by Marata Eros
Sondra looks at me. “Yeah. Remember the bunny?”
I can't.
She sees my expression then slaps her palms together, miming clanging symbols.
“Oh yeah!” I say, getting an image of a moving musical bunny—white and pink with cymbals. Annoying as hell. Probably why I can finally remember it. Seared into my brain.
“What's a battery?” Toby asks, bouncing on the seat.
“Something we don't use anymore,” Sondra says, opening the driver's side door.
Toby pops out and looks up at Sondra's drab apartment building.
I look at it through his eyes. Dimly colored sandstone brick from the 1940s is weathered, many of the bricks appear like decaying teeth at the corners, the poles that hold the covered parking stalls are rusty, with a spindly, just-about-ready-to-collapse look.
Toby turns, his mussed hair floating around his cherub face. “Is this where you live now, Grace?” He gazes at the building with new interest.
I want to cry. He never has the same place to go to. There's no stable home.
Toby seems to sense my anguish and walks over to my side.
I notice one of his shoes is untied and squat down in front of him with one knee, beginning to tie his bright red sneaker.
His little hand pats my head. “It's okay, Grace. It doesn't matter where you live.”
My eyes rise to his in mid-knot.
His smile is benevolent—angelic. “It only matters that I'm with you. You're home, Grace.”
“Be still my heart, little man!” Sondra sings into the parking lot, her splayed fingers landing on her chest. She grabs his hand and I stand, clasping the other while subtly wiping away tears.
“Swing me!” he shouts.
Sondra and I exchange a smile.
We begin walking, swinging Toby between us.
My headache and stomach quiet, a bright ray of joy piercing the encroaching misery of not having a place, Toby's domestic situation—and my upcoming transition.
I have this moment and nothing can steal it from me.
Chapter 7
Murphy
I slowly turn, dusk having narrowed to the birth of night—the vaguest illumination throwing shadows along the apartment that belonged to Grace Cline just three days ago.
Kurt Temper stands just behind me.
“There's a good chap, stand back a bit—give a vampire room to breathe.”
I turn my head, raising my eyebrows.
Temper steps back. Normally, the civilian population is aware of my status as other, and has a healthy dose of respect—read terror—for us vampires.
Excepting Bunny, and the other anomalous population of human women who want a night of fang and prick.
“Hey man—I got a new tenant in here. Just,” he swipes a hair into the other from his once-perfect comb-over, “no proof you were in here, pal. Final Enforcement or not, I gotta keep renters happy.”
I fully face him, hands coming to my hips. “Except Grace Cline? How happy was she when you tossed her out on her ear? The poor lamb.”
Temper's fat lips purse. “They trashed my unit,” he explains in a lame parody of excuse.
I cruise smoothly around all the antique pieces of furniture. Hitting my thumb on my pulse again, though I'm sure of her scent, I think a request for scent recognition into my device. The green characters obligingly float to the thin crystal surface in response to my query.
Processing, Enforcer Murphy.
Yes, yes. I heave a frustrated sigh for the three seconds it takes. Then Grace Cline's scent rises from the pinhole ports at the top of my device.
Female. Young. Anglo-saxon descent.
I tilt my head, nostrils flattening with their flare.
Fertile.
My nose ripples with the next smell.
Undetermined.
Brows meeting, I repeat the process.
Same stats.
Lifting my head I swing my palm over an old piece of furniture, perhaps five and a half feet tall, with a narrow desk section topping a china cabinet combo with drawers.
I bend over the wood surface. Grace Cline's scent still lingers. I move to each piece of furniture, executing the same procedure over all the vintage pieces.
Except for a vaguely ugly desk chair, all the items belong to Miss Cline.
Temper looks at his feet when I ask him why her things remain if he got rid of her as a tenant.
“Owed me a grand in back rent,” he supplies.
Inhaling, I scent the vapor of guilt. “Why?” I ask softly.
