by Mikala Ash
His crystal eyes transfixed me like a catalogue pin through a butterfly. I wonder if he had noted my eyes were not light amber at all, but yellow, and my pupils not quite round.
"Officer Meyer moves off,” he continued, his voice even. “The subject follows obliquely..."
"If he's moving obliquely, how do you know he's following?"
I did it again. Shit! His gaze was unwavering. He was not, I noted with some surprise, troubled by my sniping in any way. He was focused and unemotional. It seemed to me he was working to a plan. He wanted me to talk, to react, and somewhere along the line, make a slip. I was impressed.
Or was my impression just simple paranoia?
He indicated the screen with his pencil. I refused to be guided and continued to gaze up at him.
"The suspect disappeared beneath a tree, out of sight of our cameras."
"How annoying.” I returned my eyes to the screen.
"It is. Officer Meyer continues on her prearranged course when this dog appears from nowhere and stalks her."
"A dog?” I asked with an ample amount of surprise in my voice. “You mean, I was right? It was a dog?"
"It looks like it."
"I'm amazed."
"Now, here is your taxi. You run into the Gardens, follow the path and then you change direction and set out across the grass where you fall over. Why were you running and why did you run towards where the attack was taking place?"
"I heard the scream."
"You changed course before the scream. We have every moment recorded both visually and audibly. What made you change course?"
I gazed directly into his eyes. “I don't know."
"Why were you running?"
"I just wanted to run."
His unrelenting gaze was painful. The pounding of my heart had accelerated; my flesh was burning. I wanted to squeeze my nipples and press down on my sex. I wanted to forget the park, Simon, the murders. I just wanted to fuck Detective Greene.
I had never felt so horny in my life, which is saying something. It could not just be the quickening. I go through it every month and generally cope, but I've never wanted to fuck a human so badly, not even Ricardo ... I stopped myself going any further down that particular track.
"I don't know what got into me,” I said. “The full moon maybe."
Detective Greene ignored my flippancy. He was remarkable. He just didn't react. I wondered if I should flutter my eyelashes, moisten my bottom lip, push out my chest. He was too focused, and I doubted I could've swayed him even if I stripped off my blouse and pulled his head into my cleavage. Well, maybe then...
"Justine, I sense you are an intelligent, vibrant woman who is very, very grounded. You're not the type to go running pointlessly in the Gardens at night."
"I'm flattered. Do you often perform personality profiles on witnesses?"
"Only ones who intrigue me."
He we go again.
"Justine, three women have been brutally murdered and one of my team is in the hospital. I'm desperate to stop the killing and I only have a month to prevent the next one."
"You're sure there will be a next one?"
"I hope not, but I had hoped he wouldn't strike last night."
"I wish I could help."
"Justine, I have to be blunt. Do you know anything about these murders?"
"Nothing at all."
What's one lie?
Detective Greene's face softened. “It's one of those formal questions I have to ask. There's a story—probably apocryphal—where a detective didn't ask the murderer, who they had in for routine questioning, if he was the murderer. It was later learned the guy would've turned himself in right then if he'd been challenged, but he was as surprised as anyone to be let loose. He thought he was invincible and killed two more people. So now, as a rule, I always ask the question."
"Hoping to get lucky."
"Well, you just never know."
My blood warmed all over again.
He seemed to relax just a little. “I wanted to thank you for what you did last night. The ambulance guys say you saved her life and if you hadn't shouted at the dog, Officer Meyer's injuries could have been far worse."
"You are convinced it was a dog, then?"
"The video shows the dog fleeing the park and squeezing through a hole in the fence before disappearing from our cameras."
I stood up. “I hope you catch it soon."
"Getting the dog is one thing. It's the owner I'm chasing."
"I hope you get him, too."
"Oh, I will. I'm like the Canadian Mounties."
