Cursed to Death

by L. A. Banks

  Again, Sasha shared a glance with Hunter. That was the last thing she’d expected Ethan to tell her. But now it made sense why the Seelie monarch was so upset.

  “Was it serious?” Sasha asked, pushing for details.

  “Oh, no,” Ethan said quickly, seeming more uncomfortable by the moment. “Desidera knew that she was one of many he cared for. She was very sophisticated about the whole thing, which is probably why Sir Rodney liked her so much.”

  “So they were hooking up tonight,” Hunter said in a deadpan tone.

  Ethan shrugged. “I would have to assume so.” Ethan’s gaze held Sasha’s for a moment and then went to Hunter’s before seeking a far-off point in the small, dank cellar. “It is my understanding that they were to meet at her apartment after her show. That was all Sir Rodney said on the matter.”

  “Okay, then . . . like I said, we’re gonna need a list of people she might have talked to—a friend, coworker, anyone she could have confided in.” Sasha looked at Ethan, studying him hard and guessing that Desidera’s boss, whom she worked with daily, would probably know more than the kingly lover who only visited her for trysts.

  “Penelope would be the best start,” Ethan said quickly, blotting the tears from his face. “Our Phoenixes are rare, and she and Penelope are from the same rookery, like I told you. If there was any girl talk or shared secrets, Penelope would have been her most likely confidante.”

  “Thanks, Ethan,” Sasha said absently, returning her gaze to the ashes.

  If she didn’t catch Penelope at home, she was going to have to go hunt her down at the teahouse and the last place she ever wanted to revisit was the teahouse . . . the place where an indiscretion had happened that almost made two alpha wolves go to war over her. Two brothers. It didn’t matter that meddling garden Fairies and outraged Pixies had been the culprits; the event was still a sore spot—one that neither she nor Hunter ever discussed. Damn, this was so not how she’d envisioned returning to New Orleans with Hunter for Sir Rodney’s annual Fae Midsummer Night’s Ball. In her mind’s eye she’d envisioned having the time of her life for her twenty-fifth birthday, a milestone that Doc had assured the general would pass without incident.

  She caught Hunter’s expression with a sidelong glance, but said nothing. The muscle in his jaw pulsed a steady beat. He’d obviously come to the same conclusion about the possibility of having to go to the teahouse. Okay . . . so investigating at the tea house was going to be fun. Sasha let out a soft sigh.

  “I trust that you understand the delicate nature of this investigation,” Ethan said, clasping his hands behind his back, his gaze sweeping between Sasha and Hunter. “I have spoken at length to Sir Rodney, as I am sure you will . . . and he’ll tell you that this situation must be handled with the utmost discretion . . . News of this event, just before the ball, could cause undue panic, rumors . . . It is not a shallow matter of a social event coming before the death of a beautiful young woman—the death of anyone would be and is considered tragic, but . . .”

  “But this has to be handled diplomatically,” Hunter said, finishing Ethan’s statement. “As clan leaders, we understand. Some things are not meant for public consumption until all the facts can be coherently presented.”

  Hunter gave Sasha the eye, which she immediately read as his unspoken reference to the teahouse incident.

  “Precisely,” Ethan said, oblivious to the couple’s undercurrent, and then closed his eyes, releasing a long breath and turning away from the charred body at Sasha’s feet. “Thank you.”

  Quiet surrounded them and in those few awkward moments, Sasha’s thoughts strayed, wishing that just once there’d be no drama . . . that New Orleans would be a vacation destination, instead of a hotbed of paranormal intrigue. That was such an awesome fantasy. A grand fête, a sexy escort—Hunter—an enchanted village, her best friends . . . what was not to love? It would have been perfect. But Sir Rodney was a friend. A dear friend. And if something had happened to someone close to him, in Ethan’s bar—another dear friend—then it was like somebody messing with her family.

  And, yeah, she knew the brass would want to monitor her, so between her and Doc’s fabrications and assurances that “going live” in a known paranormal zone was the best test that she wouldn’t flip out and turn into a demon-infected werewolf, it had still taken every theatrical ploy she’d known to get them to allow her and her team to return to the Big Easy so soon. Now this?

