Back at the office, Herne wasted no time in contacting his mother. Within an hour, two very large, beefy Elves were standing in the waiting room, along with four muscle-bound guards who might have been human. I wasn’t sure, and given the dour looks on their faces, I wasn’t going to inquire. I had never seen Elves look quite so buff. Their guns could put Jason Momoa to shame, and their shoulders were almost as broad as the doorframe. Their long golden hair was caught back in braids, and their eyes were the clearest blue I had ever seen, except for Herne’s.
I retreated to Angel’s desk, where she and Talia were ogling the men. “It looks like Cernunnos isn’t joking around. He’s not going to put up with any backtalk from Saílle or Névé.”
Angel was practically drooling. “I love Rafé, I love Rafé,” she muttered. “But, oh man, those pecs…”
“And biceps,” Talia added.
“Don’t forget the thigh muscles. Which fill out those… Are they wearing leather pants?” I licked my lips. I had a thing for men in leather and it suited them so very well.
“Yeah, leather,” Talia said.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d be more discreet about drooling over my father’s elite guards. Especially you, love, given you’re taken.” Herne interrupted our gawking, slipping his arm around my waist. He leaned in, nudging my ear with his nose. “I’ll make you forget all about them tonight,” he whispered.
I caught my breath as he kissed my neck, his hand sliding down to cup my ass. “I’m holding you to that,” I muttered.
“Deal.” He let go then, and headed over to where the guards were milling.
Viktor joined him, while Yutani wandered over to stand beside me.
“All right, it’s going to take awhile to get there. So let’s go.” Herne glanced back at us. “Hold down the fort. We’ll be back before closing.” The elevator closed behind them, and I sighed, shaking my head to clear my thoughts.
Yutani tapped me on the shoulder. “I want your opinion on something regarding Mendin’s case.”
“All right, do I need to come to your office?”
He shook his head. “No, I’ll email you the picture.”
Sighing, I turned back to Angel and Talia. “So much for the show.” But secretly, I couldn’t help but think that—regardless of how good those men looked—they couldn’t beat Herne in bed. There weren’t many mortals, even among the long-lived, who could upstage a god. At least, not my god.
Back in my office, I pulled up the email that Yutani had sent. He peeked around the door. “Did you get it?”
“Yeah, just. Come on in.” I motioned for him to sit down and he slid into the chair, leaning back as he propped one foot on the edge of the seat and wrapped his arms around his knee. Yutani was flexible, I’d give him that. “What am I looking for?” I opened the attachment. It was a picture of Mendin’s coffee table, complete with blood spatters. “Ugh.”
“Take a look on the left side of the table. There’s an ashtray there. Apparently he smoked. But look near the ashtray. To one side. You might need to enlarge the photo.”
I pulled the image up on my Photo-Paint program and zoomed in. Bingo. I saw what he was talking about. A matchbook sat there, and I could read its cover.
“Fire & Fang? What’s that?” The words were printed across the cover, along with a bleeding heart with a dagger sticking through it.
“Haven’t you heard of Fire & Fang?” Yutani waited, but I shook my head. “It’s a vampire club down in the Catacombs. A kink club. If Mendin met somebody down there…”
“It could easily be a place where someone might hang out looking for victims. But we can’t just assume that anybody frequenting a kink club is dangerous.” The last thing I wanted to do was go on assumptions. It was a good way to veer off in a wrong direction, and it also was a good way of stigmatizing people.
“I would be the first to agree, normally, but I’ve been to Fire & Fang. It’s no simple BDSM club. It’s for hard-core players, of all races. And when the vampires play, they play for keeps.” Yutani paused, chewing his lip. Finally, he said, “I don’t discuss my personal life much, but I think you’ve figured out that I’m about as far from vanilla as you are from being welcomed into the Fae cities.”
I almost blushed. I had realized from early on that Yutani was into kink, and he was also a top in the D&S scene. “Right.”