He shrugs a beefy shoulder. “Don't know why she couldn't make ends meet. Works at a babysitting outfit.”
“Daycare?” I clarify.
He nods, sweeping a nervous palm over his thinning hair.
So a struggling single woman in her early twenties makes chump change wiping bottoms and noses and when she can't cough up the back rent, olʼ Kurt here makes her pay up with her belongings.
Charming fella.
“Alright, you've unhelpfully cleaned up the damage, expunging the evidence.” My eyes run over the now-repaired walls, carpet and the like.
Temper opens his mouth and I raise my palm. “I know, you needed to rent the unit.”
He sounds like a popped balloon, breath wheezing out of his overactive piehole in a thin whistle. “Yeah, like I told ya. I gotta pay for the building somehow.”
I take in the shabby flecked countertops, the worn porcelain on the cast iron tub. I have a fine view of the loo from the center of the living/bedroom combo. There's no way Temper's paying much to maintain this slum. He's raking in cash and letting his tenants live in poverty.
Okay. I depress my thumb on my pulse dock again.
Known Mutable scent threads, I think.
Processing, Enforcer Murphy.
“Whad're ya doinʻ?”
I ignore the landlord for the moment. A full minute later, ten scents ping.
I think my selections.
My eyebrows quirk at one of the listed scents. Holding my breath, I think the request.
Processing, Enforcer Murphy.
The pulse device lights, indicating the scent I requested will emit in three seconds. I suck in a lungful. Hold it. Commit it to memory in the predator's library vault of my mind.
Stalking the room, Temper's anxious eyes follow my actions. Probably picked up some brains along the way, and sorted he wasn't going to scoot my arse out of here until I had the answers I came for.
Nimble bugger.
I halt at the sliding glass door. Small shards of tempered glass still glint in the slider rails. I sink to my haunches, hands dangling between my knees and study the glass.
I use my vampire vision for the rest.
Blood and microscopic bits of hair cling to some of the bits littering the thin tracks of the ancient door apparatus.
Scooping up the glittering chunks, sized like raw salt pebbles, I roll them about in my palm. As the glass moves, a subtle scent permeates my sensitive olfactory canals.
I stand so quickly, Temper tumbles into the wall behind him to avoid me. “Wh-what?” he chokes out, jowls trembling.
My lips flatten into a thin line. “Looks like we have more than Mutables.” I whip fast to my left, fisting my hand around the fragments.
They bite into my skin and the small wounds I accrue heal as they occur. Working my way around the room, I touch every surface, repeating the process of scooping and smelling.
Only one piece of proof remains.
The one I need.
“What is it?” Temper fires after me.
I don't bother answering, the tailwind of my departure has made his unfortunate combover rise like a spear of hair on his head.
Casper must know. Final Enforcement has never had this scent typed before.
We have Mutable in the pulse data system.
Shifter, Lycan—vamp. But unidentified?
Never.
There's something else seeking Grace Cline. And I'm det
ermined to find out what it is.
Before it finds her.
*
Casper's shock of white hair stands up on end, icy scattered spires stick up willy-nilly, pale eyes that resemble dirty glass, stare back with flat disinterest.
“Murphy,” he scrubs a palm over his face, “you're not supposed to guess about the perps. Just use your super vampire,” he waves his palm around wearily, “senses,” he momentarily perks, “and grab the girl. We'll give her to Aeslin's people and they'll assign one of those Turner men—”
“—males,” I say in a dry, resigned voice.
“Yes, yes.” He crosses his arms, shrugging.
Giving a rough exhale, I lean forward, tapping the table where the small shards of glass sparkle inside a petri dish. “We've looked at this the old-fashioned way because you couldn't seem to take my word for it.”
Casper's dirty snowflake-colored eyes hood. “Listen Murphy, you've got attitude, you're a vamp now—you've been here a year. I like you. But I can't waste what little manpower time I have on deciphering what this woman will turn into.” He snickers and I roll my eyes.
