by Lucy Auburn
I felt as much as saw it working. His eyes went slack, his face taking on a kind of peaceful look. Naomi let go of his shoulders and stepped back, giving me an impressed look. “You learn quickly, Suck.”
“You didn’t really give me much of a choice,” I pointed out.
Marshall was staring at me with something like adoration on his face. It was a little disturbing, so I pulled back a little on whatever it was that I was doing to him, and he blinked out of it. “What are you doing to me?”
Naomi stepped up. “Questioning you about the murderer of Theodore Smith III.”
“Todd!” Marshall grinned at her. “He was my best friend, you know.”
“You don’t look too broken up about his death,” I pointed out.
“Hard to be sad when you feel this good,” he said, and I wondered if he was talking about my powers until he added, “Todd was great, but I’d do anything for Sandra. She’s mine now that he’s out of the way.”
Naomi wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Lovely. So you’re the one who summoned the demon to possess that poor girl? Somehow I doubt it. You don’t look like you have that kind of power.”
“Demon? Nah!” Marshall barked out a laugh. “I had this guy who was supposed to take care of Todd, if y’know what I mean.” I did, and it made me feel disgusted to touch his hand. “He was sloppy, though—started a whole scene. So I had to step up and...” Marshall made a stabbing motion with his free hand. “It was messy, but it got the job down. Now Sandra will be mine—as soon as she’s done crying over that shithead.”
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” Naomi glared at him. “Who is this person you talked about who helped you?”
“Didn’t have a name.” Marshall looked over at me, and there was something like frustration in his eyes. “What the hell are you doing to me, anyway?”
Suddenly he reached out and grabbed my shoulder, his hand painfully tight as he shook me back and forth. I dropped his hand, stumbling back as he towered over me. There was something dark on his expression that frightened me—almost like, for a moment, he wasn’t entirely human.
Naomi stepped in between us and barked out, “None of that now!” She reached out and helped me right myself, pushing Marshall away from me. “Selena, you have to do more to him.”
But Marshall was entirely out of my power now. He formed a fist and tried to punch Naomi; she dogged it easily. Panicked, I asked her, “What do I do?”
“I don’t know, just do something!”
She was loosening a knife from one of her many hidden sheaths when I stepped in, avoiding Marshall’s arms to reach out and grab the sides of his face. It was more frightening than anything I’d ever done before, but as I looked into his eyes I somehow knew that I could do it—I could control him, if only I let the beast inside me rise from its slumber. I stared at him and let that thing inside me pour out of my hands, connecting us and changing him.
“What the—“ His eyes fluttered half-closed. “Oh. That feels nice.”
He was still upright, his hand in a fist, so I decided I needed to do more. Stepping forward, I pressed my mouth against his—ignoring the way it turned my stomach—and fed from his energy. He tasted less than, like a pale shadow of what Naomi was. As I fed from him more, his hand relaxed and he stumbled back towards his couch, falling down on it. I followed him, leaning forward to press my lips to his for just a little more—just to make sure he wouldn’t get up again and start trouble. I could feel Naomi’s eyes on me as I did so.
“Suck,” she warned me, a stubborn tone to her voice. “I have more than one knife.”
Quickly I pulled back, licking my lips and staring down at Marshall. He was thoroughly subdued now, an almost dumb look on his face. “I was just trying to make sure he wouldn’t be able to attack you a second time.”
“Uh-huh. Practice makes perfect I guess,” she admitted grudgingly.
She pulled up a chair to sit opposite him, and I joined her by sitting down on the coffee table. The whole time he just watched us like he didn’t have a care in the world. It was almost disturbing.
Naomi continued her line of questioning. “Alright, Marshall, let’s get back to what you were about to say. You asked some shady guy for help killing your best friend, didn’t you?”
Marshall’s blue eyes slid over to her slowly. “Yeah. But like I said, he didn’t have a name. Don’t even know if it was a he really. We only ever talked through some lawyer guy.”
