It was small like the box a bracelet would come in, my first thought was that it held a magical charm. When I opened the lid, I saw I was incredibly wrong. Inside, nested in soft cotton, was a series of capsules filled with blue powder. The pills had been arranged to look like a sun, a bright electric blue sun. There was only thing they could be.
“This is Blue.” I said, using the street name for the drug that made witches a thousand times more powerful and anything supernatural more potent. I looked down, fascinated and repulsed. I’d dealt with a witch who’d taken Blue before killing people with his abilities. Anna had handed me a murder weapon. “Anna, I’m a cop.”
“Then you know that it’s illegal to sell or manufacture it, but there’s nothing stopping you from using or possessing. That’s not enough to count as possession with the intent to sell either. You’re a good twenty grams short.”
She was right. Technically there was nothing illegal about her present. I still didn’t understand.
“What am I going to do with this?”
“You’re going to take it. Not tonight, not tomorrow, maybe not even for months. It doesn’t expire. But if some big bad wolf finds you, you’re going to take it and wish him dead.”
I shivered at the thought. “I wish someone dead, and they die.”
“Exactly.” She leaned in even closer to me. I could see the depths of her brown eyes. I’d never noticed before how golden they looked, how the sunlight highlighted their depths. “You’re important. If something is going to kill you don’t hesitate: kill it first.”
Could I kill someone with my power? Reach out and will them to die? Was I strong enough? Even if I wasn’t now, I would be after I took these. I swallowed hard at the thought. Anna looked at me, her eyes filled with something I couldn’t place…blood lust maybe? Or concern for me. Whatever it was, it scared me enough that I was happy when my cell phone rang. Extracting myself from the couch was like trying to get up when Jakob and I were wrapped up together watching a movie. I made it to my purse by the third ring.
“Mors.” My voice sounded like I was at work, I cringed.
“Auster.” He sounded half-asleep. It was the middle of the afternoon, not the most wide-awake time for a night shift man. “Your pet FBI agent needs to see you. Didn’t tell me anything else, so I guess he thinks you know how to get hold of him. He’s a bit of an asshole, isn’t he?”
“More than a bit,” I replied with a tight laugh. “Did it sound like an emergency?”
“Who can tell? He barked a few words at me and hung up. Have fun.”
I thanked him for the message and hung up the phone. Anna was posed on the couch, sunlight coming in on her face, making her bright red hair look even more like flames. She was working, posing as a model, trying to look sexy and cool. I couldn’t imagine why.
“Mark needs me for work stuff. Can you drive me out to Jakob’s?”
Her face fell. She recovered quickly enough that I wondered if the unguarded moment had really happened.
“Sure, right after you put those in this.” She dangled a silver necklace on a long chain in front of me. The charm was a rounded rectangle with raised metal in the shape of stylized flames. I took it from her fingers. The silver was cold but tingled with magic. My surprise must have showed because she said, “I wasn’t sure you’d be able to feel it. I made it myself.”
She pressed her finger into the center of the flame. The charm popped open, wide enough to hold five of the capsules. She filled it for me, showing me how to work the mechanism.
“This is really beautiful. I don’t know what to say except thank you.”
“Thank me by using it to stay alive.” Her voice was serious.
I could only nod in response. The ride to Jakob’s took an hour. I spent the whole time playing with the necklace, watching the sun reflect off its surface. Anna didn’t seem to mind my half-hearted conversation.
Chapter Twenty-One
When I got to Jakob’s, I paused walking through the double doors, giving my eyes time to adjust to the gloom. I didn’t want Mark to have the advantage. Inside I found him at the dining room table, paperwork spread everywhere.
“I got your message.”
“Good. I need you to,” he looked up and stopped mid-sentence. A second later, he was next to me holding Anna’s gift. He’d used vampire reflexes to move faster than I could see him. When Jakob did that, it took my breath away. When Mark did it, it was creepy.
“Where did you get this?”
“It was a gift.” I bristled at his tone. I was not an ignorant five-year-old.
“They hold things.”
“Yup, Anna showed me when she gave it me.”
“It was made with mating fire.” The chain threaded through his fingers, the charm resting on the palm of his scarred hand. Even in the dark, I could see his look was intense, powerful.
“Maybe that’s the only fire she has.” I’d never asked Anna what she could do. It seemed like prying. I detached my necklace from him and stepped back. “You wanted me for work?”
He had a confused look on his face, as if I’d missed something painfully obvious. He turned to the table and gestured to the map. “Tell me about this neighborhood.”
It was Indigo’s neighborhood, Rakesh’s home, and where the WPL had its offices. I sat down to tell Mark everything I knew about it. When I was done, he asked about Madame Marie, wanting to know everything that wasn’t in the reports.
“Enough, I need a glass of water if you’re going to interrogate me.” I stood up to get one, my body sore from sitting in place too long.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been a bad host.” It was the first half-human thing he’d said. I tried to contain my shock. We walked into the kitchen, and he darted in front of me.
“Let me get it.”
