an all-suffering expression on his face. “He required a patron. Marcus, Hugo, and I drew straws.”
I knew who’d drawn the short one. I patted his back sympathetically. “Sorry. It’s for the best. Marcus would have killed him by now.”
Henri shrugged as he pulled out a tray covered in sharp instruments. “Casey is excellent with technology. He can fix almost anything, and I don’t even understand half of what he can do with a computer. He’s actually valuable when he’s not talking. I try to tell myself that I most likely made my own patron want to throw himself on a stake in the beginning.”
“So who’s the chick?” Casey waggled his slightly bushy eyebrows at me invitingly. His persuasion purred across my skin. It tried to tease and tantalize. I was used to Marcus’s power, and this boy moved me not an inch. “Please say she’s for me.”
Henri moved into position over the draped body on the autopsy table. “She’s Marcus’s mistress. Feel free to hit on her. I’m sure Marcus will be amused.”
Casey went completely white. “Shit. Look, Henri, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. We don’t have to tell him, right? He’s busy and stuff.” Casey turned back to me and now his persuasion was a little stronger. It was good to know his survival instinct was stronger than his libido. He didn’t want me to talk to Marcus. “I didn’t really hit on you. I mean, I hit on everyone. It’s not a big deal.”
“She’s also our Hunter,” Henri continued. “Kelsey, please show him.”
I did so. I gently shoved him out of my brain. Casey’s eyes got wide, and his hands flew to his head.
“Owww.” He groaned and his hands massaged his temples. “That hurt. What the hell?”
Hugo’s head came up off the desk, his sleepy eyes amused. “Did the obnoxious bugger try to hit on our Hunter?”
“He did, indeed,” Henri confirmed. “He’ll have a headache for hours.”
“Nice one,” Hugo mumbled as he stretched his big frame. “Good morning, dear. I hope you had a lovely, albeit truncated, sleep. Have we gotten to the autopsy already?”
Hugo came to stand at my side, his clothes slightly rumpled. He reminded me of a college professor. He tugged on a pair of gloves from the box on the table.
Henri threw back the drape that covered the corpse, and I tried to view the body in an intellectual fashion. Whatever had animated Alan Kent was gone. His spirit, soul—whatever you want to call it—had fled this life. Now his body was my best evidence.
“How did he die, Henri?” Just hours after death, he was already past full rigor and well on his way to decomposition. Supernatural creatures decompose very quickly. It was why Henri couldn’t wait to perform the autopsy. Within a day or so, we would likely be left with nothing but soup.
“His wounds would not heal,” Henri explained. He handed me a pair of latex gloves, and I slid them on.
Alan’s belly showed deep puncture wounds. He’d caused them with his own claws, though Marcus had been behind the injury. I doubted he would feel guilty about it. It brought up a few questions, though. “I know Alan’s not exactly the strongest shifter in the world, but he should have been able to heal that, right?”
“Absolutely.” Henri had a scalpel in his hand. “Something else is wrong. I can’t be completely sure until I open him up. From the wounds, I would guess that he didn’t sever anything important. The king and his guard were able to keep the claws from sinking too deep. He, perhaps, perforated the large intestine. This should have healed quickly. I’ve known weak shifters to survive much greater wounds.”
“Gross.”
I glanced over to find Casey standing beside me. His mouth was pulled back slightly, giving him a general look of distaste.
I ignored the baby vamp, who better get used to gross stuff. “So why didn’t he heal? Did anyone try giving him blood?”
By blood, I didn’t mean a transfusion, per se. In our world, vampire blood is the ultimate medicine.
“Alexander and I both tried,” Henri confirmed. “We attempted both an oral and a topical application of blood. Neither worked. Forcing the patient to actually ingest the blood made things significantly worse.”
“I’ve never heard of a shifter being allergic to vampire blood.” I’d never heard of anyone being allergic to vamp blood. It was a universal curative. “Maybe it’s because Alex’s blood is evil.”
Hugo laughed sharply. “She has a point. I’ve been trying to figure out a legal way to execute that bloke for years. I didn’t like the way he was studying our Hunter last night, Henri. He never took his eyes off her.”
“Bah,” Henri said as he put the scalpel to a point under the corpse’s left shoulder blade. “Kelsey can take him.” He cocked a brow as he pointedly stared over at Casey. “Are you sure you can handle this?”
He did not ask the same question of me. I’d actually been the one doing the gutting before, so the aftereffects didn’t bug me.
Casey snorted and waved off the question. “Do you have any idea how many episodes of CSI I’ve seen? This doesn’t bother me at all. I’m a vampire. Dead bodies are my stock-in-trade.”
