by Melody Raven
Derek’s bedroom was what she would expect from an overworked and underpaid cop. Small and sparse. The bed was just a full size, so there was enough room for a moderately sized black dresser that looked as though it was the pressed economy wood kind. The walls were the same cream-colored walls that the apartment probably came with.
It was strange to think that she lived right below him, but the apartments were so different. Sam saw the white t-shirt on the floor and slipped it over her head as she came out of the bedroom. The rest of the apartment was all one sort of multipurpose room, so she could see the entire kitchen and living area from the doorway. She assumed the only other closed door was the bathroom. Her own apartment had a similar layout, but the extra bedroom added a lot more space.
“Hey,” said Derek with a smile, which seemed very un-Derek-like. But she liked it. It looked good on him.
“Good morning.” Sam ran her fingers through her hair, wincing at the tangles. Since the shower she’d had after the extra disgusting experience with the darkness, her hair was freshly conditioned, but she really wished she had a brush close by.
“So I don’t have a lot of food, but there are at least five different types of granola bars and as much tap water as you desire. Unless you’ve decided to become a normal person and start drinking coffee like the rest of us.”
“Nope. I’m still rebelling against the man.” She looked at the spread of granola bars on the table. The corner of her mouth hooked up as she thought about Derek going through all the drawers and cupboards until he found as many options as possible.
“I hate to break it to you, but I am the man.”
“Then I suppose you’re the exception.” Derek’s work laptop and jacket sat on one of the two chairs at the table and Sam looked at the clock. Nine a.m. “Oh no, am I making you late?”
“I totally blew off a reception I was a main part of last night. If I delay going into work for an hour or two, it won’t make the day any worse.”
Although Sam admired his attitude to blow off work to spend time with her, she had a feeling he wasn’t quite so nonchalant about it. “I can take a granola bar for the road. I should be getting back to my apartment anyway. My phone is dead and I’ve probably missed twenty calls from my mom. She didn’t want me to leave Claudia’s last night.”
“I’m glad you did.”
Sam smiled at Derek’s brand of flattery. No beating around the bush. Just plain honesty. He was back in his black pajama pants, but because luck was apparently on her side this morning, he was shirtless. She smiled at the sight as she approached. “I’m glad I did too.” She closed the distance between them. Derek was leaning back against the sink and he set his hands on her hips.
“I’ve just had a horrible realization.” He leaned in until he was just a breath away.
“What’s that?” She pushed up on her toes until her nose touched his.
“You’re a morning person. I don’t think I can be with a morning person.”
“I can see your point.” Sam’s lips brushed against his as she talked. “But there’s a problem with your conclusion.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m not wearing pants. You wouldn’t throw a pantsless girl out on her ass, now would you?”
Derek’s hands ran down until he was tightly gripping said ass. “Guy who did that would be heartless,” he said as he finally kissed her. But it was all too short before he pulled away again.
“You have to go to work, don’t you?”
“Yes, but we’ll pick back up on this tonight. Nothing could keep me from you, okay?”
“Fine. I’ll let you be responsible for the day.” She pulled herself from his arms and she could feel his reluctance as he let her go. “But I’m going to be at the precinct as soon as possible, okay?”
“You don’t need to come into the office.”
“I promised I’d help with the leg thing. Besides, if you are in trouble, they’ll be less likely to ream you out in front of a Harris, remember? I’m your buffer.”
He raised a brow. “That’s one way of putting it.”
Sam was still smiling when the cab driver dropped her off in front of her apartment. It was stupid really. So she’d had one night of good sex. She needed to calm down and not spend so much time hoping to see Derek again. She should spend more time freaking out about what happened last night with the darkness.
But as she rode the elevator up to her level, all she could think about was Derek. Really, she’d ruined his suit last night. And it was a crappy suit to begin with. Would it be strange if she bought him a new one? If they weren’t sleeping together, she probably would’ve bought him a new one anyway.
Her family had caused him enough problems already without ruining his wardrobe too. So, no, it was perfectly reasonable to get him a suit. He was probably going to tell her hell no, but he needed a good suit.
Sam wondered when the last time was that someone had bought Derek anything. He didn’t seem like the easiest person to pamper. The doors opened and she fished out her keys from the pocket of the sweatpants. The spare key to her apartment that Claudia apparently had. Yet another thing on the list to worry about later.
The second she opened the door, she knew something was off. Sam couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but the air seemed heavier, denser. She softly shut the door and glanced around the room, looking for anything she could use as a weapon. Lamps and a decorative glass pumpkin.
No. She clenched her hand into a fist. She was supposed to be the weapon. She took a steadying breath as she tried to call the energy in the room to her. She could do this. She had the training and she knew she was capable. She just needed to stay calm and focused and confid—
“Sammy! Oh my goodness, I was so worried!”
Sam’s calmness flew away in a heartbeat at Heather’s loud squeal. She let out a sigh of relief. It was just Heather.
Her sister, who had appeared from the hallway where the bedrooms were, ran toward Sam and wrapped her arms around her in a tight hug.
