by Gina LaManna
“What was that?” Marcus retorted. “I got you in here, didn’t I?”
“You didn’t have to put your hands all over me.”
“Are you worried Matthew’s going to find out?”
“How often do you have to hang around Silver Street to be considered a VIP?” I shot back. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
Marcus raised his chin in defiance. “Like you said, I’m a regular. I know Damien and Bran, the managers. I’m just here for a night out on the town.”
“Right.” I waited for Marcus to pass through the hallway first, and out onto the dance floor. “And you had no clue that I’d be here?”
“I told you, DeMarco—I’m not sitting this one out. You and King can pillow talk all you want, but I’m getting that promotion.”
“If you still think this is about a promotion, you’re horribly mistaken.”
“Exactly, Detective. It’s about catching a murderer. Which means the more the merrier, wouldn’t you agree?” Marcus said. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
He did have a point. Seeing as I wouldn’t have gotten inside Dust without his help, I could probably refrain from elbowing him in the nose as a sign of gratitude. Thanking him would be a near impossible task, so I settled for a silent truce.
“Where are you coming from, anyway?” Marcus asked. He sized me up, taking a little too long to cover the distance from my hips to my chest. “You certainly didn’t wear that on Dust’s behalf, unless you’re trying to impress a certain captain.”
“Shut up, Marcus.”
“Let me guess, you’ve got a gun and a badge on your body,” he said, his eyes lingering once again. “But for the life of me, I can’t guess where.”
I felt my fist itching, easing away from my body in preparation for a swing. I knew I shouldn’t let him provoke me, but the detective was working incredibly hard to push every one of my buttons. It didn’t help that I felt an annoying sense of gratitude for his help in getting past the bouncer—a fact that truly had me conflicted about sending my fist flying into his face.
Luckily, a cool hand, strong as steel, circled my wrist before I got any ideas about finishing what I’d started.
“Good to see you two getting along,” Matthew said softly, yet still somehow audible despite the club’s thumping music. The vampire’s eyes roved over my face, fastening for a long moment on my lips, where I had recently added a touch of blood-red lipstick.
“I’m just here to help.” Marcus raised his hands innocently. “Detective DeMarco was struggling to get inside, so I gave her a hand.”
I scowled at Marcus and wriggled my way out of Matthew’s grasp. “That part is true, but it doesn’t explain why he’s here in the first place.”
“I happened to be passing by,” Marcus said smoothly. “I know Bran and Damien, so it was no problem to help Dani inside.”
“I see,” Matthew said. “Thank you. Enjoy your evening.”
“Absolutely, Captain.” With that, Marcus slid away and entered the throbbing mass of people on the dance floor. He had his arm around a blue-haired pixie less than thirty seconds later, her mouth on his neck as they disappeared into the dancing throng of people.
“Ew,” I said, tearing my eyes away.
“Danielle—”
“Matthew, you know he’s not here on his own time,” I said. “He came here to interfere with the case—”
“Danielle. You both work for the precinct. You’re going to have to learn to play nicely.”
It sounded like a command, and on second thought, I realized it was.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Anyway, what’s so urgent? I was practically on my way when you called.”
A dark expression flickered across Matthew’s face, appearing involuntarily and causing me to take a second look at him. He averted his eyes for just a second, just long enough to realize I wasn’t the only one feeling angsty this evening.
“Oh,” I said. “You didn’t need me here urgently—you just wanted to check on me during my date.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Matthew finally admitted. “I needed a partner.”
I glanced down as Matthew stretched out a hand toward me. Realizing his intentions, I shook my head. “Oh, no.”
“Come on, Detective—”
I shook my head firmly and crossed my arms over my chest. “Not a chance. I am not dancing with you.”
“We have to blend in.”
“Well then, I’m going to head to the bar and get a drink and blend in like a pro,” I said, “because I told you, I don’t dance. You’ve known me for years, and that is one thing that is never changing.”
