by Judy Teel
"Well," her soft, papery cheeks flushed a delicate pink, "as a matter of fact, I do." She moved out of her doorway and closer to Cooper. "She's been keeping company," she whispered.
"Medium height, buzz-cut black hair, lots of tattoos?" I asked.
Her pleasant face compressed into a grimace. "Oh goodness, no. I never did like him. 'Marla, you deserve better', I used to tell her. This is her new boy. The one she took up with about three months ago."
Three months? Plenty of time to decide that Danny was a liability. Cooper and I glanced at each other.
"What's he like?" I asked.
"Tall fellow. Blonde hair. Good looking like you, young man," she said, nodding to Cooper. She studied his face a moment longer. "You could be related."
Nothing changed in his friendly demeanor, but the air around him suddenly became charged with a sharp, intense energy. "Do you know where they might be now?"
"Where she always is this time of the week. With her new boy."
"Which is?" I asked, feeling a tug of impatience. I didn't have a clue why Cooper was upset all of a sudden, but I was sure the reason wasn't good.
"I don't remember the name of the club, but I've heard it caters to...well, all types if you know what I mean."
I didn't, so I looked at Cooper, hoping for clarification.
"The Sagittarius?" he asked.
Her face lit up. "Yes, that's the one. Half man, half beast. If you know what I mean."
"I certainly do, ma'am," he said, a sparkle of amusement seeping back into his eyes.
"Are you really with the FBI?" the woman asked.
"We are."
"How exciting." She turned back to her apartment. "I can't wait to tell that know-it-all Carly Frigstater in 300. This will top her 'my grandson's report on corrupt vampire corporations is on the front page this week'," she mimicked in a whiny, high-pitched voice.
"You two have made my day," she finished in a normal tone filled with satisfaction. We returned her cheerful little wave as she shut her door and then looked at each other in bemusement.
"Thank the moon for nosey neighbors," Cooper said.
"I've heard of The Sagittarius. It's that mixed bar on Freedom Drive, isn't it?"
"Mixed, dangerous and the perfect place to find everything or anyone that you'd need to kill a vamp and a top-level practitioner." His gaze swept over me from head to toe leaving behind a warm flush of energy.
"You're going to make me dress up, aren't you?" I stated.
"This is one place we don't want to go in looking like we work for the government."
"That's you, not me."
"You need to look like my date."
Panic shot through me. "Except I'm not."
He stepped closer and grazed the palm of his hand lightly up my bare arm while he bent his head and inhaled the scent of my hair. "You are tonight."
My alarm dissolved into riotous temptation that tumbled straight past the pit of my stomach and didn't stop until it hit my toes.
Uh, oh.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I stood in front of my apartment building, struggling to resist the urge to tug down the hem of the only sort of dressy thing I owned. Even with the black tights that I'd dug out of the back of my underwear drawer, I felt exposed every time the wind tried to look under my skirt.
"I hate this," I muttered, already missing the feel of my Browning strapped to my thigh.
A few brave stars fought against the bank of clouds looming toward the city from the West, but they didn't stand a chance. The air already had that wet penny smell of an impending summer storm. Not the best night to go out. We should call it off.
I was debating messaging Cooper when he pulled up to the curb in his tiny, white government car and peeled himself out of the driver's side. He wore faded jeans, a light green T-shirt that pulled across his muscular chest the way only soft cotton can, and a nondescript black windbreaker. A smile tugged at his mouth as he took in my outfit.
"This was your idea, not mine," I said, angry and embarrassed.
"No, you look great. The boots make a nice statement."
I frowned at him and started for the car. "Where else am I going to hide my knives?"
"What? No small caliber pistols?" Cooper beeped the car locked before I got to it, and I gave him a questioning look. "We're taking the hoverbus. Less conspicuous."
A half hour later we were tramping down Freedom Drive toward the crowd milling in front of The Sagittarius. I was surprised at the number of people considering it was Monday night. I was even more shocked when Cooper grabbed my hand.
