by Lauren Dane
“Feel? There was a lot of blood and brain matter. The smell, as you know, was strong. Emotions like fear, rage, death were everywhere.” China shrugged like it was no big deal. But the sneer in her tone got Rowan’s back up.
She should have known better than to expect professional courtesy.
“Certainly. But when you happen upon a murder scene with paranormal elements, doesn’t it occur to you that the root causes might be different than a normal human crime? This wasn’t a run of the mill home invasion.”
“My Scion told me to go. I went. By the time we arrived, the human was dead and whoever had done it was gone. As you can plainly see in the notes. Are you finished? I have real work to do before the sun rises.”
“So you didn’t think about this being very different from a home invasion? As for your needing to deal with real work? This is part of your work. Dealing with other law enforcement outside your particular sphere.”
“How do you know?”
Rowan simply looked at her and then noted the way China’s gaze kept going to the ring Clive had given her. “It’s interesting just how resistant you’re being. Is there a reason for that?”
“You’re cross-examining me, not asking for professional courtesy.”
Rowan thought that over and shrugged. “I’m blunt. This isn’t a cross-examination, but I do have questions and when you go out of your way not to answer them, it makes me suspicious. If you’re as good at your job as Clive thinks you are, you’d know that already. Which means you’re doing this on purpose to mess with me. Which also makes me suspicious because it makes me think about all the whys behind that.”
She let that hang in the air between them a bit before she went back to the topic at hand.
“Do you ever work with witches or mages on investigations?” Rowan asked her, looking up from the pages on the table.
“Sometimes.”
Rowan sighed and leaned back. “Look. I’m in the middle of something right now, so I don’t have the time or the inclination to play Vampire games with you. I don’t want to spend an hour just getting one question answered because every word means I have to jump through hoops.”
“What does that mean? You asked a question. I answered it. Truthfully.” A smirk as China leaned back in her chair, mirroring Rowan.
Three years this dumb cow knew Rowan and still thought she could win at this back-and-forth stuff?
Being a bitch was Rowan’s jam. Sure, the Vampire across the table was a hundred and a quarter or so. She’d had more time to hone her bitch game.
But Rowan was a natural. Raised by the meanest, craftiest motherfucker on the planet. She was a gold medal champion at cutting basic Vamps who thought they could best her.
“It means when I ask you a fucking question I expect you to answer it completely. You know I was asking about witches because the magical aspects of the crime are glossed over in this report. So the one word response was typical Vamp mind fuck bullshit and I don’t like it from an ace like your boss so I certainly don’t want it from a dumb twat who calls herself China and normally dresses like an extra in a Blade movie.”
This time China’s emotions that had been locked down so admirably slipped as all those barbs rained down on her head.
“I don’t work for you,” China said through teeth clenched tight.
“If you did, you’d be better trained or I’d tie you to an ant mound and wait for the dawn for your insolence and incompetence.”
“You dare insult the Scion?”
“I’m insulting you. You’re in charge of his security. Your flaws and failures are his. But have no fear, I’ll be telling him to his face instead of knowing he’s eavesdropping on the other side of that door.”
Surprise ran through the bond between them. Just a thrum to let her know he’d been caught. Enough to fill her with momentary tenderness even as she knew his nosy ass had been listening in because he was a control freak and also because she’d have been doing the same in his position.
“Enlighten me then on just exactly how we’re flawed when it was your servant who got killed as you watched. Your wards weren’t strong enough. Your physical security allowed intruders.”
“Well, China, oh for Goddess’s sake, what is your real name? I get the whole oh she’s fragile and blond so she’s like china origin story or whatever. But it’s stupid and I can’t take myself seriously for calling you that. And then I’ll enlighten the fuck out of you.”
The Vampire’s lip curled into a sneer. “Vulgar bitch. I’ll never understand what he sees in you. I wanted to take you out back when we first arrived but he saved you from me.”
Rowan stared into her eyes, letting her know she had no Vampy powers that would work against her like that.
“I can just make up a name if you prefer,” Rowan said and then realized how much fun that would have been. Especially after all those comments tossed out to bait her. Some very close to home. The truth hurt like a bitch sometimes.
“Hester? Cissy? Gertrude?” Rowan took a deep breath and smiled, truly pleased. “No, not a given name. I think something descriptive, since you seem to like that. Horse face? You have really big eyes. Like one of those dolls. Precious Moments. Yeah, that one.”
“You may call me Patience,” she said at last when it became clear to her Rowan could insult her until the dawn finally stole her consciousness and still toss them all day long.
“Patience is way less snotty, though I was partial to Horse Face.” Rowan shrugged. “So, Patience, back to your enlightenment. Which actually segues into my investigation and why I’ve been asking you for specifics. So listen up and try to learn something because I’m multi-tasking.
“My wards are pretty kickass. You know that as you’ve been there enough times. Wards, as you should know, can be easily purchased, but the more you pay, the higher the quality of the protection and the practitioner. I assure you I paid a great deal of money to a very powerful witch.”
