The Ryu Morgue (A Jane True Short Story) (Trueniverse Book 2)

by Nicole Peeler

  But none of it had a whiff of magic. Not the purses containing keys and tampons and compacts, nor the wallets full of rewards cards and money and ticket stubs.

  “You’ve got to give us something,” Ryu said to the goblin, after she’d wandered back to check on them from where she’d gone off to do some of her own work. “Any place we can start our investigation.”

  The goblin pursed her wide, scaly mouth. “All of the victims did have one thing in common, but it’s not much to go on. It’s something that half the human population of this city probably all do.”

  “What is it?” Ryu asked. “We’ll take anything.”

  “Well, all of the victims did recently take a vacation to Napa. But, like I said, that’s a pretty common weekend destination place for locals.”

  At the word “Napa” Ryu quite literally perked up, a little grin splitting his face. He turned to Maeve.

  “Well, partner, looks like we’re going to have to go into the field. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.”

  Maeve scowled. “This isn’t a vacation.”

  Ryu gave her a solemn nod. “You’re right. It’s all work and no play over in Napa.” He offered her his elbow. “Shall we?”

  She rolled her eyes and refused his faux chivalry. “Let’s just go,” she said, turning to the goblin. “Thank you very much for your help”

  “It’s my pleasure,” the doctor said, her eyes fixed on Maeve’s face. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” said Maeve, struck by the creature’s concern.

  “Good. Well, best of luck, then. To both of you.” Dr. McIntyre stepped back, turning on her heel.

  But Maeve thought she heard the goblin muttering, “and may the gods protect you,” as she preceded them out of the morgue.

  FIVE

  “Sorry about the bed situation,” Ryu said, nudging their small suitcases against the wall with his foot as Maeve eyed the single king-sized bed.

  “I expected it,” Maeve said. “We are undercover as a couple.”

  She sounded confident, but when he looked at her he could have sworn her cheeks wore just the slightest hint of pink.

  Probably furious at having to sleep next to a bloodsucker, he thought.

  “I can sleep on the floor,” he told her.

  After a second, she nodded. “Maybe that would be best.”

  She came toward him, but it was only to wheel away her own small suitcase. She set it on the bed and rummaged around, pulling out a neat stack of clothing.

  “I’ll just change in the bathroom,” she said. “Then it’s all yours.”

  “Change?” he asked.

  She cocked her head at him. “We’re dressed like cops. Fancy cops, but cops.”

  He looked down at his own white button-down and designer slacks, then at her white suit. He didn’t think that looked cop-like at all, at least outside of Miami Vice. And as for his clothes…

  “I always wear stuff like this,” he said.

  “Well, I don’t,” she said, stalking toward the bathroom. She paused in the doorway. “And we are supposed to be on vacation.”

  Maeve shut the door behind her and Ryu turned to his own suitcase.

  I’m not dressed like a cop, he thought. I’m wearing Armani.

  But he opened up his case anyway, although he knew what it contained. It wasn’t much. They were only supposed to be in Napa a few nights, after all.

  He stared down at his other button-downs, a frown twisting his features. I do not dress like a cop, he repeated to himself. I have excellent taste.

  Then he remembered that his last girlfriend, Jane, had dumped him for a guy whose wardrobe consisted of dog food T-shirts, and whose hair looked like it had been cut by a Flowbee.

  Maybe I know nothing, came that small voice that he’d first heard right after Jane had left him, and had continued to mutter imprecations from a dark corner of his mind.

  He shut his suitcase with a quiet curse before turning to the mirror. He raised a hand to his hair to give it a careful tousle. He straightened the collar of his shirt, considered undoing an extra button, then decided that would make him look like a bumbling landlord from a 1970s sitcom. After more consideration, he took off his ebony cuff links to roll up his sleeves.

  Now he looked like he was on vacation, he told himself, flexing his forearms.

  Just then Maeve emerged from the bathroom, catching him checking himself out in the mirror. She raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment as she placed her folded suit back in her case.

