“Yeah, people being grabbed by their own, kidnapped, tortured, that’s pretty brutal,” I muttered.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “The vision. The witch…it killed her. Or I should say the visions. After the first one, she kept returning, looking for more intel.”
The modern word sounded oddly out of place, in his strangely formal voice. He paused, clearly thinking on something that disturbed him. “She stumbled into the mind of somebody being tortured and the shock of it…” He looked away. “It’s believed the shock killed her. She slid into a coma and died three hours later. But she was the one to link these disappearances to the hospital. Since then, we’ve used the tools at our disposal to find those who’ve been helping.”
He smiled then. “Shanelle was one tool. Justin Greaves…yourself, you were another.”
Shanelle stiffened.
So did I.
“Justin didn’t get his information from the Assembly,” I said, rising from behind my desk.
“No.” Amund made a pretense of studying his nails. “I believe he got that information from a man you both know—Nova.” He slanted a cunning smile at me. “Nova is very receptive to tactile triggers. It simply took the right…trigger.”
“You manipulative son of a bitch.”
He waved a dismissive hand. “Live as long as I have, watch what I have watched. Know that the people who trust you to keep them alive are being slaughtered—then complain to me about the methods I use to protect my House—and not just my House, but all those who’d suffer under the hands of those behind this…hospital.”
His voice grew colder and harder and the shadows around the room deepened, responding to his rage.
“Assemblyman Amund,” Damon said, his voice a low pulse.
Amund continued to stare at me for a long, pregnant moment. I felt each beat of my heart and was keenly aware of the pulse of my blood as it pumped through my veins. His lids drooped lower and then he closed his eyes.
The moment shattered and Damon moved, not being at all subtle as he placed his body between me and the vampire.
Amund’s lids lifted and he focused on Damon with a smile. “Don’t start showing me your claws, Alpha Lee. I’m not threatening her.” He gave me a polite smile. “You’ve questions. Ask.”
I didn’t ask how he knew. It seemed obvious enough that I would have questions. “I want to know how deep this goes. I want to know who is suspected to be involved. I want to know how many people have disappeared, where they disappeared from and when. I want names. I want dates.”
Amund’s eyes widened as I continued to tell him what I wanted. I didn’t include what seemed obvious to me—the heads of those involved on a silver platter.
When I finally wound down, Amund was eying me the way he might study a particularly confusing puzzle. “Indeed,” he murmured.
I shrugged. “You asked me what I wanted. I told you. Whether you give me the information or not, I don’t care, because I’ll find it.” And I’d start collecting heads on my own.
“Hmmm.” He tapped a finger to his lips.
“Who all knows about this?” I asked. “Is there any suggestion anybody on the Assembly is involved? Is there—”
“Enough.” He lifted a hand as he rose and moved to the door.
What the hell? Was he really leaving without answering a damn question? Not even one?
But all he did was open the door and wait.
A few moments later a figure appeared in front of him, a man, clad in a coat that seemed rather extreme for the brisk November air. He wore a hat pulled down low on his face, paired with large, dark glasses, as if to block the sun, but he wasn’t a vampire.
He was just a man.
“You wished to meet Ms. Maguire’s boss,” Amund said as he shut the door behind the man in front of him.
The man lifted his head and looked around.
“You sent Maguire here.” I studied him as he studied my office. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why. Of course, with the hat, the giant glasses, I could only see half of his face.
“In a fashion.” He smiled and it was the perfect smile, warm and open and honest—the kind that said trust me.
I hated that kind of smile.
His voice was just the same, warm and open and honest—the kind that invited you to pull up a seat and listen to anything and everything this man had to say, even if he was just telling you the story of The Little Engine that Could.
I definitely didn’t trust that kind of voice.
When he glanced at Shanelle, she bowed her head in deference.
“Shanelle was sent here with my approval,” the man said, reaching up to remove his hat, a lovely grey fedora. I watched as he stroked it with his hands. Perfect hands, even. Long-fingered, blunt nails—neatly cut, but not manicured.
Everything about him seemed just perfect,
“We needed answers, Ms. Colbana. You see…Blackstone isn’t just looking to grab a few stray non-humans from the street and experiment on them for kicks. Their purpose goes deeper, but until recently, they’d convinced nearly everybody—Banner, their backers, even much of their staff that they were simply there to help those who wished for some other alternative.”
“Alternative to what?” I tried not to spit the words out as I stared at the top of his bowed head. “Living? A vampire is a vampire—a wolf is a wolf. That can’t be undone.”
“No.” He reached for his sunglasses now and looked up.
I sucked in a breath. For one split second, I saw it—a flash of silver, the sort of color that no mortal eyes could ever duplicate and then his gaze was human. Eyes a lovely shade of amber, but just…human.
I’d seen it, though.
“You’re not human,” I said quietly.
