by Amie Gibbons
I shook my head. “No, come on.”
He leaned in, whisperin’ in my ear, “Ariana Kay Ryder.”
Fission ran down my spine and I jerked straight.
“I can’t control you easily with just those words,” he said, words making his lips brush my ear, “but with a spell and your name, or something of your body, I could turn you into a puppet. As could any trained vampire or witch. God save you if a Fae does.”
The power on me released as he backed away, and I slumped with a sigh.
“You guys really don’t like the Fae, do you?” I asked.
“They are power hungry mischievous little deities. No desire in the world but to cause chaos, feed, fuck and fight. Little better than insects. Reproduce like them too. They get into our cities and take them piece by piece, making humans unfit for eating by feeding them, mating with them. Then they set their humans against us.”
“They invade your nest,” I said.
“Not usually… you didn’t mean literally. Yes.”
“Hey, I get it. You should see me the second someone says bedbugs. I spaz and start cleaning. Mama figured that out when I was twelve and she was writing a book where the main characters meet cuz she’s a single mom who gets bedbugs and he’s an exterminator with a dark past. Just listening to Mama going through her research made me check my bed every night and clean my bedroom. Once Mama figured out why I was suddenly cleaning, she would subtly mention the book or a friend who heard a story about them or a friend who actually had them when she wanted me to clean. It took me till I was sixteen to figure out what she was doing.”
Carvi chuckled. “Didn’t you have a maid?”
“Yeah, like a once a week for the basic things kind of maid, but putting away our own toys and clothes and stuff, that was on us. Mama didn’t want us bein’ spoiled little pains in the ass who lived with her till we were thirty and used her money to knit candle cozies and call ourselves artists.”
“But she’s an artist.”
“And she did it after her day job like an adult, and yes, I’m cuttin’ out Mama’s more colorful verbiage on that one. You should hear her rant about Millennials whining about wantin’ free everything and the like.”
Carvi snorted.
“That tells me all I need to know about your family.”
“Southern girls. We hate socialists, big gov and Yanks, and we love pearls, shootin’ and homemade dinners. Get us on politics and we’ll rant about states’ rights and hard work.”
“Every time I think I have a grasp on human politics, something comes along to throw it off. There’s no sense to the way you people do things.”
“It’s called democracy… well, technically a republic, but yeah.”
We entered the ballroom through giant double doors with gold designs carved into them.
The party was well on its way. As the host, Carvi should’ve been on time according to my Southern girl hospitality, but something told me arriving fashionably late was not only acceptable here, but expected.
The room took my breath away. The crystal chandeliers glinted above with thousands of electric candles and danced off the painted ceiling. It looked very Michelangelo-esque with scenes of naked people and fat cherubs but I didn’t recognize the stories the scenes were from.
The dance floor was already hopping to some bouncy pop rap type music that hurt my ears and made my bones vibrate.
“Can’t say much for your taste in music,” I half yelled to Carvi as the noise filled my head.
“Just because it’s not country.”
“What makes you think I only listen to country?”
He chuckled. “Please.”
He made a gesture at the DJ and the music went down a titch so you could still dance to it, but the people on the edges of the room at the tables could hold a conversation.
“Thank you,” I said. “That was hurting my teeth.”
We swished towards the front of the room to the rectangular table that looked like something from a wedding.
A server held my chair out for me and I sat, Carvi taking the seat next to me, smack dab in the middle. There was room for about ten of us but no one else was sitting up here yet.
“Who else goes up here?” I asked.
“The rest of my party, if I want them here,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“If there’s a member of my party I’m not particularly happy with, they do not get to sit up here.”
I waved a hand. “You’re being obtuse. Who else is joining us?”
He smiled. “My second in command will sit on my other side. His date will be with him. And then we have my other lieutenants and two said they were bringing dates. They’ll be up here.”
“When?”
“When they make sure no one is plotting anything now that I’m here.”
“Plotting?”
“I’ve lived through more assassination attempts than years your country has been in existence.”
“Oh, okay, so like one every ten years or so?”
“And I haven’t had one in over twenty years, so I’m due.”
He smiled and I burst out laughing.
“You’re messing with me!”
“A little.” He shrugged. “But this is a prime target. Leaders from every state, most of the major cities. If anyone wanted to try a terrorist attack, it’d be here.”
His phone buzzed and he answered with a blank face. “Yes?”
He nodded along for a moment and turned it off.
“What?” I asked.
He smiled, leaning into my neck and whispering, “Come with me. Keep a smile on like we’re going to go fuck.”
Crap on toast. He just had to say that about gettin’ attacked, didn’t he?
He offered me his arm and we left through a back door into a just as lush hallway. I followed Carvi to the elevator, nodding and smiling at random people as we passed.
As soon as the doors closed, Carvi turned to me.
“My imagination’s goin’ crazy right now,” I said. “So just tell me.”
“We have a dead caterer.”
I pinched myself. “You just had to say tonight would be perfect for something like this, didn’t you?”