The heat of his palm against mine sent ripples of awareness skimming up my arm and I tried to pull out of his grip.
"We're together, remember?" he said softly.
"I'm not good at pretending," I snapped, my voice coming out rough as it pushed past the nervousness suddenly constricting my throat.
"Neither am I."
"Not helping," I muttered.
We reached the edge of the crowd, which saved me from trying to form a snappy comeback for whatever he'd meant by that. I don't think I could have anyway. Cooper affected me that way. From what I'd seen, he affected all women that way, which was humiliating. I liked to think I had more sense than most girls. Apparently not.
We pushed our way through the small crowd and found the door blocked by a burly, fierce looking guy. He wore black sweatpants and an open leather vest. His massive bare chest sported the long, angular slash of an old scar and his eyes looked mean. He frowned at Cooper for a moment and then his eyes flared with surprise.
"I'm not here," Cooper said quietly.
The guard's gaze darted to me and widened even more. "Yes, sir," he growled as he stepped aside. The big man pushed the door open and pounding music swept out in a wave of sound.
"What was that about?" I asked as quietly as I could considering how loud the music was.
"Pack business."
Cooper's hand tightened on mine, and we plunged through a curtain of hanging beads and into a world of dark chaos. Rhythmic flashes of neon red and blue swept over gyrating bodies crowded into the middle of the open room while the earthy beat of the music vibrated through my body in a primitive rhythm of sex and recklessness.
A long bar ran along the right wall, tables with couples huddled together or groups of friends laughing were scattered along the left. At the front, a DJ, highlighted in the splash of a neon purple spotlight, danced inside his glass tower with confident ease to the beat of the song playing.
"When the old lady said 'mixed', she didn't mean gender preference, did she?" I said, barely restraining myself from yelling in his ear. Remembering that his hearing was significantly better than mine was tough when it meant I could barely hear myself.
"The Sagittarius supports that, too," he said, flashing a grin at me.
"There are Weres here with humans. Even a few vamps. This is borderline illegal."
"That's never stopped you before. Come on." Leading me into the writhing mass of dancers, he pulled me snuggly against him.
He moved his body against mine to the rhythm of the music with intimate memory and my heart started racing. I pressed my hands to his chest to push him back, but caught myself at the last minute. We had a part to play and needed to blend in if we hoped to find Marla without spooking her into running.
A disconcerting excitement sparked low in my stomach as I slid my palms over the hard contours of his chest and loosely laced my fingers behind his neck. He gazed down at me, his silver-green eyes shining like metallic jade in the ambient light. Desire flickered through their depths, shamelessly thrilling me even while it scared the hell out of me.
He bent his head, and his lips grazed the top of my left ear sending a chill skating across my neck. "Keep an eye out for Marla," he murmured.
I swallowed against my suddenly dry throat and gratefully moved my attention to a spot just past his shoulder. Some small, stupid part of me had hoped that focusing on working with
Cooper professionally, would inspire my crazy feelings for him to take a hike. Love and the grim specter of murder didn't seem like concepts that would enjoy spending time together in a person's psyche.
I couldn't have been more wrong. Experiencing his intelligence and sense of humor, his kindness and the near-constant exposure to a face and body that made a girl's knees go weak was making me feel things I didn't want in my life. The fact that our attraction to each other had been there all along only made the realization harder to swallow.
Cooper was right. Cupid Spells only worked if the involved parties already had feelings for each other. I found myself laying my cheek against his shoulder while I scanned the room. Inhaling slowly, I savored his fresh, woodsy scent and wished I was brave enough to risk a broken heart.
"I don't see her," I said, keeping my voice pitched low and trusting that his Were hearing would pick it up.
Cooper kissed my temple leaving a tingling imprint behind and maneuvered us closer to the DJ. "I don't think she's here."
I glanced toward the bar just as a woman turned after getting a beer, and surprise misted through me. "I think you have to go to the bathroom," I said, smiling up at him in as infatuated a way as I could manage.