Sam winced because she was still sore, but she returned the hug nonetheless. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you think I’m doing here? You almost died last night and then you insisted leaving Grandma’s in the middle of the night. I’m worried. No, that’s not the right word. I’m freaked, Sammy.”
“Yeah, I’m a little freaked too.” Sam pulled away from Heather’s tight hug. “Do you want something to drink? Tea or water?”
“Oh, no. I’m not staying. But I wanted a chance to see you.”
Sam frowned. Her first instincts hadn’t been mistaken. Something was wrong. “You just saw me.”
“Yeah, but I wanted a chance to see you alone.”
Which meant she wanted to say something she didn’t want Claudia to hear. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” said Heather, unconvincingly. “I just remember walking in and seeing you last night. It was scary. This isn’t supposed to happen, you know?”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen, but I survived.”
“No. I mean, we’re Harrises. We’re descendants of Claudia and Abigail. This cop, James Reyes, never should’ve gotten the opportunity to infect you.”
Sam finally picked up where her sister was going. “You think I should’ve prevented this.”
“I think that if you were stronger, things would’ve gone differently.”
“That’s a nicer way of saying the exact same thing.”
Heather sighed and set a hand on her hip. “Come on, Sam. You’ve been working with Claudia for how long now and what do you have to show for it?”
“I get it. I suck. What are you trying to say, Heather?”
Heather tightened her lips as though steeling herself for what she was about to say. “I think you should train with me instead.”
“What?”
“I know so much, Sammy. So much more than I used to. I know Claudia is strong, but we’re family. We should stick together.”
“I’m not choosing Claudia over you.”
“No, but she chose you over me. Can’t you feel what that’s doing? She’s driving a wedge between us. I don’t know why and I don’t know what I did to upset her, but it’s scaring me.”
Sam couldn’t deny that Claudia had chosen her over Heather, and it had confused the hell out of Sam too. Heather had always been more proficient and a faster learner. So when Claudia had offered to train Sam and effectively ignored Heather, more than a few people had been confused.
“Have you talked to Claudia about it?”
Heather shrugged. “Every time I try, she brushes me off. She said I don’t need her help.”
Which was probably meant to be a compliment, but everyone wanted Claudia’s personal attention. Everyone.
“I can try to talk to her—”
“No. No talking. Sammy, we don’t need her. If you want to learn how to harness your power, I can teach you everything you need to know. You don’t really want to be a sentry, do you?”
That hit home. She hadn’t felt comfortable working as a sentry at all. She’d assumed it was natural to have growing pains with a new job, but it was more than that. It was the constant feeling that she was unprepared for everything they faced. It was basically her following Bastian around and watching him work while she tried to not get in the way. The only contribution she’d made was having Derek do them some favors.
Sam rubbed her temples to try to calm the raging headache. She hadn’t eaten that granola bar yet, and her stomach started to grumble with hunger. “I’m glad you came over,” lied Sam, “but I’m not feeling too great. Can we talk about this later?”
“Yeah,” said Heather a bit too quickly. “Of course. I just want you to feel better.” Heather hugged Sam once more before she let go and headed to the door. “Take it easy today,” she said right before she left.
“Of course,” Sam got out before the door closed. Then she turned to look around the room. Now she needed to eat and get ready to go meet Derek. But she was probably going to get laid tonight, so that was taking it easy in some sense.
Derek had experienced bad days before, but none quite like yesterday. He’d managed to text Voss that he was still alive and okay, but he hadn’t returned any of the captain’s phone calls. He hadn’t had time last night until it was well past midnight, and this morning it seemed like a better idea to deal with all the shit in person.
He pushed open the doors to the precinct and nodded to the officer behind the front desk as he took the elevator up. He was pretty good at reading signals. He knew that once the elevator doors opened, there would be a sudden hush around the room. He was late, so Voss would’ve made the rounds and asked all the officers unlucky enough to be working on a Saturday if they’d seen him. And if Voss was looking for him, that meant he wasn’t answering his phone. Which meant everyone knew nothing good was coming.
Except when the doors opened, there was no hush. No one looked in his direction for any more than a quick hello before going back to work. Derek frowned as he glanced around, looking for any sign of the impending screaming that was about to happen.
But by the time he’d reached his office, he was thoroughly unnerved by how normal everything seemed. Because it was Saturday, some of the detectives were dressed casually in jeans, but Derek had worn his normal suit because he didn’t know whether he’d be out of the precinct today.
He saw the light on in Voss’s office and knew he was going to have to face the guy sooner rather than later. Sam would be a nice buffer, but he didn’t want to put her in that situation. He’d made the decision to leave the reception and he was going to face the consequences.
He took a deep drink out of the coffee in the traveler’s mug he’d brought with him and strode over to Voss’s office. Except instead of screaming immediately, Voss just smiled. “Morning, Pierce. How’s the leg case going?”
“The leg case? That’s what you want to talk about?”
Voss’s brows drew together. “That’s the case the mayor wants to be closed yesterday, so, yes, that’s the case I want to talk about.”
“What about yesterday?”
“Yesterday you were also working on the leg case and, if memory serves, you got nowhere.”