  She was wearing a pair of very tight skinny jeans in dark denim and a navy and white polka-dotted blouse, cut in a ’50s style. She’d also tweaked her makeup from the small case she placed back in her bag. Liquid black eyeliner and very red lips, also very 1950s.

  Red flats and a red cardigan completed the look, then all that red hair came down as she started pulling out pins. The front stayed up, kept off her face by two neat victory rolls, but the rest whooshed down her back in a thick, red wave.

  Ryu turned away, fussing unnecessarily with this suitcase, and thought about baseball.

  “You may need something warmer,” he told her. “It’s fall.”

  “I have a coat in the car. We ready?”

  “Sure,” he said. Then he couldn’t help add, “I’m always ready.”

  Maeve rolled her eyes but didn’t comment. “Do we have a plan?”

  “From what the Gold Court pieced together of their itineraries, the victims all did very different things—went to different wineries, stayed in different places, had reservations at different restaurants. But they all did stay here in Napa, and who doesn’t do a little shopping when they’re in Napa?”

  “Who indeed?” Maeve said, looking amused.

  “So I figured we could start by doing just that—shopping the main street. Everyone stayed roughly in this area, so this would have been where they hit first.”

  “Sounds good. Do we have petty cash?” Maeve asked.

  “Of course,” Ryu said, grinning. “We have to buy stuff to butter everyone up. It’s on the Gold Court.” At that, he flashed a black credit card that Maeve snatched neatly, putting it in her purse.

  “Excellent. Maybe working for the Gold Court won’t be half bad.”

  That made him frown. “We have to be careful, Maeve. Whatever did that to those people is powerful and probably ancient. That’s some old-school juju that can make a person lose themselves like that.”

  “Or just too much booze,” Maeve scoffed, wrinkling her nose. “Lots of things make people lose themselves.”

  “Not like that,” Ryu said, catching her slim wrist in his fingers. “I’m serious. I have no idea what we’re dealing with, and that worries me.”

  Maeve looked down at where he held her, and he let go. She took a step away from him. “Well, now you know how humanity feels pretty much all the time, dealing with you lot. Are you ready?”

  Ryu wanted to say more, but she’d gone inward in that way she had that told him she wouldn’t engage, no matter what he did. So he just nodded and headed toward the door of their room.

  He held it open for her, although she didn’t acknowledge the gesture, pulled into that place where supernaturals either didn’t exist or were all she could see.

  SIX

  Napa was full of exquisite boutiques and galleries, selling anything that could possibly have the word “artisan” attached to it. Everything was handmade locally, of local ingredients, and Maeve wasn’t immune to such claims even as she was very glad it was the Gold Court who was paying when she saw the price tags.

  They ruled out the galleries after they went into a few. There wasn’t any hint of magic that Ryu could sense, but they hadn’t sensed anything in the morgue either, so that didn’t necessarily rule them out completely. But the money required to take home a piece did.

  “Not all of our folks were rich,” Maeve noted, after pointing out the $1,500 price tag on one of the smallest paintings in the seco
nd gallery, a simple watercolor of a boat at sunset. Most of the other works in the place ranged from $7,000 to well into the hundreds of thousands.

  “They wouldn’t all have taken something home from here,” she said. “And they must have taken something home, right?”

  “Yes,” Ryu said. “Otherwise they would have gotten into trouble here in Napa and not back in San Francisco.”

  With the galleries out of the running, that still left dozens of possibilities, most of them of the liquid variety.

  “I’ve never seen so much wine,” Maeve said as they strolled past a half-dozen shops.

  “Wait ‘til we get out to a winery,” Ryu said. Maeve shot him a look.

  The vampire stopped in his tracks. “We are going to at least one winery, Maeve. We are in Napa. We live in Boston. It would be a crime if we didn’t go to a winery.”

  “You can go to a winery on your own time,” she said, hating how prim she sounded.

  Ryu snorted. “I haven’t been out to Gold Court territory in over one hundred years, and the only reason I’m able to come now is I’m under diplomatic immunity. And because certain beings have since died…anyway, I can’t pop over to Napa when I feel like it, so we’re going to a winery.”