Chapter Two
The dead guy was found in the hotel kitchen, slumped over a tub of mayo in the giant walk-in freezer in the back.
The industrial kitchen was exactly like every other industrial kitchen, except with people cleared out of the back and gathered up in the partitioned dish area by security. Very clean, everything hard and chrome, lots of long counters and a wall sized multipart stove set up that’d make my mama droll.
The cook who found him had watched enough TV to know not to move the body, and was good enough at his job to know not to call the cops yet.
It really should’ve bothered me more that calling the boss was his first instinct and not the cops since I was one, but in this case, I got it.
You don’t haul in human cops when there’s vamps on premises and one owns the hotel.
I saw a big box labeled turkey and pushed it over to prop the freezer door open.
“What are you doing?” Carvi asked.
“I’m getting a feel for the scene and investigating,” I said. “We didn’t just come here to sightsee, right?”
“No, we came here to get rid of the body.”
I shot him a glare and propped my hands on my hips. “You better be kidding. We have a dead man here. Possibly murdered, definitely left here, and that means we have a bad guy to catch. It could just be something like what y… er, a trick with an already dead guy to mess with us. But since he’s in one of the caterer outfits and wasn’t here… earlier. Hey, when was the last time someone was in here?”
The cook jerked, blinking too fast. He was scared.
“Me, right,” he said, accent so thick I had to watch his mouth to understand him. “I was here… maybe ten minutes before, then next time I came… he was here.”
&nb
sp; “Carvi, any cameras in here?”
“Yes.”
“Get them. Cook, what’s your name?”
“Enrique Moreno.”
“Hey, Enrique, I’m Ariana. Are you holdin’ up okay? You’re doing great for your first body, trust me.”
He met my eyes, his big and wet. “My father was a police officer back home. He told me stories. But I…” His voice broke.
“I know. It’s okay. Where’s home?”
“A small city in Catalonia you have never heard of. Let’s say Barcelona.”
“See, you’re already doing better than most witnesses with their first body.” I smiled and he managed a small one back. “You said it was about ten minutes before you found the body. When did you find it?”
“Maybe five minutes ago.”
“Okay, so time period to check the tapes is about twenty minutes ago to when we got here.”
Carvi already had his phone out and quickly told them to get a copy of the tape ready for us to view.
He slid the phone back into his jacket pocket with a smirk. “They will have the video sent to my phone when they get it.”
“Why are you smiling?”
“You’re so cute when you take charge.”
“Hey, who’s the investigator here? You wanted me here for my expertise. This is what it looks like. Oh!” I slammed my hand to my forehead. “Grant!”
I called him and he showed up a minute later.
“Anyone touch the body?” he asked.
“No, sir. I was going to but it’s not like we have an M.E. here to give me the okay. Do we have anything? Any gear, any of the fancy M.E. stuff Kat has?”
“No, but tapes should tell us something.”
“They’ll be sent here in a moment, sir.”
“How do I get you to call me sir?” Carvi asked, crossin’ his arms and leaning against the doorway.
“Get a badge. Until then, we have actual problems.”
“No one saw anything?” Grant asked.
“We just talked to the cook who found him,” I said, nodding at the guy.
He gave a little wave and Grant glared.
“Anyone else back here?” Grant said.
“Not then,” Enrique said. “Everyone out at the party, up front with the stoves and dishes. I’m the runner tonight. I grab things and assist.”
Grant crouched by the body, eyeing him. He pulled out a pen and used it to poke at one of the dead guy’s hands.
“Ryder,” he said.
I joined him next to the body and he nodded at the hand. It was open by his side and had shallow slashes across the palm.
“Defensive wounds, sir,” I said, wigglin’ my fingers. “You want me to try?”
“No point in waiting.” He stood and backed away.
“Here we go,” I said, kneeling next to him, the frosty floor flecked with who knew what leaching into my dress.
How sad was it that I cared about the dress when we had a dead guy on our hands?
I shook out my hands and grabbed his face.
Flash.
The world was awash in a sea of black, inky clouds. They swirled and danced in impossible patterns and I couldn’t get any details through them.
“Are you with the party, sir?” some male voice said. “Sir? You can’t be back here.”
He screamed and something like slices and thumps echoed.
Echoed?
I pulled out of the vision without the sense of suddenness or jarring to another reality I usually had. It just ended like hitting the TV off button.
“Yes?” Grant asked.
I looked up as I pushed to my feet. “Weak vision, sir.”
“What do you mean?” Carvi asked.
“I couldn’t really see anything. It was all black, but with swirls through it, if that makes sense. I don’t know. I heard, I’m assuming, the waiter, and he was saying the guy shouldn’t be back there and wanted to know if he was with the party. The guy didn’t answer and then the guy, the first one, screamed. I heard slashing and thumps and an echo of those… kind of?”
“How many thumps?” Grant asked.
I closed my eyes. “Ummmmm.” I took a deep breath, drawing up the noises again.
