Fang and Claw

by Markie Madden

  “You mean a flashback?”

  “Something like that. About Greece.” She took in a sharp breath, as if anticipating what might come next. He went on to tell the story of watching his partner relive the sordid memory. By the time he was done, he could feel all his neck hairs bristling, and he quashed a desire to shake his entire body to rid himself of the eerie sensation.

  When he looked back over his shoulder at his wife, Colton could see the fright in her eyes. “Anyway, she thinks our guy is a Skinwalker.” He saw his wife shudder at the very mention; though not many had seen one, the legend of the Skinwalkers traveled through all the Immortal species. “I guess she’s seen one before, in Greece.”

  “Whoa,” Becca breathed. “I didn’t know they were more than legend.”

  “Yeah, evidently her leader, Aegon, had some dealings with one before, and called on it to help them out with their...situation. That’s when Greece came up.”

  “And she blames you for it?” Becca shook her head almost violently. “Doesn’t she realize that you aren’t old enough to have been involved in something that long ago?” Colton was amused that his mate was working herself into a righteous anger in his defense.

  “No, it’s not like that. I thought she knew.”

  Her eyes and mouth grew wide and round, and she brought a hand up to her face. “Wait, what? She didn’t know?”

  “She says she didn’t, and I believe her.”

  “Oh.” Becca grew very still, eyes wide, obviously pondering the implications.

  He untangled his long legs from the bed sheets, swinging his feet over the edge so he was sitting on the side of the bed. He ran his bare feet through the thick carpeting, making a furrow in the plush nap when moving in one direction and smoothing it out in the other. Finally, he just ran his fingers through his shoulder-length hair.

  As if to give him a moment to gather himself, Becca commented, “You’re needing a haircut again.”

  He shrugged, as it didn’t make any difference to him. Hair was hair. “I screwed up, Becca! I should have mentioned it right away, no matter what the commander said. But I was so callous about the incident, just talked about it as if it was no big deal. She must have thought that it didn’t bother me in the slightest. But I didn’t tell her right away, so now it’s almost worse!” He scrubbed his face with one large hand.

  He got up and started to pace in the dim light of the room. “I was such an idiot!” Furious with himself, he slapped his palm onto the top of the dresser with a sharp bang. Then, realizing what he’d done, Colton held his breath, listening for one or more of the children to start crying. When only silence and the soft sounds of the children’s breathing reached his ears, he returned to the bed, trying desperately to rein in the anger at himself that had his blood boiling.

  “I don’t understand.” She sat up on her knees and draped both arms over his shoulders, holding him tight to her. He was sure his tense muscles gave her an idea of the inner war raging inside him.

  “I kept something from her. I betrayed that sacred faith of one partner to another. You have to be able to completely trust the person going through the door with you, or you can’t do the job. I told her that I thought she was already aware of our connection, thought she hadn’t mentioned it because she wanted it that way.”

  “I imagine she doesn’t care to dwell on it.” She ran a soft hand across his back.

  “No, I wouldn’t either. But had I known, I would have found a better way to tell her.” He revisited the conversation they’d had in Lacey’s office. “I feel like I was an insensitive brute.” He admitted it with a low growl in the back of his throat. “I mean, it was so callous, the way I said it, she must think I don’t give a damn about it. And that’s certainly not true. I screwed up, big time.”

  “What did she do?” Her tone told him that Becca wanted to know, but wasn’t sure if she really wanted to know.

  “I’ve never seen her like that,” he admitted. “She was furious, but in a quiet way.” He saw Becca shudder, and felt the icy touch of fear run down his own spine. “She looked as if she was going to dump me off on the shoulder of the road. Hell, she probably wanted to. I’d have deserved it.” Again, he hung his head, ashamed.

  “Oh, but you didn’t know!” Becca left one hand against his tense back. Her calm touch soothed him.

  “That’s not the point.” His voice was flat. “She’s got to trust me implicitly, she has to know I have her back. Now she thinks since I kept this from her, even though not on purpose, what else might I keep from her? I should have just told her, orders or no orders.”

  “Honey, she’s probably just upset right now.” Becca tried to soothe his frayed nerves. She seemed to be trying to put herself into Lacey’s shoes, see the conversation as the other woman might have. “I think even though she’s upset about it now, she’ll come around. From what you’ve told me about her, she’s pretty reasonable. I can understand how she might feel, thinking that you intentionally kept something from her, but I bet she’ll come to realize that you spoke the truth.”

  “She said she couldn’t trust me, at least, not now.”

  Becca smiled. “Well, we say all sorts of things when we’re upset. She just has to work through it, you know? Give her some time. She’ll go home and maybe sleep on it. Do they sleep?” She seemed distracted by the question for a moment, then gave a small chuckle. “Let her have the time to think it over.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. When we got back to the house, she screamed at her aide, something I don’t think any of us have ever seen her do, not once. Personally, I’ve always wondered how she can stand to work with that man! I mean, Zombies don’t have much upstairs.” Becca swallowed a snicker. “But she demanded a meet with the commander as soon as possible.”