Henri shook his head and began his Y incision. He started across the chest, clean cutting to the sternum and then back up the right side of the torso. He made t
he leg of the Y down to the pubic bone. Gently, he opened the cavity to expose the sternum. “Casey, pass me the bone saw, please.”
But Casey was on the floor at my feet.
“He’s out,” I announced, picking up the small circular saw and handing it to the doc. “Never saw a vamp pass out before.”
“Such a pain in my ass. Shove him out of the way,” Henri yelled over the whine of the saw.
I leaned toward Hugo. “Have you ever heard of any substance that causes an allergic reaction in a shifter?”
“Silver, of course,” Hugo said as Henri pulled open the sternum. “Wolfsbane in a werewolf.”
“This wasn’t silver.” Henri gently cut the heart out. He held the organ in his hand. It looked perfectly normal for a disgusting body part. “The heart is perfect. Silver would have caused it to enlarge at the very least. The rest of the organs look fine, except for the bowels, of course. Marcus did a number on those.”
Hugo and Henri worked together as though they had done this a hundred times before. Henri pulled the organs out. Hugo weighed and measured them. I was handed a clipboard and dutifully wrote down the numbers that made up the end of Alan Kent’s life. Everything was perfectly normal, I was assured. Until we got to his brain…
Henri peeled his scalp back and we went through another round of whirring saw sounds before he was able to lift a portion of the skull out.
“Schijt,” Henri breathed as he got his first look at Alan’s brain.
“Shit is right, Henri.” Hugo’s face was a mask of perfectly genteel horror. “That’s the entire prefrontal cortex.”
I peered over. Even as a layman, I knew something was terribly wrong. There was a huge dark spot on the front of the brain. It appeared black against the gray of the rest of the brain matter. “That’s bad, right?”
“Yes, Kelsey.” Henri gently touched the brain. A black puss oozed out. “This drug has completely ruined the impulse center of his brain. He had no control over his own actions. If there are others out there like this, we’re in deep trouble.”
I sighed because it was going to be another long day. Casey came out of his stupor.
“Is it over?” Casey asked, his eyes wide. He managed to get to his feet.
“Not by a long shot, buddy,” I promised. The day was only starting. “Henri, I’m going to need a sandwich.”
Casey groaned as he caught sight of the exposed skull. He slithered back to the floor.
Yep, a really long day.
Chapter Eleven
I managed to down two turkey sandwiches, three teeny tiny chocolate chip cookies, and a Dr. Pepper before the next crisis required my attention. Apparently, with only Kim and a small human staff, they weren’t prepared for my appetite. I could have made my way back to my own apartment, but I was feeling lazy. Casey skulked into the small kitchen and slumped down in the seat across from me.
“Are you done fainting?” I asked. He was still pretty pale, even for a vamp.
“I didn’t faint,” Casey complained. “I…I…shit, I fainted. I totally lost it. What the hell kind of vampire am I if I can’t handle one tiny autopsy?”
I poked around the kitchen to see if I could spy anything else even vaguely appetizing. Kim Jacobs was big on salads. There was lots of green stuff in her fridge and not one single slab of meat. “You’ll get used to it.”
“How many have you seen?”
“That one,” I replied. “But I’ve probably killed way more people than you have.”
Casey looked innocent and naïve all of the sudden. “I haven’t killed anyone. All the girls I feed off of get paid by Henri. You don’t think I’d have to kill someone if Henri, you know, got sick of dealing with my shit?”
“I think they’d probably make arrangements.” I remembered what it felt like to find out life wasn’t what I thought it would be. “And I suspect Henri will show you a whole lot of patience.”
Casey smiled slightly. “I would never say this to him, but he’s actually a good guy. I was terrified when I thought that Italian guy was going to be my vampire dad. He scares the crap out of me.”
I shook my head because I didn’t get what was so scary about my guy. “He’s a sweetheart.”
“Maybe if you’re doing him, he is, but otherwise, he’s spooky.” He sat back in his chair and regarded me seriously. “So you’re some kind of superwolf?”
“I’m not a wolf, exactly. I’m also not human. I’m kind of a freaky combo. I’m really good at killing stuff, so here I am.”
Casey’s mouth split into a chagrined expression. “And I’m a vampire who doesn’t want to kill anything.”
The door from the living area opened and Liv walked in, bringing along her unique feminine energy. “I learned some things you might find interesting.”
“Like where Kim Jacobs hides the beer?”
“I don’t think she drinks beer, sweetie,” Liv said with a sympathetic pat on my back.
“I miss beer.” Casey sounded a little morose.
Liv gave him a long stare. “He doesn’t look like he’s old enough to drink.”
