by Gaja J. Kos
The newbie in my arms stood on her own two feet, and together, the witches’ magic fortified the barrier running along all six sides of the cell. For a flashing moment, the spellwork became visible, an intricate thing of illuminated beauty, then settled, melding into the air once more.
Roth’s magic continued to tint the atmosphere, but his gaze sought the lot of us out. “What happened?”
“We attempted to separate them when they woke up.” Mara breathed heavily. “The cell was never meant to contain more than one frenzied wolf.”
The newbie unspooled more of her magic, smoothening the ward. “When we tried to relocate Dominik to the adjacent cell, Emilia shifted. Dominik changed a second after that.”
Roth glanced into the cell. Although both wolves were still snarling and clearly on the offensive, they were running in circles, firmly away from the too fragile walls.
I retreated to give the witches and Roth time to work out how they’d keep their magic going until the pair shifted back.
“Do you see now why it’s imperative to find the witch?” I asked Aric.
He wrapped me in his arms and kissed the top of my head. “You have my help, Gina. Whatever it is, whatever I can do, I’ll do it.”
I tipped my face up, meeting his gaze. “And I promise to stop Milton.”
For the first time in what felt like ages, the corners of Aric’s lips turned up in a gentle, but definitely there, smile.
His mouth brushed the corner of mine. “Thank you.”
The buzz of the bullpen engulfed me like an old friend when I strode onto the floor after a quick stop by Dominik and Emilia’s cell. There was something in the action-oriented atmosphere that never failed to anchor me, although I had a feeling seeing Dominik well, if locked up, had certainly played a massive role in uplifting my mood.
Sensing my approach as he always did, Finn whistled and rotated his chair to face me fully.
He raked his gaze down my hair. “Don’t you look all nice!”
“Thanks.” I threw my fresh twists over my shoulder and struck a pose. “Got to look good to work good, right?”
He grumbled, but there was a lightness to the sound I was glad to hear. This was where we were at our best.
“Care to work some of your magic juju?” He arched a brow high.
I dropped into my chair and powered up the computer, side-eyeing him. “Aren’t you the magic man in this relationship?”
Finn actually puffed out his chest and tapped it. Hard.
I half-snorted, half-chuckled. “So, what’s on the menu today that needs my juju? Did you get the reports from PD already?”
We’d hit more dead ends than leads over the past couple of days. Nothing on Milton. Nothing on that damn witch. At least Dominik and Emilia’s curse had remained dormant throughout this time, but they were still locked in an ICRA cell with tight, twenty-four-seven surveillance and a constant, unspoken anticipation about when it would happen again.
Moving nowhere wasn’t an option.
I hoped more than I dared to admit that there would be something in the police reports on the bloody threats Aric had received that would open up another avenue for us to explore.
“Yeah, we got the PD reports. They came in just earlier today.” Finn started to shove a folder my way when my stationary phone went off.
I glanced at the screen, then scrambled to answer when I saw the caller.
“Lotte?”
The instant I spoke her name, Finn dragged his chair beside mine with such force we collided. I quickly righted myself and, while my partner mouthed sorry, put Lotte on speaker.
“I found your guy,” she fired, “aaaand I might have taken the liberty of interviewing him.”
My lips parted, but nothing came out.
Thankfully, Finn had retained better control over his vocal cords. “What did you find out?”
“Well, he certainly remembers the buyer and has all the relevant documents, but the ID belonging to one Jennifer Abbot was a fake. I ran some checks but couldn’t find a damn thing.”
I grunted. This was better than the witch meddling with the guy’s mind like she did with the bureaucrats, but it still left us with nothing.
“However,” Lotte went on, and I perked up, “our guy is a werewolf. Your witch buyer got a call while they were making the sale. She moved away for some privacy, but not far enough. He overheard an American man on the other side of the line call her Shelby.”
“And he didn’t think it was dodgy to sell his house to someone who went by another name?” I drawled.
Lotte let out a throaty laugh. “Yeah, he definitely did. But he also wanted to get rid of that godsforsaken moldy wreck”—she lowered her register to match, I presumed, our wolf’s—“and figured that as long as the payment was legit, which he made sure of, he didn’t care what the buyer called herself.”
Having seen the house, I couldn’t really argue with his logic.
I glanced at Finn, then said, “Thanks, Lotte. I really appreciate your help.”
“Anytime,” her cheerful voice sounded through the speaker. “I’m sending over the document and ID scan now.”
The line went dead.
Finn looked at me and slapped a hand on my shoulder. “Magic. Fucking. Juju.”
That magic fucking juju didn’t last long, though, even if my twists did still look perfect.
Son House’s somber voice filled my living room as I poured over the files I knew by heart, yet kept wishing something new would jump out.
After Lotte’s revelation, everything seemed to have gone downhill.
We had the witch’s name. Her headshot, although how altered, it was hard to tell. Her fake ID.
And it served us shit.
Even between that, Aric’s own intel, ICRA’s detailed search of the premises, and the reports on the previous threats Aric had received, I was nowhere closer to figuring out where to find the sonovabitch and his curse-happy associate. As far as we were concerned, they were godsdamned ghosts.