  “I wonder what that’s all about?”

  “She’s probably trying to get me transferred. It’s not like I care one way or the other where I work, but I was kind of enjoying working on the unit.”

  Becca leaned in to kiss him. “Try and put it out of your mind.” He gave her a wry grin. “Yeah, I know. Easier said than done.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said, glad now that she’d pushed him to talk about it. A sense of relief washed over him. “Well, let’s not talk about it anymore. I’ve got a better subject, since it seems like the kids are all sleeping soundly.” He leaned in and kissed her passionately, the scent of her familiar pheromones filling his nose. He could feel his arousal beginning.

  “What did you have in mind?” Becca asked in a teasing tone.

  “Come here, and I’ll show you.” And he reached over her to turn off the light.

  16

  “Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.” ~~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

  When Lacey woke the next morning, she discovered that she was a bit stiff from sleeping most of the night on her couch. Though the vampirococcus virus coursing through her blood gave her immortality, better senses, and rapid healing, it did not remove her human frailties. She still needed food, water, and a little sleep, and could still suffer a pulled muscle or stiff joints.

  She eased herself out of bed, using her yoga to stretch out and warm her muscles. Deep in her belly she could feel a craving, and though it was normal for her to consume blood only once a day, she went into the kitchen and prepared a glass. Yesterday’s ordeal had taken a lot out of her, if only emotionally. Any stress that triggered the fight-or-flight response, or a hyper-vigilance of her mind, created more tension in her body, and any kind of stress would cause her body to use up the essential elements in her sustenance more rapidly.

  After dressing for work, she left a brief message on the white board magnetized to the refrigerator for Leah, her part-time housekeeper. She was out of a few favorite food items, and knew Leah would have no problem running to the market for her. The older woman was familiar with her habits and desires. When she returned
to the house, Lacey would have a large supply of fresh foods.

  Rather than manually driving to the station, she set her car on auto. Subconsciously she was dreading going to work, and her usual trip through the busy streets would get her there much quicker than she wanted, and she wanted the time to think. The vestiges of last night’s horrible dream still lingered in her mind. It was the first time she had seen a face in her nightmares, and she was deeply disturbed that it had been Colton’s.

  While the brilliant sun began to burn away the early-morning mist, and her vehicle crept its way through the snarl of rush-hour traffic, Lacey’s thoughts strayed to yesterday’s conversation with Dr. Dilorenzo. After she’d given him the story from her perspective, he had mentioned that she carried a great amount of guilt and blame, blame she placed solely on herself. He said until she began to accept the reality that she was in no way responsible for her family’s death, she would not stop having the flashbacks and nightmares. She wondered what he would have to say about this last one.

  Knowing the shrink was probably right, she accessed her in-dash computer and sent him an email, requesting an appointment at his convenience, adding that it was not an emergency. She didn’t think it would make any difference to him that it wasn’t urgent; she assumed he would want to see her right away. She hoped she’d be able to put off the inevitable, at least for a couple of days, but suspected that Marcell would give her an immediate response. Even still, she had no real desire to get to work, knowing how badly she had treated her partner, and feeling more than a little embarrassed about the incident, though she had apologized to him. It just wasn’t like her, to be feeling so out-of-sorts.

  Long before she was ready, her vehicle signaled for her attention. Though it was possible for the computer to assist in parking the car for her, Lacey had programmed it to alert her when she was close to the police station so that she could park it manually. She never did trust the auto drive to park her prized sports car without scratching the paint or tapping the bumper into the concrete wall of the parking ramp. Having lived through times where the main mode of transportation was walking, then horseback, then cars, she had gotten used to doing things her own way.

  Lacey hadn’t even made it into her office when her phone chimed. Tugging it from a pocket, she scowled at the text message that appeared on the screen. 9am. Don’t be late. Dr. D. Knowing the futility of it, she didn’t even bother to curse. It seemed as if she would be facing her demons, in more than one way, much sooner than she would have liked.

  At least I can avoid one of those demons just a little longer, she mused as she passed by Colton’s station; he was nowhere to be seen. She wasn’t sure if she’d just gotten in before he had, or if he was making a concerted effort to avoid her. She wouldn’t have blamed him for it if he had chosen to avoid contact as much as possible.

  She put her shoulder bag on the small table and took her cup of chai tea to her desk. She booted up her laptop and gave it the task of digging up information on Skinwalkers, something she knew Colton had done the day before and come up empty. Family, she had none, and few friends to speak of. But she still had some “old world” contacts, as she liked to call them. These were people she thought of as acquaintances whom she’d kept in touch with over the years. She would reach out to them for any information they could remember; it was the only way she could think of to learn about a creature that no human living today had ever come into contact with.

