Love Lies (Tails from the Alpha Art Gallery Book 3)

by Cynthia St. Aubin

  “Wolves?” he asked, beating me to the punch.

  “Hey,” I said. “Wolves are people too. Well, some of them. Sometimes.”

  “And people are animals too,” he pointed out. “Most of the time.”

  A high, feminine cackle sliced through the white noise of conversation filling the gallery.

  “Speaking of animals.” I scanned the gallery to see if I could identify the human responsible for the eardrum bloodying cackle.

  Several bodies stumbled forward, shoved asunder by an unseen source. And all at once, there she was. Tinkerbell, but with a boob job, a bad blond weave, and enough alcohol on board to float a trash barge. In her Lucite six-inch stripper heels, she might have been about five-eight. The skin-tight sweater slouching off one spray-tanned shoulder barely managed to cover her jegging clad-ass.

  “Oh my God!” she slurred, swaying toward one of Steve’s painting. “Iss that a duck? Pfft! I could paint that!” She sloshed a half glass worth of the cabernet sauvignon I’d ordered onto the wood floor as she tried, and failed, to bring it to her over-glossed lips.

  I sincerely hoped she wasn’t really a fairy, because I was gonna feel real bad about curb stomping a Disney character’s veneers into the gutter.

  Joseph gave me a wide berth as I came around the counter.

  “Excuse me,” I said. I wove through the crowd as swiftly as I was able, all ready to add drunk bitch bouncer to my list of regular job duties. Perhaps a little less gently than I could have, I tapped her on the bony shoulder. “Hi there.”

  “Babe!” she shrieked, ignoring me. “Babe! Commere! You gotta see what they’re charging for this shit!”

  Babe stumbled into view, disheveled and equally shit-faced.

  Detective James Morrison, my former bed buddy.

  Someone had dropped a brick onto my stomach, and I didn’t have the air to form words. Generic, predictable questions sprang to my mouth. What are you doing here? Who is she? and the like. But the answers didn’t matter, though I knew them all.

  Morrison looked at me, then slid a hand around Tinkerbell’s ass. “How much, baby?” he asked, not looking at the painting.

  “More than that knock-off Juicy Couture bag,” I answered for her. “And I don’t think babe’s got that much left in the beer fund, cupcake.”

  She squinted and swayed as she tried to get her eyes to focus on my face. Or faces, I suspected. Mascara crumbs fell down her cheeks as she blinked with the effort.

  “What?” she stammered. “Babe, did you hear what she said to me?”

  Whispers bred around us as the other patrons turned their attention from the art to the impromptu reality show. It was only a matter of time before Mark saw Morrison, and this turned from a schoolyard scrap into a four-alarm shit-storm.

  “Leave my gallery,” I said. “Now.”

  “Not your gallery,” Morrison cast an antagonistic look in Mark’s direction. “And we have every right to be here.”

  “Yeah,” Tinkerbell repeated. “Every right!”

  Joseph sidled up to my elbow. “May I be of service?”

  Morrison sized him up, his hand moved to the phantom weapon snugged against his rib cage. I guessed they’d relieved him of his duty piece when they’d relieved him of his badge, but I was nothing like certain he didn’t have another one tucked somewhere else. A sinking feeling set itself down in my stomach as I envisioned several simultaneous ends to this standoff.

  “No,” I said, trying to work calm into my voice. “I’m sure Detective Morrison would be happy to be reunited with a few of his old friends if things get out of hand. Though I’m not sure if that would hasten his reinstatement.”

  The unmeasured flash of hope in his eyes at this word sent a little rush of relief into my chest. So he still wanted it, then.

  Good.

  “Come on, Jess,” Morrison said. “Let’s see if the food’s any good.”

  It was a low blow, and he knew it. My food choosing abilities were superlative and all of Georgetown and the greater state of Colorado knew it.

  “Or you could stagger down to Denny’s for a drunk dish to yark onto the linoleum floor along with your self-loathing,” I mumbled under my breath.

  “Whas that?” Jess froze in place, eyeing me with pure dislike.