  “She was such a dearheart,” Ethan said softly, walking away to catch his weight against the wall. “How could something like this happen in The Fair Lady?”

  “We’ll solve this,” Sasha said, trying to offer some comfort. “You keep your head, man, all right.”

  Ethan nodded, but the gesture was unsure.

  All of this had to be smoothed out and kept below the military radar, while they were probably doing everything in their power to track her.

  “You’re sure your human superiors will remain uninvolved?” Ethan asked, his question loaded with concern.

  “Yeah,” Sasha replied, holding his gaze for a moment. No one in the room, except her, had to deal with the human population; she was the only one straddling the fence by dealing with the brass and having a human team of paranormal investigators—which had remained a sore point between her and Hunter from the beginning. “I have it under control,” she finally muttered, giving Hunter a quick, sharp glance.

  Okay, she admitted it; to make everything work out she’d stretched the truth back at the base. Had to throw the brass a bone. Said there was still some suspicious activity in the area that she and her squad needed to do reconnaissance on. She’d told that whopper well before Sir Rodney had sent a self-destructing Fae missive that he needed help with a delicate job. So, maybe it was a good thing after all, or even a little precognition, that she’d told the brass back at the base that New Orleans was a way station for black market supernatural activities. That was no news flash.

  But it had put her in the right place at the right time to be here just before the ball, and just before this tragedy. Maybe she and Hunter could get this problem addressed before her human crew or any of Hunter’s men arrived. That was the hopeful thought.

  Sasha rubbed the tension from her neck as she tried to glean clues from the site. Since war had already broken out on the streets in the paranormal community, she’d been able to convince her superior officers that it was advisable to keep a Paranormal Containment Unit peacekeeping presence here . . . just in case. Especially around Midsummer events. All that was true, just slightly exaggerated, so she thought.

  Sheesh. Liar, liar pants on fire—now the BS she’d trumped up to get her and her team a little R&R had come to pass.

  Sasha let out a quiet sigh heavily weighted with frustration. Who knew that Sir Rodney’s invitation to an over-the-top Fae bash was going to turn out to really be a work detail, a possible murder investigation at that? Clarissa and the guys were gonna have a cow. Hunter was already snarling. For that matter, so was she. Not because of doing a favor for Sir Rodney, he was a doll, but because someone had dared hurt a friend of her friend. It was like going against the pack; whoever did this would pay. Both she and Hunter were so pissed, the hair was standing up on the backs of their necks. She could only hope that was why they were quietly sniping at each other. But right now, none of that mattered. She had to focus.

  The only saving grace was the fact that the poor girl had torched in her Phoenix form rather than her human form—which only made it a little less horrible. However, had it been the other way around, Sasha was sure that she might not have been able to look at the remains with investigative dispassion.

  “I don’t understand,” Ethan finally said, beginning to pace. It was clear that the quiet tension was closing in on him and he needed the chatter for comfort, even though she and Hunter needed the quiet to think in order to piece together sketchy clues.

  Ethan balled his small chubby fists at his sides while walking to and fro. “Sh
e never came back from the flames. The poor girl . . . it was awful!” He heaved in a shuddering sob and pressed a fist to his plump mouth. “She was so pretty . . . a redheaded beauty, that she was. My best waitress, a fantastic showgirl, my good friend—I just don’t understand.”

  For a moment, Sasha couldn’t reply. Ethan was so upset that his Fae glamour was fading right before her. The tips of his ears were becoming more pointed and less human and his eyes had lost their warm brown hue, giving way to the multicolored Elfin irises she’d always found so fascinating. Even his frame was changing to the slighter Elf build, causing his pants and shirt to begin to sag.

  “She was a lovely young woman, no one disliked her. Not even the Vampires found fault with her,” Ethan said with a thick swallow.

  Sasha glanced up at Ethan, the word “Vampires” sticking in her mind and her craw. Hunter caught it, too, but said nothing. She moved toward Ethan with her sketch pad. Maybe he’d be able to tell her about any tattoos or strange body markings.

