by Eileen Wilks
"No," Nathan agreed. He had other reasons for thinking the killer nonhuman, but Browning wouldn't want to hear them. Which was just as well. Nathan didn't intend to offer them.
This hunt was his, not the sheriff's. If he was right about the nature of this killer, sending humans after it would just result in dead humans. "The bite marks will provide physical evidence, though. You must have noticed. They're punctures, the sort made by sharp canines. Human teeth don't puncture the flesh that way."
Browning had his jaw clenched so tight Nathan could almost hear the teeth grinding. "It'll be a goddamn circus when that gets out. A goddamn circus."
"You going to notify MCD?"
"Damned well have to, don't I? When the autopsy report comes in, anyway."
In the wake of the Turning, Congress had passed a law making it mandatory for local jurisdictions to inform the FBI's Magical Crimes Division of suspected supernatural crimes or attacks. Not that MCD had the personnel to follow up on every report; there was a long waiting list for trained supernatural investigators. But so far, the police chief had resisted notifying them at all, claiming he was waiting for solid evidence a supernatural agent was involved.
Idiot. But a lot of humans swung between denial and hysteria these days, and Chief Roberts was highly territorial.
Browning chewed on his own teeth for a few more paces, then heaved a sigh. "Guess we've been lucky till now. We didn't have a lot of the weird-ass nasties come through in December the way some places did."
Nathan nodded agreeably, though the lack of nasties troubling Midland had little to do with luck. He'd hunted twice since the Turning. The first hunt had mostly been to create a climate for negotiation. Unlike their larger cousins, river trolls weren't entirely unreasonable once you got their attention, and this was a poor spot for them. No flowing water.
The other had been a hunt in truth. You don't negotiate with a ghoul.
"You think this whatever-it-is can't drive?" Browning asked. "Most nonhumans do."
"Lupi do, certainly. Brownies don't, but gnomes can… or so I've heard," Nathan added with a polite disregard for truth. "But as you said, this creature isn't native to Earth. It came through with the power wind. It wouldn't know how to drive."
"You think it's smart enough to learn?"
Now Nathan frowned. His picture was mixed. "Might be best to think of it as smart, but not in a predictable way."
"Clever enough to fool people into thinking it's human, though. Shaw engaged in sex with it. Her. Him. Whatever."
"Or the preliminaries to sex. Yes."
"So it looks human."
"Or can." This wouldn't be an easy hunt. The bum in his blood approved of that.
"Illusion? Do you… crap." Browning stopped moving to scowl at the plain sedan cruising toward them. "Should've known he'd turn up. You'd better go. We've got Shaw's place of employment—the Exxon station at Midkiff and Wadley. Talk to them, see what you can find out."
"The family?"
"That's my job."
The sedan was slowing. Nathan watched the driver, not the car. Slim and dapper, with a round face that looked like he buffed it after shaving, Eldon Knox was the detective in charge of the city's investigation. He was clever, ambitious, and bigoted, and he hated Nathan.
"Knox is my enemy," Nathan agreed. "But not an important enemy. He won't provoke me."
Browning gave him a look. "Yeah, it's that attitude that makes him love you so much. Fun as it is to see the chief's favorite lapdog froth at the mouth when he gets around you, I'll deal with him better if you're gone. Go on. Clear out."
"Yes, sir." He turned to go.
The detective's car stopped and he climbed out. His door thunked closed. "Hunter!"
Nathan ignored him. Browning could handle the man. When he got in his car he was thinking about enemies, prey, and Kai.
His immediate task was to interview Shaw's employer and coworkers. He didn't expect to learn much; at most he might find out if Shaw was known to be Gifted. That was the way of investigations. Most of what you learned wasn't useful.
But his gut had a different priority.
He'd do both, he decided. It wouldn't take long to swing by the apartments, and Kai wouldn't have a client this early. She'd be home.