Rowan settled into teaching mode. These Vampires were charged with protecting Clive and they needed better training. If she focused there, she could get past not punching Patience’s horse face for being such a foot dragging dumbass. If she wasn’t the leak, she was a good lieutenant, but she needed to be better. Needed to want to be better.
But there was more there between the two. More than Rowan being a Hunter and not a Vampire. More than Rowan killing Vamps Patience had known. Whether it was Patience having a chub for Clive, or feeling he should stick to Vampires instead of wasting his precious dick on a human, it was an additional factor Rowan needed to work around.
Rowan continued, “As for the physical security? That was also impressive. Another thing you should have seen in all the trips you’ve made to my place. Multiple redundancies and backups and yet, it all went down but for the power in Carey’s room. Power, video and audio surveillance, network auto lockdown all went out. They breached two elevators, keypads, numeric and voice print codes and got into my apartment. Through the wards that were, as you recall, titanium quality.
“Whoever breached both had help. Magical help.”
Patience sneered. “Which was pointed out in the notes. Was I mistaken in my assumption that you could read?”
“Slow your roll because here’s where I’m going to circle back to why I asked you the questions I did earlier on. If you’d had a witch on retainer, you could have known exactly what kind of magic was used. Maybe even by who or what type of lineage. Different magic users have different ways of doing their thing. That’s something that could possibly identify who it was or at the very least give us leads in the right direction. Now I’ll bring in a witch to do the work after the trail is gone cold.”
“That’s your problem, not that of the Vampire Nation. You want us to do your job for you now too?” Clearly, Patience resented all the trouble poor innocent Clive had gotten into since Rowan had
come into his life.
Rowan sipped her coffee and bet Alice had given her decaf. “As if you had the skills to do my job for twenty minutes much less day to day. Let me use small words and go slow so you can pick it up. It appears to have escaped your notice that Vampires as well as humans have been attacked by these sorcerers. In Venice, your brethren died. Worse, we’re being set upon one another to keep us busy bickering while they have the field to themselves. Not all witches are the enemy, which is why we need to be working with them. We need to understand what is being used against us so we can fight back. This is basic stuff, Pat. I don’t know why I have to explain it to you.”
“I don’t need lessons from you.” Again her eyes dropped to Rowan’s ring.
Rowan snorted. “Your work is sloppy and you’ve got no articulable excuse. You’ve had a lot longer than I have to learn this stuff and you’re appearing to miss elemental building blocks of an investigation. You serve the Scion of North America and he deserves more than half-assed bitchery because someone else got the boy you wanted.”
“He’s not a boy.”
Rowan laughed. “No kidding. I mean, in case I’m being too subtle, I know because I’ve enjoyed his man parts many, many times. And you haven’t. Which sucks for you and all, but it suits me just fine. So. My problem here is manifold. Because despite your apparent laziness, you don’t strike me as dumb.”
“You have no call to question my job performance,” Patience hissed.
“I have all the call!” Rowan slammed her fist on the table hard enough to make Patience jerk back. “As I said, these people who murdered my friend had help breaking through my security.”
“Magical help. How is that my fault?”
“Stop being stupid! These sorcerers were in your city for at least two weeks casing my building. They got information only an insider would have. It wasn’t just the magic done, but the hole punched through my protections was made possible by a leak within the Vampire Nation.”
Patience stood, her chair hitting the wall at her back with the force. Rowan didn’t move as she kept all her attention on the pissed off female across the table.
“Are you accusing me of betraying my Scion?”
“I’m saying someone here, in this building, with access to Clive and me gave critical information about me and my security to those who set out to harm me and mine. I’m saying when I went to Thena’s house and several more glaring errors shouted at me, I knew for certain it was someone here in his inner circle. It’s you or someone in your immediate supervision.”
“I don’t have to listen to this.” Patience headed to the door, pausing when Rowan didn’t attempt to stop her. “What glaring errors?” she asked.
If she’d have left, Rowan would have known she was the leak. But the way she asked told Rowan as pissed off as Patience was at being accused, she was also pissed off now that she’d realized one of her employees or coworkers had betrayed and endangered them all.
“There was no blood in the house,” Rowan said.
“No sign of violence or a struggle of any kind. That’s in the notes.”
“Did you go inside?”
Patience’s expression said that was a dumb question. At least she knew that much. “Of course I did. It was a small house. Three bedrooms. There were three of us. It didn’t take long to ascertain no one was home. We waited around another fifteen minutes, talked to some neighbors—who we then glamoured to make sure they didn’t remember—and then left.”
“There was no sign of blood in that house. A house where two humans lived. A kitchen where they regularly cooked, a bathroom where they groomed.”
Patience leaned back against the door and took a deep breath as she clearly ran it all through her mind once more.
“You’re sure?”
“The question is, are you sure? Because I’ve been there, just a few hours ago, and it jumped right out at me. Go and see for yourself.”
Patience sighed heavily before leaving.
