Night Games

by Crystal Jordan

  “Good.” He rose to his feet and stepped aside. “Let me get out of your way so you can work.”

  “Appreciate it, thanks.” Tess dug through her kit and turned away, her mind already on the task at hand. “I’ll let you know if I find anything worth mentioning. Check back with me later this afternoon.”

  “Thanks.” He jerked his chin to indicate Cavalli follow him out into the living room.

  Faint amusement showed on the vampire’s face, but other than a last glance at Tess, he did as Jack wanted. “Afraid I’ll distract her?”

  “If by ‘distract’ you mean ‘irritate, annoy, and/or piss off,’ then, yes, that’s what I’m afraid of.” Jack gave him a pointed look, which only seemed to amuse him more.

  “Fair enough.” Luca nodded, his face falling in to more somber lines. “I brought Kingston in first to read the scene, and he’s just finishing up.”

  Disbelief wound through Jack. His boss was kidding, right? “Merek is on his honeymoon.”

  “Not for another couple of hours, he’s not.” Luca rolled his shoulders in an expressive shrug.

  The man was a machine, that was all Jack could think. Even for a vampire, that was cold-blooded. He shook his head. “That’s fucked up.”

  “That’s the job.” Not an ounce of remorse showed on his boss’s face. “It’s not as if I’m having him cancel anything. He’ll make his flight.”

  “Chloe might kill you if you dicked with her honeymoon. If she didn’t, her aunt definitely would.” He might not know either woman that well personally, but they were Standish witches. Enough said.

  Cavalli snorted, but he didn’t argue the point. “It’s your case when Kingston leaves, so I’d suggest getting everything you can from his reading before he goes.” Cocking his wrist, he looked at his Rolex. “I have another case to check in on. One that’s going to have the media crawling all over it. I would imagine there’s a press conference in my very near future.”

  “Have fun with that.” Jack folded his arms over his chest. “What makes the case a media magnet?” People died every day, and it might make the paper, but it hardly called for a press conference. Or involvement from the FBI. Most murders fell under the jurisdiction of the police.

  “That Karsen actor guy was murdered at a sex club last night. Naked and doing some things that most humans find a little disturbing. The police asked us to step in and provide them with a little extra manpower considering the media frenzy shit storm that’s coming.”

  “You going to be okay out there? The sun’s bright today.” The Pacific Northwest was probably one of the more hospitable environments for vampires on the planet. The amount of fog and cloud cover they had annually made it more likely vamps could go out during the day. Today was not one of those days.

  “My car is in the garage here, and the club has underground parking.” Luca shrugged and didn’t mention the heavily tinted windows on his vehicle. “I’ll do the press conference indoors.” He nodded toward a door off the living room. “And here’s Kingston.”

  The door swung open, and Luca flinched as the light flooded in from the backyard. He took a quick step back when a shaft of sunshine hit his shoes. Peyton, the werewolf agent Jack had seen with Tess the night before, stepped in. His cool gaze took in Luca’s movements, but he said nothing, which was his normal operating procedure. He nodded and moved aside for Merek.

  The warlock’s face was pale, his mouth pinched. Jack arched his eyebrows. “As trite as it sounds, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Merek grimaced. “The ghost of Christmas future, maybe.”

  That sobered Jack up, and he pulled out a notebook to write down anything the other man might have to say about the situation. Merek’s precognition was the most powerful anyone had ever heard of, and Jack had quickly learned to pay attention when the man spoke about his visions. “You saw another victim coming?”

  “Not exactly.” His smile was nothing short of dour. “I did see a few interesting things about our guy, but not much.”

  Surprising. Kingston was usually spot-on and clear when he had a vision. This was the first time Jack had ever heard him say he wasn’t certain about the details. He wasn’t sure what to make of that, but he filed that piece of information away for examination later. It might be important to their case, whether he knew it yet or not.

  “I need to go.” Luca checked his watch again. “I’ve called in Grayson, as Merek requested. We’ll have her for as long as we need her, or so your former captain assured me. He was most accommodating.”

  If anything, Kingston looked even grimmer. “Good. She needs to be here.”

  “Grayson? Detective Selina Grayson? As in, Merek’s old partner?” As in, the elf Jack had spent the night screwing like a mink in heat? The reminder sent a wave of lust rolling through his body. He’d been actively not thinking about her since the moment he’d left her, and that had only been made possible by the knowledge that he’d have her in his bed again tonight.

  “The one and only.” Luca turned for the door that led to the garage. “She should arrive within a few minutes. Her house isn’t that far from here.”

  Neither was Jack’s, thankfully, since she wasn’t at her place right now.

  Possibilities nagged at Selina the entire drive over to the address the captain had given her. The FBI wanting to see her was not how she liked to start her day. Law enforcement agencies more or less played well together, but generally speaking, she liked batting for her own team and having everyone else stay out of her way.

  Then again, how often did anyone ask her what she wanted? In this job, she went where she was told, but since it gave her something constructive to do with her old age and let her bust bad guys for a living, she’d take it. A century ago, this career path hadn’t even been an option for a woman. She sipped from the cup of coffee she’d swiped from Jack’s house. It had either been shower and steal his coffee, or not shower and stop at Starbucks on the way.