“Well, after one visit to Fire & Fang, I knew I’d never go back. The whole consent and safe-word concept doesn’t play out very often there, and that’s one of the rules I do play by. I actually would have reported some of what I saw, but the vampires hold a lot of power with the judicial system, given their old-money sway over the financial district. I knew that getting on the bad side of the owners would bite me in the butt.”
I chose not to remark on the fact that he went there in the first place. What Yutani did in the bedroom was his own business. “All right, so Mendin visited the club. Or he had a visitor who did and who left the matches. Why would a killer preying on those who work with death magic go there instead of a guild?”
“Several possible reasons. Guilds don’t associate much with necromancers and those who do, have exacting rules. The guilds are under a lot of scrutiny, and strangers to any of the legit ones would be eyed suspiciously. It’s also easier to isolate a spellcaster who isn’t a member of a guild, one who works on their own. Mavericks tend to be loners and from what Talia has told me, Mendin didn’t have a wide circle of friends.”
“Okay, that makes sense. What about Chaya? Isolde’s wife? Do you think she had any connection to Fire & Fang?” It seemed odd to me that someone who volunteered at a women’s shelter would frequent a club like that.
“That’s a good question.” Yutani tapped out a note on his tablet. “We should check into the other victims, as well. Were you and Viktor going to go interview them?”
“I think so, though enough time has passed that I doubt we’ll find out much that’s useful. However, the cops weren’t all that thorough in their investigations, so who knows?” I sat back in my chair, my alarms going off. “I have a premonition that you’re onto something with this.” I tapped my pen on the desk. “I don’t want to wait on this. I’ll call Isolde, and you call the other families. Be discreet, but see if any of the other four victims frequented that club.”
Yutani nodded. “I’ll check the reports and decide who to contact. Fire & Fang isn’t a club name you bandy around like the Falcons Fraternity, or the Loyal Order of Lions.” He stood, stretching. “Hey, thanks.”
“For what?” I asked, flipping through my notes to find Isolde’s phone number.
“For not being catty, or nosy, or making smart-assed comments.”
I gazed up at him. His dark eyes were piercing, and I could see the Great Coyote’s chaos behind them. “I’ve been the butt of too many jokes and nasty remarks because I am who I am. My blood makes me a target. Sexuality and what drives it…those are as much a part of you as blood. It’s part of who you are, Yutani. I’ve always had a sense about you, but like my heritage, it’s nobody’s business but your own.”
Yutani held my gaze. “You are Herne’s woman, and I will forever respect that. But if you weren’t…”
I finished the thought for him. “Yutani, I like you. It took me awhile to warm up to you, but I do like you. But even if I weren’t with Herne, I’m not cut out to be a sub. And that’s who you’re looking for. I think we both know that.”
He snickered then, the searching expression vanishing. “Yes, I know that. Although you’d be surprised. Some of the most powerful women I’ve been with have needed that release the most. Whatever the case, you and Herne are a good match, and I’m happy he’s found someone who won’t fuck him over like Reilly did. She was a piece of work.”
Reilly was Herne’s ex-girlfriend. I’d met her a couple times. She had the body of a goddess, but she wasn’t cut out to be a one-man woman. “Thanks. I never expected any of this, you know. But stranger things happen.” I smil
ed. “Now, I can’t imagine life without him.” Shaking my head, I waved at him as he headed back to his office, and then put in a call to Isolde.
When she came on the line I tried to figure out a good approach. Finally, I said, “Hey, I’ve got a delicate question, but we need to know the answer.”
“Ask away. If I can help, I will.”
“Do you know if Chaya ever visited a club called Fire & Fang—” No sooner were the words out of my mouth when Isolde interrupted me.
“Damn it, do they have something to do with her death?”
“You know about them?” I asked.
“Know about them? I was livid when she said she needed to visit there. I never even thought to tell you, though.” She was crying again, I could hear it in her voice.
“When did she go there, and why?” I grabbed out a notepad and began to scribble notes.