  “Sasha,” Hunter called out from deeper in the cellar. “I’ve got something.”

  Hustling over to where Hunter stood, Sasha crouched down and sniffed. It was feral and female, but nothing like she’d ever smelled before. “What is that?” she asked frowning. “It smells like Were, but not any kind of wolf, Shadow, or demon.” She shook her head. “I’ve never smelled this kind of Were before.”

  Hunter’s eyes narrowed. “Neither have I.” Hunter scented the air again. “And there’s something more down here. Blood.”

  Sasha watched intently as Hunter cocked his head, seeming to listen to the sudden stillness as though he could hear the past. It was always an amazing thing to witness, seeing his wolf senses awaken, seeing Hunter’s primal instincts ignite to scour the environment for clues. The Native American warrior battled with the Shadow Wolf Clan warrior just under the surface of Hunter’s skin. It was sexy as hell, that pivotal moment when his internal tracker flipped on with a subtle snap.

  Sasha kept her eyes on Hunter, watching his line of vision spend itself around the tavern wine cellar. Six-foot-five inches of pure muscle packaged in a 220-pound ebony-hued human frame was ready to slip into a shadow and emerge pure wolf. The hair stood up on the back of his neck and ever so slightly his dark ponytail lengthened.

  “What’s going on, Sasha?” Ethan said nervously, starting to come closer.

  But Sasha held up her hand. “Just give us a moment, Ethan . . . keep your scent back and let Hunter work.”

  After a moment, Hunter returned to her side. “There’s blood down here, but every time I think I’m closing in on it, the scent just dances away.”

  “Does it belong to Desidera or to the Were we’re smelling?” Sasha replied with a frown.

  Hunter shrugged, now seeming edgy. “I don’t know. I can’t get a lock on the scent in order to tell.”

  Sasha rubbed the nape of her neck. They had a dead Phoenix, some type of female Were scent, and blood that may or may not belong to either one. Sasha turned and looked at the body again. It was possible that Desidera was attacked by a Were and, rather than going out by teeth, she decided to go out by flames. But that didn’t explain the symbol she’d found on the body or the lack of signs of a struggle. If a Were had come down here to attack, then there should have been scuff marks on the floor, things turned over. But the scene looked like Desidera simply lay down quietly on the floor and calmly turned to ash. She’d think suicide if all the other pieces weren’t getting in the way—namely, no note, an agreement to meet a lover after work, a feral female Were scent, and the elusive scent of blood far away from the body, even though there were no signs of struggle. Personally, she was leaning toward murder, although the why wasn’t making any sense and the who was completely unknown at this point.

  Walking back over to Ethan, Sasha spoke in a gentle but firm tone. “Ethan, are there any Weres in the area that aren’t Wolves?”

  Ethan’s gaze shot between Sasha and Hunter. “Why? What did you see down here?” When they didn’t answer, he mopped his damp brow with the back of his forearm. “Only the Serpentines and Reptilians,” he said quickly. “The Serpentines are primarily over at the Blood Oasis . . . those with alligator abilities stay deep within the swamplands.”

  Hunter shook his head. “It wasn’t reptile. What I picked up on was mammal—warm-blooded.”

  Ethan slumped with relief so fast that Sasha almost reached out to catch him, but Ethan caught his weight on the banister instead.

  “You okay?” she asked, now holding him beneath his elbow. It wasn’t necessary, but her touch conveyed comfort to her distraught friend. She waited for Ethan to nod and then tried another line of questioning, just to be sure to rule out all possibilities. “Do Phoenixes ever have a type of contagion that makes it hard for them to transition from one form to the next?” Sasha briefly looked at Hunter, remembering all too well how that had happened to him.

  “Not that I know of,” Ethan said in a solemn voice, staring at the ashes across the room. He shook his head and briefly closed his eyes. “She was such a nice person, truly a gem. This shouldn’t have happened to her.”

  “No, you’re right. Something like this shouldn’t happen to anyone,” Sasha said quietly, looking at Ethan’s stricken expression.

  Ethan ran a trembling palm over his partially balding scalp. His shoulders slumped; fatigue and grief were making his stout little frame seem to be that of a bewildered child. He looked from Sasha to Hunter, his gaze begging for answers.