  Reeking of sex when there were werewolves in the vicinity was not something she was willing to do. She had no shame in her sex life, but there was no need to advertise. Especially when many of these people knew the scent of the man she’d been shagging.

  Pulling up to the curb behind a long line of police vehicles, she draped her badge from a chain around her neck and stepped out to survey the crowd that gathered outside the yellow caution tape. Nothing out of the ordinary besides the Normal gawkers, but the police and /or FBI would have a few telepaths listening in on human thoughts to see if anyone had seen something they shouldn’t. Tweaking Normal memories was standard operating procedure in cases like this—it kept everyone safe.

  A uniformed officer with the Seattle PD recognized her and held up the caution tape for her to pass under. “Thanks.”

  “Not a problem, Detective.” He grinned at her, rolling his eyes. “The Feds have swooped in and taken over already.”

  “I know. They called me in to assist.” She shrugged, not returning the smile. She’d found that offering too much familiarity at work caused problems in the male-dominated world of law enforcement. After the cracks everyone had made about her dress last night, she definitely wasn’t thawing out anytime soon.

  She met Merek outside the door of a neat little Victorian cottage. He did not look happy to see her. She arched her eyebrows at him.

  “You rang, dear?”

  “Shut up.” Merek snorted and rubbed a hand down his face. His blond hair was mussed and his gray eyes bloodshot. “This one reminds me of something you described once. From back when you first became a cop. Looks like the same M.O.”

  She sipped her coffee, considered offering him some, but then rejected that thought. She might like Merek more than any other partner she’d worked with, but this was coffee. A girl had to have her priorities. “For a man who’s supposed to be enjoying his wedding night, you look wrecked.”

  “Couldn’t sleep.” He gestured to the house. “I don’t want you here.”

 
“Why?” She walked around him and headed inside, following the trail of cops to a bedroom. The hallway was a bloody mess, so she figured whatever had taken place in the bedroom wasn’t going to be pretty. Tess was beside the bed, collecting evidence. She bent to pick something up, blocking Selina’s view.

  When the redhead shifted out of the way, Selina got a good look at the body, and the bottom dropped out of her stomach. It was like taking a hammer blow to the chest. Her heart stopped, and her lungs seized. Blood, death, destruction. She swayed on her feet and had to grab the doorjamb to remain upright. Not because she’d never seen anything this gruesome before, but because she’d seen this before. Memories swamped her, overlaying the picture in front of her. Only it wasn’t some nameless victim, it was Bess. The younger cousin whom Selina had helped raise, who had danced with so much boundless joy at her wedding, who had grown up to become her confidante, her closest friend.

  Selina’s stomach revolted, and for a moment, she was certain she was going to vomit. Acid bile burned its way up her throat, tears stung her eyes, and her fingers tightened on the door frame, her nails scoring the wood. Oh, gods. Oh. Gods.

  Bess’s killer was back. It had been decades since she’d been murdered, and now he was back.

  “You know why I don’t want you here,” Merek growled behind her.

  His words slapped her back to reality, and a frosty numbness began to harden within her. It was almost a relief. At least it was familiar. She’d felt this numbness, this nothing, since Bess had died. Since she’d failed to catch the killer. That still had the power to rip open a hole in her soul. Her cousin’s murderer had never been caught. It had been her case, and she had failed when it meant the most.

  So, yeah, she knew why Merek didn’t want her here, and he also knew why she had to be here. For Bess. Selina glanced at her former partner. He didn’t want her here because his visions had been predicting this for quite some time. This was going to be the case that killed her. Her very long life was going to hit its inevitable end. He hadn’t known specific details, just that she would die on the job. Soon. And it would be a bloody, gory exit for her.

  “Yeah, New Orleans. The serial killer who got away from me thirty years ago. It’s funny how things come full circle.” She huffed out a small laugh, even as icy fingers gripped her heart. The same iciness that had frozen her since she’d seen her baby cousin sprawled across a bed, tortured by iron, drained of all blood, and marked by black magic.

  “You don’t have to get involved.” Merek crossed his arms, looking big and rough and intimidating.

  She cut him the kind of glance reserved for simpletons. “And let the bastard get away, knowing I could have done something this time? No. You know I have to be involved. This is me. I don’t walk away, and I sure as hell don’t back down.”

  Not once in four hundred plus years. It had gotten her into a lot of trouble before, too, and she still didn’t back down. She figured at this point in her life, she was too damn old to go changing habits now. And even if she wanted to—this evil bloodsucker had killed Bess. No. There was no walking away from this.

  He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t like this.”

  “You don’t have to like it, Kingston. It is what it is.” She’d had a nagging feeling in the back of her mind for over a year now. Huge change was coming, looming over her like some creeping, insidious shadow. The end of life as she knew it. All of it would be over. She’d heard that older Magickals could often sense when the finish line drew near, and this was it. She’d come to accept it, even if Merek hadn’t. Then again, the control freak in him didn’t like that he couldn’t save everyone. He’d get over it eventually. There were some things that could be controlled, and others not so much. Death was not one of those things. It had come for Bess far too soon.