Minutes later, he parked and ran lightly up the outside stairs. His shoulder barely twinged. He'd tell her that. She'd be glad to hear that her surgery had worked so well.
He knocked. Nothing.
Knocked again. No answer.
Fear was a startling acid. It flushed thought from his system so fast that for a moment he stood stock-still and saw her bloodless body instead of the bland metal of the door.
Only for a moment. Then his mind performed one of its more human tricks and sneered at him. Was he going to imagine her dead every time she wasn't where he'd expected?
His mind was less amenable to order than his body, but he hushed it as best he could. After a second it produced a more useful thought: She might be running.
Of course. Kai ran when she was stressed or upset. It helped her deal with her Gift as well as her emotions, and both had been given a workout last night.
She'd have her phone with her, he thought as he padded back down the stairs. His was in his car. He could call her, find out where she was. Or he could track her.
The decision floated up from his middle without input from his brain. Tuning in to her scents—both the physical and the psychic—was as automatic as adjusting the focus of his eyes. He set off at an easy lope.
Chapter 6
SWEAT stung Kai's eyes. She had her contacts in, so she blinked furiously instead of rubbing and wished she'd remembered her sweatband. One corner of her mind contemplated laser surgery for the hundredth time, but most of her remained cradled in the steady, reassuring thud of her feet against the ground.
When she ran, when she focused on the physical, her thoughts stayed close, tight to her body. She scarcely noticed them at all, and the residue of others' thoughts slipped past, unseen. The world turned crisp, its edges purely material and lovely to her.
"Kai."
The voice behind her jarred her out of her near-trance. She lost the rhythm, found it again, and raised a hand to acknowledge Nathan's greeting. Though she kept moving, she couldn't find the smooth, centered place she'd been floating in. Her thoughts rose around her in a mist of worry-gray.
Why was he here? He was on duty. Was this official? He could have called, but he'd come to find her. Had they misidentified the body earlier and it was someone she knew, after all?
Punctuating the gray were pops of yellow: Nathan. Nathan's here.
She lacked the wind to sigh. She'd pushed herself hard enough this morning, she supposed. Her thighs were burning. She slowed to a jog.
"What's up?" she asked as Nathan drew alongside her, not the least bit winded. He never was, which had irritated her at first. She was more resigned now. He did sweat, at least. In the summer. If he ran more than a mile or two, that is, and it was really hot. Like a hundred.
"You're out running. A killer wants to drink your blood, and you're out running."
"My blood?" Startled, a little frightened, she looked at him. He faced ahead, his features set in an odd frown. But his thoughts—! They weren't muddy—Nathan's colors were always clear—but they were sure jumpy. Indigo twitched into purple, slid back to blue, flashed into green flickering with tips of angry red.
"You'd make a good meal for it. You've a strong Gift."
"But you don't have any reason to think it's after me, personally. Do you?"
The thought-fish around him slowed and flattened. His voice turned wry. "No. I was… generalizing."
Overreacting, more like. Which was very interesting. She jogged along in silence for a moment. "I take it the newest victim was Gifted."
"I suspect he was, but a body drained of life and blood doesn't tell me that."
"Does it tell you other things?"
"Almost always. This one�
� didn't." Trouble bubbled beneath the even surface of his voice. She saw it in the dark swirls that lifted from him, then fell again. His breath huffed out in a rare show of frustration. "This wasn't at all what I came here to tell you. I don't know why I… no, I do know. It just… surprises me."
He was seesawing, saying one thing, then another; and that was not like him. When he fell silent she wanted to stop, grab him, and shake a few more words out. She settled for a civilized prompt. "And that reason would be… ?"
His feet hit the ground three more times before he answered. "I was frightened. I went to your door and you weren't there, and I was afraid for you."
She could have sworn her heart slid around in her chest in an unnatural way. "That's natural, I guess. You'd just come from a murder scene."
"I'm not used to it. Sometimes I… friends are rare. I don't find one often."
