Bond with Me

by Anne Marsh

  “I’m not convinced.” She leaned back in her seat and watched him pour out tea with those strong, confident hands. He slid the glass cup into a holder and handed it to her. “You look like you could use it. Look, I know the last few days have come as a shock.”

  “You think? First my cousin runs off with a Goblin and then you start complicating my life. I’d say that absolutely qualifies as a shocker.”

  He acknowledged the hit with a wry nod of his head. “Yeah. So you’re pissed. I get it. But I still think you’re overlooking what I can do. Look, give me an afternoon. What’s the most you have to lose?”

  My soul.

  Nine

  What on earth had possessed her? Two hours later, Mischka still couldn’t believe she’d agreed to give him an afternoon. She couldn’t seriously be contemplating a working partnership with a fallen angel, could she? Because they both knew he was merely marking time until he either seduced her or moved on to an easier target.

  He’d suggested visiting Ming John’s flat, a logical idea. If Ming John had been deliberately targeted—and after viewing Brends’s security vid and the images his tech team had extracted from the killer’s vid-player, she was inclined to agree with him—then they needed to determine why.

  Because Pell was on that list as well. Not to mention Mischka herself.

  Ming John’s flat was guarded by a particularly ferocious, five-foot-tall babushka, who clearly felt letting either of them in before they’d provided character references and a security deposit was bad for business. Not to mention her immortal soul. She kept sneaking glances at Brends and crossing herself, making the rosary that spilled from her buttoned-up sweater chime musically.

  “You, maybe,” the landlady said, pointing at Mischka. She made another not-so-surreptitious sign of the cross. “Him, I don’t think so. He doesn’t look so trustworthy. A nice girl like you can do much better. You should upgrade.” She eyed Brends suspiciously.

  Upgrade? She eyed Brends to see how he was taking this disparaging dismissal of his charms, but he was grinning.

  The cold had Mischka’s nipples pebbling against the thin fabric of her dress. Erotic heat swept over him. She was going to taste so good. All he had to do was seduce her.

  “You’d never do better than me, and we both know it.” He crossed his arms over his chest, shooting another lazy smile in the landlady’s direction.

  “Stop it,” she hissed back.

  It was time to end the pleasantries, however, and get on with the afternoon’s business. Fortunately, as he’d suspected, Ming John’s landlady had the delightfully flexible morals of the perpetually cash-strapped, which quickly outweighed her squeamishness about dealing with Goblins. She cheerfully pocketed the cash Brends offered and made no bones about it. Winter was long and she’d have more heating bills before summer came. Since the girl was dead—God rest her soul—there was no point in being impractical. She’d sell information if it covered the last month’s rent. And who would want to rent the room now? The running commentary was enough, Brends decided, to drive a male insane.

  “My last tenant, murdered—you don’t think that would turn off prospective tenants? I do,” she said as she turned the key in the lock. “They’ll wonder if they’re next. And why not? A perfectly nice girl like that,” she added. “American. Didn’t bother a soul and such a help. Always wanting to practice, practice, practice with her Russian. You’re one of them, aren’t you?” She turned her gaze on Brends and he realized that the old woman was neither as batty nor as unobservant as he’d believed. “You tell me, since it appears to have been one of your kind that did her.”

  Mischka intervened. Maybe she was afraid that he’d tell the old woman the truth.

  “It wasn’t him,” she said decisively. “Do you think I’d bring him here, if I believed he was a killer?”

  The old woman nodded understandingly. “Right, dear. He didn’t kill this one. Doesn’t mean he hasn’t killed others, now, does it?”

  Since Mischka was clearly at a loss for words after that conversational bombshell, Brends stepped in smoothly because, after all, the old woman was right. He’d done more than his share of killing. “She’s got you there, darling,” he noted smoothly, stepping past the old woman. When his hand wrapped around the doorknob and the gnarled fingers, he thought for a moment she’d call his bluff. Then her fingers slid away.