Casey sat up straighter as he tossed Liv his best come-hither look. I had to give it to him. He was an optimist. I’d tossed him out of my head not two hours before, but here he was hitting on the first woman to walk in. “I’m a vampire, honey. You can’t judge a vampire by his rugged good looks.”
“He’s a newbie, isn’t he?” Liv shook her head as she gave him a once-over.
“Oh, yeah, he’s like a year old and get this. He’s a pacifist.” I pushed a chair out for my friend. It was good to be back together with Liv. It felt right.
It made me wonder what Nate was doing.
“Oh, that’s so cute,” Liv cooed, much to Casey’s obvious dismay. She dismissed him entirely and turned to me. “So, Alan was sort of in and out of consciousness last night. Kim told me he talked a lot about some clinic. He’d been visiting this clinic, and it sounded strange. Kim thought he might be selling blood or buying blood. She wasn’t sure because he wasn’t terribly coherent.”
Casey had a superior look on his face as he pulled a card out of his back pocket. “Could you be talking about the East Side Clinic on Greenville? I found it in his wallet last night.” He held the card in between his middle and forefinger. When I reached for it, he snatched it away. “Not so fast, sister.”
I growled at the newbie who obviously didn’t understand the order of things. “Casey, I haven’t killed a vampire yet. Would you like to be the first?”
He passed me the card. “Fine. You’re no fun.”
“Liv, what do you say we head over to Greenville?” I asked, eager to get somewhere, anywhere.
“I don’t think that’s such a great idea,” Casey said, standing up. There was a stubborn look in his eyes. “Henri and Hugo went to get some sleep, and your trainer isn’t here. I don’t think you should go out without one of the team.”
“Good news for me then that you happen to be free.”
Casey’s eyes went wide. “Oh, that’s an even worse idea.”
I grabbed my coat. It was time for a field trip.
Twenty minutes later, Casey nudged me awake when the train stopped a couple of blocks from our destination. I yawned as the train doors hissed open and followed Casey and Liv out into the too-bright daylight. The snow on everything made it extremely light outside. Though Marcus was a daywalker, we still were fairly nocturnal. Being awake the last couple of days was making me tired and grumpy. My boots crunched in the snow as we moved down the stairs to the street below.
We started the walk up Mockingbird toward Greenville.
“Does she always fall asleep wherever she’s sitting?” Casey asked Liv.
“It’s her special gift.” Liv shivered as a cold wind whipped through the buildings. She brushed the snow off her gloves, but it kept coming down. We’d taken the train because it seemed easier than trying to drive in this stuff. Texans aren’t the safest drivers during icy conditions. “Have you
ever seen anything like this?”
Casey held his gloved hands up. “Don’t look at me. I’m from Austin. This kind of freaks me out.”
“Apparently everything freaks you out.” I gave the vamp a friendly slap on the back.
I actually kind of liked the little wimp. Maybe it was because he was an academic and I was a Hunter, so we kind of naturally fit together. I felt like taking the vamp under my wing, so to speak. However, when we’d gotten ready to go, I hadn’t given him a gun. I thought that was a bad idea. Liv, on the other hand, had a nice semiautomatic with silver ordnance in her coat pocket. I hoped she could hold it since she was wearing thick gloves. This snow crap wreaked havoc on my defense protocols.
“That’s it.” Liv pointed to a building halfway down the block.
The clinic was small and looked neat and antiseptic in that way all medical buildings should look. I want any clinic or hospital I end up in to look like twelve OCD freaks spent the day scrubbing the floors with bleach and a toothbrush.
“It looks closed.” Casey was studying the building carefully. It gave me hope that maybe he would be effective in the field.
Sure enough, the lights were off. It didn’t surprise me. Most of the buildings were closed down for the day. The minute it started snowing, all of the news channels had begun their apocalyptic countdown. There was five inches of snow on the ground. It was a winter Armageddon in Texas. Everything shut down. It was Saturday, and this wasn’t a residential district. There was an apartment building at the end of the block, the only place where I could see people out and about. There were some kids out on the sidewalk yelling and throwing snowballs at each other. At this end of the block it was quiet, the streets relatively empty, and that was helpful because I was about to commit a big old crime.
“I guess we’ll have to come back when they open up.” Casey didn’t sound terribly disappointed. I got the feeling he would prefer to be back in his cushy room watching TV.
Liv and I shook our heads and crossed the street. I’d been hoping the place would be closed. I didn’t want to run into anyone who could ID me later. I studied the clinic as we approached it, noting the security camera attached to the outside of the building. I had learned from my young thief friend. It wasn’t moving, but I could see the light on.