  “Enjoy your evening,” I said, coating each syllable with as much syrupy insincerity as I could manage.

  “How long were you seeing each other?” Joseph asked.

  Conducting a quick scan of the gallery to track their path, I was relieved when they joined the line at the catering tables as promised. “How long were we—what?” I peered up into Joseph’s face to find it bright with amusement.

  “He looked at you the way a man only looks at a woman when he’s been inside her,” he said.

  Blood flooded my face. Way to make it awkward Daddy Abernathy.

  “We weren’t seeing each other,” I informed him.

  “Casual fucking, then,” he smiled. “I can respect that.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” I said. And it was the truth. What Morrison and I had lived somewhere between combative friendship and championship naked wrestling. And doughnuts.

  “Hey,” Joseph said. “I’m not here to judge.”

  “I know that,” I said. “But it’s important to me that you know.”

  “You said Detective Morrison,” Joseph answered, changing the subject. “Is this the man who’s been investigating my son?

  “Yup.”

  “Unsuccessfully, I’m guessing.”

  “As of yet,” I added.

  “And he was suspended?” Joseph pressed.

  “Also yup.”

  “What for?”

  I drew a deep breath, as memories flooded my brain. “I looked a little rough when we got back from London,” I said. “What with being attacked by Oscar Wilde and nearly having my life sucked through my neck and throttled to the ground and whatnot. Only, Morrison seemed to think your son was responsible.”

  “I see.” Joseph nodded.

  “And then there were the murders,” I said. “Which Morrison has been convinced Mark committed. When it turned out to be not Abernathy, I think it kind of bent him.”

  “He senses something,” Joseph said. “He just doesn’t understand what it is.”

  “His instincts, are pretty damned impeccable.” Boy were they ever.

  “Those sort of humans can be exceedingly dangerous.” The creases at the corners of Joseph’s eyes deepened as he frowned.

  “Very much so,” I said.

  “So,” Joseph said. “This detective with impeccable instincts has stumbled upon a pack of werewolves who have been associated with multiple murders, and is now suffering from a rash of decapitated vampires. And he has a blood grudge against the pack’s alpha male, is in love with a werewolf heir the alpha male is sworn to protect, is hell-bent on uncovering the truth, and is now a rogue on the outside of the law. That about sum it up?”

  “I don’t know about the ‘in love’ part,” I said.

  “My dear.” Joseph dropped a fatherly arm around my shoulders. “Pheromones don’t lie.”

  My heart thumped at the revelation. Did Morrison love me?

  Joseph rubbed the flat expanse of his palms together and grinned. “This is going to be good.”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “Maybe everything will just work itself out. Like on the Brady Bunch. Half an hour, and the world is peachy. Problems solved.”

  “Mr. Brady wasn’t a werewolf,” Joseph pointed out.

  “But he was gay,” I insisted. “That counts for something, right?”

  “Maybe in 1964.”

  “Fuck a duck.” I fell back against the gallery wall, letting it absorb my weight.

  Joseph’s Cheshire Cat grin dropped away from his face. I followed his gaze, expecting to discover some new conflict with Morrison and the intolerable Jessica.

  What I saw instead sent ice slithering into my spine.

  Two unnaturally beau
tiful men walking in concert through the gallery. Pale, perfect.

  Undead.

  Faces turned toward them as they moved through the crowd, dragging a current of chilled air in their wake. The grace of their movements belied their origin from an earlier time when the world was darker, quieter, and bodies could move through it unremarked, if they chose. Now they belonged to every century and none.

  The taller of the two spoke first. His perfectly-shaped lips formed words slowly, like a masterwork of Greek statuary moving reluctantly from eternity to life.

  Vampires.

  “Where are they?” His voice had a metallic rasp from age or disuse.

  “Where are what?” Joseph asked.

  An expression of delicate regret moved across the vampire’s impossibly beautiful face, drawing his sleek, dark hairline downward. He might have been mourning the death of a butterfly.

  Canvases and statuary shoved into my memory. All the history of art at my disposal, yet never before had such perfection been naked to my eyes.