  “You can go on your own, then,” she said. He shook his head, and she felt like an insect under his golden gaze.

  “Tell me you’re not serious. Look,” he said, taking a step closer to her. “I know you don’t like me, and I’m sure you have excellent reasons for hating all supernaturals. We can be absolute twats. But you are in Napa. Napa,” he repeated, putting an arm around her shoulders and turning her toward one of the plate glass display windows full of wine. “You must drink the wine.”

  He twirled her back around, keeping his arm around her as they walked toward the open doors leading into the shop. Frigid, air-conditioned air swirled around her ankles. “Besides,” he said, “you have to have dinner, and I’ve been told about a place that does a Merlot that will make you weep and raises its own lamb to be the perfect accompaniment.”

  “I’m a vegetarian,” she said. It just slipped out, and his arm stiffened around her. He looked so defeated she almost felt sorry for him. “But I do like Merlot,” she heard herself add, as if she cared what he thought of her.

  “Excellent. We can start there...I mean, here.” And with that, he ordered a tasting flight of the store’s reds, paying for it with the black card that she’d had tucked in her jacket pocket a moment ago.

  A bloodsucker and a pickpocket, she thought, and wished she’d packed another liver as he held a freshly poured, ruby-red Cabernet up to the light.

  When the shopkeeper turned his back, Maeve hissed. “Pst. We’re working.”

  “This is work,” Ryu said, inhaling a noseful of Cabernet. “Delicious work, but work.”

  He nosed the wine again, his forehead creasing in concentration.

  “Is it...tainted?”

  “Oh, no. It’s a bit young, and a tad brash, but certainly not tainted.” He took a sip, swallowing a few seconds later before handing the glass to her. “You try.”

  By that point the shopkeeper had turned back to watch them, and Ryu smiled at him, reminding Maeve that they were supposed to be a couple. “She loves her reds,” the vampire said, and the shopkeeper grinned encouragingly at her.

  She sampled the wine, her mind racing. Did she dare ask for a spittoon? There were signs up that one would be provided, but she knew she’d look like a jackass. Who in their right mind paid to spit out wine?

  So she swallowed her tiny mouthful, then nodded at the shopkeeper. “Delicious,” she said, passing the glass back to Ryu, who downed it in one.

  Ryu handed her the next glass of the flight and they repeated the ritual, her taking as tiny sips as she could manage. Ryu, however, had no such compunction, and entered into a spirited conversation with the man the counter. He asked a lot of questions about the wine and finally bought a bottle to go and a case to be sent to their hotel. Maeve couldn’t see any connection between their investigation and the conversation Ryu was having with the man, but she tried to withhold judgment.

  At least until they were leaving.

  “Did that have anything to do with anything?” she asked, pointing at the bottle he’d bought.

  Ryu grinned at her. “Don’t be so skeptical. I was investigating.”

  “Oh yeah? What did you find out? Besides how much they’re charging for their Cabernet?”

  “I found out a lot.” He stretched, and Maeve found it hard not to notice how the sunlight shone off his dark hair. She should have taken smaller sips.

  “For example,” he continued. “I found out which stores moved in about eight months ago, when the humans started losing their minds. That’ll give us something to focus on. There’s too much, otherwise.”

  “Okay,” she said. “That is good work. I’ll give you that.”

  He took her hand, pulling her toward him in a hug that made her stiffen.

  “Act natural,” he whispered, his breath warm in her ear. “The wine guy is watching. We’re a couple.”

  She saw he was right: the guy behind the counter was staring at them, his brow furrowed as if wondering something. So she did her best to melt against Ryu, telling herself he wasn’t the bloodsucker she knew him to be, but simply another handsome man.

  It was remarkably easy.

  And it must have worked, because the guy’s wrinkled brow smoothed, and he gave them the benevolent smile of someone gazing upon a young couple in love.