“No.” He smiled, a politician’s perfect, self-deprecating smile. “I’m not. And that’s a closely-guarded secret. I’m sure you can understand why. Just as I’m sure you can understand my…desire…to resolve this matter.”
He watched me closely, as if waiting for something.
I nodded, unable to do anything else.
“Very good.” White teeth flashed in a brilliant smile and he smoothed a hand down the elegant, raw silk of his red necktie. “Very few know the truth and we must keep it that way, which is why I’m here, and why Shanelle was answerable only to her contact within the Assembly—and me. I hope all of you will keep this to yourself.” Then he looked around and blew out a breath. “Ms. Colbana, you could do with some more chairs in your office.
“Now,” he said. “We should talk, because while I understand we caught a few of the key players down here, this is far from done.”
“No,” I said faintly. “We’re not done.”
He nodded, and I gaped as the President of the United States moved across my office, paused in front of my battered old couch and then, with a satisfied smile, sat down.
About
J.C. Daniels is the alter-ego of author Shiloh Walker. She has been writing since she was a kid. She fell in love with vampires with the book Bunnicula and has worked her way up to the more…ah…serious works of fiction. She loves reading and writing anything paranormal, anything fantasy, and nearly every kind of romance.
Once upon a time, she worked as a nurse, but now she writes full time and lives with her family in the Midwest. She writes romantic suspense and contemporary romance, and urban fantasy under her penname, J.C. Daniels. You can find her at Twitter or Facebook and read more about her work at her website. Sign up for her newsletter and have a chance to win a monthly giveaway.
Also, look for J.C.’s next book, FINAL PROTOCOL, a science-fiction romance, coming in spring 2015.
Curious about her works as Shiloh? Read on for look at her Grimm’s Circle series, urban fantasy romance, fairy tales, guardian angels…what more could you want?
Greta didn’t get her happy ending her first time around. And now that she’s a Grimm—a special kind of guardian angel and official ass-kicker
in the paranormal world—romance is hard to find. Besides, there’s only ever been one man who made her heart race, and the fact that he did scared her right out of his arms. Now Rip is back. And just in time too, because Greta needs his help.
On a mission he knows is going to test all of his strengths and skills, the last person Rip expected to see is the one woman who broke his heart. Working together seems to be their only hope. But when faced with a danger neither of them anticipated, the question is, how will they face the danger to their hearts—assuming they survive, of course.
Candy Houses
What’s more believable? That Gretel was an unhappy, orphaned girl, or that Hansel and Gretel skipped merrily through the woods, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs as they walked in hopes that it would lead them back home?
Come on. Even back then children weren’t idiots. Throwing bread on the ground usually results in something trying to eat the bread.
Hans might have been stupid enough to try a trick like that, but I certainly wasn’t. Besides, if my parents had been deliberately trying to get rid of me, there’s no way I would have kept trying to find my way back.
The Brothers Grimm never asked me, though. It was the popular version that got recorded for the ages, not the real one.
The real one involved things even uglier than a woman sending her children off to starve in the woods. I guess the real one had a happy enough ending, though, now that I think about it. Hans died, my stepmother left me alone, and I didn’t have to live my life in fear.
Yes, Hans died. That’s probably what led to the story ending up in a Grimm fairy tale.
It wasn’t long after his death that my stepmother went a teensy bit crazy. Okay. A lot crazy. People would hear her rambling like the madwoman she was. Back then, people didn’t really get insanity, if you know what I mean. They thought she was possessed, or that she was a witch, communing with the devil and demons and that was what led to her ruin.
Maybe that’s where the idea of a witch came from. It certainly didn’t have anything to do with Mary.
Mary had been…different.
She saved me. When she took me in, bought my “services” from my stepmother for a few pieces of silver, she saved my life.
But it came with a price. Nothing is free in this world. Not now. Not then.
Not ever, I’d guess.
So you want to know the price? Well, think of Buffy. Yes, as in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Think of her, more or less. I say more or less because I’m both more and less. Less because I don’t come with the super strength. I’m a little stronger than the typical person, but I can’t send a man flying through the air when I punch him.
That’s okay, because I can knock a man to the ground and that’s perfectly sufficient. I also don’t come with visions or prophecies. Much to my disgust, there’s probably no Angel or Spike in my future, either. I’m not petite. I’m not blonde. I’m not beautiful.
I’m just me.
So definitely less on some front.
But more on others…because…well, there’s more. Nobody looking at me would ever realize just how much lies below the surface. They’d never believe the things I’ve seen, the things I’ve done. The lives I’ve taken. The lives I’ve saved.
I don’t have super strength, but—well… I guess you could say, I’m hard to kill. And man, oh man, have people tried.
Old age won’t kill me, because I don’t age.
Injuries won’t do it, because my body has been blessed with the ability to heal from even the most mortal of wounds, a bit like the vamps from Buffy in that aspect. If you cut out my heart or take off my head, I’ll die. Maybe drop me inside a vat of acid, but that sounds really painful.