Sipping my gin, I read through ICRA’s report on the house where Emilia and I had been held captive. The place had been cleared out by the time the team had arrived, nothing but rudimentary indicators that someone had lived there for a few months left behind. Well, that, and the cell where they’d kept Emilia, as well as my own little torture basement. No evidence aside from our blood and DNA, though. Even the magic imprints had been stripped clear.
Where Milton and Shelby had relocated was anyone’s guess.
I closed the folder and put it on the edge of the desk, then set aside the files on the two guards Emilia had killed. There was nothing in the notes on their lives indicating how they’d gotten involved with Shelby, and the list of their known associates we’d gone through in painful detail had borne no fruit either.
Nor had we managed to figure out whether Emilia’s earlier kills were targeted hits or just random attempts to see the curse at work.
Frustration threatened to claw to the surface. I slammed it back down, though vibrations of it continued to plague my flesh.
Taking Milton’s file in my hands, I tucked myself sideways in the armchair and braced my feet against the armrest, letting the sunlight from outside fall upon the pages and warm my back. I leafed through the file. The majority of the information was Aric’s firsthand account of the vampire I’d recorded over a few surprisingly good, productive sessions.
Milton had already been with Roscoe for quite some time before Aric had turned, and from what Aric knew, his vampiric brother had always had a taste for the more violent aspects of life. Draining girls to the point of death and beyond it had been Milton’s MO, and although neither Milton nor Roscoe were of a traditional vampiric leaning, hiding away during the day and such, they definitely weren’t your mainstream daylight vamps.
Unfortunately, knowing all of that brought me no closer to snagging the bastard.
I grunted and switched out the report for the second, far more scarce one on Geraldine,
the witch who’d worked with Roscoe when Aric had still been part of the group. Aside from what he’d already told me that first time he’d opened up about his past, Aric had little to add to her profile. He’d never really gotten to know much about Geraldine’s life. All he’d gleaned during their time together was that her brand of magic was rare—and old.
And that she’d wanted an heir to carry on the bloodline.
The possibility that Shelby was related to Geraldine seemed more and more plausible.
I’d put in a request to the American supernatural intelligence agencies in case they had anything on Geraldine, but, truth be told, I wasn’t holding my breath. Even if they had something on the witch, what were the chances of it providing us with usable clues in regard to Shelby?
I pursed my lips. Maybe I was drawing bad luck upon myself thanks to all the negative thoughts and pessimism I’d been shoving out in the universe, but… It was just so damn annoying to hit a wall time and time again, all the while knowing Shelby was somewhere in my fucking city.
The room fell silent. I flipped the record around, then drank some more of my gin and read through the lines again.
Regardless of Aric’s willingness to do whatever it took to capture Shelby and Milton, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was still missing out on entire chunks of the story about his past, about the period when he ran with Milton, Roscoe, and Geraldine.
Okay, I got why a vampire would want a magic wielder by his side, but there was something about Roscoe’s and Geraldine’s cooperation that bothered me. Something, my gut hinted, that would help me clear up my current case.
Narrowing my eyes, I perused Aric’s recollection of his time in the States once more.
Oddly—though maybe not really surprising—my brain skipped the parts about Milton, focusing on Geraldine and Roscoe instead.
Yeah, something was definitely bugging me about their partnership.
The whys were too murky. Too vague. Aric had mentioned something about his maker using Geraldine’s magic to charge himself up like a battery, make himself stronger, but while that was a valid reason, that nagging in my gut refused to let up.
I just couldn’t figure out what the fuck Aric wasn’t saying.
Or maybe it was me, grasping at straws in my frustration at the damn standstill.
My phone rang, and I reached over to the desk to unbury it from the hillside of papers. Aric’s name flashed on the screen. Wasn’t he supposed to be having rehearsals with the guys today?
“Aric?” I answered.
His sigh grated down the line. “It happened again.”
Chapter 17
A kernel of excitement I had no hopes of controlling shot through my heart when I pulled into the parking lot in front of Aric’s studio. Neither good nor bad, the thrumming energy zinged through my nerves and had me climbing out of my ICRA standard-issue vehicle with an urgency that almost got me chipping nails on my car’s door.
Well, that certainly wasn’t going to cut it.
With no one else in sight, I took a moment to ground myself under the sun’s nurturing rays, then crossed the empty stretch of pavement to the studio. The front door was unlocked, just as Aric had said it would be, delivering a reminder that I still needed to fix mine. Finn’s magic held true, but it wouldn’t last forever.
I let myself in. Where I’d expected that intoxicating twang of guitar strings and whiskey to hit, I was met with fading echoes of blood and thin wisps of uncertainty.
Seeing me, Aric stepped away from the gorgeous young woman who sat on the couch. Prominent bite marks adorned her neck, coupled with streaks of dried blood snaking toward her exposed shoulders. I sent a silent wave of gratitude to Aric for having the right mind not to let her clean up before I arrived.
“Thanks for coming, Gina,” he said and placed his fingers gently on the small of my back.
I flicked my gaze to the serious yet warm brown of his eyes. “Of course.”