Now he was squeezing the heart he'd just sent sliding. She couldn't think of what to say. The urge to grab him hit again, but this time she wanted to hold him. To just hold on.
He discovered smiles again and offered her one. "Usually I'm the one who has trouble with words. I seem to have stolen yours this time."
"They'll come back." Eventually.
"I didn't know. That you were my friend, that is. Until last night, I didn't realize you had… come inside me that far." He paused. "This isn't what I wanted to talk about."
"I'm enjoying the subject."
"Are you?" This smile arrived so quickly and so lightly it was almost a grin. "Am I inside you, too, Kai?"
The flush of heat hit too fast for her mind to have any chance of controlling her tongue. "Don't I wish."
He stopped, and he did the grabbing, seizing her shoulders and making her stop, too. "I'm sorry. I should have thought about how that would sound."
Humiliation rolled over her with its very different heat. "Joke. That was a joke. You're supposed to grin and say something stupid back."
"Stupid, I might be able to handle, but I'm not good at jokes. I'm not good at sex, either."
She rolled her eyes. "So not believing you here. About jokes, maybe. You don't always get them, or sometimes you think something's funny that I don't get. But sex?" She shook her head and found her own smile. "Come on."
"I can do sex, of course. But it's too…" He shook his head, clearly frustrated. "This doesn't fit into words well. I need a connection. Sex without that connection is too lonely."
Her heart was pounding and it had little to do with her run. "Friendship is a connection."
"Yes."
She searched his face, seeing something different there, but unsure what. She tried to speak lightly. "You're giving me ideas, you know. If that isn't what you had in mind—"
"My mind has become strange territory. I don't know what's in it myself, so I can't tell you." He dropped his hands. "But you'll get chilled, stopping like this when you're sweaty. We should keep moving."
"I need to stretch first." Stretching helped with lactic acid buildup in taxed muscles, making them less likely to stiffen. It would also give her a few minutes to locate her brain, which had to be around here someplace.
Kai untied the jacket she'd fastened around her waist, shrugged it on, and moved to the curb so she could stretch her hamstrings. "So why did you track me down?" Automatically she reached for his shoulder to balance herself. This kind of touching they'd done often.
"I need to let you know about the killer."
"What about him?" She dropped her heels off the curb. "Or it."
"It may be a chameleon."
"You're not talking about a cute little lizard that changes color."
"No, this creature changes its form entirely, not just its color. Chameleon is the closest word in English."
"Not the illusion of change? It really changes?"
"Yes. Mass is preserved, as is the essential brain composition and metabolism. They can look like anything, though, and unlike demons, they change quickly if they have a good pattern for the new shape."
"Scary." She switched positions, this time pulling her knee to her chest to stretch her quads.
He was looking at her legs. He never looked at her legs, not that way. "I wanted you to be watching for something that seems human, but isn't. You'll be able to tell from the way its thoughts look, won't you?"
She nodded, a frown pleating her forehead. "You have any reason to think I'm likely to run into this creature?"
"Not exactly."
"You aren't giving me a warm, fuzzy feeling. And what about you?" She started back at an easy jog. "Can it trick you?"
He fell in beside her. "Since its metabolism doesn't change, I'll smell the truth if I'm close enough."
"But you're not lupus."
This smile was amused. "No."
Personal questions amused him now, instead of making him run the other way? "Is that all you came here to tell me? To watch out for something like looks human, but isn't?"
He nodded. "I may have exaggerated the urgency. I think the killer is a chameleon—that fits what I know—but I'm not certain. They're extremely rare, for one thing, and normally they exist only in high-magic realms."
"Is that where you come from? A high-magic realm?"
"Yes."
Another answer, offered as easily as if his true nature wasn't a big, fat secret.
He added, "Not the realm where chameleons are found, though. They're constructs. That's not allowed in… my home realm."
"Constructs."
"Made, not bom."
"But—but how could that be possible?"
