by C. D. Hersh
Good grief! Where had that thought come from?
As she refreshed the water in the flowers, she studied his reflection in the night-blackened window above the sink. Tall and slender, with a mop of black, curly hair, cut short in the back, and the brightest electric blue eyes she had ever seen. She liked blue.
He caught her staring and returned the perusal. Lost in each other’s gaze, they stood transfixed until the water streamed over the top of the vase and spilled across her hands. She jumped back in an effort to save her dress. Owen rushed forward and thrust his arms around her, grabbing the vase just as it started to slip from her hands.
“How clumsy,” she said as she drew her hands away.
His body pressed against her back, his hands holding the dripping vase over the sink as she fumbled with the paper towel holder beside the faucets. Heat rose from her body and she smelled her perfume. Something hard pushed against her backside. Holy Count Dracula! He had a hard on. As quickly as she could, she spun some towels off the roller and dropped them right into the sink under the still running water.
“You might want to turn the water off,” Owen suggested.
She heard the note of amusement in his voice. You, too, if I could. She pounded the faucet handle down and then yanked another couple sections of toweling off and grabbed the vase.
“I’ve got it. You can back off.”
He released the flowers, and she started wiping the glass. When he didn’t back away, she bumped him with her butt. A muffled groan rumbled in her ear. Wrong move. She hazarded a glance at their reflections in the window. Owen stood inches from her, giving her one of the hottest looks she had ever seen, and that said a lot since she’d been wooed by some pretty alpha males, human and non-human.
Dropping her chin toward her chest she said, “I’m so embarrassed. I didn’t mean to . . . I didn’t mean to send that message.” Heat rolled from him, sending her temperature soaring. She dropped the vase in the sink and it shattered as she spun toward him.
He jerked her away from the breaking glass, slamming her against him in the process.
“I don’t see any chamber pots being emptied from the window,” she murmured, remembering their earlier conversation about gentlemen slamming ladies against the walls to protect them.
“Glass,” he whispered. “You dropped it.”
“So, I did.”
Owen lowered his lips to hers and kissed her. As the scent of bruised mums and roses drifted from the sink, Kat wondered what kind of bruises this man, this probable criminal, would leave on her heart. He crushed her mouth to his.
Alarms rang in her fogged brain, piercing through her head and heart. She shouldn’t be doing this. He was dangerous.
Owen broke the kiss. “Something’s burning.”
No kidding. It’s me.
“Uh huh.” She pressed closer to him hoping to renew the kiss.
“The smoke alarm is going off!” Owen pushed past her to the stove where smoke curled from the edges of the oven door.
“My dinner!”
He grabbed a set of oven mitts from the counter and opened the oven. Smoke billowed out as he withdrew a charred casserole dish.
Kat opened the kitchen window and waved the gray cloud out. “Papa Perro’s?”
“Fine with me.”
“My treat,” Kat said. “It’s the least I can do since I burned dinner.”
A mock pout curled the edge of Owen’s mouth. “I thought maybe I was to blame. Distracting you and all.”
He had, but there was no way she would admit to it.
Inhaling deeply, and coughing because of the smoke, she replied, “My treat. I insist.”
As she scraped the burnt meal into the garbage can, she realized she was falling . . . again. She wanted this one to be different.
Chapter 11
As Katrina inspected the neck of the corpse which had come in last night, two red puncture marks near the jugular caught her attention. She stepped back from the table and did a double take.
Vampire fangs? Not again! Not now. She leaned against the nearby morgue table and stared at the corpse a young couple out jogging had found in bushes. The victim hadn’t been turned. All signs pointed to his death at least two days ago, and he was lying on her autopsy table, not hiding in some darkened basement awaiting the sunset. Yet he bore the distinctive markings of a vampire bite. Marks she’d hoped to never see again. Marks she couldn’t explain to her boss. Marks which put her back in huntress mode, because she couldn’t let monsters like that roam the night.
She dropped her chin to her chest and rubbed her forehead. What to do? Think. Think. She’d find the location where they found the body, then she’d go hunting tonight, which would mean breaking her date. Reaching into her pocket she pulled out her cell phone and called Owen.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said when he answered his phone. “Can’t wait until tonight?”
His voice told her he couldn’t. He had been disappointed when he hadn’t received an invitation to come in after their heated goodnight kiss at the front door last night. Leaving him standing outside the door had taken every bit of her will power.
“I need to cancel, Owen. Something’s come up, and I have to work late.”
“Oh.” His voice oozed disappointment. “I could bring you dinner at work.”
Even though he sent flowers to her at work, she clung to her medical lab lie, hoping he hadn’t discovered she was more than a tech. “I won’t be at the lab. It’s off campus work.” To appease him she added, “If I’m not done too late, I could call you, and we could meet at Papa Perro’s.”
