I agreed with her but kept my mouth shut while Danny wrapped up the interview. I didn’t know how much of her gossip to believe. Sitting next to her, I was taken in, happy to listen to anything she wanted to tell me, but as we walked back to the car I felt guilty, like I’d lost my impartiality along the way. She’d given us Dara’s home address. I’d need that impartial detachment back when I went through the belongings of the woman I’d helped to die.
****
The apartment was close to campus in a rundown cement square carved into sixteen units, eight upstairs and eight down. The apartment manager was willing to let us in once we flashed our badges and promised not to take anything. The apartments rented furnished, with cheap pressboard furniture. Dara hadn’t bothered with much personalization. There was a large calendar decorated with kittens in the corner filled with appointments, otherwise the walls were empty.
“Uh, Danny, are we really supposed to be in here?” I’d been on the job for a while, but this was the first time I’d walked through someone’s house. I was invading, like a thief. Which, I was actually; I’d stolen a few minutes of life from this woman. Yeah, the guilt had arrived, and it had come with a vengeance.
“We’re investigating her death; she’s the victim of a homicide. We’re supposed to be here.” He was going through a stack of opened mail on the kitchen counter. Each envelope’s top was slit with mechanical precision, the contents tucked neatly to one side, forming a pile of Ls. There was an order to the rest of the small apartment too; an order and a cleanliness that bothered me.
“There’s something wrong here. It’s too neat.”
“Too neat and not enough stuff. Where are the receipts, the change, the paperclips, and all the other stuff that gets stuck in your pockets at the end of the day? Where’s the pocket lint?” Danny asked as he went into the small bathroom. “Wow.”
“What?” I called out, then gave up and followed him. The bathroom cabinet was stuffed with prescription bottles. Allopurinol, tramadol, methotrexate, fentanyl, and chlorambucil, the drug names marched along beneath similar directions—take once a day, twice, with meals, without. My head swam for a minute.
“Guess we’re going to need to look these up.” Danny grabbed his notebook and started scribbling.
“Don’t bother. They’re old friends; they treat cancer.” I looked over a few more bottles, recognizing some serious pain medication. “She was pretty bad off; they don’t give these until the end.” I held up a bottle of orange tablets.
“Who was it?”
“My mom.” I shut the cabinet and leaned back on the sink. “This explains why she was happy to die.”
“She was also pretty badly burned, Mal, it could’ve been that.” His voice was gentle, but I didn’t need soothing. My mother died four years ago. She’d gotten the orange pills when I was thirteen and still had them when I was twenty. It was hard for him to understand, but Mom had been happy to die too.
In the bedroom we found a Bible by the bed but only a handful of clothes and shoes. I hoped her religion comforted her. There was a small desk with more neatly organized papers and a drawer full of files, each clearly labeled. Dara had given to several charities, but her receipts and correspondence showed only a few months of donations. One of the charities advocated taking “the strongest steps” to stop the abortion of pre-born infants on its letterhead. I took note of the name. If we were lucky it would match with one of the letters in the stack Sandy Packman had given us.
****
Back at the office, Danny happily unpacked his lunch. After a few months of unsuccessfully attempting to get him to diet, Katie had given up. She now resorted to working exercise into every family outing and stuffing his lunch with a metric ton of healthy food. With Jakob’s habit of throwing out junk food, I could sympathize. No one wanted to open their lunch to find carrot sticks, broccoli, and low-fat yogurt. My sympathy evaporated as Danny set out shepherd’s pie and apple pie.
“What happened to the health food?”
“I convinced Katie I’d be better off with healthier versions of the food I love than with healthy food I hate. So we end up with things like shepherd’s pie made with extra lean beef and extra veggies.” He picked up his fork with a smile.
“And the apple pie?” I asked.
“We took the girls apple picking this weekend. The house is overrun with them. There’s applesauce, apple cake, apple pie, apple everything. I’m almost sick of them.”