“Three weeks ago. She was trying to help rescue a woman’s sister who had been dragged into the sex-slave scene. There’s a big difference between the sex workers at the fetish brothels, and the sex slaves at Fire & Fang. They prey on the vulnerable and needy.”
I paused. The vamps were good at getting around the rules. They controlled Wall Street and had their fingers into just about every financial institution in the country. That alone bought them freedom from a number of rules, even if it was under the table.
“Did she get the woman out?”
“Yeah, though if you want to talk to her, we’ll have to do a workaround. I shouldn’t even tell you this, but I trust you. The shelter is hiding her until they can get her out of the area and away from any potential retaliation.” Isolde paused, then added, “That club is nothing to mess around with, Ember. And it’s not even the owner who’s so dangerous. The clients who frequent it are more frightening than the vamp who manages it. He’s just out for money for the most part. The clientele are the ones who are unhinged.”
“If we wanted to talk to the woman in question, how would we go about doing so?”
Isolde thought for a moment. “Let me call the shelter and talk to them. Maybe we can set up a Zone chat, audio only. That way she can remain anonymous and yet talk to you.”
“Can you get back to me ASAP? I’d really like to ask her some questions.”
“I’ll call down to the shelter and explain the circumstances now, and call you back.”
As I set my phone on the table, Yutani peeked around from the hall. He held up his tablet.
“At least one of the other victims had a connection to Fire & Fang. The other families never heard of it, but that doesn’t rule it out.” He dropped into the chair next to my desk.
“Chaya had a connection, too.” I told him what Isolde had said.
“That doesn’t surprise me.” He paused as my phone rang. It was Isolde again.
“If you want to talk to her, it has to be now. They’ve found a place to send her where she’ll be safe, but she’s leaving in an hour. I’ll email you a link. Click on it and you can have a Zone conference with her, but it will be audio only. And the shelter asks you to please don’t record it. We don’t want her voice on record. Too many ways to trace people.”
“Email it and I’ll get right on it.” I hung up and brought up my email. “We can talk to her now, though it’s better if you just let me talk.” It occurred to me she might clam up if a man came on the chat.
“Roger that.” Yutani nodded. “I’ll take notes. I could record it and modulate her voice so it’s unrecognizable, but given you promised, I won’t.”
He moved off to one side. Even though we wouldn’t be using a video chat, I didn’t want to take any chances. Isolde’s email came through and I clicked on the link, bringing up a chat window. But it was dark, with no video showing. I entered the password Isolde had sent to me and within seconds, I was in the chat room.
“Hello?” I said. “This is Ember.”
A moment later, a woman’s voice came on the line. “I’m Shannon, from the shelter. Can you verify that you are not recording this conversation?”
“I promise on my word as a member of the Wild Hunt, I’m not recording our session.”
“Very well. Here she is. You may call her Amy, though that’s not her real name. Don’t even think of asking for any identifying details. If you do, the conversation will be terminated.” Shannon wasn’t joking around.
“I promise.”
“All right, Amy’s ready. Go ahead.”
“Hi, Amy, my name’s Ember and I work with the Wild Hunt Agency. We need information on a few things about Fire & Fang, and I was hoping you might be able to help us.”
“What do you want to know?” The voice was hesitant and fearful.
“First, did you notice anybody around there who didn’t fit? Someone new to the club in the past month or so? Someone who probably wasn’t a vampire, and who took an interest in any of the necromancers or psychics who might have been there?” I figured I’d jump right into the heart of the matter.
Amy paused, then said, “There were a couple people who came through. I was there for over a year, and we had a pretty steady clientele. We saw the same men—and most of the customers are men—over and over. And then there are the workers. For example, you have your bloodwhores, the honey-girls, the ghosts, the ponies, the whipping boys.”
“Honey-girls? Ghosts, ponies, and whipping boys?”
“Yeah. Honey-girls lure in the customers. They’re the fresh ones who haven’t been beaten down yet. You know, you get more flies with honey…”
“Got it.” I frowned.