“Then it’s a very good thing I’ve had centuries to practice,” Matthew said. “You just have to follow my lead.”
“This isn’t eighteenth century ballroom dancing,” I said, watching a gyrating group of goblins perform something that looked like a feat of gymnastics in front of me. “There’s no way I can... there’s no way my body can do that.”
Matthew raised an eyebrow. “I’d beg to differ, Detective.”
Maybe Matthew had a point. Over the last several years, he had managed to get me into several quite interesting positions, but that was then, and this was now. We were also in public. And on the job.
“A huge no,” I said again. “That’s final.”
“Suit yourself,” Matthew said. “But it’s either me or someone else, so good luck fending for yourself.”
“You don’t even want to know where I have my gun,” I said. “I can handle it.”
“Good luck.”
I rolled my eyes and stomped in the direction of the bar. Unfortunately, it didn’t take more than a minute before I was intercepted by someone who appeared to be part giant—my assumption based on sheer mass alone. The unfortunate suitor stepped in front of me, his hair a brilliant shade of red, glittering with some sort of magical incantation under the lights.
“Dance?” The man smelled like ketchup and had a beard down to his chest. His muscles looked like they’d been drawn on by a cartoonist.
“No, thanks,” I said, and tried to step past him.
He stepped closer. “Come on, just one dance. Pretty thing like you can’t be sitting here alone.”
My hands slid down my hip, inched dangerously close to the gun I’d tucked there. One quick stun in the middle of the club and probably no one would notice.
But my plans went south the moment stony fingers landed again on my shoulders.
“She’s mine,” Matthew said, in a deadly lilt to the red-head.
A hint of his fangs glinted out, descending halfway. It took only a few seconds of frustrated eye contact before the giant eased away and left me in Matthew’s grasp.
“Like I said,” Matthew said with a satisfied smirk. “One dance, Detective.”
Grumbling and groaning, I let myself be led onto the dance floor. As soon as we reached the center, I was elbowed from behind, shoved from the side, and stomped on by the teeming mass of people until I found myself smashed directly against Matthew’s chest. Like magic, my arms flew up and latched around his neck, holding on for balance. Matthew’s eyes gleamed with amusement as his hands came down to fix behind my waist.
“I halfway expected to feel a gun, Detective,” he murmured, his voice silky against my ear. “I can’t imagine where you’ve stashed it if not here.”
“Somewhere you won’t be touching.”
“Did the wolf get a chance to find out?”
I stomped on Matthew’s foot. It didn’t hurt him, but he got the picture.
“You look beautiful,” Matthew said, and his voice was suddenly quiet, tender. It was as if the music had softened around us, leaving us in a private bubble, a fragile little globe in which we could only see and hear one another. The pulse of music wrapped around us. The hot mass of dancers seemed to give us a bit of space, a little room to breathe.
“I’m sorry,” Matthew said. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
&nbs
p; “No, it’s fine,” I said. “Er—thank you, I mean.”
“Dani,” Matthew said urgently. “I know this isn’t the proper time or the place, but I’ve been thinking about what you said the other night and—”
“Matthew,” I said, “not now.”
I felt suddenly overwhelmed, as if everything was too much. The music. The beat. The swarming mass of people. I was falling into a state of overload, my senses churning at full speed. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t hear myself. Could hardly breathe. All I could sense was Matthew’s long, hard body pressed to mine and his fingers, cool, tender, solid, pressing against the bare skin on my back.
I couldn’t miss how well we fit together, how smoothly we joined into a team. His voice in my ear was calm, comforting, and I wanted to stay there all night. If he was going to say what I expected him to say, it would ruin me, and I couldn’t allow that to happen. Not here. Not now, when we had other, larger problems on our plates.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Matthew started again. “And—”
“Matthew, look!” I hissed, nodding over his shoulder.
I glimpsed movement behind him, and while I couldn’t say exactly what felt wrong, the situation most certainly wasn’t right. There was a commotion—a woman, a man... something was wrong.