Detective Greene escorted me down to my car. Once outside the station his demeanor suddenly changed. I no longer sensed he was scrutinizing me. His eye contact dropped away and his voice became hesitant. I felt he had suddenly turned his thoughts inward.
He closed my car door and I rolled down the window. He leaned in. His overshadowing bulk sent a thrill coursing through me. I couldn't help but gaze into those cerulean eyes, take a peek at those beautiful lips and imagine kissing them. I shut my eyes, counted to three and opened them again.
He hadn't moved, his eyes still fixed on my face. “I was wondering. Are you free tonight? I mean, I have tickets to the theater and I..."
His nervousness was genuine. I should've said I was otherwise engaged. I knew it was dangerous to be around him, and getting more dangerous by the second. At the time I blamed it on the quickening. Now, I blame it on me. I chose to play with fire knowing full well getting burnt was the predictable outcome.
"What's playing?"
"Macbeth, at the Opera House."
"I love Shakespeare."
His smile was wide. “I guessed. May I pick you up at six?"
"I'll meet you in the foyer."
He was visibly disappointed. I marveled at how transparent he was when his professional mask was off and I found it extraordinarily attractive.
I resisted the urge to kiss him. God, my body was throbbing with wanting him. As I drove home I kicked myself. This, Justine Price, is a bad idea. A very, very bad idea.
Simon thought so as well.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"They say keep your friends close and keep your enemies closer. I want to know how his investigation is going. How else am I going to find out what they know?"
He nodded thoughtfully. “I don't believe you. It's the damn quickening, isn't it? You've got the fucking hots for him."
"At least I don't eat people I have the hots for."
"Ouch!” He put his hand to his heart. “You're right. Thanks. What would I ever do without my little sister?"
"Get in trouble, what else? And I'm little sister only by two minutes."
"But that couple of minutes make me the elder."
"Don't pull your primacy shit on me. It's meaningless."
He shrugged. “I blame the women's liberation movement for the breakdown of wolfen society."
"Cut it out. What am I going to do with you?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? Think again. I can't have you going out killing young women."
"What do you have in mind? Tying me up in the cellar?"
"If it works, why not? You are not to go outside. I'll tie you up myself next full moon if you don't listen to reason. Do you want to tell me what you're really doing?"
"I wish I knew."
"You knew enough to call me last night. You know I love you and I'll do anything for you, but what exactly did you want me to do last night?"
"I just wanted my little sister to help me."
Chapter Three
It was an excellent performance: Macbeth was suitably ambitious and tortured, Lady Macbeth fragile and sublime, the witches hideous and malevolent and poor old Banquo loyal and doomed. After the curtain had fallen, we sat and waited till the audience emptied out onto the Opera House steps.
Detective Greene took my hand and we walked out to the promenade. In companionable silence we stood gazing at the colorful h
arbor ferries plowing across the serene waters of Sydney Harbor.
He hadn't released my hand and I felt like a teenager, my tummy shivering with anticipation. As well as being incredibly horny, I felt strangely comfortable in Detective Greene's company. “I didn't know policeman could be so..."
"Cultured?"
"Perhaps literate. You're first name isn't Graeme, is it, Detective Greene?” I asked.
He laughed. “It's Michael."
"I love Macbeth. It has everything: love, ambition, murder, betrayal, madness, poetry, superstition, philosophy."
He leaned back against the sandstone wall so he could look at the brilliantly lit sails of the Opera House. “I'm not sure it needs the witches,” he said. “I think blind ambition alone would be enough motivation for Macbeth to kill his King and his competition without the need of a supernatural impetus. I see it at work in criminal gangs every day. They knock each other off with surprising regularity."
"Surely he is a victim of fate, of manipulation. A puppet of forces he cannot control. The forces of evil winning him over with honest trifles."
"Not at all,” he said thoughtfully. “Macbeth chooses everything he does. The fate malarkey just lets him off the hook. I see it too much in real life, people committing unspeakable acts, but for all sorts of reasons claim it's never their fault."