Derek shook his head. “I closed off some dead ends.” Finding out where not to look was progress in its own way. “But you don’t want to talk about the reception?”
“The reception that the mayor was breathing down my neck to get the leg case solved? What the fuck is the problem, Pierce? Are you going to get to work or stand in my office all morning?”
“Work. I’ll choose work.” Derek turned around and went directly to the cubicle right across from Voss’s office. “Hey, Cooper,” he said as he looked over the wall.
Cooper barely glanced up from the papers he was looking through. “What’s up, Pierce?”
“Has anyone been to see Voss this morning?”
“I’m not Voss’s babysitter.”
“I know. But anyone who... caught your eye?”
Cooper set down the pile of paper and glared at Pierce. “One guy. Black suit. Seemed like he could be a government drone.”
Yep. Claudia had sent someone here to wipe Voss’s mind. Damn it. Derek pushed away from the cubicle after a rushed thank-you and made his way back to his office. Once he was back in his chair, he ran his hand over his face. The coverup had started and there was nothing he could do about it. He should be happy that his job was safe, but it didn’t comfort him.
Did they visit everyone who was at the reception? And if they got to Voss already.... He powered up his computer and his thumb banged against the top of the desk as he waited for it to load. “Come on, come on, come on,” he muttered. As soon as it was on, he went through his emails until he found the one that had Reyes’s address. It wasn’t far away. A low-cost apartment a few blocks over.
Derek knew something was wrong the second he pulled up to the apartment building. He parked the car right in front of the building, which wasn’t illegal if he was in the course of an investigation. The front door was held open by a stand-up ashtray, and when he walked into the bottom landing, Bastian was coming down the stairs. “I figured you’d show up,” he said.
“Where is Reyes?”
Bastian didn’t seem as though he was annoyed by the sharp question. “Upstairs. Come on.”
There was an elevator, but Derek didn’t complain as they went up the five flights of stairs. The second Derek got into Reyes’s apartment, he shook his head and bit back a curse. “What did you do?”
“He was like this when we got here.”
Reyes was lying dead, right on the other side of the door. Derek couldn’t tell the cause of death just from looking at him, but he was surrounded with the black inky discharge that had infected Sam last night.
“You’re telling me that you just stumbled on this guy dead?”
Bastian had his arms crossed over his chest as he regarded the dead man in the room. “I was coming here to kill him. I wouldn’t lie about it. Your justice system can’t do anything to me.”
Derek shook his head and rubbed at the back of his neck. “I don’t like you.”
“It keeps me awake at night,” said Bastian dryly. “I think I know who did this, though.”
Derek was already there. “Whoever was working with Tommy Collins. Reyes was a byproduct or some shit, right? He wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“The person working with Tommy was a witch trying to gain more power. James Reyes was trying to kill witches. Not exactly compatible.”
“So what do we do? How do we find this guy?”
Bastian glanced over at Derek. “There is no we. This is family business.”
“That’s a dead cop in front of you. This is my business too.”
“After last night, I suggest you keep your head down for a while. Claudia doesn’t like strangers poking around her business.”
“I don’t like magical creatures p
oking around in my coworkers’ heads. We all have burdens to bear.”
Bastian moved closer and Derek tensed, ready to pull his gun if he needed to defend himself. But Bastian didn’t strike out. Instead, he leaned in and lowered his voice. “Claudia let you live as a favor to Sam. Her patience is running out. If she sees you as a threat to her relationship with her granddaughter, she will treat you accordingly. And Claudia doesn’t allow threats to last long.”
“I’m not afraid of her.” He made a career out of going after people who were used to everyone cowering away. He was the one who refused to back down.
Bastian smiled and nodded. “I know you aren’t afraid. But it’s fear that can keep you alive. Just remember, there’s a reason Claudia is where she is, and she’s left a trail of blood behind her. She won’t hesitate to take care of you as well.” Bastian patted Derek on the shoulder as he moved out of the apartment. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he called before he left Derek standing alone in the rancid room.
His phone beeped and he looked down to see that Sam was on her way to the precinct. He’d need to go back to meet her. He took the chance to look around the room. But this was unlike any investigation he’d done before. The door looked as though it had been kicked in, but he didn’t know whether Bastian had done it or the guy who killed Reyes.
But a witch didn’t need to kick down a door necessarily. They could just wiggle their nose and get inside. After taking out the one latex glove he had in his jacket pocket and slipping it on, Derek gingerly reached over the puddle of black goo and got Reyes’s phone. He turned it over in his hand, but it was locked. Maybe he could get Christine to give him the code, but he was willing to bet that whoever killed Reyes didn’t know him.
He knew that the second he walked out of the apartment, Bastian would start cleaning the entire scene. By the time Sam’s family was done with the place, Reyes would probably barely be a memory.
Derek went into the kitchen, where the smell was worse than where Reyes lay dead. There was rotten food on the table and counter and piles of dirty dishes. It was looking as though the darkness had a much bigger hold of Reyes than he ever knew. Bastian probably wasn’t going to let him stick around long enough to get prints. Instead, Derek pulled out a Ziploc bag and dropped the phone inside. This might be the only piece of evidence he’d get.