A broad white grin split the gleaming darkness of his face and Aled sat back from the table with his hands on his thighs.
“Now the intrepid Fire Elemental is on the right track,” he said with a glint in his eyes. “I heard you were a detective in a former life, Chivis. About two months ago, there was a violent assault in D-Wing. Some unlucky bastard got on the wrong end of a knife. No one saw anything, of course. Poor bugger snuffed it and wasn’t found until he’d already bled out. I was there when he was found. As the guards were coming, the dead man turned his head and opened his eyes. I know what you’re thinking, that he wasn’t really dead yet. Believe me when I tell you I wish that were the case. I saw his spirit struggling within his shell, Chivis. I saw the milky film over his eyes, and his lips didn’t move when his voice named the killer.”
“And conveniently, there is no way to prove any of that. Even if I believed you, all of our victims are alive and none of them has been able to identify their attacker.”
“I watch the news. The most recent victim is in hospital, at death’s door.” Aled looked at him, his features impassive.
Jake could no longer contain his disgust and spat out, “You’re hoping she dies so you can pretend to talk to her corpse.”
“No. I’m giving you an option, Chivis,” Aled said. “If the woman succumbs, I’ll prove it to you. You can be present and hear what she has to say for yourself.”
Jake leaned forward. “You could have told anyone this information. Why me?”
“Who in the Met would have believed me? Which of those plodding bastards out there could even have imagined such a thing possible?” Aled chuckled, a sound so totally devoid of humor that it made Jake feel sick. “DI Cordiline might be open-minded enough to want to believe, but he would have gone to you for confirmation anyway. Why not go right to the source?”
“Why help at all?”
“Because I am not a bad man. I have been given a bad label. That’s all.”
Jake snorted.
Aled folded his hands on the table, his fingertips touching the glass. “Your people are looking for a man who has done bad things. If he kills and I speak with the deceased before she fades from this world, I may be able to discover more about him for you. This, in turn, will help my application for parole.”
Jake sneered and shook his head.
“What? You did not expect honesty? You are young to be such a cynic, Detective Chivis.”
“Why would you think I’d expect any honesty from you? You forget that I know what you are. Helping to put another pervert behind bars won’t change that.” Jake stood up and turned to go, not giving him an answer one way or the other on whether he’d recommend they accept his help.
“If the next one dies, no one will be able to help you as well as I can, Chivis,” Aled called out behind him. “Their families will be very grateful.”
Jake walked out without looking back. He didn’t trust what he might say. He wanted to tell him he could rot in a cell forever for all he cared. He wanted to tell him to fuck off, that he’d not give him any opportunity to butter up a parole board. He’d be lying if he told him that, though. He would use any tool at his disposal to find the asshole hunting these women and stop him, even a tool as distasteful as Mustatti. Even if the thought of how Mustatti might be able to help made Jake’s skin crawl.
There were severe taboos in his culture against disturbing the dead. If he hadn’t already got a good idea what kind of creature Aled Mustatti was, this would have sealed it for him. He collected his things and slammed out of the building, new determination that it wouldn’t come to that in his every step.
* * * *
When Jake got home, he found takeaway beef pad thai on the table and Mari curled up on the sofa, immersed in something on his tablet, in an open shirt and his blue boxer briefs. He looked up with a warm smile that faded as he saw the expression on Jake’s face.
“What’s wrong?”
Instead of explaining the most recent development, he went with a more literal list of frustrations. “We have no new information. We’ve got nothing connecting the victims except the college. The last victim is still fighting for her life, and all we can do is sit here and wait for him to target another innocent woman.” Jake dropped heavily onto the sofa and scowled at their case wall.
Mari slid an arm around him and snuggled closer. “You are very, very sexy when you have a strop on. Here’s something for you. Natalie Craig was a life model for my mother’s so-called Healer. Solana teaches painting classes at her eyrie on Camden High Street. I told you there was something shifty about her.”
Jake waited a beat, but when Mari didn’t say he was joking, he scowled harder. “That’s a weird coincidence.”