Wanker.
“Find the girl, plug her into our safehouse. Have Aeslin contact the Nobles and assign a Turner to get her vampy—or whatever she is—and #1213's out of our hair.” He lifts his pulse and depresses his thumb on the doc. Luminescent green characters converge on the surface, fashioning into a long list of names with assigned numbers.
“Cline, Grace—is #1213.” He practically shoves the device underneath my nose, “I've got ten perps who need apprehension, and whatever other hybrid crops up in between. I need you to stop playing detective and close this.”
I peg my hands on my hips. “You want me to be Narah.” I wear a tight smile and hope fangs show.
He leans his ass against the desk, blasé. “She's very focused.”
“She's an assassin,” Mollie mutters from the corner of the office.
“Couldn't you stay knocked out?” I throw over my shoulder, thinking of the Mutable mess Narah and the males helped me with.
“Thanks for nothing!” She hollers back.
I did see to her safety. Eventually.
“Children,” Casper warns.
“What if Grace Cline is more than a hybrid vamp?” I believe this unidentified scent lingering in her apartment is a warning for us to proceed with caution. Maybe have back up. Without knowing what that scent is, it's not logical to charge in, guns blazing, so to speak.
Casper clearly does not concur. He's a bottom line bloke. “Not our problem. We protect the hybrid for transitioning, then get them to the transitioner. If there's some kind of interbreeding thing manifesting—let the supernaturals figure it out. After all,” his eyes laser at me, “the supes confessed to the mess of their existence, let them deal with the consequences.”
He taps my chest with his pulse. “Close this case, Enforcer Murphy, or I'll assign the whole mess to Enforcer Casey.”
“Pfft!” Mollie says in the background.
For once, we agree.
“He's a incompetent bugger,” I state in a low voice.
Casper whips his pulse device around and the list greets my sharp vision a second time.
Yeah, yeah.
I pivot on my heel, storming out of Final Enforcement.
*
Nervous fingers flutter to her throat and I suppress my exasperated exhale.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Ms. Smyth.” I smile, realize I just flashed fang and close my mouth.
She pales.
Superb start.
I tap a finger on my holographic badge. There's not a lot of these around. Mine's on a lariat today, when typically it's an integral rectangle that gives off what and who I am when in uniform via pulse flash loop. Tonight I'm not.
I'm sure the flashing stats freak some out. Like Shelley Smyth, boss of Grace Cline. Who was summoned from her supper table to come back to her place of business to meet with a bounty enforcer.
One of the vampire persuasion.
I know what the badge flashes when I wear my uniform.
Species: vampire. Bounty Enforcer, Level Ten proficient, Foreign national: British. Year turned: 2023.
“So you're a new...” fingers flutter anew.
“Vampire,” I give my second ass-puckering tight smile of the night.
Ms. Smyth's eyes latch onto my fangs. She gulps, and I have a rush of lust surge through me when her throat convulses with the movement.
Narah mentioned I have an entire year or more with bloodlust issues. It's been dreary as fuck.
And longer than a goddamned year, fuck you very much. And not having fed since Bunny.
“Why do you want to know where Grace lives?”
I explain in great detail.
“She's been very sick. But I never thought,” she bites her bottom lip.
I sharpen on her scent.
Compassion, regret, anxiety. Ah, she likes Grace. That bodes well.
I will not put the vampire whammy on her. I shall not.
I do. “Shelley Smyth,” I command in a resonant voice.
Her chin hitches up, lips parting as her teeth release the tight grasp she just had on the plump flesh.
“Do you care for Grace Cline?”
Her eyes glaze but her answer is instant, “Yes. She's a nice girl from a bad situation.”
Now we're getting somewhere.
“Tell me everything you know, ending with where I can find her at present.”
Shelley Smyth struggles. Sometimes conviction and true emotion offer handy shields from my vamp juice.