“Take your time,” Grant said.
“The man screamed, there were slices, maybe three? Then a muffled kinda thump, and a louder one.”
“Slices on his hands. The first thump was the knife going in and the second was him hitting the floor. One problem with that theory.”
“Where’s the stab wound?” I said.
“Exactly.”
“It could be magic,” Carvi said.
We both looked at him.
“What?” Grant asked.
“He could have used a knife to distract the man or whatever, then killed him with magic,” Carvi said.
“How?” Grant asked.
“I don’t understand what you’re not getting about this,” Carvi said, still smirkin’ for some stupid reason.
“Carvi, there’s a dead guy,” I said before Grant could get his ice on and get in Carvi’s face. “Can you pretend to care and drop the attitude?”
“I can pretend, but the attitude is here to stay. Deal with it.”
“Carvi!”
He held up his hands. “I deflect with humor, it’s how I process. I meant, he could have used magic to squeeze the man’s heart, to rupture him from the inside, to hit him with enough force to kill him, all without leaving a mark.”
“Ohhhhhh come on!” I said. “No marks? How is that possible? Is there a way to track them then? Like we do with GSR when people shoot? Is there some kind of magic detection so we can find out who cast a spell recently?”
“We could cast a spell to see magic,” Carvi said slowly. “It would capture everyone magical, including us, but would give us an idea of who could have done it.”
“Unless it’s a potion,” Grant said.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “If it was a potion, it wouldn’t show up as magic performed by that person, it would just be magic contained in something, right Carvi?”
“Yes, but we could theoretically track that too.”
“Is there a place to store the body, keep it cool and safe?” Grant asked. “Where we can run tests?”
Carvi shrugged. “Hospital morgue? I have a friend who works at one and could keep him on ice and keep it quiet.”
“Call him,” Grant said.
Carvi did while Grant and I looked over the body.
“You’d think a psychic would be able to do some kinda magic trace, huh?” I said.
“You could after some training,” Carvi said as he hung up.
“Can you?” I asked.
“I can try working through you, but from your vision we know there’s a psychic block around this.”
Something moved out of the corner of my eye and I turned.
Nothing.
“What?” Grant asked.
I rubbed my forehead. “I guess I’m just seeing things.”
“What did you see?” Carvi asked, eyes too intent, too focused.
“Oh, nothing.” I flapped my hand.
“No, you’re psychic. You could have seen something on the psychic level that presented as you just seeing something that isn’t there.”
Grant turned, crossing his arms with a glare. “Get out of here.”
I turned to see a few of the kitchen workers bunching up at the front of the door.
Grant’s face was set in hard lines that made me want to flinch and it sent the workers scramblin’.
“Now that’s impressive. Shouldn’t you have a pitchfork and a mask when you do that?” Carvi asked, smirk firmly in place.
“Grant, turn that look on him,” I said. “It might shut him up.”
Something flashed across my vision, like a subliminal message buried in a commercial and I caught a glimpse of a woman’s face. Quick, but enough for me to grab large bright blue eyes, natural blond curls and high cheekbones.
I blinked and looked around.
What the quack?
“I doubt it,” Grant said. “Anything we can put up here to keep civilians away?”
“Like crime scene tape we just so happen to have lying around?” Carvi asked.
“Carvi!” I said. Something told me I’d be sayin’ his name in that tone a lot this weekend.
“Oh unclench, Grant knows I’m joking.”
Something moved out of the corner of my eye and I jerked, lookin’ back in the fridge.
“I swear I keep seein’ something,” I said. “I’m losing it.”
Grant looked around the back of the kitchen, obviously trying to find something to rope off the fridge area.
Carvi turned, looking around too. “Could you use some appliance cords?”
Grant gave him a look.
Carvi grinned. “What? You tie them together, make a nice little wall. Though they don’t go out both sides so you could only-”
The dead guy lunged, fast as any vamp.
I froze.
Dead guy grabbed a box of frozen something and threw it at Carvi like it was Styrofoam, smashing him in the back of the head.
Carvi crumpled in a pile, half slumped over the box.
And didn’t get up.
“Crap on a cracker,” I whispered.
The zombie (zombie?) turned to look at me.
“Grant!” I squeaked, stumbling backwards and hitting the long metal table.
“Fuck!” Grant yelled.
I slid along the cold steel as the guy took a step towards me.
I scrambled around the table, keeping my eyes glued to the man.
He took another step towards me, slow, careful, like a zombie in a movie.
I put the table between us and opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
I took a deep breath, trying again. “Grant… what do we do?”
I didn’t dare look over at Carvi cuz I had to keep my eyes on the other walkin’ dead man, but if Carvi wasn’t up and running his mouth, good money said he was out cold.
“I am not sure. Don’t panic. Maybe he doesn’t like vampires.”
“You don’t really believe that.”
“No, I do not.”
I didn’t look back to see what Grant was doing, but could hear his steps as he walked to the side.