Kind of gross too. Actually, it all sounds kind of gross. It’s even worse in reality. I’ve had to cut out hearts, and I’ve had to take heads. Never had to resort to acid…
Read More
Published by Shiloh Walker
Cover Art by Croco Designs
Editorial Work by d.y.m.k. productions
& Sara Reinke
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Hunt Me
Enjoy this free short story, written by J.C. Daniel’s other half…
Shiloh Walker
Chapter One
“Hello, gorgeous.”
The low, rich purr of her voice was enough to have Drew Quentin shifting in the miserable, busted chair. He also had to fight the urge to smile as he reminded himself he’d decided to ends things with Dakota Coulter.
He wanted her, he was halfway in love with her…and she refused to so much as give him her damn phone number.
He could have handled that.
But the cop in him was a little bit disturbed by the fact that Dakota Coulter had a past that was just a little too mysterious. Oh, her background check held up—too well, actually. Something about her had his instincts quivering.
She wouldn’t open up for him.
“Drew?”
He closed his eyes. “I’m here, Dakota.”
“Having a rough night, sugar?”
The compassion in her voice all but gutted him. Damn it. This would be so much easier if she didn’t care—so much easier if he wasn’t in love with her.
“Yeah, you could say that.” He rubbed his temple. He shouldn’t have answered the damn phone. But shit, it wasn’t like he could avoid this forever. He looked up and saw Nicole staring at him. Nicole Halloway, the local DA with the pretty blue eyes, sweet smile and dynamite body.
She was there, she was steady. She was the reason he needed to break things off with Dakota. He liked Nic. Cared for her—a lot. There was an attraction there, too, one that could maybe become more. But not if he was obsessed with a woman who wouldn’t ever hang around for longer than a night or two.
“I guess you’re not up for meeting me after work, huh?” Dakota sighed. “That’s cool, sugar. I understand. I’ll look you up—”
“No.” He continued to star at Nic. He had to get this done. “We can meet. I…I’ve been needing to talk to you anyway, Dakota.”
Now Nic’s brows arched up over big blue eyes. So far their ‘dates’ hadn’t been much more than a cup of coffee, a quick lunch. She knew he’d been seeing another woman, knew he wasn’t going to get serious until he’d been able to break things off. It was time he did that.
Even if it did feel a little like he was ripping out his own kidney with his teeth. Or even his heart.
Sighing, Dakota ended the call.
Something in Drew’s voice had her heart aching.
“We need to talk, huh, lover? Yeah. I’ve heard that line before.” Then she tipped her head back, staring up at the nighttime sky. Granted, she hadn’t heard it much in recent years. Not since she’d slid into a crazy little world where vampires, werewolves and other things went bump in the night. Sometime back in the 70’s, she thought.
Yeah. She smiled absently, some echo of fondness trying to lift the melancholy settling over her heart. But it wouldn’t budge. She’d been kind of happy about coming to Asheville. Now? Not so much.
She was a Hunter without a territory or Master. Her random circuit had her rambling all over the east coast. She often ended up in this area,
and she’d been just fine with that. Because this area held a lot of appeal for her, namely in the fine form of one Asheville city detective…Andrew Michael Quentin…Drew.
Drew—the cop who was getting ready to dump her.
She glanced down at her clothes, remembered she’d planned to change before she saw him. “Screw changing.”
She was going shopping.
If he was going to dump her, she was going to show him in vivid, glorious detail what he was missing.
Maybe it would make her feel better.
Although she wasn’t particularly counting on it.
The splash of murderous red on her nails didn’t do much to lift her spirits, but Dakota was pleased with how she looked, at least. The dress might have been a bit overdone, but red looked good on her. It clung to her curves, stopped just a bit short of her knees. And she could still move.
She’d passed on the really cute Jimmy Choos with the ankle straps, settling on a simpler pair of heels. She could run barefoot without falling. Even though falling wasn’t likely, running flat out in heels wasn’t as easy as people might make it seem in books or movies.
On the job, Dakota was practical, and even if she was taking some time to get dumped, she was still working. The only time she wasn’t working was when she crashed in her cabin up in Maine or when she got pulled into Excelsior for one thing or another.
The life of a Hunter.
Sighing, she made one last study of her reflection, pulling the brush through her dark brown hair. It curled around her mostly naked shoulders, the ends coming down to drape around her breasts. She looked good. She was honest enough to admit that. She looked good…like a woman who wanted a man to know it, too.
“Damn it.” She swallowed and turned away from her reflection, determined not to spend the next hour thinking about this. Next hour, minimum, because even though she wasn’t meeting Drew until midnight, she’d be circling around the city. Circling around, watching things. Making sure she wasn’t being watched. There were paranormal creatures aplenty here.
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