Cooper nods along to my words. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I haven’t voiced my opinions yet. I guess…” He sighs. “I got comfortable being kind of bold at the DSI office, around people I knew and worked with every day. But over here, with all these distant acquaintances, most of whom are way older and more experienced than me, I guess I lost my nerve.”
I smile. “Hey, that’s understandable. Don’t beat yourself up.”
He gives me a flat stare. “You did not just say that to me. Not Cal ‘I cry when I can’t save everyone’ Kinsey.”
“Dude,” I say, drawing out the word, “low blow.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Am I wrong?”
I hold my tongue. Because there’s no point in answering. We both know he’s not wrong. I’m a self-sacrificing idiot who takes the weight of the world on my shoulders despite knowing it’s one day going to crush me like a bug. Depending on how you look at it, that’s either my biggest strength or my biggest flaw. Either way, it’s the reason I always end up in the hospital, and the reason I always end up in tears at the end of a major DSI investigation. Death, destruction, and devastation suck ass. They hurt my poor little heart.
Cooper adjusts his tablet to give me a better angle of him. “So, first day back. How’s Aurora?”
“Well, no one’s dying from the plague today.”
“An improvement.”
“And nothing’s on fire—that I can see.”
“A miracle.”
I take a big bite out of my sandwich and speak with my mouth full. “And the new DSI building looks like a freaking castle on the outside.”
Cooper looks impressed for a second. Then he narrows his eyes. “What about on the inside?”
I stick the straw for my soda into my mouth and slurp loudly.
“Cal,” he says, “you didn’t even go in, did you?”
“I can’t deal with it, Coop”—I chew on the straw—“those guilty looks they all give me. It was bad enough having visitors while I was downstate. I can’t imagine how smothered I’ll feel when surrounded by them, all those agents, people I know and people I don’t, tiptoeing around me like they think a loud sound will make me fall apart. They all act like they played some crucial part in my ‘downfall’ and they have to pay penance in the form of endless gifts and hushed murmurs and pitying smiles. I hate it. I fucking hate it.”
“I know you do.” Cooper smiles sadly. Not in a patronizing way, but in a way that shows he truly understands how I feel. He’s never said so, but I’m pretty sure he got treated the same way by most of his DSI acquaintances after being kidnapped and nearly killed in the Etruscan Underworld. Considering that most people thought Cooper was a weak, spineless archivist back then, his treatment might’ve even left him feeling worse than I do now. And I feel like a dog that got hit by a car and narrowly avoided being euthanized.
“But Cal,” he continues, “you’re going to have to face them all sometime. And it’s best to rip off the band-aid, you know. Do it fast. Storm in there and show them you’re still Cal Kinsey, the same brash, wise-cracking ass of a hero you were before. Force them to accept you’re not some kicked puppy who needs to be carefully petted. Demand the respect. Demand they treat you the way you deserve to be treated.”
I blink. “Like an…ass?”
“Exactly.”
“I’m sorry.” I set my sandwich down. “When did that become a compliment?”
“It’s not a compliment,” he replies. “You were looking for practical advice on getting everybody to treat you the same way they did before you got shot. If you want advice on a personality lift, you’ll have to pay me more lip service first.”
I gawk at him, offended yet also amused. “Damn, Cooper, tell me how you really feel.”
“I always tell you how I really feel.” He rests his chin on his hand, grinning. “Ever since that day I dragged your moping butt out of your apartment and forced you to go on a date with me. See, I learned my lesson, Cal, back during the convention center case. If I’m not blunt with you about the way I feel, you’ll steadfastly ignore every hint that I have strong feelings for you because you’re paranoid that you’ll screw up a relationship. So, yeah, I do think you’re an ass sometimes.” His grin widens. “A lovable ass though. And quite a nice ass too.”
I slap my hand over my face, a deep laugh rumbling in my chest. “You’re awful. I love you.”
Cooper’s blue eyes soften. “I love you too. And—”
A knock sounds off behind him. He swears and looks over his shoulder, calling out for someone to wait.