  With that thought in mind, she typed up a cryptic email message, including all of her instincts and what information she could legally release to those not employed by the department, and sent it out to all the contacts she thought might have some first-hand knowledge of a Skinwalker. She sent it priority urgent, which she knew would flag this message as important for the recipients. She knew it might be a day or more before she heard anything back; many of these contacts were scattered across the globe and operated in a different time zone, or day, than her own.

  Her phone chimed softly again, giving her the 15 minute reminder of her scheduled appointment, and she squelched the urge to heave it into the wall. She’d been hoping that Colton would show himself before she was forced to leave the unit. She had wanted to take a brief moment before they got down to serious work to apologize once again to her partner. As it was, she wouldn’t even have time to check the case book to see if any new lab reports had come in overnight.

  Sticking her phone back into her pocket, she peeked out into the bullpen, still not seeing hide nor hair of her partner. With a sigh, she went around the corner to David’s cubicle. He seemed startled when she appeared at his side.

  “Let Colton know that I had an appointment,” she said once she was sure she had his full attention. “Tell him I put out some feelers to get some information that I hope will help the case, and have him check to see if the lab’s gotten anything new in for us.” She spoke slowly and clearly, knowing from experience how to deal with her aide.

  “You got it, boss.” His voice seemed even more gravelly than usual.

  She rolled her eyes. “What are you going to tell Colton?”

  “Um, you sent out some information that might help the case, and for him to check the lab.”

  Close enough, she thought with a weary sigh, wondering again why she didn’t just report David to the commander and have him reassigned. He could be just as useless in someone else’s unit! Pushing thoughts of work and the case aside, she hurried to the elevator, slipping into the narrow car just as the doors were beginning to close.

  Lacey had no idea what she was going to tell Marcell. Or, Doctor D, she thought with an amused snort. I bet he thinks that’s cute. We’ll just have to see about that! During their first meeting, Lacey wondered if Marcell would like to get to know her better, outside their workplace environment. She was certain that after hearing her sordid story, he would decide that she came with too much emotional baggage to be worth a personal relationship. However, she felt the casual manner of his text message hinted he may be considering the possibility.

  She shook her head. The last thing she needed was to be getting personally involved with anyone, much less someone she worked with. She’d spent the years since the death of her family finding subtle ways to keep people at arm’s length, if not more, and Lacey had become quite skilled at rebuking anyone who attempted to get closer than she liked. She had no doubt that, if it came down to it, she would be able to push away the slick and polished psychologist.

  Marcell’s door was open when she arrived, so rather than knocking, she just walked in and closed the door behind her. He was dressed casually today in a pair of khaki slacks and a navy polo shirt. He had been working on his computer when Lacey entered the room, and he looked up and greeted her with a warm and friendly tone.

  “Good morning, lieutenant.” He gestured toward his visitor’s chair. “Make yourself comfortable. I was about to make a fresh cup of coffee. You’ll have tea?” His tone indicated that he would accept no argument. She sat in the plush leather chair and steeled herself for the awkward ordeal she was about to face.

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  Colton was surprised to find that Lacey wasn’t at her desk. It’s already past shift start, I wonder where she went? He himself had been a bit late getting in, but only because he had stopped at the lab on his way in to see if they had processed any more of the evidence in their case. Linus had managed to make a partial match between the odd DNA cells they’d collected from under their first victim’s fingernails and the blood recovered from the scene of the bar fight.

  Linus still maintained that the blood sample was old, and pulling a full DNA profile from it might prove difficult. Privately, Colton wondered if the other man had just chosen not to give the information to him instead of Lacey. Everyone knows they used to go out. But, he reined in his anger before he worked himself into a real good mad. Then again, a little favoritism might actually help us.

  Colton could feel his frustration beginning to grow as more of
the evidence offered little in the way of answers, and often brought up more questions that seemed impossible to resolve. No matter how he looked at it, either as individual files, or putting all their cases into one, he couldn’t figure out a pattern. He booted up his laptop, and, rather than waiting for the laborious machine to warm up, took his coffee mug to the break room for a refill.

  When he returned to his desk, he discovered his computer displaying the blue screen of death, as it was known around the bullpen. He cursed loudly, sloshing coffee across the back of his hand. He just resisted the urge to slam the laptop shut. Heaving a huge sigh instead, he took his coffee with him and moved to an empty cubicle, where he was hoping he could access the case book. While he waited for that laptop to boot up, he contacted the IT department to report his dead computer.

  Seemingly an hour had passed by the time he was finished arguing with the nerd squad. Not only that, but Colton found that his mug of coffee had gotten cold. He ordered the aging laptop to pull up the case file, then went to the break room to refill the cup. When he returned to the empty cubicle, he began going over all of the data and evidence they had collected thus far. It seemed to be very little.

  However, VICAP had turned up something interesting. Colton dug his tablet out of his pocket and instructed the computer to beam the old case files to it so he could refer to it later. He was not surprised to find that the database had returned the old case file that he’d already pulled out of the library. But Colton was more interested in a second file that VICAP had returned, an unsolved case out of Louisiana involving a sexual assault with an aggravated assault tacked on after the fact.