“The bloodwhores are for the owners and a few vampires who don’t have the funds to own a bloodwhore. The ponies are the subs and they serve as the doormats, so to speak. The whipping boys—and girls—are the ones who take abuse. Honey-girls, bloodwhores, the ponies, and whipping boys, they’re all there of their own will. But the ghosts…I was a ghost.” Her voice softened.
“What are the ghosts?”
“We were… They are…the ones brought in off the street with the promise of a warm bed and all the drugs in the world. And then we’re not allowed to leave. We’re the ones who would be missed the least in society. Ghosts are given to the men who want the roughest play, rougher than the whipping boys and girls will accept. Not all ghosts survive. If you get paired with a cutter or with a choker…you don’t always come out the other end. And because ghosts are all streeps, most disappear without anybody ever noticing.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t even need to ask what a cutter or choker was. “Is there much of a turnover with the voluntary workers? The bloodwhores, honey-girls, whipping boys, and the ponies?”
“Not really. They get plenty of medical attention when they need it, and they’re fed well and kept strong because they can’t do this kind of work—or for the bloodwhores, they can’t give blood—if they’re severely damaged.”
“What about the clientele? You said they’re all regulars, for the most part? We’re looking for somebody who would have a focus on necromancers, bone witches, anybody who works with death.” I was trying to figure out where the correlation was.
“Oh, there’s more to Fire & Fang than just the kinky side. The house runs illegal gambling in the back. And as for the death cultists, well, there’s also a private club who meets there once a week. We call them the Spooks.”
Illegal gambling didn’t surprise me in the least. “Spooks?”
“The club hosts meeting spots for several underground organizations. Even though I was a ghost, I was such a good worker they put me in charge of waiting tables for them. There’s a club there for those working with death magic—we called them the Spooks. They meet every Saturday night. They’re all…a little edgy and none of them belong to any regular guilds. It’s amazing what people will say in front of you when you keep your mouth shut and stay in the background.”
Bingo. We have contact. I glanced at Yutani, trying to think of what to ask next. He slid a note across the desk go me: ask about any new members
.
“Did you notice anybody new at the club meetings over the past month? Of the Spooks, that is.”
Amy paused. After a moment, she said, “Yeah, there were a few strangers there. Two or three. A couple of them struck me as odd because while they were new, they were too friendly. Striking up conversations right and left. That seemed strange, because the Spooks tend to be aloof and reticent. And as strange as that seemed, even stranger was how quickly they were welcomed in.”
“Did you catch their names? Were they male or female?”
“One was a woman…the other a man. They never came in together, though.”
I frowned, then looked at the functions on the chat bar. “Is there a way I can post a few pictures here, to see if you recognize any of the faces?”
Shannon came on the chat again. “Yes, see the image icon to the left? Click on that, and you can upload a picture.”
“I just want to know if you saw any of these people when you were there.” I quickly uploaded the “before” pictures of our five victims, including Chaya.
A moment later, Amy said, “At least three of them look familiar. I wasn’t on duty all the time, so the others may have been there, as well.” She identified Chaya, Mendin, and Blink. Blink was one of the other victims, and had died as horribly as the others.
“Thank you. Were any of them the man or woman you were talking about?”
“No, that I’m sure of.”
“Did you see them talking to the overly friendly pair?” I knew I was hoping for too much, but if I didn’t ask, I wouldn’t find out.
Amy paused, then said, “I don’t really remember, not all that well. I was really busy and couldn’t stand around watching the group. But those three were definitely there.”
I thanked her, then asked if there was anything else she might be able to add, but she had to go. As Shannon curtly wished us good luck and hung up, I leaned back, staring at the screen.
“So, Fire & Fang is sitting on a number of unsanctioned activities. Ghosts? Of course they’re going to pick the most marginalized group, because they have no voice.” I was livid. I could too easily see Pain and Shayla ending up in a place like that. “When the fuck is the city going to get it together to help the streeps?”
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