“Isn’t it?” Mari agreed, leaning over for the chopsticks and maneuvering food from the container to Jake’s mouth. “Just what I thought. I reckon one of us should have a word with her.”
“Mari, just because the girl modeled for Solana, it doesn’t automatically make her a suspect.”
Mari planted tender kisses along his jawline then mimicked a comical Estuary rapper accent. “She is well dodgy, bro. Trust me.”
Jake rolled his eyes but he pulled Mari into his lap. “Bro? What have you been watching lately? And, even if she is sketchy, that doesn’t make her a rapist. I’m not saying we won’t look into it further, but don’t hang your hat on her just yet. First, let’s find out if Solana has connections to any of the other victims. Next, we need to find out where she was when each crime was happening. We can question Solana about her relationship with Natalie, but let’s not tip our hand until we have more info.”
“You’re no fun tonight.” Mari snagged a piece of meat with his chopsticks.
Jake leaned in and stole the bite from him before he got it into his mouth. He smirked at Mari’s affronted look as he chewed and swallowed. “Sorry. It’s been a long day. This is something anyway. We have one connection between them. We just need to find more. We can start with Solana if you want, see if any of the other victims knew her or anyone that was in her classes, and go from there.”
“We can do that.” Mari nodded. “So, what did Inspector Gadget want today? You’ve been very quiet about that since you came in.”
“There is the possibility that we have a new tool to use,” Jake said and explained to him about the meeting with Aled Mustatti at the prison.
It was Mari’s turn to scowl, and Jake couldn’t blame him. Mari had suffered months, right along with him, of waiting to see if he would suddenly burst into flames after Birthright had given him the drug.
“Why did he ask for you? Surely the police are more useful to him?” he asked.
Jake actually debated telling him a fib but if he started down that road with Mari, it would not end up any place he wanted to be with him. “He said he wanted to speak with me because he didn’t think he’d be able to convince anyone that wasn’t an Elemental that he could be of use. I have my doubts, both about his reasoning and his ability. But unless we find a body, it’s all conjecture anyway.”
“Would it be possible, if he is what he says he is? Could he talk to dead people?” Mari asked in a serious tone. “I never met an Earth Elemental before. My grandmother never said much about them, either.”
Jake had tried very hard in his life to put superstition behind him. He embraced reason and logic as a detective and knew in principle as well as practice that evidence and deduction were by far more valuable in solving a case than any ‘gut feeling’, no matter how much stake novels and movies put in that. Still, he could not stop the grimy sensation that crawled across his skin and raised the fine hairs on the back of his neck.
“It’s a very, very uncommon ability. One of the rarest, as a matter of fact. Research suggests a lot of doubts to the validity of those that have claimed to be able to speak to the dead, and there has been a lot of speculation as to how such cases could have been faked. I’ve never met anyone, Earth Elemental or otherwise, who could
actually talk to the spirits of those that have passed. That said, there remain certain unexplained phenomena and some descendants of Earth Elementals who swear the gift runs in their bloodline.”
Mari wriggled around to face him. “You don’t believe him, do you? How odd. You supported that Solana woman’s claims to be able to help. Why is he different?”
“I didn’t say I don’t believe him. He claimed he’s already done it and is willing to prove it if given the chance. I’ve no reason not to believe him. It’s just…” Jake hesitated. Trying to explain the strongly ingrained cultural taboo to Mari was bound to make him feel ridiculous. The truth was, half his disgust at the idea was due to early and repeated indoctrination about the heinous nature of the act Aled proposed to do. The Christian concepts of Heaven and Hell, God and the Devil, absolute good and absolute evil, did not exist among the beliefs Jake had been raised with. But disturbing the dead was just about the most profane act one could commit.
“It’s just… It’s wrong, okay. The dead should be left in peace,” Jake finished lamely.
“If they’ve been murdered, they’re not likely to be in much peace,” Mari pointed out. “How interesting. I mean…clearly he’s a hideous man, but if he’s not lying, maybe he can help.”
