by Tina Folsom
“Fine.”
“Thank you. Does your mother’s house have air conditioning?”
Kim nodded, looking perplexed.
“And nothing at all was stolen then?”
She shook her head, then stopped herself. “Actually, just one thing. My mother always wore a gold bracelet. It’s gone. It wasn’t on her, and I can’t find it anywhere. But it wasn’t really worth much, certainly not worth enough to kill her for it.”
“I understand.” Demons liked shiny things. And it wasn’t unusual that a demon took a little memento with him, particularly one made of gold. “But could it be that your mother interrupted a burglar before he could take anything of greater value?”
“And take what? My mother didn’t own anything worth stealing. Besides, there were no signs of a break-in.”
“Could your mother have let the person in?”
“Sure, but if he got interrupted, then do you really think he’d close the front door on his way out?” She tossed him a combative look. When he said nothing, she added, “Exactly. Besides, it still doesn’t explain the vortex. What burglar can do something like that? No, it has to have a different explanation. A supernatural one.”
He sighed. Time to deliver his bogus explanation. “You’re not the only one who thought that after what you’ve seen. I was hired by a family a while ago, a wife who’d seen what you’ve seen, some kind of vortex appearing in her house, leaving her husband dead.”
Kim’s eyes widened, and he noticed her chest rising in anticipation. “What did you find?”
“Well, at first, I did my usual questioning, and then I examined the house, looked at everything that could give me an answer. Like in your mother’s case, the police suspected a burglary gone wrong. Nothing was stolen there either. And the wife insisted she saw the vortex. I was inclined to believe her.”
“Inclined?”
“Yes, I kept an open mind, until…”
“Until what?”
Now it was time for the blow. Manus leaned forward. “Don’t take this the wrong way. You believe what you’ve seen. And I believe that you believe it. It’s just, there’s a logical explanation for what you’ve seen. A technical one, actually.”
“What are you saying?” Her eyes narrowed by a fraction.
“It’s a rare occurrence, but when the weather conditions are just right, and the air conditioning is running in the house, a negative airflow can be created that will suck dust particles through a vent into the house and whirl them around. Because of the different pressure inside and outside the house, the particles are electrically charged and therefore create in effect a vortex that’s visible by the naked eye.”
Kim stared at him, her mouth slowly opening as if she wanted to say something, but no sound rolled over her lips. Her luscious red lips. So plump, so kissable.
Focus! Focus! Don’t lose your head. You’re not on a fucking date. This is a job.
“I mean,” Manus added, “it’s unusual, I admit that. And I was thrown myself at first, but I checked it out with a few professionals, you know, an air conditioning contractor and a meteorologist. And they both assured me that it’s possible. And then, of course, when the police finally found the burglar in that case, it all fell into place.”
“Did it?” Kim’s voice was stiff and cold. Not a good sign.
“Yeah, it all made sense. Just give the police a chance to do their investigation. You’ll see that it all has a normal explanation. I just don’t want you to fall down this rabbit hole and get lost in something that has no basis in reality.”
“You know what?” she asked, and he knew it wasn’t a question. He could tell from the pissed-off tone in Kim’s voice. She pushed the chair back and rose in one fluid movement. “How stupid do you think I am? An air conditioning system creating a vortex? I don’t know what kind of Kool-Aid you think you can dish up and what your motivation for this crap is, but let me tell you one thing: I know when somebody is full of shit, and you, buddy, are about to spill over. If this is how you get your kicks, then do it with somebody else. Jerk!”
She spun around.
“Kim, I’m not—”
But she’d already reached the door and swung it open. A moment later, she was gone.
Fuck!
This hadn’t gone at all how he’d expected. And on top of it, she’d called him a jerk. He had to correct that. Manus rose, pushing the chair back, when he heard suppressed chuckles coming from the table next to his.
3
Manus pivoted and took a step toward the two hybrids who were having a laugh at his expense. He glared at Ryder and Grayson.