“And yet, no plain apple,” I mused. Danny didn’t bother to reply as he dove into the pies. My own lunch, a deli sandwich I picked up on the way in, suddenly looked needy. I wondered if I could convince Jakob to pack a lunch for me. He was happy enough to cook for me, the way Katie was happy to cook for Danny. On second thought, probably a bad idea, I didn’t want to act like an old married couple yet.
“So what do you think of this morning?” I asked. Danny was the senior partner in our team; I liked to hear what he had to say before I said anything. Most of the time listening to him before I spoke saved me from sounding stupid.
“I think it’s going to be an uphill battle. We can’t get into the clinic records because of patient privacy.” He stopped to wipe the crumbs off his desk into the trash bin. “So that’s out. There’s the one fire witch we could check up on, but it sounds like a reach. I’d rather look into the protesters, but finding an ultra-right wing Christian fire witch sounds like even more of a reach.”
I nodded, trying to look sage. “What about a fire witch for hire?” They could exist, right? People did all sorts of nasty things for money.
“Could be, but why leave behind the writing? ‘Help me’ over and over again doesn’t sound like a hired gun, it sounds like a head case.”
“The kind of head case who writes hate mail?”
“Maybe.” He pointed to the stack. “You can tell me in another few hours.”
“And what are you going to do?” Danny didn’t pull rank often, but it sounded like I was getting stuck with the grunt work this time.
“See if any of the people on Dana’s calendar will tell me why she was meeting with them.”
“Humph.” I groaned as I picked up the stack of papers. “I’ll bet you my own slice of apple pie tomorrow that every one of them is a doctor, and she had cancer.”
He agreed, and I started reading through hate mail. The first hour scared me, but by the second hour, I’d gone numb. The SIU worked irregular hours, mostly we could be counted on to work from seven in the morning until seven at night, but today, I doubted I would make it that late. I could only take so many poorly written, hate-filled missives in one day. At three o’clock I took a break and headed downstairs for an ice cold Dr. Pepper. Since the chance of me doing magic sitting on my butt in the squad room was pretty slim, I grabbed a diet. I wished for the excuse to eat the sugar even as I wished not to have to do magic. Being a death witch was like that, I suspected the cute little fire witch who worked down the block didn’t share my quandary.
The caffeine inspired me on to greatness, and I began cataloging the letters according to sender, threatening or non, and whether it was something we should follow up. At six, I picked up the phone to call the FBI liaison to the SIU.
“Zollern,” Mark answered on the second ring.
“Good morning to you too,” I answered back. “What do you know about the Giving Tree Clinic?”
“They get a serious amount of hate mail. My office keeps tabs on the stuff that involves direct bomb threats. Also there have been a few complaints about some unseemly doctor patient relationships. Why?”
“It burned down Saturday night. Looks like a fire witch did it, but we haven’t got much for leads. I’m going through the hate mail from September now.”
“Sounds thrilling. Do you want more?”
“Honestly, no. What I want is to go find Jakob and forget about the lot of this, but I’ll take any reports you’re willing to fax over to me.”
“Consider it done. You know,
I’d be happy to drive you out to his place; we could talk about this thing on the way.”
“Really?” Jakob’s house was a ways out of the city. Mark was a nice guy, but I suspected there was a catch. Then again, if he drove me it negated any chance of further “you need a car” comments.
“Sure, we can stop by the decorator’s office on the way.”
Chapter Three
The decorator turned out to be an incredibly bohemian woman who talked about bringing the outside in to create a living space. Her shop was crammed with plants growing outside of the containers. I suspected earth witch but kept my mouth shut. I had no idea how any of it matched Mark’s taste, but I was happy to look through paint books and fabric samples. After a few minutes, I couldn’t stand Mark’s pained expression and made some polite excuse to get us out of there.
“You don’t get it, do you?” I said as Mark pointed the giant Chevy out of the parking lot.
“Get what?”
“How did you pick her?”
“Her name was first in the phone book.”