  “All right,” she conceded. “I’ll let you get on with it. You ring me when you’re done and I’ll close up. Oh,” she added as an afterthought, “and she’d just started seeing someone new. Big fellow,” landlady said, looking curiously from Brends to Mischka. “Big as your fellow here. Didn’t know they grew them like that around here.”

  Brends waited until he’d seen the landlady clear the landing before he snapped the door shut. And locked it for good measure.

  Unlike Mischka’s flat, Ming John’s room was typical. Just another M City flat with nothing out of the ordinary about it.

  “The landlady said she was an exchange student.” Mischka sorted methodically through the haphazard piles of papers on the counter of the tiny kitchenette. “She gave people English lessons.”

  The flat had been let furnished. It smelled faintly of mold and old hot plates and books. Tucked in one corner was an iron bedstead that doubled as a sofa. Someone, presumably Ming, had arranged a colorful knitted quilt on top of the lumpy surface and lined up a series of small, hard pillows at right angles. The closet was crammed full of American mall wear. Not to mention more stacks of books and newspapers and magazines, unfamiliar Russian words circled. A dog-eared dictionary sat on the floor in the middle of the room. Ming John had been young. Carefree.

  So why had she been targeted? Why Mischka’s cousin?

  On the surface, the two females had little in common other than a taste for Goblin clubs.

  “What made her special?” Impatiently, he tapped a finger against his thigh. “This is a waste of time. It would be quicker to watch for our rogue and bag him when he makes his next move.”

  “Quicker for whom?” Ignoring him, she opened and closed the drawers of a small dresser, rifling neatly through the contents from top to bottom. Periodically, she stopped and turned over a piece of paper tucked beneath the layers of lingerie and inexpensive cotton. Apparently, Ming John had possessed the usual human traits, including the misplaced belief that there was no safer place for hiding personal secrets than in one’s lingerie drawer.

  “Me. Us.” He gestured impatiently.

  “Mmm.” She acknowledged his point absentmindedly, carefully unfolding a creased piece of paper and reading its contents. When she bit back a smile and refolded the paper to its original dimensions, Brends frowned.

  “Personal,” she mouthed. Shit, this whole thing was personal. And then she returned to their original topic of conversation as if she had never abandoned the thread. “Quicker for you maybe, but you leave the rogue out there and he’ll be killing while you wait for him to fall into your trap.”

  Probably. But those would be human casualties and acceptable. He opened his mouth, but she forestalled him. “And yes, it matters. You can’t just keep killing humans, Brends, even if you don’t think we’re worth much on your cosmic Richter scale. We matter, too.”

  Right. Clearly, it mattered to her. “All right,” he said, surprising himself. “So what do you expect to find here? A note from the killer explaining his modus operandi and outlining his next steps?”

  She shot him a look he had no problem interpreting.

  “Just keep looking.”

  Right. If it mattered that much to her, he’d sort through this inconsequential pile of human leftovers. At the very least, someone needed to pack up the personal items to ship back to Ming John’s family. That someone might as well be him.

  He flipped open the cell. Twenty minutes later, there was a stack of cardboard boxes lying on the floor of the small room. Mischka stared at him. “What?” He eyed her. “You want to sort out her stuff? Fin
e. We’ll box it, too—someone has to ship it home.”

  “My God,” she said, looking at him as if he’d grown a spare head. “The big bad Goblin finds a heart.”

  Not really. It would get them out of here faster if Mischka weren’t constantly retracing her steps. And it would make things easier if she couldn’t argue that they must have overlooked something. If the gesture made Mischka Baran a little more amenable to him, well, that was just an extra bonus, wasn’t it?

  Two hours and ten boxes later, he was holding a cheap Bible and making a mental note to recruit Mischka Baran for his team of trackers. The Bible was standard issue, straight from a hotel room. Tucked between the tissue-thin pages, however, was a sheaf of printouts from a genealogy website with a few phone numbers scrawled in the margins.

  “Genealogy?” Mischka leaned in to read the printouts.