“Piece of cake, huh?” Grayson said.
“So that’s how it’s done, yeah?” Ryder added.
Grayson turned his head to Ryder and lifted his finger like a schoolmaster. “Lesson number one: how to get a woman to believe your lies. First, roll out the charm—”
“Shut up, Grayson!” Manus snapped.
When Ryder opened his mouth, Manus cut him off with a glare. “Same goes for you.”
For a moment, the two sat there stone-faced, then Ryder lifted his hand as if he were sitting in a classroom and asking the teacher for permission to speak. Manus felt like catapulting him through the window, but there were too many witnesses.
“What?”
Ryder lowered his hand. “You’re not gonna give up, are you? I mean, we still have to convince her that what she’s seen has a logical explanation.”
“Duh!” Manus huffed. “Apparently she hates men. Had I known that, I wouldn’t have gone in with a charm offensive. Guess we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way and deliver evidence that will make her believe my explanation.”
Now Grayson raised his hand.
“Would you stop that, you two?” Manus motioned to Grayson’s hand. “Or you’re gonna really piss me off.”
With a grin, Grayson lowered his hand. “How’re you gonna deliver evidence that your bogus air conditioning vortex is actually possible? We know that’s not how it works.”
“We don’t have to prove the vortex explanation. We just have to give her something else that she can believe.”
Both hybrids tossed him quizzical looks, then shrugged.
“Whatever you say, bro,” Grayson said.
“Lead the way,” Ryder added.
After determining that Kim wasn’t going back to her mother’s house, Manus hopped in the car, let the hybrids jump in, and drove to within a block of the house.
“I’ll go in invisibly. You’ll meet me in the backyard, and I’ll let you in through the back.”
Manus had been to the house just after Nancy Britton had been killed and looked around to see if anything left in the house could expose her as an emissarius for the Stealth Guardians. He’d found nothing that indicated that she’d ever worked for them. Nor had he found anything else that could have helped them solve her murder. Not that it needed solving because they all knew that she’d been killed by a demon. He’d literally sucked the life out of her. To a medical examiner, it would look like strangulation with a side of heart attack. But any Stealth Guardian would recognize the truth.
It didn’t matter which demon had actually done the deed. But what mattered was why she’d been killed. How had she gotten onto the demons’ radar? How had they known that she was associated with the Stealth Guardians, that she was one of their trusted spies who would feed them information about demon activity she came across in her daily life? Unfortunately, neither Manus nor his brethren had found anything. In their books, too, the case had gone cold—until Kim had started making waves.
Maybe this was a good opportunity to go back over the facts and look at everything with a fresh eye. Perhaps they’d missed something. The demons had targeted Nancy Britton. Was it to get information about the Stealth Guardians out of her? Since there hadn’t been any security breaches after Nancy’s death, it didn’t look like she’d talked before the demon had killed her. Had he wanted something else other tha
n information? That theory wore thin too, since nothing—apart from a bracelet—had been stolen.
Invisibly, Manus walked through the locked door into the house. Nothing much had changed inside though it appeared that Kim had started packing up personal items. She was probably getting the house ready to be sold. However, she hadn’t gotten far with her endeavors to clean out the house. He understood that too. It was hard to move on after a parent’s death, and packing everything into boxes seemed so final.
Before he could go further down memory lane, Manus walked to the kitchen in the back of the house and opened the door to the small, fenced-in yard. The two vampire hybrids were already waiting for him.
He waved them inside and closed the door behind them.
Both looked at him expectantly. Apparently, they’d learned their lesson not to piss him off any more today.
“I need you to go through Nancy’s stuff and find a photo of that bracelet Kim was talking about.”
“But we don’t know what it looks like,” Grayson said reluctantly.
“According to Kim, she wore it all the time. So, find her photos. If she really wore it all the time, it should be on practically every photo that shows Nancy.”
Grayson shrugged. “Fine. But what are we gonna do once we find it?”