"As I understand it, the mage—no, it would have to be an adept. He or she would start with—"
"Hold on. There really are mages and adepts? I thought that was just myth, like unicorns or… never mind." She'd been about to say "or dragons," but they'd turned out to be real.
"Unicorns are real, too. Or mostly real. They don't exactly live in any of the realms, but… wait, wait." He held up a hand, forestalling the questions hovering on her tongue. "I'll explain another time, or try to. I don't understand unicorns myself. For now, accept that if this creature is a chameleon, it's extremely dangerous and may be drawn to those with a strong Gift."
They jogged together quietly after that. Kai was comfortable with the lack of speech; the companionship of silence reminded her of her grandfather, who could go days without using more than a handful of words, but was so present he made conversation with a glance or a gesture.
Nathan was present in much the same way. Last night and today, though, he'd dipped often into words, telling her more about himself than he'd ever revealed in one gulp. Yet much of him remained hints and questions, with a few facts swirling around in the mist.
Fact: He lived longer than humans. A lot longer. She'd learned that a few months ago when they were watching the History Channel and he commented on something that happened in the First World War—something he'd experienced. Fact: He healed fast, faster than she'd have believed possible if she hadn't seen it herself last night. Fact: He came from another realm… and oh, but she'd done a good job of pretending her mind wasn't blown by that news. There were stories of other realms, sure, but whatever reality lay behind those tales had been lost or obscured in their telling and retelling over the years.
The Turning had proved that reality was far stranger and broader than they'd known. Other realms were real. So were adepts and unicorns and the creatures he called chameleons.
So was Nathan. Whatever he was.
They reached the parking area of their complex and turned in. "I have to go," he said. "I'm on duty."
"Okay." Which made it all the more strange that he'd hunted her up.
His official car was parked two slots down from her little Toyota. They stopped there. He wasn't breathing hard, but neither was she this time. The easy jog had cooled her down.
Nathan didn't get in his car right away, though. He did something shocking. He put his hands on her face, fingers spread, and ran his thu
mbs over her jaw. His eyes searched hers, their wintry color alive with something she'd never seen there before. "Why did you not need to ask before now?"
"You didn't want anyone to know, and I respected that." You would have gone away.
"But you need to know now?"
He was confusing her badly. "I… yes." You're leaving anyway.
"You felt it, too." He sounded deeply satisfied. "Things changed for us last night."
Okay, time to roll. She swallowed her fear and plunged ahead. "Are you from Faerie?"
"From one of the Faerie realms, yes. There are many."
That sent a jolt of surprise through her, but as distractions went it couldn't compete with the ripples created by his stroking thumbs. "You're a… an elf?"
"I am sidhe."
He said that the way Elizabeth the First might have said, "I am queen"—fact and power so entwined that one made no sense without the other. "Uh… doesn't 'sidhe' mean elves?"
"Sidhe means… there are many kinds, but we usually speak of three. The High Sidhe are true immortals. A few of them, not many, have an interest in ruling, so they do. The middle sidhe, those you call elfin or faerie lords, have more of a taste for power and caste. Low sidhe is a more fluid term, but is generally understood to mean the less powerful elfin folk, as well as fairies and others you wouldn't recognize. But some sidhe are nothing like humans or elves and live outside those hierarchies. I… eh, I'm not sure what I am now."
His hands dropped and he looked at one, turning it over as if veins, muscles, and knuckles scribed some obscure message in his flesh. "It has been so long… but whatever else I am or am not, I am of the wild sidhe."
Wild sidhe? She shook her head, not understanding.
This smile was old and sad. A parting smile. "A hellhound, Kai. I was born a hellhound."
Chapter 7
THEY called Midland the Tall City because of the downtown, where brick-and-steel stalagmites poked at the sky. The office buildings Nathan was headed toward weren't skyscrapers by any means, but in the middle of the flattest, most featureless land on the continent, they did stick out. To Nathan's mind the skyline looked like it was giving heaven the finger.