I shot Naomi a confused look. “A lawyer helped you kill someone?”
“Nah, a lawyer guy.” His speech was almost slurred it was so relaxed and sloppy. “Some guy in a suit with a fancy hat and a cane. Said he was his boss’s representative or whatever. Gave me a card.”
Leaning over, Marshall opened up the drawer to his end table and handed Naomi a thin back shiny card he pulled out. She glanced down at it, and so did I. There was just one word on it: “Solutions,” with an unfamiliar phone number that could be a burner for all we knew.
“Well, that’s help,” Naomi muttered. She pocketed the card and continued with Marshall. “So the demon possession didn’t work. The murder was stopped. Then what?”
“I heard the screams and I walked in all ready to act shocked.” Marshall’s voice was frustrated as he added, “But he wasn’t even injured! Just a scratch on his arm. And everyone was running outside—they were following you.” He looked at me here, and smiled. “So I saw my chance. The knife was there and everything. I was smart; I picked it up with a towel wrapped around my hand. And I stabbed him in the neck while no one was watching.”
“And the mark around the wound?” Naomi insistently asked, and I remembered Leon questioning me about that. “How did that happen?”
“I don’t know.” For a moment, Marshall looked troubled. “I guess there was poison on the knife or something, because it made a mark like you said. This black… thing. But who cares? He’s dead now, just like I wanted.”
I felt sick listening to his confession, even though I knew it would free Talia. But I had other questions before we were done with him. “How did you get away with it? The cops didn’t find you there as far as I know.”
He smirked. “Thought I was dumb, didn’t you? But I’m not.” I held my teeth together to keep from responding in any way. “The house was my uncle’s house before he moved. I’ve been there a hundred times. So I hid out in the wine cellar until the cops were gone. They never even found the entrance—they were so sure that girl was the killer.”
“Talia,” I said through clenched teeth. “Her name was Talia.”
Right then and there I wanted nothing more than to reach out and strangle him. He must’ve sensed my anger, because he pushed himself back on the couch, as far away from me as he could get given the circumstances.
Naomi shot me a look, reaching out to grab me and hold me still. “Okay. So you stabbed your friend Todd to death because you wanted his girlfriend. And you’re going to tell that to the police, too,” she said, giving him a hard stare. “Because I’ve been recording you this whole time.”
“Ah, man,” he muttered, even though she hadn’t even shown him any evidence one way or another. I held my tongue.
“Before we take you to the precinct, I want one more thing from you.” Leaning forward, she asked him, “How’d you find out about this ‘solutions’ lawyer guy, who offered to put you in touch with someone who could fix all your problems for you?”
Marshall blinked at her, his every movement full of lassitude. “I didn’t go looking for him,” he said. “He found me. Don’t know how. Guess it was all those posts I made on that bodybuilding forum—I can bench press two hundred,” he added with a waggle of his eyebrows that made me want to puke. “He said he understood what I was going through and he was gonna help.”
“What’s this forum?”
Naomi wrote down the name, even though I doubted it had anything to do with whoever was behind all this. It sounded like the man in the nice suit
was just finding frustrated people on the internet and reaching out to offer them help—all so he could take advantage their frustrations. What worried me the most was that whoever was doing this wasn’t working alone, but as I reminded myself, it wasn’t my problem. I was helping Naomi so that Talia could go free, and nothing more.
Reaching into her jacket, Naomi pulled out a pair of heavy duty zip ties and grabbed Marshall’s hand. “You’re coming with us,” she told him, through his grumbling. “And when all this is over, an innocent woman will be let free.”
Marshall sighed. “Do you think they’ll set bail low, so my dad can pay it? He had to sell his yacht.”
“I don’t care.” She manhandled—or womanhandled—him to his feet and towards the door, his steps shuffling and short. “God, you’re heavy,” she complained.