There was a truth I didn't particularly like. “I guess it's natural to try and escape responsibility for one's actions, especially if they are particularly heinous."
"Natural, but doesn't make it right."
"What of Lady Macbeth?” I wondered. “Is she pure evil do you think?"
"Her motivation is far too human. To promote the one she loves to greatness, and thus promote herself is commonplace. Her conscience destroys her, though in the real world that is a rarity indeed.” He leaned on the railing. “Don't you think life's far too short? The candle extinguished far too quickly?"
I sensed he wasn't talking about Lady Macbeth. My dogberry had a past, it seemed, and I wanted to discover it. There's nothing like another's pain to deaden your own.
I reached out for his other hand and he closed his palm around mine.
"I'm sorry,” he said at last. “My melancholy has no place on a night like tonight."
"I'm listening,” I offered somewhat pretentiously.
"I won't bore you with my baggage, but don't you think it all seems so futile? We humans have such brief and pointless lives."
"Sound and fury and all that?"
"I sometimes think it would be fun to see how it all turns out. See what humanity makes of itself in the centuries to come."
Something stirred in my chest. If he had known I was a werewolf I would've taken it as a request to be turned. The possibility sent a thrill of excitement coursing through me. “I know what you mean."
"For Macbeth, his play is over when McDuff strikes off his head. But for us, the audience, we go on our little way, strut about on our personal stage until we make our own exit. And the world simply goes on without us, as if we didn't matter at all. It just doesn't seem, I don't know, fulfilling. To have an intellect, honed by a hundred million years of evolution and have it snuffed out like the merest thing."
I gazed up at him. “Would you like to live forever?"
"Of course. Wouldn't you?"
A couple shouldered past us, continuing on their way as if we didn't exist. “Sometimes I hate people,” I muttered angrily.
"Me too, sometimes. I was going to say we could grab a late night coffee at a little café I know, but it will be crowded."
"What a shame."
"I know of another all night coffee place. Very quiet."
I was glad he suggested it. I didn't feel like going home and facing Simon.
"It also serves a number of different flavored teas."
"Green, by any chance?"
"Yes, by golly."
"And where is this fabulous all-night establishment."
"Well, here's the thing. It happens to be in my apartment block, my apartment in fact."
"Your apartment. How convenient."
"Yes, it is."
"Well, lead on McDuff!"
* * * *
His apartment was small, neat, and clean. He wasn't the typical bachelor. Reasonably new furniture gave me the impression he'd just moved in. The walls were lined with bookcases.
"Make yourself at home,” he said before disappearing into the kitchen.
My body was pulsing with desire. It was the most alive I had felt since Ricardo. I closed my eyes and counted to twenty. I had to be calm. I had to keep on task. The whole point of me spending time with Detective Greene was to protect Simon, not to fall in love.
A shiver cascaded through my chest and settled on my heart. It was the first time the L word had entered my thoughts for over a year.
I fled from the L word as quickly as I could. “How is the case progressing?” I called out to him. “No luck catching the dog yet?"
"Not yet."
"I don't understand. If it was a dog killing people, wouldn't your forensic scientists have discovered similar signs with the other murders?"
"We haven't divulged everything to the press, and I ask you to keep this to yourself. The murdered women were attacked and killed by a man. The injuries are caused by a knife. The body is then eaten by a dog."
I gasped in surprise. “I don't understand. Officer Meyer was scratched."
"He attacked her with a knife. We found it in the bushes. We believe the perpetrator kills his victims, removes certain organs and then feeds them to his pet."
I shuddered. This didn't make any sense. Simon—under the sway of the moon and in the hold of the quickening—may well track a victim in human form, but would only be in a killing frenzy when in his wolfen body. To kill in human form was just killing. “So, last night, it wasn't just a stray dog?"
"I don't believe so."