When he opened the refrigerator, I caught a glimpse of several bottles I hadn’t seen before. Mark was staying over, and he was keeping blood in the fridge. For some reason he didn’t want me to see it. It was endearing, almost cute. I wouldn’t have expected it from him. I smiled and thanked him for my drink, realizing there might be hope for him yet.
“Shouldn’t you be dead to the world right now? Jakob is.” I thought about him asleep in my bed, a very pleasant thought. I could have woken him up, but at three o’clock in the afternoon, his preference was to sleep.
“I eat more, so I don’t have to sleep as much,” he shrugged. “But Jakob sleeps during the day even when he’s…when he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t see the point in being awake when there’s nothing to do.”
“German efficiency, I guess.” It was something interesting though. Jakob had managed to stay awake this morning when I wanted him. On Sunday, he’d woken up before sunset for me. Remembering the two occasions made me smile.
“So, we should get back to work,” Mark stammered before bolting out of the kitchen. It took me a second to realize that remembering making love to Jakob had made my heart pound. It was probably enough that Mark could hear it. I hoped my blush would fade before he could see it.
Somewhere between crime scene reports and trying to explain to Mark what each death had felt like to me, the shutters clicked and came up. Any hopes I had that Mark would call it a day when the sun set were dashed. We spent another hour going over lab reports and city politics before Jakob got home.
I was sure he’d mention that his dining room table wasn’t meant to be a police blotter, but he surprised me by kissing me on the cheek and then leaving us alone. A few minutes later, I smelled the most amazing scents from the kitchen and realized why.
I followed the scent into the kitchen where Jakob was already dishing up a plate for me with things I didn’t recognize. I dipped a finger in the deep brown sauce that surrounded something that looked like beans. It was rich and spicy with a hint of vinegar.
“Tsk tsk, at the table, please.” Jakob did everything but shake his finger at me. It was all I could do to follow the plate of food in his hand back the dining
room.
Mark had cleaned up the worst of the pictures, no doubt out of respect for me. Unfortunately, I was too hungry to be touched by Mark’s behavior.
“What is this?” I asked, taking a fork full of something that could have been a noodle but might have been potato.
“Linsen mit Saitenwürstle und Spätzle,” Jakob pronounced. I’d never had German food before. I couldn’t tell if that was the name for what I had on my fork or the whole meal.
“Okay, what is this yummy yellow stuff that’s coated in butter?” I smiled up at him, doing my best to be cute and ignorant at the same time.
“Spätzle,” Mark condescended.
“And that would be?” When Mark answered, I felt dumb. When Jakob answered, I felt like I didn’t know something. The difference was maddening in that there really wasn’t one. They’d both answered in a foreign language, but one had sounded sweet, the other like a snob.
“Noodles, homemade noodles,” Jakob answered. “For some reason I was feeling traditional tonight. That’s sausage, lentils in sauce, and noodles.”
“When you say it that way it sounds much less romantic.” I smiled and cut into the thin-skinned sausage. “Very good.”
“I’m surprised you’ve never had it before, it’s a famous dish. Didn’t your high school German class have you eat traditional foods?” Jakob asked.
“Perhaps you forgot the part where I went to public school.” The memories of the small, slightly war-torn, concrete block building bubbled up in my mind. I doubted Jakob had any experience with such places. “Our German food was apple strudel and pretzels. Yours is much better.” I would have leaned over to kiss him, but Mark was sitting at the end of the table.
I concentrated instead on the dinner before me. I was halfway through my meal when I realized both of them were watching me hungrily. “I take it both of you ate like this before…” I let my voice trail off as they both nodded. “You know I had lunch with Anna. I forgot how nice it was to eat with someone.”
Jakob looked slightly pained while Mark’s eyes glinted. “Isn’t there something else about that lunch you’d like to mention?”
He sounded like a nine year old tattling on a schoolyard rival. Anyone else would have been rattled, but I’d spent five years as a social worker. I could handle petulant children.
“It was lovely, Anna’s house is huge, she definitely has father issues,” I blinked innocently. “What more could there be…oh, yes, my present!”
I stood up and walked close to Jakob so I could show him without taking it off. The long thin chain had let the necklace dangle between my breasts. It felt warm against my fingers as I passed it to Jakob. “She made it for me, isn’t it stunning?”
His long fingers traced the design. I wondered if they tingled the same way mine did. I got my answer when he spoke.
“I didn’t realize she had such fire,” he said softly, turning it over. The length of the chain meant we were as close as I had been to Anna when she gave it to me. His face was entirely more interesting. I felt my heart race and did my best to calm down.
“Here, I don’t want to abandon my dinner.” I slipped the chain off my neck and went back to my seat, hoping that Mark hadn’t heard my heart. Jakob deftly pressed the flame pattern. Apparently, I was the only person in the world who didn’t know how these things worked. I watched his expression as he took in the five capsules filled with Blue. There was room inside for all five. He used the space to roll them back and forth.
“You’ve used this before?” he asked.
“Never,” I shook my head. “It’s for emergency purposes only. Anna’s pretty worried about the werewolf thing.”
“She should be,” Mark pronounced. Jakob ignored him. It looked like an old habit.