“I’m not a very spiritual person, Mari. Logic says, this shouldn’t bother me, and if it stops this depraved scumbag from hurting any more people, I will do what has to be done. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. It’s…disrespectful. To make the dead speak, to force his will into the body and hold their spirit here. I find the thought of that repulsive.”
“It is rather horrible,” Mari agreed, wincing. “If he can help them, will they be able to pass on? It could be a horrible thing for a good reason, is all I’m saying. I’m glad that’s not my gift, though.”
“I’m not sure I would call it a ‘gift’,” Jake said. “And, I have no idea what he can and can’t do. My research tells me there is only a narrow window of time that the dead can be made to speak, I guess he can’t hold whatever is left of them here indefinitely.”
“And he’s kind of presuming that one of them, sooner or later, isn’t going to make it.” Mari shivered. “How gruesome. He seems to have been thinking about this case far too much.”
“I don’t think he gives two shits about this case. It’s convenient for him. Nothing more. If he can prove this new talent he claims to have is helpful, it will look good to the parole board. Worse, if he can actually speak to the dead, it would not surprise me at all if his sentence was commuted and he was offered a job, possibly by your own bosses.”
“I can understand you not liking him. I don’t like those Birthright bastards, either, and I never met them properly. But after the things they did to you…” Mari leaned against him from cheek to hip, a warm line down the side of his body. “That’s not a comfortable thought. I knew they had all kinds of Elementals working with them, I just never had much to do with anyone that wasn’t Air until I met you. It’s kind of weird to find out there are people who can do even freakier stuff. And while Ashcroft is a decent boss, I still wouldn’t put it past him to farm me out to the highest bidder if the chance came up. It’s rather disconcerting. For the first time in my life I’m happy and I’m trying not to be afraid, but what we do is always going to be on the edge, isn’t it? There are always going to be organizations trying to use us.”
He curled up and wrapped his arms around his knees, looking all of a sudden like a child contemplating a world without Christmas.
“Why do you think I came here and joined the Program? You’re right. We are vulnerable to a lot of people who would like to use us. The more people discover we’re real people, they more they learn what we can and can’t do, the harder it will be for them to cart us off in secret.” He put his arms around Mari and kissed the top of his head. “You know, Solana’s gift is nearly as rare as Aled’s supposed ability. Water Elementals with any sort of talent tend to either read auras or are empathic. Very few can truly heal people.”
“We don’t have any actual proof that she can heal people, yet,” his lover muttered under his breath.
“Hypothetically,” Jake said, and kissed him again, on the cheek this time. “Your own ability is pretty rare as well, though not as rare as the Air Elementals that are remote viewers. As far as I’m aware, all of them have been snapped up by various military organizations.”
“Like Great-Grandmama.” Mari gave a rueful nod. “Damn it. No wonder she went insane. If I didn’t have you, I’d probably be on my way to following her. I wish I was as grounded as you, Chivis. You just seem like…you’re bombproof, somehow. I have no idea how you manage that when your gift is potentially even more volatile than mine.”
Jake kissed his hair again. “You’re in a dark place tonight. What’s wrong?”
Mari leaned back in his arms and touched his mouth to Jake’s. “I think it’s just this case, and the worry about Mama. I’ll be fine. I always am. It was just bugging me today, talking to Natalie. She was trying to be strong and such a terrible thing had happened to her but she seemed like a smart, sorted kind of girl. I just thought it was unfair. I wanted to be able to string up the bastard that did that to her so she didn’t have to feel afraid of him every time she steps outside her flat. No one should have to be afraid like that.”
“Maybe you missed your calling. That’s exactly why I became a cop. We’ll get him, and we’ll stop him. It won’t change what happened, but at least he won’t be able to do it to anyone else.”
Mari kissed him again, letting his lips linger longer this time. He twined himself around Jake like a sinuous vine.
“Did you get wet?” Jake teased when they broke the kiss, knowing that it hadn’t rained at all.