A big sigh rolled over the phone line. “Guess I’ll have to settle for Papa Perro’s. If it’s past dinner time, call me anyway. I’d like to know you arrived home safe. Or I could come walk you home. The big city’s a dangerous place, you know.”
You have no idea. “Thanks, but I’m driving, and I’ll keep the mace handy.” And the stakes and the garlic and my cross and the handgun, not that bullets would kill a vampire. But they might do in another bear, if I come across one.
She drew some blood from the body, moved the corpse to the storage drawers, and slid it in, then she finished her report, leaving out the puncture marks. For a brief moment she considered whether or not she should alert Captain Temple, then decided against it until she had more evidence. No need to make herself look like an idiot. A vampire would strike again. The next attack might fall into more measurable parameters. In the meantime, she’d hunt on her own.
As she finished the report, the morgue door opened and Captain Temple entered.
“I hear we got a body in last night. Do we have anything to go on yet?”
“Nothing yet. I’ve got some blood samples ready for analysis.”
“Anything strange about the body?”
She hoped the captain hadn’t heard her sharp intake of breath. “Define strange.” Better to ask than assume she meant the puncture marks.
“Mismatched eye colors. Odd mixture of hair colors. Facial recognition not right for the fingerprints.”
“Odd, but no. Except for the facial recognition.” She heard the captain’s intake of breath and saw a flash of concern cross her face.
“Meaning they don’t match?”
“Meaning I don’t have them back yet.”
The captain visibly relaxed.
Why would she even ask a question about a mismatch between facial recognition and fingerprints? Mismatches didn’t happen with the bodies of vampires and werecreatures.
“Which drawer is he in?”
Why ask these questions herself? The captain of homicide had detectives who did the leg work.
“Drawer?”
Kat checked the report still lying on her desk. “Twenty-three.” She handed Ale
xi the report. “It’s all here.”
As the captain took the papers and flipped through the pages, Kat held her breath, praying she wouldn’t look at the body. She’d easily see the prominent puncture marks. When she finished reading the report, Captain Temple laid the papers on the desk and strode toward the wall of morgue drawers.
Kat scurried around her so she’d stand on the side of the body with the punctures. After opening the drawer, she laid the covering back, folding it against the dead man’s neck in an attempt to hide the marks.
The captain studied the body several minutes, concentrating on the facial features. “Does anything look off kilter to you?”
“Off kilter? What do you mean?”
Grasping the corpse’s head, the captain turned it toward her.
Kat scrunched the covering closer to the neck and leaned over the body. “What are you looking for?” Off kilter wasn’t much of an explanation if she meant supernatural.
“Do his ears look a bit mismatched?” She turned the head even more toward her. “This lobe looks longer to me.”
Kat rotated the head back and looked at the slightly different ears. “The human face isn’t totally symmetrical,” she said in explanation. “Our eyes aren’t exactly lined up. The lips aren’t the same. I’ll bet you notice when you put on lipstick.” The captain nodded. “This ear isn’t a big discrepancy. He probably had a habit of pulling on it which lengthened the lobe. Why are you asking this? Seems like an odd question.”
“Before you joined the force, we had some dead bodies come in which didn’t match their profiles.”
“Some dead bodies? How many?”
“Enough Homeland Security inserted themselves into the precinct. I don’t want a replay on my watch. We’ve had an uptick in dead victims lately, so I want to keep tabs on things.”
“Do you think it’s related to their investigation?”
The captain’s eyes narrowed, and she gave her a long, hard stare before answering. “You know I believe in your paranormal world, don’t you?”
The statement both calmed and agitated her. Knowing she wasn’t alone in her paranormal world gave her some comfort and at the same time caused her to question her decision to keep what she’d found secret.
“The world isn’t ready to know about those things.”
Kat thought of all the creatures she’d encountered and stifled a shudder. “And they are bad things.”
“Not all of them.”
“Have you ever met a vampire in a dark alley?”
“No, and I wouldn’t want to.” The captain tipped her head and studied her. “Can you do something?”
“If I can.”
“Keep an open mind. Someday, you might meet something . . . someone who is a good paranormal. Let’s hope if you do, you don’t shoot it with a silver bullet.”
She didn’t mention stakes, so she must not think any vampire was good. They agreed on that point. However, her statement left shifters wide open. Had Owen killed a bad one? If so, how could you tell?
Kat laid the cover back over the corpse and slid the drawer closed. “I can try, but I haven’t yet met a paranormal who didn’t want to do something awful to humans.”
“The next time you meet one who hesitates, don’t shoot first and ask questions later, okay?”
“Okay. But it had better warn me of its intentions, because I’m going to shoot.”
“Fair enough,” Captain Temple called over her shoulder as she exited.
One strange conversation. As Kat re-ran it in her head, she realized the captain hadn’t answered her terrorist question. She had jumped right into a conversation about paranormals. Wouldn’t she have more concern about terrorists in her precinct than vampires, shape shifters, or zombies? They all killed. Or did she know something she wasn’t telling?