“You’ll need to eat more when you take it. It’s not enough to overdose on, but you’ll burn through more sugar because of how easily the magic comes.”
I nodded, committing his advice to memory. There was no beginner’s guide to drug use available. I was grateful for the help. He slid the mechanism closed and handed it back to me. Jakob seemed reluctant to even touch the capsules inside. It made me wonder.
“What do vampires do when they take Blue?” I asked.
“We kill things,” Mark answered for him. “Lots of things.”
I fought not to roll my eyes.
Mercifully, dinner was short. I wasn’t sure how much more of Mark’s complete lack of social grace I could take. He did offer to do the dishes, a noble gesture if it hadn’t been accompanied by a crack about the prince doing dishes for the pauper. I wanted to tell him no one cared what he was four hundred years ago but stopped myself. Obviously he cared a great deal. Alone in Jakob’s bedroom, watching him get dressed for work, everything else in the house was forgotten. After six months we were on the edge of that place in dating where all you do is have crazy sex all the time, but we hadn’t moved on to the part where I didn’t notice his naked body.
“If you kept more clothes at my place you’d already be dressed now,” I teased as he came out of the closet comparing ties. He was holding a silver silk in one hand and a bright blue pattern in the other. “The one on the left.”
“You always pick the blue.”
“It brings out your eyes.” I fiddled with his tie, using it as an excuse to get close to his half-naked body. “I bet they sparkled in the sunlight.”
“You can dream of it tonight,” he said with a quick kiss. He headed toward the mirror while I sat on the edge of the bed. The pose was quickly becoming a habit for us. “After you go dancing, unless ladies night has been canceled on the account of the murders?”
“Of course not, we dance through rain, sleet, snow, and werewolf attack. Nothing will keep us from our appointed dancing,” I grinned. “You avoided the clothes thing.”
“You weren’t supposed to notice.”
“You should have kissed me more.” It was blatant, but it worked. He kissed me, standing beside the bed so our eyes were level. I got lost in them, a thousand layers of blue crystal patterns, every one of them filled with a shade of love or lust for me. The kisses were about to lead to something much more interesting when I remembered Mark was in the other room. I broke from his lips and kissed a trail to his ear.
“Mark can hear us, can’t he?” I whispered.
“Yes.” His voice was heavy with sadness. He put his hand under my chin and traced the pattern of my lips with his fingertips. “But I have to be at work anyway.”
I sighed heavily, hating that he was right.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mark announced we’d spend our evening at the park where I’d been attacked. I was less than pleased. It didn’t matter, I still found myself in the passenger seat of Mark’s old, black car headed back to the scene of the crime. I distracted myself with thoughts of the car. It didn’t fit him at all.
“I would never have pictured you in a Chevy, what made you end up with this car?” I asked.
“The 1964 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport has a huge trunk. That’s useful when I’m caught outside near dawn.”
“You sleep in the trunk?”
“Only when I have to. It’s not like I have a majestic house somewhere to go to at the end of the night.”
“Why not?” It wasn’t a dumb question. The idea that someone would choose to live for years without a home was fairly insane.
“I go where the wolves are,” he said, as if that explained it. “Nothing matters except killing them.”
“So everything you own in the world is in this car?” I couldn’t keep the shock out of my voice.
“Except for a safe deposit box and a few accounts in a very nice bank in New York City, this is everything I need.”
Except friends, I added mentally. The conversation died there for a few minutes. We were in Indigo’s neighborhood when I mentioned the chocolate shop and the plans Jakob and Indigo had for it.
“I hope they don’t lose too much money.”
I
lost my temper completely. “Why do you do that? Why do you always say something rude? I am trying hard, really hard, to like you, to see past your apparent inability to grasp social conventions or hold a conversation. But it’s like you deliberately try to annoy me. Here’s the thing: you don’t say deliberately rude things. You don’t correct people from fifteen feet away. You don’t answer questions that aren’t directed at you. I can’t believe these rules are all new since the last time you were around people.”
“The last time I was around people, women who had sex outside of marriage were killed for it.” He pulled into the park without looking at me.
I rolled my eyes. Maybe I was supposed to chastised or insulted, but all I felt was annoyed. “Fine, times were crazy different then, but people haven’t changed. Do you want people to hate you?”
“I don’t really care what people think of me,” he said, opening his door to get out of the car. I wasn’t willing to let him have the last word.
“Maybe you should. You’re going to live forever, that’s a long time to be alone.” I walked into the park without bothering to see if it had penetrated his thick skull.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mark followed me quietly into the park. My fears of dying here made the trees into monsters, reaching out to grab me, blocking out the light. I stood fixed to the spot where I had run into Indigo. My pulse raced, remembering the way he ripped into the two wolves. It was more violence than I could handle. Reliving the attack made me shiver in the steaming summer air.
“Did it happen here?” Mark asked softly, and guilt came crashing down. If he had interrogated me, been formal and said, where were you attacked, I could have held on to my fury. Damn.
“Further in, the back corner.” I had stopped walking. I wasn’t sure how to start again. Somehow my legs weren’t getting the command to move.
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