“Will you hurt Grace?” she asks against my compulsion.
My eyebrows hike in surprise. I could push more thrall down her throat—choke her with it. But there's something respectful about a woman trying to protect another.
“Never,” I say. It's easy when it's the truth. “I am here to protect Grace until she can—be eased into the next phase of her life.” There—that's as vague as anything I've ever offered, but I didn't mention the big ticket words.
Lycan. Shifter. Vamp.
Other, my mind unhelpfully adds, and I scowl.
Shelley tells me. My assurance was enough without jamming her with more thrall.
The longer Shelley's recounting of Grace Cline's story goes, the more permanent my disquiet becomes. This is no ordinary client. This is a train wreck waiting to happen.
Grace Cline has all the hallmarks of a difficult perp.
Except she's not a criminal.
Dysfunctional upbringing. Little brother still in the cauldron's pot of a druggie mom.
No home.
Sicker than she can stand.
“Grace doesn't know you are privy to her relationship with Toby.”
Shelley shakes her head. “She's gone to great lengths to cover the fact, and I didn't want to infringe on her privacy.”
“That was good of you.”
Even under deep thrall, she blushes at the compliment. Grace is lucky to have this profoundly devoted person at her back.
“Tell me where she's living.”
Robotically, Shelley thumbs her pulse and a glowing address blinks to the inky surface of the paper-thin device.
Committing the address to memory I thank Shelley, releasing her from thrall and walk her to her vehicle.
I wait until she's pulsed it on, the locks engage and she's driving back home. Inserting our false conversation was easy. She'll remember my questioning as a much more superficial conveying of information.
Shelley Smyth will remember shielding Grace.
Because I made it so. Willed it so. It's a mercy for her to remember protecting Grace. Thankfully, I don't mean her employee harm. The outcome would be wholly different had I meant the opposite.
Sioux Falls Little People is located near to Grace's former derelict flat—but her co-worker, Sondra—her place is further. Driving distance.
Unless one is vampire.
&nb
sp; Keeping to the swaths of green belted woods that connect the neighborhoods, I sprint to the address while ruminating on the details that Ms. Smyth shared. Fine forest debris kicks up with my passage and small woodland creatures surviving in the city's ribbons of mature forest scurry out of my way.
I almost feel compassionate toward Grace Cline. A young woman who's never caught a break, as the Americans are fond of saying. Where life has only presented her with brief oases between harrowing circumstance.
Then I recall London, and working for the UK's version of Final Enforcement. What I failed at. What was lost; a piece of me.
People's lives.
The tender feeling for my client fades. To be replaced with dedication. And nothing more.
At least, that's what I tell myself.
Chapter 8
Murphy
I depress my thumb on my pulse doc to get the time, though I know I'm spot on. Vampires have an astute sense of time. I'm sure in part a default instinct, considering we'd be on the wienie roast parade past dawn if we didn't keep our wits about us.
My vampire sense says half past ten p.m. Glancing at the pulse screen as the characters rise, I get the Greenwich mean time read out. Many would recognize it as military time—zulu. Perfect time.
22:30: 30 seconds.
Too late for housecalls, Murph.
I run my palm over the top of my head a few times, catching on strands of loose hair come undone from my tidy sprint. Yeah, and I'll just pass the time scratching my ass while Mr. Undetermined appears like Houdini and pulls a Mutable—or something worse.
Not happening.
Scanning the perimeter of the big block of shit in front of me, I note it's as depressing as Grace's former flat. They don't pay these women enough to mind the future of America; they live in unsafe hellholes.
With a weary sigh, I do what I now think of as the vamp routine.
Shutting my eyes, I drop my lower jaw, opening the ear canals for sound while closing off another sense.
Nothing.
That's not entirely true. The noisy squirrels and owls chatter, hoot and scamper. I catch the low-pitch of cockroaches as they skitter from one rotting mess of humanity's dredges to another.