As we moved deeper into the lounge room, I allowed myself to momentarily appreciate the feel of his hand against my spine, guiding me with an assertiveness my body purred in response to. I was surprised to find the sensation didn’t sidetrack me. If anything, it infused me with the right kind of energy to tackle whatever the fuck this talk would send hurtling my way.
I sank into the chair Aric had prepared opposite the woman he introduced as Caro Vogelsang before retreating behind my back—close enough for me to feel his presence without actually looming over me.
“Hi, I’m ICRA Agent Gina Brent.” Briefly, my attention flicked down to the brown, dried rivulets of blood on her bobbing throat, then I met her gaze again. “You’re not in any trouble, Caro, but I would really appreciate it if you could answer some questions for me. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to record our conversation.”
Her human emotions swirled through the air, infused with that edge of uncertainty the Agency tended to instill in their kind, but on the outside, Caro remained perfectly composed.
If anything, her features seemed to open. “What do you want to know?”
I grabbed my phone, hit record on my voice memo app, and set it on the table between us.
“Can you tell me why you came to this studio?” I asked Caro.
She shrugged—one of those “I should have known better” shrugs meant to mask the knowledge you carried deep down that you seriously fucked up.
“Got paid, cash on hand, to show up here.”
I pitched forward. “Who paid you?”
“Some guy. He didn’t say his name or anything.” She frowned. “White, average height, light brown hair, gray-blue eyes. Had a five o’clock shadow. I think he had a birthmark on his neck, but I wasn’t really paying that much attention.”
I glanced at Aric. Yeah, that sounded a lot like Milton, all right.
“Is this vampire also the one who bit you?” I asked, noting how she’d omitted naming the actual species of the guy.
Caro inhaled, then nodded. “Are you sure I’m not in trouble?”
“You haven’t done anything illegal,” I assured her. “But if you feel unsafe, even the tiniest bit, I can call a fellow agent to take you home.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“Excellent.” I smiled. “I just want to take a picture of your neck, then you can go clean up.”
I wasn’t done with her just yet, but gut instinct told me she needed a few moments to herself before we could carry on.
When Caro agreed, I saved the recording, then documented the bite mark from all angles. I even used a tiny tape measure I had on my car keys to set the bite mark against for accuracy. While there was no doubt in my mind that this was Milton’s doing—which was also why I wasn’t sending Caro to our forensics and adding to their workload—I still liked covering all my bases.
“The bathroom is just through that door right there,” Aric said when Caro and I wrapped up. “I’ll make you a cup of coffee in the meantime.”
As Caro rose and headed for the bathroom, Aric stalked into the kitchenette. I mailed the photos to my work email, then trailed after Aric and dialed Finn.
“What’s up?” My partner’s voice flowed down the line, accompanied by the buzz of a lively bullpen.
A smile tugged at my lips. Finn always did prefer combing through files at the office, though for the life of me, I never understood why he’d give up the comfort of his couch for the shoddy swivel chair unless absolutely necessary.
Then again, I wasn’t quite the social creature he was.
“I have a young woman that needs an escort home,” I said. “Help a wolf out?”
“Everything all right?”
I leaned against the wall on the threshold of the kitchenette and eyed Aric as he busied himself with the coffee. “Milton sent her to Aric. Another blood offering. Everything’s fine, but she’d feel safer with an escort. We’re at the studio now.”
“Hold on a sec.” Finn muffled the phone, but I could still hear him shouting for Jorn ac
ross the bullpen.
After a quick convo, Finn said, “Jorn’s coming over asap.”
“Thanks.” I ended the call, then joined Aric as he waited for the water to heat up.
He shot me a lopsided smile. “You want one too?”
“Yeah, that’d be great.”
Caro still hadn’t emerged from the bathroom, the sound of running water indicating she was taking her time wiping the dried blood off, so I braced my butt against the counter and indulged in some—hopefully discreet—Aric-gazing.
I still had no fucking clue where we actually stood since all our interactions had evolved around Milton, but I couldn’t help myself from enjoying at least this small treat.
Aric dropped a spoonful of instant coffee in a second cup, then poured the hot water into both. Fuck, looking at him… I doubted there would ever be a time when his presence didn’t overwhelm me.
“Milton’s toying with us. With me,” he said and offered me the cup.
Grateful for the course correction, I wrapped my arms around the mug’s warmth. “Agreed. But what’s his angle? Why send bleeding women your way?”
“I have no idea.” He blew out a hard breath and crossed his arms, leaning against the counter beside me. Even with the overpowering aroma of coffee, the scent that was uniquely him entranced my senses. “All I can think of is that, for a time after I turned, the time Milton knew me, I was the kind of vampire who seduced women into offering their necks.”
Which really wasn’t anything special or out of the ordinary.
Yes, Aric had admitted to sometimes taking more than he should have and enjoying several bloodflows at once, but again, that was nothing thousands of vamps hadn’t done before.
I blew into my coffee, then sipped the strong brew. “Even if you drank from these women Milton keeps sending… It’s not like they’re booby-trapped or anything. ICRA ran a quick test on the three who cornered you that night on the street.” I took another sip. “They were drunk, but that was it. I just… I don’t get it.”