“Matthew, we have to go. Now,” I said. “I think something is happening over there.”
Matthew turned, though he didn’t lift his hands off me for a second. If anything, he held me closer, my chest against his, my arms wrapped around him. We were entangled as one as he looked, scanned for danger and pressed his hand against my lower back.
“Do you see Damien or Bran?” Matthew asked. “I can’t pick them out.”
“No, but we have to go after her. The blonde elf.”
“I’ll pursue her directly,” Matthew said. “You loop around the back. If Damien or Bran are involved, they’ll likely be shepherding her through their private offices before the kidnapping.”
I gave him a brief nod, and with that, we were pulled apart and thrust into the chase.
UNFORTUNATELY, I DIDN’T make it far, and neither did Matthew.
The club had been aptly named Dust, and in that moment, I discovered why. As the deejay dropped a hearty beat, wailing with bass and frantic, manic thumps of whatever this club called dance music, the ceiling exploded. Dust rained down in all shapes, sizes, colors, and sparkles. Like confetti, but finer, stickier, more compact.
I stopped moving at once as shrieks of wild joy and desire rose from the dance floor. Bodies writhed and moved against one another. Sweat and glitter and dust coated every inch of bare skin. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, and I was willing to bet even Matthew, with his ridiculous sense of sight, couldn’t make his way through the crowd.
The deejay, I realized with a snap. I began sprinting toward the source of the music. The dust pouring down was the perfect cover for a snatch and grab. The lusty dancers would be so invigorated by the beat of the music, the ethereal burst of glitter descending from the heavens and cloaking the dance floor in blissful blindness, that nobody would notice any sign of a struggle.
Either the deejay was involved, or he’d been paid off, or it had been sheer coincidence and good planning on the part of the kidnapper. I doubted a smart kidnapper would rely on luck, chance, and random timing, so I moved my legs faster until I reached the deejay booth.
A man stood there, dreadlocks in his hair, eyes closed as he swayed to the music. Two turntables stood before him, spinning, electricity whizzing from his fingers as he plucked at invisible strings to control the sounds permeating the room.
I reached for one huge headphone and snapped it hard against his ear. “Who paid you off?”
“What?”
I couldn’t hear the response. I could only see his mouth part in confusion as he shouted at me. The music was all encompassing from this close to the giant speakers. I grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen and wrote: Who paid you?
The man didn’t even flinch. I guessed him to be part troll, part human, judging by the burliness of his features and the slowness to which he responded to my inquiry. I doubted the meaning had sunk in.
I glanced down at the floor as the dust settled, but neither Matthew nor the woman and man in question could be seen. As I turned my attention back to the deejay, I caught sight of a small envelope with a time written on the edge of it.
I picked up the envelope, glanced at my watch, and saw the time matched down to the minute the dust had begun to fall. That’s all it took to answer my questions. The kidnapper had paid off the deejay to dump the sequins and sparkles and confetti from the ceiling as a cover up for his plans. He’d have herded his target out of the club by the time the dust had settled.
I grabbed the deejay by the collar and pushed him against the back of the booth. “Who gave you this envelope?”
He shrugged. “It was there when I came on stage.”
“What time did you come on stage?”
“Dude, I’m Ricky Rick—the headliner. I came on at midnight.”
“You didn’t see who left this?”
“No way,” he said. “I’m just dropping beats. I thought it was some guy wanting to get groovy with his girlfriend or whatever.”
“Well, it wasn’t,” I said. “I’m Detective DeMarco, and I’m taking this. If you remember anything, you let me know. I’ll be back to ask more questions later.”
“Ricky Rick will do that,” the deejay said, still completely unfazed. “Ricky Rick’s gotta get back to work, Detective Hottie.”
I let him go with a disgusted scowl, catching sight of his bloodshot eyes. The guy was blitzed on something, and I highly doubted he’d remember anything that happened this evening at all. I doubted he’d even miss the envelope stuffed with cash that I’d confiscated as evidence.