A frown pulled down his dark brows. "Is that a come on?"
"Don't be gross. There's a woman at the bar I need to speak with. You'll only inspire her to shut up."
I cupped my hands around his jaw when he started to look over his shoulder. "See you soon, baby." I gave him a quick kiss that shot his dark brows sky high and darted away before he could comment.
The brief contact sent a flock of jacked up butterflies beating against my stomach. I told them to take a hike too and walked over to Kathy, who looked none the worse after her encounter a few days ago with the three vamps.
"Off duty?" I asked as I slid onto the stool beside her.
She jumped, then relaxed when she saw it was me. "Dinner hour."
"Liquid diet?" I eyed the bottle of ale in her hand.
"They have great french fries, too." She took a drink and her gaze slid over and around me like I'd seen the more powerful practitioners do. "Taking a walk on the wild side?"
"Just here for the fries." I signaled the bartender and gave him my order.
"No connection to the wolf you were dancing with, huh?"
I winced. "You saw that?"
"He's hot."
"I was bored."
The bartender slid a tiny napkin in front of me, and then set my glass of Dr. Pepper down on top of it. "I was actually supposed to meet a client here, but I think she stood me up."
"What's she look like? Maybe I saw her."
Kathy might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but like most women in her often dangerous profession, she had a talent for noticing everyone in a room. "Early-twenties, female, dark skin, wavy hair cut to her jaw. Kind of exotic looking. Seen anyone like that?"
Her blue eyes widened. "Sounds like Marla. You just missed her."
I gave her a puzzled look while alarm and disappointment tightened through me. How did Kathy know our suspect?
"Marla?" I asked, using the arrival of the fries to cover my agitation.
She pursed her lips. "Now that I think about it, she told me that she was thinking of hiring someone. She's convinced her boyfriend's cheating on her. I told her that was crazy. He's totally devoted."
Giving up on the pretense, I pushed the fries over so the basket was between us. "How do you know Marla?"
Kathy grabbed one and popped it into her mouth. "We worked the same zone in New York last year before she left with that loser vamp." She made a face like she'd just eaten a lemon instead of seasoned fried potato.
"'Course, I'm not talking about him. She hasn't loved that one since for at least six months after he started slapping her around. I'm talking about her real boyfriend. The regular bartender here. The cute Were. He asked her to marry him last week," she added, smiling with the usual girlish delight that such news seemed to mysteriously inspire.
"Ah." I took a fry. "Maybe he knows where she is."
"He should. They left together." She drank some of her beer and helped herself to more fries as she gave me a sly look. "Just before you got here, he got a message and they took off. Told the other bartender that he didn't feel well."
"And now I don't get paid." I tightened my mouth, playing up my role of stood-up PI. "Any idea where they snuck off to?"
A worried frown flickered over her face. She studied me for a moment and then scooted closer, hanging on the edge of her bar stool by a short-skirt thread. "There's a rumor of a practitioner who can work miracles," she said in a low voice, and I strained to hear her over the music. "I think they're secretly meeting her tonight."
My hackles went up at that news, so I slugged down half my Dr. Pepper, gave a not-so-delicate burp and pretended I didn't give a rat's tail about Marla's personal life. "So?"
"I think it's a con."
"Since I'm not getting paid, not my problem."
Kathy frowned at me. "They say she helps mixed couples get pregnant. All very under the radar. I told Marla that was impossible and probably dangerous, but she said Sean wanted to check it out."
She pulled my fries in front of her and started munching them down. "I hope I'm wrong. I've never seen her so happy."
"Yeah well, she's a grown woman. Her choice, her consequence." I finished my soda and contemplated the dancers for a moment, my mind churning over what Kathy had innocently revealed.