  Luckily, she told herself, she was good at acting. Because it was all an act. She wasn’t at all attracted to Ryu. Not one bit.

  Not at all.

  SEVEN

  Ryu watched Maeve talk with the guy who owned one of the new wine shops down the street. This one didn’t actually carry wine, however, only the accouterments of a dedicated wine connoisseur—wine aerators, elaborate systems for keeping uncorked wine fresh, novelty wine keys, and the like. She was friendly and easygoing with the guy—the total opposite of how she was with Ryu.

  But she’s working, he reminded himself. She’s good at her job.

  He didn’t remind himself that the real reason was because the guy was human, so she didn’t automatically hate him. Ryu didn’t have to...he was painfully aware of her feelings all the time they were together.

  Not that I care. She is just a human. What she feels about me means nothing.

  And he knew that was true. The Initiative, on the one hand, meant a sea change for the supernatural world—and probably the biggest change ever to confront their society. But in the grand scheme of things, Ryu also knew that the Initiative would eventually fade away, probably with the human societies that were as eager to race toward their own destruction as they were eager to learn about the so-called monsters in their midst.

  Maeve shifted on her heels, her long legs flexing under her tight pants, and Ryu couldn’t help but admire her.

  She is beautiful. And he also knew that her human lifespan meant she’d be dead in what felt like minutes to him and his kind.

  But that didn’t mean he didn’t hold himself a little straighter when she walked toward him, her hips swaying hypnotically.

  “He’s not our guy,” she said. “He’s new to the downtown, but the store and its stock isn’t. He bought everything from the man who owned it before him, who retired, and he’s only reordered stock, not brought in anything new.”

  “Good work,” Ryu said, offering her his arm on a whim. To his surprise, she took it. “Onwards and upwards?”

  She nodded, and her scent drifted toward him. Citrus shampoo and her own smell underneath, a tantalizing, earthy fragrance.

  He hustled her toward the door.

  The next few shops were also busts. Nothing in them spoke of magic, and they sold things that would be either hard or stupid to mess with. One was a pharmacy, and Ryu doubted that whomever was responsible had the access to tamper with pre-sealed bottles of Tylenol or A
dvil. The other was a florist, whose wares were too ephemeral for a spell to be worked on them.

  “This is our last new store,” Ryu said, looking up at the florid font of the store’s marquee. It read “A Little Something Boutique” and specialized, according to the advertisements on the large bay windows, in “gifts for anyone” and “everything you never thought you needed, at prices you’ll appreciate.”

  “Looks promising,” Maeve said, pushing her cats-eye vintage sunglasses back up her nose from where she’d pulled them down to assess the property.

  “Yes,” he said. “You were right that big ticket items wouldn’t be a practical place to leave a spell. But who doesn’t want to bring home something from a vacation?”

  This time it was Maeve who slipped her arm through his elbow, surprising him. “Shall we?”

  “Whatever your pleasure,” he rumbled at her, accidentally slipping into Flirt Mode. It was how he normally interacted with the world, to be fair, but he’d tried to keep that part of him toned down in his dealings with Maeve. To his surprise, however, she merely narrowed her eyes at him rather than ripping him a new asshole about “appropriate” behavior.

  Maybe he was growing on her?

  The store reeked of a mélange of fancy candles; he could smell it before he even opened the door, and once he’d walked inside he had to breathe through his mouth. The shop sold not only candles, but bath products, stuffed animals, wind chimes, cheaper versions of the expensive wine-related items sold at the fancier shops, and reproduction artwork that topped out at a hundred dollars, framed, as opposed to the galleries’ prices.

  “Why, hello there!” shrieked a tiny voice, just as an equally tiny woman popped out from behind the counter. She must have been 4’11” at most, with at least three inches of that composed of the giant halo of puffy hair that floated around her like a frizzy, mouse-brown nimbus.

  Maeve started at the woman’s sudden appearance, leaning into him in a split second of vulnerability that made his skin prickle with heat. But she jumped away quickly, as if ashamed of her momentary lapse of confidence.