I tucked the envelope next to the bangle in my dress and jogged toward the nearest exit for the club—the one closest to where Matthew had been headed when the dust dropped.
I pushed the door open and found myself in a dimly lit back alley, empty save for the shadows lurking next to over-stuffed trash cans and various junky items that accumulated in deserted backstreets.
A woman’s shriek came from my right. I launched into a sprint without thinking and, a few seconds later, skidded around a corner to find a woman with blond hair and wild, panic-stricken eyes staring straight at Matthew.
“Don’t touch me,” she murmured. “I have a daughter, a little girl...”
Matthew looked at me and nodded. The signal for me to take over.
“It’s okay, ma’am,” I said. “I’m a cop—Detective DeMarco—and I’m here to help. What’s your name?”
“He’s a vampire!” she shrieked, pointing at Matthew. “Arrest him—his fangs!”
“He’s a cop, too,” I said, raising my hands. “He won’t hurt you, I promise.”
“You’re in this together!” The woman backed away, but she was cornered. The second her back hit the brick wall, her face went pale as blood drained from it.
I waved Matthew away, and he took a step back. I inched closer, my arms raised in a sign of a truce. “I just want to help you—”
“Lisa,” Matthew supplied. “I heard him call her Lisa.”
“Lisa,” I finished. “We’re here to help you.”
In an interesting turn of events, Lisa went stock still. She dropped her hands to her sides, closed her eyes, and waited. I hesitated, wondering if she’d gone into some sort of paralysis, some sort of nervous breakdown. Her eyelids fluttered as if she were dreaming, and the pain and terror in her expression filtered away.
“Is she under a spell?” I asked, glancing at Matthew. “I don’t recognize it.”
Her eyes flickered open and she looked at us through gleaming silver pebbles. It was as if a light shone through her very core, bursting through her eyes, streaming from the tips of her fingers in ten tight little concentrated bursts of light.
&nbs
p; “No,” Matthew said quietly. “I think this is her magic. Whatever’s happening, she’s in control of it.”
Before I could theorize further, the crunching of carriage wheels barreling through the streets reached us. The sound was out of place and jarring. Carriages didn’t normally travel down back alleys in this part of the district.
I cocked my head to listen, but before I could decipher where the carriage was coming from, Lisa glanced at me with her eerily backlit eyes, and then dove toward the side. She landed, crouched in the corner of the alley, seconds before the brick wall behind her burst into shambles.
I recognized the signature explosion of a Crushing Curse—a spell meant to destroy anything in its path—as pieces of bricks pummeled in every direction. Things seemed to move in slow motion after the resounding crack sent my eardrums ringing and the brick shattered into pieces and sailed through the air in every direction.
The space where the brick wall had stood moments before was now wide open. Behind the gaping hole was a midnight black horse with a carriage attached. Its driver wore a cloak, his face not visible through the thick shroud of smoke.
My attention was drawn downward as a thump sounded on the ground. Matthew’s arms crunched around me simultaneously as he rolled us toward the side of the alley and out of the carriage’s rampage.
We landed hard against the cement, the wall shuddering as Matthew’s back slammed into it. I didn’t feel a thing. He had me cradled in his arms, so I was left completely unscathed. I quickly wriggled free of his grasp, my eyes focused on the bundle that’d fallen to the ground.
The driver of the carriage raised a fist and let out a cry of anguish. Lisa was nowhere to be seen. She’d escaped. The driver turned the horse and carriage around and, with the crack of a whip, disappeared from view.
“Lisa got away,” I mumbled, hauling myself to my feet. “But how? Where’d she go?”
Matthew quickly scanned the rubble of the alley—the broken wall, the retreating carriage, the bundle of blankets on the ground that was now, I realized, undeniably in the shape of a body—and shook his head. “I don’t know.”