As soon as Owen saw Kat leave the morgue, he shifted into a female mimic and entered the building wearing a custodial outfit he pinched from the janitorial closet earlier in the day. Grabbing a bucket from the closet, he dropped a dirty mop into the no-longer-sudsy, greasy-looking water and headed for the section of the morgue offices housing the dead bodies. Falhman had given him a picture of his lieutenant, which Owen didn’t really need. He’d killed the man. He remembered the faces of all the shifters he killed since he had learned to use the Turning Stone ring. He expected the faces to start blurring together after his first few kills, but they hadn’t. Fresh as ever, they paraded through his dreams like sheep leaping over fences on a sleepless night. Recompense, he supposed, for the dastardly deeds he committed with such noble purpose.
The morgue was empty, the light dimmed. As he entered, his footsteps echoed, bouncing against the tiled and stainless steel surfaces. A wall of drawers lined one side of the long room. Too many drawers.
How the heck was he supposed to find one man in this wall? Laying his hand on the smooth, stainless steel he swept his palm up and down over the drawers. Would there be residual shifter tingles he could follow? A quick run over the wall netted him zero. Disgusted, Owen opened and shut drawers.
Three fourths of the way down the wall, he found him. A quick check of the body showed no incisions. The capsule was still there. Shoddy police work. Had he been the M.E. this wouldn’t have gotten past him. However, it was fortuitous.
He withdrew a box knife from his pants pocket and clicked out the blade. Pushing on the fatty part of the middle of the back of the man’s arm, where Falhman told him to find the capsule, Owen felt something. A quick triangular slit under the skin and a tiny push popped out the RFID key. As he did Falhman’s dirty work, he cursed the man. He certainly knew how to ensnare a person in his service. A dirty job here. A killing there. A little blackmail everywhere.
Hastily recovering the body, he closed the drawer and dropped the capsule into the plastic bag he’d brought. What did this key open that made it so important to Falhman? And how could Owen use it in his campaign against the shifter society?
The sound of the door opening drew his attention to the other end of the room. Grabbing the mop from the bucket, he splashed water on the floor and shoved it around.
“Oh, I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t see you there,” said a woman’s voice.
He looked into the face of Kat and, for a second, forgot he was shifted. “No problem,” he said, the words deeper than a woman’s. He coughed and cleared his throat and then said in a higher pitch, “You didn’t startle me.”
“You should get something for your cough.” She rummaged in her handbag and pulled out a cough drop which she tossed across the room to him.
“Thanks,” he said, his voice vacillating in pitch.
“Laryngitis?” Kat asked as she unlocked her desk and took out a folder.
He nodded, not daring to speak.
“My voice always goes deeper, too.” She turned to leave and called over her shoulder. “I hope you feel better soon.”
He would. As soon as she left and he knew what Falhman’s RFID key opened.
Chapter 12
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Hugh asked for the tenth time. A drunk came out of the Dew Drop Inn and skirted around them, the scent of beer and B.O. floating on the cool November air.
“It did when Eli and I tested it out.” Rhys stepped closer and dropped his voice. “I’ll fly up and scan from the air, then relay the information through the squawks we arranged earlier.”
“They won’t see you?”
“Shifters can only sense another shifter thirty feet away. I can sense double the distance and then some. It’s part of why I’m a Promised One. Well, one of two Promised Ones. Can’t forget Alexi.”
“I don’t imagine she’d take kindly to being overlooked,” Hugh said with a laugh.
Rhys laughed, too, then asked, “Where do you want to start?”<
br />
“With the shipping companies. Which one’s closest?”
“WK Shipping isn’t far. Just down the road from the stadium. We could start there.”
“Sounds like a plan. You going to change here?”
With a jerk of his head, Rhys indicated the alley next to the Dew Drop Inn. Hugh followed him in, standing so he blocked the view from the alley entrance. “You got the transmitter?”
Glancing around to verify the alley was empty, Hugh held it out, along with the receiver. “Ready to put it on whenever you change.” He’d seen a few shifters change, but not as up-close and personal as this.
Rhys closed his eyes, an expression of concentration spreading over his face, then his form melted toward the ground and became a hawk.
“Holy crap!” Hugh breathed as he watched Rhys change. “Watching you is like something out of a Hollywood movie.”
Rhys hopped around on clawed feet. When Hugh held out his arm, the bird flapped his way onto the coat sleeve, gently grasping the jacket with his claws. “Fantastic!”
Rhys squawked once, the sound high pitched.
Hugh recognized the sound as yes. He pocketed the receiver and attached the transmitter to the hawk’s leg. “Too tight?” The bird’s head bobbed side-to-side.
No need to audibly translate the reply. Reaching under his coat collar, Hugh retrieved the earpiece and inserted it in his ear. Raising his arm, he indicated Rhys should fly. “Testing, testing,” he said as the hawk landed on the roof peak. “Can you hear me?”