  “Who,” the vampire corrected. “Not what. And don’t ask questions you already know the answers to. It’s predictably animal.”

  I half wanted to say “your mom’s an animal,” but I suspected this might be lost on a centuries old bloodsucker.

  Mark was behind me. I registered his arrival as a heat at my back seconds before his familiar scent of European-made soap and expensive cologne filled my nostrils.

  “Gentlemen,” he said.

  Something passed over both sets of eyes, a brief flicker of recognition in their jeweled, iridescent depths.

  “Wilde’s blood still stains your hide, beast,” the shorter, fair-haired vampire hissed. A delicate network of veins became visible beneath his skin, rage moving borrowed blood through flesh that couldn’t blush.

  “I gave as good as I got,” Mark said.

  “And yet you are recovered, and he is broken,” the taller, dark-haired vampire added.

  “Being an animal has its advantages,” Joseph said.

  Mark shot his father a warning glare.

  “They’re coming for you, you know.” The expression on the fair-haired vampire’s face couldn’t be defined as a smile. A smile requires the cooperation of facial features. This was pure, unabashed anticipation of bloodshed shining like joy from lifeless eyes. “I only hope they’ll let me watch when you’re made to pay for what you’ve done.”

  “I’ll do it again,” Mark growled, shoving his body in front of mine. “Wilde came after Hanna. What I’ve done is nothing to what I’ll do. Touch her, come near her, threaten her, breathe at her, and I won’t stop until all that’s left of your kind are piles of smoldering ash and heaps of rotting blood and bone.”

  Why vivid threats of violence on my behalf created a sudden rush of dampness in my panties, I couldn’t say.

  But I liked it.

  Those unsettling diamond-hard gazes fixed on my face.

  “Heir or no, she remains human.” The vampire spat the word like a cockroach on his tongue. “She’s fair game, and we both know it. Wilde did nothing wrong.”

  “Whoa,” I said, snapping out of my stunned, wordless silence. “Humans are fair game? Since when? According to who?”

  “Since forever,” the fair-haired vampire answered. “There are no rules governing the slaughter of livestock. This was agreed on by both our kinds millennia past.”

  I turned to Mark and felt his attention shift to me, though he wouldn’t relinquish his eye contact with our unwelcome guests. “Hanna, we’ll talk about this later,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “The hell we will,” I said. “So, what? Humans are like cattle for supernatural consumers?”

  “More like pork, actually,” the fair-haired vampire offered helpfully. “There’s a lovely sort of sweetness—”

  His companion cut him off with a sharp look.

  “Apologies,” he said, his gaze dropping to the floor.

  “In any case,” the dark vampire said, “it is protecting our own which brings us. There are three of our kind who were expected by the council yesterday, and never appeared. We’d like to know what you’ve done with them.”

  “Council?” I asked. “What council?”

  “Maybe you should check the appetizers,” Mark suggested. “Someone picked the aged cheddar off the caramelized apples and—”

  “Don’t you bring cheese into this,” I warned.

  “What about the register?” he asked, dark eyes shifting over my shoulder. “Shouldn’t someone be ringing up the transactions?”

  “Shayla’s got it.” I fixed him with a smug smile.

  “I don’t suppose just asking you to leave would be at all effective.” A familiar look of tired resignation overtook Abernathy’s features.

  “Has it ever been?” I asked.

  “About the council—” Mark began.

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” Joseph cut in.

  The wide, winged muscles of Mark’s back tensed beneath the starched white fabric of his tailored shirt. I felt an echo in my own gut. Where was Joseph going with this?

  “Your colleagues stopped into town,” Joseph said, “but when they learned I was here, they lit out of here like a couple of fireflies.”

  “What distinction do you own that would disrupt them so?” the dark-haired vampire asked, his eerie emerald eyes narrowed.

  Joseph held his hand out in invitation, thought neither of the vampires seemed the handshaking type. “Joseph Abernathy,” he said. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  The blond vampire’s eyes widened as he grabbed his companion’s wrist. “Do you know who this is?” he whisper-hissed.