“Got to go?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He pushes his chair back from the desk where the iPad is sitting. “I have to review some test results from yesterday afternoon and then get started on several more lines of research based on what those results are. That’s why I’m up so early. Testing ran late yesterday, and if we don’t finish this stage by tonight, we’ll be behind on the overall schedule. Anyway…”
“I’ll see you later.” I pick up my sandwich again and wave it at him.
“You better.” He reaches forward to press the end call button but pauses. “And Cal, try to take it easy, will you? It’s your first day back in Aurora. Don’t go looking for trouble.”
“I never go looking for trouble,” I say. “It comes looking for me.”
He rolls his eyes. “Sure it does.”
The call ends, and the screen goes blank.
Ah, Cooper. I do love you. And I mean that too. I was so hesitant to let myself get fully attached to him in the first few months of our relationship, even when he was practically living in my apartment. I was so worried something would go wrong, and he’d be snatched away from me by some awful stroke of fate, or I’d die and leave him grieving, or a hundred other terrible things would happen. But I realized, that day in the storage room, when Cooper first told me he loved me, while he was in the process of saving my ass at the cost of his own, that I was being a pathetic coward.
If Cooper is willing to go the distance, let himself feel deep and potentially dangerous emotions for me, regardless of the consequences, then I owe it to him to be just as genuine. Suppressing my feelings because I’m afraid of them and the potential they have to hurt me and others isn’t an act of heroism or mercy or any other feel-good action I can cook up. In fact, the complete opposite is the heroic thing to do. Being honest. With myself. And with those around me.
And the truth is that I love Cooper Lee. In a dramatic, whirlwind, world-shaking, love-conquers-all sort of way? Perhaps not. But you don’t need any kind of epic love story to strike up a genuine romance with somebody. And you don’t need some raging bonfire of emotion to form a powerful bond. Sometimes, I believe, it’s the small, steady flames that burn the longest, and as a result, provide light when it’s needed most.
Okay, so I read that last line in a self-help book.
Sue me. I suck at relationships.
But I’m trying, all right?
Once I finish my dinner, I slip the iPad back into place in my bag. As I’m moving to zip the bag closed, my fingers brush something. A letter. My gut twists at the feeling of the grain of the paper, because I remember clenching it tightly, fingers crinkling the edges, as I read the message several times in a row after it arrived in my temporary mailbox downstate.
The letter is from Erica, and it describes her first few months under the “care” of Omotoke Iyanda, and the work she’s being pressed into at the behest of the High Court for her “indiscretions” in Aurora. Erica tried her best to sound, if not happy, then indifferent, making the most of her situation. But I could read between the lines. She hates being there. She wants to come home.
But she can’t. Because she helped me stop Delos, and in so doing, revealed herself as an associate of DSI outside the ICM’s purview. Now she’s being punished.
I lie back against the seat and sigh deeply, then glance at the time on the console. The sun is sinking low, but it’s not too late yet. I have time to
fulfill an obligation I’ve been unwillingly neglecting these past weeks. So I head away from my apartment, toward a neighborhood not too far from the half-built skeleton of what will someday be a new Wellington Center.
When I park, I don’t immediately get out of the vehicle. I observe the occult shop, windows dark, blinds drawn, no activity inside, with a keen eye, and search the surrounding streets for untoward witnesses. Finding nothing suspicious, I cut the engine, hop out, and walk over to the alleyway between the shop and the bistro next door. I stand at the lip of the alley for some time, waiting for, I don’t know, Lucian to show up and make jabs, or a body to fall from the roof, or a dozen other awful things that have happened to me in alleyways repeat themselves. But, of course, nothing happens.
It’s a slow day in Aurora.
That and nobody knows I’m back.
I mosey on over to the side door and slip Erica’s key from my pocket, then quickly unlock the door and enter the shop. I close the door and relock it behind me. Because I’m paranoid like that.