“Just do as I say. You take her bedroom. Ryder, there’s a guest room upstairs where she stores a lot of stuff. I’ll search the living room. Bring me every single photo in which Nancy wears a bracelet.”
Both hybrids sauntered up the stairs.
Manus heard their footfalls on the landing when they reached the second floor. The old wooden floors creaked. Downstairs in the living room, the demon attacking Nancy would have heard Kim coming, giving him ample time to cast a vortex and disappear. The fact that he’d left it to the last second to make his exit meant that Nancy hadn’t just been a convenient meal. He’d risked detection in order to get whatever he’d come for.
Manus looked around the living room. In a glass hutch, a display of antique dolls shared space with a collection of carved wooden toys. Nancy’s interest in anything old was evident. As a curator for the Museum of Antiquities in Baltimore, she knew her trade. It was one of the reasons the Stealth Guardians had made contact with her and convinced her to work for them. With her knowledge of and access to antiquities, she was extremely useful when it came to assessing whether something was of value to the Stealth Guardians or the Demons of Fear.
Systematically, Manus started going through the various drawers in the hutch, then moved on to the piece of furniture that housed the TV. The shelves were filled with books and DVDs of TV shows and movies. Some DVDs didn’t carry labels but were marked with a Sharpie, indicating they held photos and videos of recent trips. Nothing out of the ordinary. Manus leafed through a stack of old magazines and newspaper clippings. Again, nothing stuck out.
He turned and looked around. His gaze caught on the spot where Nancy’s body had lain. He’d seen the police photos and recognized the signs of a demon kill. A visit to the morgue had confirmed his suspicion at the time. He shook off the memory. It wasn’t the first time an emissarius had died, and it wasn’t going to be the last. Nancy had known about the risks, nevertheless she’d agreed to help them.
“Got something,” Grayson said from the entry to the hallway.
Manus lifted his head and marched toward the young hybrid. Grayson handed him a bunch of photos.
Ryder was coming down the stairs at the same time. “I found stuff too.”
Manus looked through the photos. In some of them, the bracelet Nancy was wearing was obstructed, in others it was too far away to make out any details. But two of them showed the piece of jewelry much closer. He kept those two, then handed the others back to Grayson. “You can put those back.” Then he addressed Ryder, “Show me what you’ve got.”
Ryder produced a photo as well as a piece of paper. Manus looked at the photo first. It wasn’t any better than the two he already had. “Too far away. What’s that?” He pointed to the paper, and Ryder turned it so Manus could see it.
“A receipt for it.” He grinned. “Together with an exact description of the bracelet and sketches of the front, back, and sides.”
“Perfect!” Manus snatched the piece of paper. “Excellent work. We’re done here.”
“I still don’t know how that’s going to help us convince Kim that the vortex wasn’t anything supernatural,” Grayson said.
Manus chuckled to himself. “That’s why you’re an intern and I get paid the big bucks.” He shoved the two photos and the receipt into the inside pocket of his jacket and motioned toward the kitchen. “Let’s get out of here. We need to get a rush order in with a goldsmith.”
“A goldsmith?” Ryder asked.
Manus nodded. “And I know just the guy who can get this done in less than twenty-four hours.”
And then Kim would have to believe that a burglar had killed her mother, and the vortex had nothing to do with it.
4
It was late evening the next day when Manus picked up the replica bracelet from a goldsmith who’d done work for the Stealth Guardians before and was extremely discreet. Manus inspected the gold bracelet and compared it to the photos and the sketches.
“Excellent work, George.” He stuffed the bracelet into his pocket.
“Anytime,” George replied and accepted the cash Manus laid on the counter. Then Manus turned and walked out of the shop, flanked by the two hybrids.
“Looks great,” Ryder admitted. “You really think it’s gonna work?”