“Exactly, this is supposed to be about turning your house into a reflection of you. Your tastes, your likes, your dislikes, your hobbies. You. You. You. How’s that going to happen when you pick a name out of a phone book?” I was exasperated with his seemingly deliberate ignorance.
“I don’t have decorating tastes because it’s been over a century since I last had a home. My hobby is the same as my job—killing werewolves. You want the house to look like me? I’ll skin the next one I eat and hang it on the wall.”
“I give up.” I laughed. “Just buy some furniture, and I’ll be happy.”
“Are you sure? Because I’m willing to skin something.” He grinned, pulling into a Rooms for You Warehouse. He bought the third living room displayed and the first office. The bedroom was the only place he even began to show an interest, choosing a high four-poster bed.
“Why this one?” I asked.
“It looks completely unlike any hotel room bed set I’ve ever slept in,” he said with a smile. We’d been inside less than thirty minutes, and already, he was signing the paperwork for delivery. “I’m not totally inhuman you know.”
“Right, just willing to decorate with werewolf skins,” I teased.
“Actually that was your suggestion, remember?” he teased back as he opened the door to the parking lot. Outside night had fallen, and the temperature had dropped with it. I walked as quickly as I could to the car while he ambled. Damn vampires and their inability to get cold. I fiddled with the heat for the entire drive to Jakob’s. Mark drove a ’64 Impala SS, a behemoth of a car he loved for its huge trunk. Back when he was traveling the country as the FBI’s official werewolf expert, he’d had to sleep in it on occasion. I was glad he’d ended up with the four-poster bed.
“Do you miss your old life?” Mark had only been settled down for three months, if he was going to miss it now was the time.
“Not really. I always worried settling in one place would mean coworkers and all that touchy feely crap, but the field office here is a mess. There’s no real order to the records dealing with the SIU. I’ve been organizing paper files at night when no one’s around and working on new stuff during the day from home.”
“So you don’t mind your new life because you don’t have one?”
“Hey, I have furniture, don’t I? And a house, not to mention a bartender who stocks what I drink and pulls it out when I walk in. That counts as a life.”
“Barely.” I laughed. “But I’ll take what I can get. I expected you to tell me you miss hunting.”
“What makes you think I’ve given it up? I don’t spend every night shopping with my best friend’s girl.” He grinned and pulled into the driveway. It was dark, but not dark enough for me to miss the small black sports car parked next to Jakob’s Mercedes. It was new, still shiny from the showroom floor. I gave Mark a questioning look, but he shook his head.
I puzzled over the car for a minute before the cold began to get to me. Then I walked inside as quickly as possible; too cold to worry about looking dignified. Mark’s insensitivity to the weather meant he didn’t bother to keep up with me, so I walked into the living room alone to find Jakob hugging a woman. I was filled with shock even as I registered her slight frame and close-cropped black hair. The fire witch who fought with me was snuggled up to my boyfriend. She broke the embrace, not him, and white hot anger chased out anything else I was feeling.
“Still murdering your fellow creatures, Mark?” she asked, her voice glib.
“Still suffering the effects of tyrannical goddess, E?” he was just as casual back to her. They exchanged the kind of smile reserved for bitter rivals, but she never moved from Jakob’s side.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“Bright Lady, you’re jealous?” She turned away from me with an angry laugh as if that ended it. “I’m sorry, Jakob, I should have realized you’d have more important things to do tonight.”
He started to protest, but she didn’t wait to hear it. She walked by me as she left the room. I’d felt witches who were like a breeze and ones like ants crawling along my skin. She felt warm, like standing next to a fire, except the fire brushed by me with tears in her eyes.
“Mallory doesn’t know about E?” Mark was incredulous.
“She’s been away, and now she’s suffering,” Jakob said quietly.
“Could someone tell me who the hell that was?” I didn’t even try to temper my tone. Three months ago Jakob offered to marry me, sure he wasn’t serious, but before that, he’d told me there wasn’t anyone else for him in the world. Now he was holding some petite pixie who had been around long enough that Mark could trade barbs with her. Jakob looked pained at my tone. Mark spoke for him.