I carefully make my way through the little storage area next to the door and emerge into the expansive back room of the building, where Erica keeps all the real magic items. The merchandise in the front is just a collection of tourist-trap trinkets. Stuff like “mystic gems” and “power crystals” and “prayer stones” and harmless plants that’ll supposedly bring you good luck if you burn them under a full moon. You know the spiel.
The public face of the shop is a front that allows Erica to operate an easily located supplier for practitioners in Aurora. Oh, and a way for her to hide the sale of real magical items under the guise of fake stuff so that the IRS and Uncle Sam don’t give her the stink eye. The upper echelons of the federal government accept the existence of the supernatural underworld, but that doesn’t mean they have to like it. They’ve been known to hassle practitioners with legit magic-related businesses, simply because they can.
I find a light switch and flick it on, a soft yellow glow filling the room. Spread throughout the room are groups of burlap sacks stuffed with various dried plants, buckets filled with jewels that might well be priceless, hundreds of vials on dozens of shelves, each of them labeled in multiple languages, animal body parts floating in jars of questionable substances, daunting tomes bound with expensive leather and labeled in calligraphic gold leaf, and a bunch of other bits of paraphernalia I can’t even identify. I resolve to touch as little of it as possible. Because I don’t know what might blow up in my face.
Crossing to the other side of the room, I open a narrow door between two wooden shelving units to reveal a small closet. Inside are cleaning supplies. I grab a broom and dustpan, along with a rag, a Swiffer duster, and a can of furniture polish. Then I head out into the main room, switching on all the lights as I go, so I don’t end up knocking over one of those flimsy metal merchandise racks. After a quick look around to plot an efficient course through the room, I start to give the place a thorough cleaning, wiping up all the dust that’s settled in the three months Erica has been away in Europe.
Originally, I promised I would clean the store once a month, but I never got a chance to sneak back to Aurora during my therapy course. It was incredibly rigorous, several hours per day, and I wasn’t allowed to drive with one of my hands out of commission. So I was forced to let Erica’s shop sit abandoned, literally gathering dust, until I was released from care and given the green light to sit behind the wheel again. So even though it’s an odd time of day, almost night, really, to be cleaning a store, I feel an obligation to keep my word.
Erica got served a lot of shit for helping me. The least I can do is sweep her damn floor.
That bastard Delos better get his, I think as I polish off the shelves along one wall. Last I heard, Delos was in lockup, bound with spells from half a dozen High Court practitioners to keep him from exercising his mind magic while they interrogate him. Problem is, because Delos is so skilled at telepathy-related spells, he’s proving a tough nut to crack. He knows how to circumvent the magic he specializes in, how to protect his mind and the knowledge about the Methuselah Group contained within it. In the weeks they’ve been drilling into his brain, they’ve only managed to extract the smallest pieces of information. Nothing that’ll actually crack the MG like an egg. Nothing we need to beat these people.
Frustrated at the state of things, I throw myself into the cleaning, scrubbing and dusting and sweeping until my bad hand begins to ache. When I’m finished with the main room, I move into the back room and do a much more careful cleaning job, only moving things when I absolutely have to and making sure I put everything back where it belongs. Naturally, when I reach the last stretch of the room, a bookcase, I accidentally bump the middle shelf while bending over to polish the bottom shelf, and three books come tumbling down on top of my head.
“Ow!” I rub the back of my head—going to have a knot—and crouch to collect the fallen books. Surprisingly, they’re in English and not some obscure language, like most of Erica’s texts. I turn the top one around and read the title. Basic Magic for Beginners.
I snort. That sounds so much like a normal textbook. But then, why wouldn’t it? Practitioners learn magic just like they learn other subjects. Study and practice. Apprenticeship to mastery. Shrugging, I find the gaps on the shelf and place the books in the spaces where they fit. And finally, I finish cleaning the shelf.