“Yep. Now we just need a fresh body,” Manus said and motioned to the car. “I think a trip to drug alley is warranted.” Drug alley, as he and his brethren liked to call it, was a shitty area in downtown where the druggies of the city preferred to conduct their business. Shootings in that part of town were a nightly occurrence, and invariably somebody died there almost every night.
In the car, Grayson said, “You don’t think it’s creepy that we’re going to search for a dead body we can pin the bracelet on?”
Manus shrugged. “If some gang bangers kill each other, or some druggie overdoses tonight, what do you expect me to do? Save him? I’m not a social worker. It’s not like I’m doing the killing. At least that way some poor schmuck’s life will have had a purpose.”
“Helping us keep the Stealth Guardians’ and demons’ existence a secret?” Ryder offered.
Manus glanced at Grayson. “See, your friend gets it.”
Grayson growled softly. “I get it too. I’m just not quite as callous as you are.”
Manus took the stab in stride. “Wait until you get to my age and go through all the shit I’ve been through. Then we can talk about being callous. I do my job. I do what’s right for my people. And for the human race.” And if that meant he’d take advantage of somebody’s untimely death, so be it.
“Whatever.” Grayson turned his head to stare out the window.
“Wow, he’s moody tonight,” Manus said, his gaze connecting with Ryder’s in the rearview mirror.
“He’s just pissed that he didn’t come up with the idea first,” Ryder said. “Which, by the way, is brilliant.”
Manus grinned. “Thanks. I thought so myself.”
For a few minutes, they drove in silence, then Manus made a few turns and brought the car to a stop at the entrance to an alley. “We’re here. Let’s spread out. Text me when you find a body. And don’t get yourselves killed.” He reached for the door handle. “Oh, and before I forget it: no midnight snacking, please. We don’t want anything to look suspicious when the police arrive.”
Grayson narrowed his eyes. “I already snacked earlier.”
“I hope he was tasty,” Manus said, rolling his eyes.
“He was a she, and yes, she was pretty sweet.”
From the backseat, Ryder scoffed. “Really, Grayson, do I have to listen to another one of your little conquests? It’s getting old. Besides, it doesn’t count when you use mi
nd control to seduce a chick so you can bite her.”
Grayson turned in his seat and glared at his friend. “I wasn’t using mind control. She wanted me.”
Manus huffed and opened the door. “Whenever you guys are done with your bitching, I’d appreciate some help with finding a fresh body.” He hopped out of the car and shut the door behind him. Not waiting for the two hybrids to follow him, Manus marched down the alley, making himself invisible in the process. He wasn’t worried about keeping the car unlocked, since nobody could start the engine without the sophisticated control system that was installed in any car owned by the compound.
Manus followed his instinct and roamed the neighborhood, watching and listening. A drug dealer stood in the entrance to a building, handing a customer a tiny bag with white powder in exchange for a few bills. A few doors farther down, two guys were arguing, but they both appeared unarmed. Around the corner, a taxi let out a guy who then quickly hurried to a dark building, pressed a buzzer, and swiftly disappeared inside. For an hour, nothing much happened. A few more drug deals went down, a few drunks passed through, but there were no shootings, no stabbings, no fights.
It was a quiet night. Maybe they would have to come back tomorrow night to find a body. You couldn’t force these things.
His cell phone vibrated. Manus stared at the display. The message from Ryder said, “Bingo.”
A moment later, he texted an address.
“Coming,” Manus messaged back.
Manus reached Ryder at the same time Grayson came around a corner. The body was that of a white man. He was casually dressed, and his clothes were relatively clean. Probably not a street person. His wallet was still in his back pocket, and a cell phone lay next to him. He lay on his face. There were no visible wounds.
“You sure he’s dead?” Manus asked.
Ryder nodded. “Checked his pulse. Besides, I could smell the blood from a block away. He must have bled to death.”
“Okay. Let’s turn him around.” Manus rolled the body on its back, revealing what the body had hidden: a pool of blood. The victim had been stabbed in the heart. “Yep, dead.” Manus reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold bracelet.