  “Yeah. She could have been looking for long-lost relatives. Clearly, though, she had a habit of reading the genealogy forums.” The printouts were dated over a six-month period and it appeared that Ming John had been a frequent poster.

  “Or not.” Mischka chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip. “She came here to practice her Russian, not to look up long-lost aunts and uncles.”

  “That’s what she claimed.” He flipped open her passport, examining the picture. The image was barely thumbnail sized, a small, grainy moment in time. When he pressed the picture, a little 3-D revolving image appeared above the passport, rotating sadly in place. Leftover pixels that didn’t matter anymore. Ming John was never going home.

  Mischka flipped rapidly through the papers. “Look at this.”

  He leaned in, savoring the scent of her hair. She shot him a look but didn’t say anything. Score one for him, he decided. She was pointing to one of the names Ming John had found. Pelinor.

  “Pell was related to Ming John,” he said.

  Mischka shook her head. “Not as far as I knew. Certainly not closely. These charts don’t indicate a close connection, just a distant family relationship.”

  There were other names on the bottom of that family tree. Pell. Mischka. And at least another twenty names. All female. All scattered to the four corners of the globe, if the names were anything to go by. So what connected them?

  “You recognize any of them?”

  “No.” He didn’t, although he felt as if he should.

  “Any chance they’re regulars at your club?”

  “You think we’re looking for a fanatic, a Goblin hater?”

  “It’s a possibility.” She set the pages down carefully, smoothing the edges. “Lots of people hate Goblins.”

  “The root of all evil? A blot to be wiped from the face of the Earth?” Hell, he had the same thoughts half the time. He just hadn’t gutted anyone based on those convictions. There was something more happening here.

  She shook her head, but in this case, he wasn’t sure her no was actually a denial. “Some people really hate Goblins, Brends. If Ming John had”—she hesitated—“bonded with one, maybe that’s the reason she was targeted.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t think it’s that simple. Women aren’t the only ones who sell out to us, love. The male of your species is just as interested in what we have to offer. So how come there are no male names on that list?”

  “Good point.” She tapped a pencil against her teeth until he swatted it lightly out of her hand.

  “He had your pic, too. Maybe there’s another connection. I think it’s time to do a little digging on the Internet.”

  Of course they ended up back at her place. Mischka was surprised she hadn’t seen it coming. Brends was a master seducer, and the delicious sinking sensation in her stomach—and lower—warned her that she was going to be putty in his talented hands once he really got started.

  The question was, did she honestly mind?

  She certainly hadn’t intended to spend the afternoon with him—or make him dinner. But that was what she’d done. When he wanted candles, however, she’d drawn the line and turned the overhead light up. All the way. Now they were dining in the hard blaze of white light. No romantic lighting for him.

  She had relented when he wandered over to her small wine collection and ran a knowing finger along the bottles. Since she appreciated a good wine with dinner as much as the next person, she’d caved on that one. There was no point in punishing herself.

  “Grab a white.” It would pair perfectly with the pasta in clam sauce she’d made.

  His lips quirked into a smile as he deliberately withdrew a bottle of red from the rack. She raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Everything here”—he waved a hand toward the living room she’d spent months decorating—“is white. Cream. Deceptively colorless.”

  She liked her flat. It was peaceful. It was the haven where she retreated.

  “I like white.”

  “I know. It’s calm.” Effortlessly, he popped the cork on the bottle he’d selected. “Very relaxing. But just a tad”—he raised an eyebrow—“predictable, don’t you think?”

  “So I like white,” she repeated. “Save the psychoanalysis for someone who cares.”

  An hour later, pushing her plate to one side, she curled up on the couch and let her fingers fly over the keyboard of her laptop, pulling up the genealogy sites Ming John had visited. She’d already stacked the printouts neatly in front of her, organized by site and then by date.