“It’s all muscle,” he claimed defensively
I rolled my eyes at his worries as I strode forward to open the door for Naomi. “Just get in the car nice and quiet and maybe I’ll kiss you again.”
At that, he perked up, clearly not sensing it was a lie. “Alright! After this we fuck, right?”
I grimaced. “Just get in the car.”
Almost forty minutes later we pulled up to the precinct. Naomi glanced over at me and said, “I’ll take it from here. Better that they not know you were involved.”
“Won’t he tell?”
“Use your voodoo and tell him not to remember you. As soon as you’re out of range, he’ll forget you even seduced him in the first place. One of the benefits of your powers when you use them wisely,” she added.
I reached my hand into the back seat and did my thing again. It was easy enough this time; almost frighteningly easy. Marshall blinked sleepy eyes at me as I told him, “Forget I was ever in your apartment, or here at all today. Don’t tell the police anything about me.”
“Okay,” he said compliantly. “Kiss?”
“No thanks,” I muttered, snatching my hand back and glancing at Naomi. “Is that it?”
“As far as I know.” Ever the pessimist, though, she added, “Be careful about sucking on humans, though. They’ll only last you as long as your appetite is weak. You’re going to have to find a fae or at least half-fae to feed off of—and no, not me.”
“I didn’t ask!” I frowned at her. “I get it already, okay? Eating humans bad. Have sex with fae.”
“Thatta girl!” She sarcastically patted me on the head, and suddenly I couldn’t get out of her car fast enough. Rolling down her window, she called out to me as I headed towards the bus station, “Don’t forget to thank me for helping you save your friend!”
“You’re welcome for the help,” I told her instead, and she just grinned as I jogged away.
Internally, I was counting down the minutes until I got to see Talia again. All the gross kisses with frat bros would be worth it if she got to be free.
Chapter Fifteen
Naomi
As I marched into the police station with Marshall in one hand, I couldn’t help the shit-eating grin that spread across my face. Leon was going to be pissed, and a pissed-off Leon was good for my health.
Well, mostly.
“Naomi.” The sergeant at the front desk recognized me immediately. “And this is...?”
“A confessed murderer. Probably need some real cuffs for him.”
With a sigh, the sergeant got up and walked around to Marshall, a pair of handcuffs dangling from her fingertips. “You really need to start carrying the real deal if you’re going to keep consulting for the BRPD.”
“They take up too much room in my pockets,” I complained as she put real handcuffs on Marshall and snipped the zip ties off. “You know I prefer to carry as many knives as possible.”
“These are too tight,” Marshall complained, and we both ignored him.
As far as I was concerned, cool-blooded pre-planned murders like the one he committed were the worst of the worst. At least people who walked in on their spouses cheating and stabbed both the lovers to death hadn’t thought about it in advance.
Hell, I’d probably go on a murderous rampage too if I was ever cheated on.
“Where’s Detective Hardass?” I asked, craning my neck. “Is he out on some case?”
The sergeant eyed me. “He’s questioning a suspect. I’ll make sure he sees you at some point, right after I book this suspect. Come with me to fill out the forms.”
With a sigh, I followed her over to her desk. Paperwork was the worst part of law enforcement and one of the main reasons why I didn’t go full-time and official. And besides the paperwork, there were rules about stabbing people that always seemed overly strict to me.
There were few things in this world a knife couldn’t fix.
Leon came out before long, a peeved look on his face when he saw me standing near the sergeant’s desk. “So. You caught a suspect.”
“I caught the killer,” I corrected him. “And he’s ready to confess.”
Leon arched a brow over at Marshall. “Are you?”
“I, uh, well...” Marshall glanced up at me, and my heart sank. “My dad always said that I if something like this happens I should call his lawyer.”