I imagined how it might have played out. Marla gets fed up with being abused and seeks comfort elsewhere. New boyfriend wants to make it legal, but wants the whole picture, including kids. In order to have their dream life, the young lovers have to get rid of Marla's nasty vamp protector. Maybe they find a way to get hold of an illegal potion that can immobilize Danny. Not hard to do as I had reason to know. Gruesome murder in the alley, vamp out of the picture, grieving girlfriend off the hook and everyone prepares to live happily ever after.
Except then Marla finds out that Laiyla plans to out the fertility spell dealer and spoil her last chance at happiness. What's another murder for the sake of love?
But how had she managed to overwhelm Laiyla? Had the mysterious black market practitioner helped her?
I suppressed a sigh of frustration. Something nagged at the back of my mind, but I couldn't quite get hold of it. After a moment, I gave up. My subconscious never spilled its guts before it was good and ready. What we needed was to find Marla and the Were and get some answers out of them.
When Kathy left, I felt Cooper's eyes on me from somewhere in the crowd. As I handed my credit unit to the bartender, I nodded toward the employee's exit behind the bar and hoped Cooper got the message.
Slipping off the stool, I wove through the crowd at the edge of the dance floor, the noise and smell of a hundred different deodorants, perfumes, colognes and sweat churning around me with the music. When I reached the end of the bar, I loitered until the current bartender was at the other end flirting with a group of thirty-something business women. Kathy was gone and no one else was paying me a lick of attention, so I pretended to check my iC while I casually headed for the employee's exit.
The door closed behind me and the deserted hall stretched out toward the back exit. The relentless pumping of the music from the club faded into muffled quiet, leaving behind an annoying buzzing in my ears; one of the many reasons I generally avoided places like The Sagittarius.
I was almost to the back door when Cooper appeared beside me. An instant before, I'd felt him coming when a sudden awareness prickled between my shoulder blades. I didn't like that I was becoming so aware of him, but it saved me from thinking I was being attacked and going to all the trouble of shoving a knife up his nose.
"I saw you talking to the seducer," he said, slowing his pace to match mine.
In case we were discovered, Cooper and I moved toward the exit like we knew where we were going. If anyone caught us, we'd pret
end we were looking for the bathroom or some privacy. Worst case scenario, I could always act drunk.
"She knows Marla," I told him. "Said she and her new boyfriend left in a hurry."
"Sean." His voice held a tone of angry sorrow that I'd never heard before.
I raised my eyebrows and glanced at him. His face was set into grim lines and a muscle ticked along his jaw. "The Were bartender?"
His mouth tightened.
"By your long-suffering and upset expression, I'm guessing he's a relative." From what I'd seen in my short life, only family could make people sad, angry and annoyed all at the same time.
"Similar to a distant cousin by human standards," he reluctantly admitted. "A level four gamma in my brother's clan. I caught his scent in the hall as I came up behind you."
I blinked, surprised by this sudden level of sharing. We'd brought down bad guys, spent the night together and done stake-outs but this was the first I'd ever heard about a brother. Or any other kind of personal information, for that matter.
"His scent's faint, but still clear. He was here at least an hour ago. Also a human female in a highly excited state."
"Probably Marla," I speculated.
"Not necessarily. He's still young and this is a bar."
"But Kathy said they just left. Could the smoke of the club be messing up your reading?"
Cooper stopped and pulled in a deep breath, a puzzled frown on his face. "The scent just changed."
"Ew," I said stepping away from him. "They did it right here?"
He turned and studied the wall next to me, his expression troubled. "Yes. But there's something else." Moving closer, he inhaled again. "Something isn't right. He was afraid."
Before I could blink, he was at the end of the hall with his ear pressed to the beat-up metal of the heavy exterior door. He listened for a moment, and then with quick efficient motions, disengaged the locks and pushed it open.
Moonlight filtered into the dim hall and a gust of wind brought the damp, charged smell of impending rain. Beyond the door was a narrow, paved alley and the brick wall of the building next to the club. Cooper looked back at me, and his eyes flashed like polished green stones against his shadowed face.