Satisfied that the place isn’t dirty enough to spawn an infestation anymore, I replace the cleaning supplies in the closet, shut off all the lights, and head for the alleyway door again. At the threshold, I pause and look over my shoulder, surveying the dark shapes of all the objects in the shop, the unsettling quiet of a place that shouldn’t be quiet when I’m here. I remember all the times I’ve come here in the past, all the trips to pick up Erica when we were sleeping together, the times I brought her lunch, the times I stopped by to ask her questions about casework, questions she answered at her own risk—she always answered.
It’s not right that she isn’t here.
I step out into the alley and slam the door shut.
A minute later, I’m back in my truck, speeding home.
My apartment building hasn’t changed at all since I left, and I head upstairs to a familiar floor and shuffle down a familiar hallway to a familiar door. I find my key, sitting next to Erica’s in my pocket, unlock the door, push it open quietly, and peek inside. No hulking monster leaps out and tries to rip my face off, so I enter. I strip off my coat and hang it on the rack, then drop my backpack in front of the dresser in my bedroom. Home sweet home.
I head to the kitchen in search of a snack I can munch on while watching TV. To my utter lack of surprise, I find that my cabinets and fridge are both fully stocked with brand new food. Ella’s doing, at Cooper’s direction. I can tell Cooper had a hand in it because the stuff is different from the junk I normally buy but exactly the sort of food that lines the shelves of his walk-in pantry.
I’m a microwave dinners and greasy potato chips kind of guy. There are at least ten things in my fridge that have a vegan label on them, and much of the rest is fresh ingredients that I can’t nuke in five minutes or less. I do find a box of popcorn bags though.
I toss some popcorn in the microwave and hit the popcorn button instead of reading the instructions on the bag, then slink into the living room and hunt for the remote. I find it on the coffee table, which is the one place it almost never is. Suspicious, I examine the room closely. Not a speck of dust anywhere, and the couch cushions have vacuum lines on them. The blanket hanging over the top of the couch smells freshly laundered. I wonder if Ella cleaned herself, or if she made Desmond and Amy do it while she went grocery shopping. Now there’s an image. Amy vacuuming my living room.
Smirking, I reach down to pick up the remote…and somebody knocks on my door.
“Oh, crap,” I mutter, “they found me.”
Because it has to be my teammates, right? They got word I was freed from my therapy course today, ye
t haven’t heard a peep from me, so they put a watch on my apartment to alert them when I came home. And now they’re going to ambush me and force me to be social and refuse to let me mope in the peace and quiet of my lonely apartment.
Typical friends. What would I do without them?
I head back into the foyer. I don’t want to come off too subdued, even though I feel that way, so I throw up my best confident smile before I grab the doorknob. I yank the door open to reveal…not my teammates.
Standing in the hallway, with a gaping, bloody gut wound, intestines actually spilling out of his abdominal cavity—he’s holding them in his hands, ohmyfuckinggod—is a noble vampire, crimson eyes glazed and half lidded, face splattered with blood, hair matted with blood, entire body covered with blood, clothes soaked dark. He blinks at me for a couple seconds, as if confused, and glances at the apartment number on my door. He opens his mouth, blood dribbling down his chin, and slurs out, “Are you Cal Kinsey?”
Like an idiot, I say, “Uh, yeah?”
And, as if I just said the greatest words he’s ever heard, he smiles brightly and replies, “Good.” Then he tips forward and collapses against my chest.
Oh.
Great.
Chapter Two
I spend three hours cleaning up the blood. It’s a frantic, panicked race against time, me mopping up all the blood in the hall, a trail leading back to the stairwell—though strangely, it ends at the stairwell landing and doesn’t go up or down the steps—before somebody else on my floor returns home to find a bloodbath and calls the cops. When I’m done with that, I retreat into my apartment and clean up the rest of the blood: the puddles in my foyer, the streaks on the floor marking a quick trip to my bedroom with a half-dead vampire in tow, and lastly, the stains on my own clothes and body. I take a long, hot shower to wash that mess away. I throw the clothes in the trash. They’re ruined.
Day Killer (City of Crows Book 5) Page 2