“You don’t see how this looks do you? Even I can see how this looks, and I haven’t played the game of romance for centuries.” He turned to me, his voice calm. “You know about Ronald, Jakob’s adopted son?”
I nodded. “That wasn’t Ronald.”
“No, it wasn’t. Ronald had to trace the Mueller family tree for school one year. It wasn’t easy, but he managed to find them. They became Miller when they emigrated here. Most of them were fairly boring, nothing special. The two of them decided to look the family up, and eventually everyone hit it off.”
“The point, Mark, are you even coming to the point?” My patience was nearly gone, and Jakob hadn’t bothered to interrupt him.
“When Ronnie went looking for more of Jakob’s blood family that’s who he found, E Miller, one of the few remaining direct descendants of our dear friend Jakob.” Mark grinned. I didn’t return his smile. “She’s one of the first members of the family who isn’t boring. She’s probably the most powerful fire mage you’ll ever meet.”
“Fire mage?”
“Witches have abilities, sometimes they’re very strong, but in the end they’re still human. Mages can channel their god. They share the god’s knowledge and power. Unfortunately, E also shares the mood swings of the fire goddess. Which, I’d suspect, is what we’re seeing tonight?” He turned to Jakob, who nodded. “When Raya gets depressed or angry, E feels it. It’s like there’s someone inside her controlling her emotions.”
It took me a minute to process what he was saying; Jakob had been comforting, not cuddling, a relative who was suffering. With the look in his eyes, the mix of hurt and betrayal, I could believe it, but still something ate me.
“How could she be related to you if your family was killed?” I asked him, putting my hand up to silence Mark. I was glad Mark had been there, but now I wanted to hear from Jakob how he had a great-great-granddaughter when his entire family had been slaughtered by the vampire that made him.
“My two eldest sons were already married with families of their own when we were attacked,” he said. “I never imagined you would meet her this way.”
“I’ll leave you two alone. Mallory, we can talk about the work thing later, when you’re not so mad yo
u can’t see straight.” Mark walked out the door with the same stupid grin on his face. I knew he was all too amused at the idea of Jakob being blindsided by my rage. I wanted to hit him, or maybe I just wanted to hit someone, and his smug expression was handy. I heard him shut the door, then laugh. Of course, if I could hear him, to Jakob he was shouting. My anger evaporated at the sound.
“Sit with me?” I pointed to the couch. Jakob obediently sat, but I could tell he was wary. “I’m sorry I yelled.”
“I would never betray you.”
“I know. I just.” I sighed. “I guess I couldn’t handle seeing you holding another woman.”
He ventured a laughed. “I read her bedtime stories; she’s not a woman to me.”
“You two are close?” Now that I knew there was nothing to worry about, the idea of Jakob having relatives intrigued me.
“We were, once.” His gaze lost its focus for a minute, lost in the memory, then he came back to me. “When she was a child, I was the only one who understood what it was to be driven by dark desires. She confided in me.”
“She must have been very young when she discovered her abilities.”
“She was ten, a beautiful, laughing child with thick black curls who could suddenly sense every fire in the city.” He shook his head at some sad memory.
“What happened?” I moved toward him, giving him the excuse to touch me. He took it, holding me close while his voice became sad.
“She went off to college with a bag of books and a long black braid. She wrote me letters, saying I was the only one in the family who could appreciate a letter.” He paused for a second. “I think she was happy for a while, but her goddess drove her. One day, I received a package with a note saying she’d gone off to fight in the war.”
He stopped again, his eyes incredibly sad. “What was in the package?” I asked gently.
“The long black braid tied with a blue ribbon. She left for college a happy girl; she came back a shorn woman. I’ve never asked her what happened in the war, or why, when it was over, she spent almost four years away from us.”
Fire in Her Blood Page 4