I exchanged an irritated look with Leon, who was giving me quite the self-satisfied smirk. No doubt he thought I’d brought this guy in without enough evidence to book him, but he was wrong. “He described the crime to me very specifically.” Looking over at Marshall, I pointed out, “If we go back to your uncle’s house, I’m willing to bet that we’ll find evidence in that wine cellar you told me about.”
He gulped heavily. “Maybe I... cleaned up well?”
“Yeah, I doubt that.” Leaning over him, I put on my best overconfident smirk. “Here are your choices, Marshall: sign a confession and maybe you’ll get a lenient plea deal, or we collect enough evidence against you to put you away for a long time.”
Leon pointed out, “Stabbing someone to death isn’t the kind of crime judges look on lightly.”
Sticking his chin out, Marshall said, “I want to call my lawyer. And then I’ll sign a confession. But not before.”
I sighed and exchanged a look with Leon. “Better get some officers down to that house to comb for evidence.”
“I’m on it. In the meantime, why don’t you brief me on this guy’s confession while we wait for his lawyer to show.”
The sergeant told Marshall, “I’ll set that phone call up for you ASAP.”
Leon led me back towards his desk, which was of course like something out of A Beautiful Mind. He had enough photographs on the cubicle walls to make a magazine and then some.
The judgmental look on my face must’ve been obvious, because Leon defended himself. “There’s a method to the madness. Kind of. Tell me about this confession. How did you get him to make it—blackmail, or an old fashioned knife to the throat?”
Reluctantly, I admitted, “Selena used her powers on him.”
Now he was the one with a judgmental look on his face, and I felt it all the way down to my toes. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”
“He’s fine!” I gestured at the kid, who was talking on the phone with a kind of half-dreamy expression plastered on his face. “It’s not like I let her eat him or anything.”
“After all the shit you talk. We were supposed to watch her, Naomi, not feed her snacks.”
“Well, someone’s gotta show the girl how to feed without killing.” I shrugged at him. “I was there to stop her before anything could happen. And we got what we needed. Case solved. What else is there that matters?”
“Humanity. The blurry lines between good and evil.” I glared at him, and finally he admitted, “But you do have a point. I’ll overlook it. Just don’t make it a habit—we both know you don’t have the skills to train a succubus.”
“How hard can it be?”
“She’s a powerful fae.” Leaning up against his desk, Leon got a dark look on his face. “A Lightblood with unknown heritage, who has attention fr
om the top. Petyr is watching her. The Elders, even, are rumbling about wanting to meet her. When she has her full powers, she’s not going to be one of those two bit fae reading fortunes or seducing men out of their wallets. Even a dark fae like you could be swayed by her influence. Don’t think you can train her like it’s nothing.”
“I’ll tread lightly,” I promised him, voice dry. “Am I free to go now? You know how I hate paperwork.”
Leon snorted. “I’ll take care of getting the confession and transferring him to holding. You’re free to go stab things, Naomi.”
“Great.”
As I walked through the bullpen, I glanced over at Marshall one last time. There was still a hint of dopiness on his expression—one of the longest-lasting succubus seduction glamours if I’d ever seen one. And that was with her powers bound, supposedly, though I wasn’t quite sure that binding was proving effective.
Maybe Leon was right. Selena Pierce was a woman I couldn’t afford to let loose on the world. Because if she ever turned dark, I might not have enough knives to put her down.
My hunting instincts were always stronger at night. My mom used to say it was because dark hunters were born in the darkness, and we had to thrive in it or die. There was something to that—there were more dark hunters in regions close to the pole, where the sun sometimes set for days on end. We were hunters not just of darkness, but in darkness as well.
So after I brought that murderer to Leon, I took a nice long nap in my apartment, ate half a sub that I had sitting around in my fridge, and prepared to go out into the city as the sun set. It was a chilly day again, so I grabbed my leather jacket as I strapped on enough knives to take down a whole army.
As always, I tucked a single small gun into my right boot. Knives were best for taking down demons, but I had more than just the supernatural to worry about as a woman walking through the city alone.