Seth’s interview was much the same, though he was better at hiding his disdain for Rowan. Which only made her more suspicious. Nothing in his answers or his manner stood out. And what Vampire could do that? A weak one, or a scheming one.
Seth wasn’t weak. Rowan had seen him at work.
When she left the conference room, Clive had been pretending that he just happened to be in Alice’s work area and wasn’t listening in. Since they were still in front of his employees, Rowan would save her commentary until they were alone later on.
Chapter Nine
The beat up, shit hole dive bar on the raggedy edge of the desert was exactly what she expected of the Dust Devils the first time she’d gone some years before.
Now, Rowan mused, she understood a lot more about layers than she had then. The dusty parking lot full of motorcycles and muscle cars led to a squat, windowless building painted a brownish yellow that oftentimes rendered it nearly invisible against the desert all around it. It wasn’t a media shiny biker bar full of tourists looking for some leather and Charlie Hunnam playing pool in the corner. It shouted “this is not your place” loudly enough to keep most who didn’t belong far away from its door.
A disguise and yet, the place was still a shit hole dive bar on the edge of the desert where bikers hung out playing pool and listening to metal while day drinking.
The Devils weren’t pretending to be badasses no one should mess with. They were badasses she was always wary about dealing with.
London Dust Devils handled body removal and scene cleanup. Dealing with them was businenesslike. You called, you told them what to clean and they did it. They showed up in suits and ties. Businesslike but still terrifying.
In Las Vegas they were something else entirely. Rowan pushed through the doors into the dim main room. It stank of tobacco, beer and balls. She barely managed not to wrinkle her nose.
Here in this bar was business too, but gritty. Raw and in your face. There was no pretending she wasn’t dealing with some seriously old-school power.
A power that cared little about details, only about results. And payment wasn’t in sterling.
Genevieve’s curiosity propelled her into the bar with a confidence that wasn’t faked. She too had her own way of dealing with predators. Show them you were one too.
Rowan admired that a great deal.
The bartender gave them both an amused look. “You ladies lost?”
“Why? Are you going to save us?” Genevieve asked him, in all seriousness.
Instead of taking offense, he flipped his towel up over his shoulder and leaned in, thinking. “Now see, at first when I looked at you I thought you might have needed saving. You’re a pretty little thing. But pretty things can be deadly too.”
Genevieve smiled. “I like you. Two beers, tequila shots to go with.”
Rowan gave her a quick look thinking perhaps shots might be a bad choice. “I think we probably should skip that part.”
“Rowan Summerwaite urging caution? Never thought I’d live to see the day.”
She turned to face the being who’d spoken. The second-in-command, Mick.
“I’m here to seek parley,” Rowan said, but it was Brigid who spoke.
Mick jerked his head toward a table at the skinny end of the room where another one of the Devils was already seated.
She tried not to think of the bare backs of Genevieve’s legs against the sticky black leather as she sat with a musical jingle of bracelets. Even with a layer of denim between her own skin and the chair, Rowan was sure she’d want a long hot shower to wash this place from her body when the day was over.
Which was not a bad idea. Clive was a fiend for shower sex and he’d be there. Two birds with one stone.
“What about you, witch? What do you seek?” the other Devil asked Genevieve.
“Information. Knowledge. Power.” S
he shrugged one shoulder. “The usual. Mind if I smoke in here?” Genevieve pulled a joint free and lit it up as Rowan tried to act like this was totally normal.
“Tell me what you want, Vessel,” Mick ordered after he’d joined them.
“I’m on a hunt. I might need access to your lands.”
He nodded.
They didn’t usually want to know details. What she did was outside their usual frame of reference so unless it affected them she rarely bothered to explain.
“There’s old magic. Spellcraft I’ve only read about,” Genevieve added.
And instead of annoyed disinterest, the Devil closest to Genevieve leaned in and asked, “Pretty witch, what are you?”
One of Genevieve’s perfect eyebrows rose. “You haven’t even told me your name and yet you want to know my origins?”
His laughter sent a chill through Rowan and she was sure Clive sensed her unease all the way across the city. He’d be texting her soon if this kept up.
“I’m Darius. This is my Trick,” tall dark and intimidating said with a wave of his hand.
Rowan knew enough to understand a Trick was what a group of Dust Devils was called. She also knew enough not to ask what happened to the guy who’d been in charge before Darius.
“Darius, I’m Genevieve and I’m something entirely unique. A little of this, a little of that. All magic. This is what my first teacher used to say.”
“What kind of spellcraft?” he asked her.
Genevieve explained what she’d found at Rowan’s, and the damage to Thena’s body. Though Rowan knew Genevieve had softened it to protect her feelings, they discussed the situation without a great deal of sorrow and no small amount of fascination.
A reminder of the fact that she straddled many worlds. She wasn’t human. Not entirely. But she had more contact with and more fondness for humans than most paranormals did.
She’d been trained to see humans like a Vampire did. You protected them because they were fragile and short-lived in comparison. Part of the contract was they took care of you when you were at your most vulnerable so you took care of them.