  “You’re going to break your back,” he observed. Sprawled on the matching cream-colored sofa, a glass of wine cupped casually in his large hand, that strange, curious warmth lit Brends’s eyes. He looked harmlessly sexy, slightly sleepy, but she knew better. Give him an inch and he’d be all over her. For some reason, she was now the challenge of the week.

  “I’m comfortable,” she argued, although she knew he was right. Sit this way too long and her back would tell her all about it tomorrow.

  “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a sloucher.” Those warm eyes examined her again.

  She shrugged. Too bad for him. “Look at this.”

  He leaned over, his hand tracing the lines on the page. His body was wonderfully warm. How long had it been since she’d had someone to sit on the couch with?

  She cleared her throat. “Seems as though some of these women, far, far back on the family tree, share common ancestors.”

  The next search made her stomach lurch. There were ten names on the first page. Three of those women were dead. Pics from the newspaper flashed by on her laptop. Murdered.

  “He’s been doing this for decades,” Brends said grimly, eying the dates.

  “So we have to find Pell,” she said desperately.

  His gaze held hers. “Or we wait.”

  “For what? The next dead body?”

  “Yeah.” He reached out and tapped a key to replay the search. “Something like that.”

  “No,” she said desperately. “You can’t do that, Brends. You’re not dangling my cousin in front of some deranged Goblin like a piece of raw chicken on a string.”

  “We’re not piranhas, love.”

  “No, you’re cold bastards,” she said bitterly. “Probably the reason why you got kicked out of the Heavens in the first place.”

  “I don’t follow rules,” he said, and that cold look in his eyes stopped her dead. He meant every word. “I break them. Ask Michael.”

  “Michael?”

  “The Heavens’ archangel and my pain in the ass. He decided I needed an intervention, a lesson in what happens when the Heavens’ guardians don’t toe the line. I decided I disagreed.” The mean, hard tone of his voice told her more clearly than his words how he’d worded his disagreement. Violently.

  The look on her face probably did all the speaking for her. Hell. She couldn’t double-park without looking over her shoulder for the traffic cop. So the equivalent of a cosmic “Fuck you”? Way out of her league. Part of her, however, admired that kind of balls. The other part was busy realizing that sharing a sofa with the heavenly equivalent of a c
onvicted felon wasn’t her wisest move.

  “You walked away.” He looked at her, and shit, she remembered. “Fell, I mean.” Well, wasn’t that the gaffe of the century? He might have parted ways with the Heavens’ host, but it hadn’t been amicable and he hadn’t won that particular battle.

  “I got my ass handed to me,” he snarled. “Don’t you pity me, dushka. I’d do it again.”

  Hell. She didn’t pity him. She envied him. He’d broken all the rules and then he’d taken the punishment and made that his as well. She opened her mouth to say so and then closed it. Why would he believe her?

  “Why?” she said instead.

  He reached for her hand and she let him take it, enjoying the contrast between his darker skin and her paler coloring. His large, warm fingers wrapped around hers, swallowing her up in heat and masculine strength.

  “Maybe I just like breaking the rules.” She tugged, but he wouldn’t release her. “You came looking for a bad boy, Mischka,” he growled. “You shouldn’t be surprised that you found one.”

  He wasn’t just a bad boy, was he? Stupid, she chided herself. He wasn’t a fixer-upper project she was considering and she wasn’t in the market. Not really. He’d made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t helping her until she paid his price.

  “You had a reason,” she said, suddenly sure. He was too disciplined, too something to have thrown away the Heavens on a whim. And he hadn’t been the only angel who fell. Thousands of them had been booted, if she remembered her Sunday-school classes correctly. So there had to have been a damn good reason.

  “Anarchy, baby,” he said lightly. “We picked a fight and we lost.” The hard look in his eyes, however, said that he hadn’t taken that loss lightly. “Losers get their asses kicked out of the Heavens. It’s in the rule book.”

  “You have a rule book?”

  His fingers slid along hers, finding pressure points she hadn’t known existed. Massaged. She could feel herself melting into a boneless puddle of pleasure and she’d sworn she’d resist.