“I was warm when I got back from Blackheath. I took a shower. There didn’t seem much point getting dressed again,” Mari said, ever practical.
“No, I don’t suppose there was.” Jake slid his hands under Mari’s shirt and kissed him again, seeking this time, inviting.
Mari was more than willing to accept the invitation. He was already tugging and popping the buttons out of Jake’s shirt and he kissed the line of his exposed collarbone as he unfastened all the way to Jake’s belt, getting to work on the buckle.
“Eat something,” he said imperiously. “It will go cold and I already had some.”
Then, as if he’d not just spoken, he unbuttoned Jake’s jeans and worked the zipper down, his lips sucking and pecking a slow line down Jake’s bared chest and belly as he did so.
Jake laughed. “Is this payback for the other day? I can’t eat while you’re doing that, Mari.”
Mari knelt up astride his thighs like a mischievous imp, his pale hair tousled and wayward. He reached for the chopsticks and the takeaway carton and proceeded to feed morsels to Jake, ignoring his protests. “You need to keep your strength up. And I know you like this. I ordered it on purpose. I’m not going to do anything else until you’ve finished it. But when you have, I expect you to be very badly behaved indeed.”
He managed to chew and swallow what was in his mouth and Mari seemed content to feed him and wiggle in his lap as Jake caressed him all over. There was something very sensual in being fed like this, and while Jake might have protested that he could eat later, he didn’t, simply enjoying Mari’s company and attention instead, allowing the teasing to build up to something more.
It wasn’t the first time they’d somehow made a mealtime into a more sensual experience, but each time it happened, Jake had the sense that it was something of a ritual for his lover, that he enjoyed this small element of control before giving himself up to their lovemaking. Last time it had been him ordering Mari to eat, but even then, he’d had a curious sense that Mari was pulling his strings. Not that he was upset by that.
“You look very mysterious,” Mari remarked. “Like you’re plotting something secretive. Should I be worried?”
“I’m just picturing how you’ll look on your kne
es with my dick in your mouth,” Jake told him.
Summer-sky-colored eyes fixed on him and the thin cotton of Mari’s underwear couldn’t hide what that comment did to his lower regions. He didn’t blush, though. Jake had never managed to embarrass him, no matter how crude he got. Emotions sometimes unsettled his lover, but sex never did.
“Eat faster,” Mari said with a gleam in his eye.
They had the container emptied in record time, in part because Mari ate half of it while Jake was still chewing. Once they were done eating, Jake pulled Mari’s shirt off and pushed his fingers down the waistband of his briefs. Mari was already hard and a few firm strokes had him moaning into Jake’s mouth.
He slid one hand into Jake’s underwear and kept the other on his shoulder as he reciprocated the sweet favor, stroking with his thumb pad up and down under the head of Jake’s stiffening cock. His lips kept up a slow caress on Jake’s mouth as they worked each other. After a few minutes, Mari slid down his legs and hooked his fingers into the waist of his jeans and boxers, pulling them down until they were around his knees.
“That’s better,” he murmured as he knelt up and gripped Jake’s cock again. He wrapped his lips around the head and drew him into his mouth.
Jake let out a shaky breath. He slid the fingers of one hand into Mari’s hair, caressing along his scalp. “Ooh yeah…”
Mari lifted his head and plunged down a few times and Jake tilted his hips to meet him in small thrusts. “Mmm…that feels so good.”
Mari’s response was a muffled exhortation to go faster.
“Ah, fuck…” Jake moaned back. He tightened his fingers in Mari’s hair and controlled the nod of his head because he knew how hot that got Mari, and it got him hot, too.
Mari’s low growl shivered through the sensitive shaft of his cock and he shoved his pants to his ankles and wriggled between his knees. Jake bucked his hips in time with the bob of Mari’s head. The feel of Mari’s hot mouth on him, the way he took him down deep then shallow and fast, had him so hard it was only minutes before his peak was very close. He tipped his head and closed his eyes as the first sweet spasm hit and flooded Mari’s delicious mouth.
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