  Hunter raked his fingers through his hair and stared at the grisly remains. “And you’re sure Desidera didn’t have any run-ins with anyone, a Were, for example?”

  Ethan stared up at him, looking confused. “I guess anything is possible, but I honestly never heard about anything so serious that someone would want to kill her over it. And when it’s all said and done, the supernatural community in New Orleans is a small one compared with the humans. Most likely we would have heard about such bad blood between a Phoenix and a Were. Why are you asking?”

  “We picked up a feral Were scent,” Sasha said as calmly as possible. “Possibly female.”

  The color drained from Ethan’s face. “I don’t know why you would smell a Were down here.”

  “Did she have a changing room or an employee locker?” Sasha rubbed her temples. There had to be more to this than a dead Phoenix.

  “Yes. Certainly,” Ethan said in a tense, clipped voice. “This way.”

  Ethan moved up the steps as though someone were chasing him. Sasha and Hunter loped behind him, taking the narrow cellar stairs two at a time. But once they all exited, Ethan locked the door and tried to appear calm before his kitchen staff as he showed Sasha and Hunter to the employees-only section of the establishment.

  “I have a changing room for them in here,” Ethan said in a private murmur to keep others from hearing, sounding more and more distraught as he spoke. “It’s all pink and white tiles, pretty with mirrors and vanity lights and marble benches with a private shower, so my girls can fully transform in comfort. That’s why Sir Rodney and I called you. Something just isn’t right about this. My Phoenixes have never had a problem like this . . . and I didn’t want to alert my other employees for fear of starting a panic in the Fae community just before all the galas. You now bring up the possibility that it could be some virus . . . I pray what she had isn’t contagious. Me own wife, Margaret, isn’t sure—and she’s an empath . . . a healer and she cannot make heads or tails of this.”

  “No, no, no—I just had to ask that question,” Sasha said, holding him by both arms.

  She waited until he calmed and then they entered the changing room. Now she wasn’t sure which was worse—murder or contagion? Guilt threaded its way around Sasha’s conscience and choked it. This was indeed a person, someone who was loved and cared for by others in the supernatural community. The last thing she should have been thinking of was a silly party or her birthday, or any issues between her and Hunter . .
. it was just that work was always the focus and she’d been hoping for a break in the action for only a little while. Then again, she reasoned, she was blessed. At least she wasn’t charred ash, which certainly could have been the case when dealing with pissed off Vampires.

  But that was then and this was now, besides, this girl didn’t have any direct enemies, a crazy boyfriend, or any of the makings of domestic troubles. A brief prayer crossed Sasha’s mind: Please God, don’t let it be some serial killer whack job, though.

  Looking up at Ethan and then glancing at Hunter, she made sure her voice was gentle. “I guess I was just trying to rule out anything medical before we started down that path,” Sasha offered, hoping that it really was something benign that didn’t involve foul play.

  Ethan nodded and released a sad sigh. “Here’s her locker.” He motioned toward it and then shrugged. “But I don’t have a key or the combination.”

  Hunter reached out and yanked the door off. “No problem.”

  “All right,” Ethan stammered. “Then . . . I should go to my office to report what we’ve learned thus far to Sir Rodney. Once you look through, please come up. I know he’s pacing the floors in need of answers.”

  “We won’t be long,” Sasha said, beginning to go through Desidera’s personal effects. She glanced at Hunter. “And we’ll try to put the door back so the other employees don’t immediately see a busted locker.”

  “Thank you,” Ethan said quickly and then slipped out of the door.

  Hunter moved in close behind Sasha, his presence like a warm, stone wall of silence behind her.

  “You’re crowding me,” she said with an arched eyebrow, glancing at him over her shoulder.

  “Just trying to pick up a scent,” he muttered and then backed off.

  “Mostly pretty standard stuff,” she called out, looking at a lightweight pink sweater, an extra pair of flat shoes, jeans, a tank top, and a purse. “She had a change of clothes in here . . . makeup.” Sasha let out a hard breath and began going through Desidera’s purse.