  Selina sighed, shaking her head at him. “If one of us shouldn’t be here, it’s you. You’re supposed to be leaving on your honeymoon. Don’t let this hold you back.”

  “Cavalli wanted me to get a read on this before I skipped town, so I came by. All my precognition showed me when I got here was you.” He swallowed hard. “Dead.”

  A chill went though her at that one simple word. She’d known it, but it was one thing to see a live bomb, and a whole different thing to be holding the bomb in her hands. It hit her once again.

  Boom.

  Here it was. This was it. The case that would end all cases. Also the case that had stolen the last person she had ever loved, the last person in her family who’d given a damn about her. Now they were all gone, whether they loved her or loathed her. Some lines had flourished over the centuries, but not the Graysons. Selina was the last, and there would be no more after her. If she could give her cousin’s afterlife a little peace before she went, she’d take it and be grateful for the chance to get some justice for all this bastard’s victims.

  Including herself, it seemed.

  She cleared her throat, casting about for something else to talk about. “Chloe is a very understanding woman for letting the FBI interrupt her wedding night.”

  He grinned, his face relaxing for the first time since she’d arrived. “I’ll make it up to her later.”

  “You do that. Now tell me what you know.”

  4

  Jack was here.

  Of course he was. He was on the MCU, why wouldn’t he be here? Somehow Selina hadn’t considered seeing him in a professional capacity. It ruined a little of the carefree sexual glamour of the night before. Then again, any reminder of this old case wasn’t likely to put her in the mood. She kept her face free of expression when he stepped in from the hallway and looked at her. From across a dead body.

  “Agent Laramie.”

  His blue eyes were even more brilliant in the light of day, the color pale as a laser beam and just as incisive as he stared at her. A little smile kicked up the corner of his mouth, and it kicked her heart rate up a notch. “Detective Grayson. Nice to see you again.”

  Since other people were in the room with them, she merely nodded. Clearing her throat, she glanced at Merek. “You were saying?”

  The big warlock had gone rigid, his eyes glazing the way they did when a strong vision hit him. He shuddered and blinked. “I was saying that the only real thing I could tell you was the perp was male and came in through one of the back windows, but even a human could have figured that part out.”

  “Yeah, even a human could. It was pretty obvious to me anyway.” Jack rolled his eyes, and Selina suppressed a snort.

  “Let’s keep the Normal cracks to a minimum.” Her gaze swept the room, and though she had zero jurisdiction here, most of the Magickals met her eyes and nodded. Age gave her authority where her badge didn’t.

  “You just had a vision,” Jack pointed out, his gaze sharpening on the big warlock. “About this case?”

  Merek nodded, sweat beading on his forehead, which he ignored. “You need to be involved.”

  “It’s my case. So ... yeah.”

  “No, somehow a ...” He shook his head. “A more positive outcome is possible if Selina and you are working on it together. And I know how weak that sounds for a vision, but that’s all I’ve got for you.”

  “Positive, as in Jack solves the case?” Which was good, since she had no idea at what point in this process she was going to bite it. Hopefully, after she helped nail this son of a bitch. Rage ripped through her system, memories assaulting her of other people this man had killed, the crime scenes so eerily familiar it made her skin crawl. Victims who’d been beaten to within an inch of their lives, then drained of blood, clinching the deal. She’d seen a lot of ugly shit in her life, especially since she’d become a cop, but this case had always made her stomach curdle.

  Her cousin’s blank, staring eyes would haunt her for the rest of her life. Was it any wonder her psyche had never let this one go?

  The guy had never been caught, never committed another murder in that signature style in New Orleans for her years there. So, why here, why
now? Why a thirty-year gap between murders? She damn well wanted to know, and the fact that she hadn’t caught him back then meant that this woman had died.

  Not again.

  If a positive outcome required Jack, then so be it. She didn’t like it much, but that was just too bad, wasn’t it? Fate didn’t really give a shit what she wanted. Never had, never would. Best to put on her big-girl panties and deal with it.

  Merek sighed. “Positive, as in, I have no fucking clue. You know how this can be sometimes.”

  Yeah, she did. Something few people knew about Merek’s powerful precognition was that it went on the fritz with people he was close to. A blessing, considering he didn’t have to watch his loved ones die in visions like he’d had with her, but a curse because it meant he couldn’t help them when they needed it the most. That had nearly gotten Chloe and Alex killed the year before, and Selina knew it ate at him. Even with her, his visions tended to be ... incomplete and staticky. Too many years as her partner made him a little too close to her to have full visions anymore. Something else that she was sure bothered him.

  “All right, we’ll do our best.” She straightened her shoulders. “You get to your flight. Have one of the uniforms drive you and put the blue lights on.”

  “Not necessary.”

  “Yeah. Necessary.”

  He wavered for a minute, uncertainty flashing across his face. “Maybe I shouldn’t—”

  “Go, Kingston.” She jerked her thumb toward the door. “As someone who’s lived for a hell of a lot longer than you, let me assure you that there will always be another crisis around the bend. The rest of us can handle this. Go on your honeymoon. Start your marriage off on the right foot, without serial killers or werewolf terrorists.”