  “The Big Bad Wolf, at your service,” Joseph said, executing a perfectly posh half-bow.

  I wasn’t sure who was more shocked in that moment. Me, or the dark-haired vampire. Our mouths sat agape in mirrored expressions of wonder.

  “Are you saying Little Red Riding hood was a true story?” I asked when I could manage words again.

  “Some of it,” he said, his eyebrows lowering in a conspiratorial expression. “Though they left out the best parts.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Like how Little Red Riding Hood and I—”

  “Enough.” Mark said. “This isn’t the time or the place, Joseph. Hanna, I need you taking care of our customers. Go.”

  “But I—”

  “Go,” Abernathy repeated. His eyes had gone as dark and hard as petrified wood.

  “Fine,” I huffed dramatically. “I guess I’ll be going.”

  The vampires acknowledged my departure with a nearly imperceptible nod.

  Pushing my way through the jostling crowd, I looked for some way to make myself useful among the chattering herd. It still amazed me how utterly oblivious most human beings were. Here in this small gallery, two supernatural species were within a hair’s breadth of ripping each other limb from limb, and people were discussing potty training and patio color themes.

  I’d been one of them, until recently.

  Someone grabbed my elbow and I whipped around, expecting to encounter another undead visitor.

  “Whoa! What’s with the crazy eyes, sis?” Steven Franke asked.

  “What did you call me?” I asked, my heart thumping a sudden erratic rhythm against my ribs.

  “Uh, sis? Isn’t that what all the cool kids are calling their lady friends these days?” he asked.

  “Right,” I laughed. “Of course. I knew that. What’s up?”

  “You look all pale and twitchy,” Steve said. “Something twisting your tail?”

  “Not something,” I said. “All the things. Between Morrison and his crotch jockey sleazing around the gallery and the vampires over there looking for a body that was in the trunk of my car earlier, I pretty much want to slam my head in a door until the lights go out.”

  “Why don’t you go take a break?” Steve suggested. “Just tell me where to find the receipts and I’ll take car
e of the register.”

  “Shit,” I said, remembering that I had meant to stop by the office supply store before I’d been derailed by the dead (re-dead?) vampire in my trunk. “Are we out?”

  “A little,” he admitted. “There’s just a couple customers waiting. It’s not a huge deal. Seriously. I can just write something up.”

  “No, I think I have another roll hiding somewhere. Just give me a sec.” On the way to the supply closet near the artists’ studios, I cursed Mark for insisting on keeping the brassy antique monster that squatted stubbornly on the oddities shop desk. Its abominable presence meant Shayla and I still had to write up receipts for every purchase by hand.

  Like that was even a thing that people did anymore.

  Opening the door to the crowded closet, I hopped back as an avalanche from the top shelf heaved toward me. The floor rattled as what sounded like bowling ball dropped at my feet.

  “What the hell?” I reached up and yanked the string for the single, naked bulb that illuminated the closet, and glanced down at a severed head, grinning up from my feet.

  Chapter 8

  “Why so jumpy?”

  Morrison’s voice sent a jolt of adrenaline singing through my veins. I barely had time to register the slim, headless body folded up like a lawn chair at the base of the shelves before I quickly toe-punted the head back into the closet and slammed the door.

  “Why so wasted?” I asked.

  “What was that?” Unfortunately, his habit of answering my questions with questions of his own hadn’t been washed away by alcohol.

  “What was what?”

  “What you kicked into the closet.”

  “Kickball,” I said. “Steve likes to play sometimes. Just to loosen up.” This was the chief advantage of having a brother of whom even the strangest things were believable. It came in remarkably handy when explaining away the even stranger truth.

  Morrison seemed to weigh this for a moment, then sagged against the wall, looking more like a wilting vegetable than a man at ease.

  “It wouldn’t kill you to lay off the sauce,” I said. “Just a thought.”

  The slackened muscles of his face struggled to arrange themselves into something like indifference. “Would you begrudge an officer a few drinks while he’s on leave?”