I didn't think it prudent to ask any more. I needed to get my thoughts about Simon in some sort of order. The idea he was just a plain old serial killer had left me shaken.
Bypassing Shakespeare's Collected Works, I pulled an art book off the shelf. It was an illustrated Karma Sutra with exquisite paintings of couples fornicating in impossible positions.
My flesh warmed and my pulse accelerated. The moon, still near full, was exerting its pull on my libido. I wanted Detective Greene more now than ever. His charisma was electrifying. Sitting in the darkened theater had been unbearable. Our knees had almost touched in the darkness. Our legs, ensconced in stockings and denim, were only a few millimeters apart, yet I could feel the heat of his lust. I barely stopped myself from reaching out my fingers, my feet, any of my extremities to touch him, to bring him to me. In the darkness I mouthed Lady Macbeth's words, “'Unsex me here',” and added my own. “Lest my mortal lust bring me to my ruin."
Michael returned with two china cups and saucers. He placed them gently on the coffee table and then stood beside me, looking over my shoulder at the pictures.
"Do you think this position is physically possible?” I asked, my voice thick and husky.
He considered the richly colored drawing. “With effort I believe it may just be possible. But both parties would have to trust each other and be close."
I returned the book to its place on the shelf and faced him.
"How close would they have to be?"
"About this close."
He bent his head and kissed me. His firm lips pressed against my mouth. His tongue caressed the flesh of my lips with a delicate but persuasive pressure. I was at the brink of no return. If I went to the next step I doubted I would be able to stop myself.
I took it regardless. I opened my lips and his tongue swept into my mouth. I clutched at him, fiercely bringing my body within his enveloping arms and pressing myself to his masculine physique. His erection pressed into my waist. He was huge and hard.
My body, untouched for a year, screamed with longing. My mouth devoured him and my hand
s raked his back, my thighs pressing hard into his.
"'Oh, she doth teach the torches to shine bright'” he whispered, nuzzling my ear. The sensitive skin of my neck tingled at the butterfly brush of his lips. “You're so beautiful."
Oh, my Romeo indeed.
Without warning, he lowered an arm to cradle my ass and picked me up. I squealed into his mouth and clung to his broad shoulders. With confident strides he carried me into his darkened bedroom. Our lips remained locked together and our tongues made love to each other in frenzied rehearsal of the act of darkness.
Michael laid me onto his bed and, keeping his eyes on mine, kneeled beside me. He deftly unbuttoned my blouse. I was braless, as usual, and his lips immediately closed around one of my straining nipples. I arched my back to push my breast into his mouth. His hands cupped my breasts with such care I felt as if he thought I was a delicate crystal, too easily broken. How wrong he was.
I busied myself unbuckling his belt, unzipping his trousers and pulling the length of his cock from within his clothes. He groaned as I fisted his shaft. The delicate satin skin of his hard cock was poker hot. As I stroked the long, thick length I imagined it inside me, filling me. My pussy turned to liquid fire and pulsed wantonly, longing for him to fuck me.
Michael's fingers slid along my quivering flesh to find the waistband of my skirt. He easily undid the clip at the side and opened the skirt. Finding my panties, he slipped his fingers inside and quickly found my swollen pussy lips.
I gasped as he stroked the outside of my sex and circled the hard nub of my clit. He was taking his time, each touch of his fingers lifting my desire. He left tonguing my nipple and once again claimed my mouth. He slipped a finger inside me and then, with the pad of this thumb, strummed my clit. Slithers of pure pleasure cascaded through me as he played my body like a musical instrument.
I'd never thought I could feel so hungry for a man. I was shuddering with the thrill of his touch. He was masterful: everything he did was exactly right and my body sang.
I wanted more. I pulled on his cock, urging him to swing around so I could take him in my mouth. He correctly read my intentions and did as I wished. The spongy mass of his cock sat heavy on my tongue as I drew him into me. I stretched my mouth wide to accommodate his girth and tightened my lips about his shaft.