“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me. How old are you?”
“None of your business.”
“Okay. Let’s try this one. You dating anybody right now?” He paused. “Excuse me. I put that badly. Are you in a relationship?” His fingers made quotation marks around the last word.
Lian’s eyes remained impenetrable. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“It’s my job.”
“Your job doesn’t include asking personal questions, Detective.”
“I’m a curious man. It’s my nature.”
“In that case, I suggest you control your nature and stick to your job. Ask the right questions about the case and leave the rest alone.”
“You’re good.” He smiled at her, honestly admiring her effortless put-down, delivered in a calm and efficient manner. It hadn’t worked, but she was still damn good at it.
“Thank you.” She pushed papers toward him. “Back to this.”
Buck sighed. “Look, I’ve told you the game plan here. It’s grunt work at the moment. Perhaps the autopsy will tell us more than somebody played jigsaw puzzles with a human being, only took it apart instead of putting it together. But until then…”
“Yes, until then.” Lian straightened and looked at him, her gaze unblinking. “What did you see, Detective Shand?”
Her voice had lowered, soothing, stroking something down low in his body that responded with a warm purr.
“Huh?” He couldn’t seem to look away from her. Not that he wanted to. He wanted to see if her lips tasted like flowers. He wanted to touch her neck, her creamy skin. He wanted her breasts in his hands, hot and peaked with desire. Her nipples…
“What did you see? Tell me…”
Lian’s eyes, deep pools of welcoming shadows, were heating as he held her gaze, glowing—if black could glow. He felt—something. And that something stirred his cock into immediate and painful hardness. He could lose himself in that gaze, fall in and drown and do it over and over again. “Tell you…”
“Tell me, Buck. Share it with me. Give it to me. I want it. I want it so bad…”
He nearly groaned as the door in his brain opened onto visions that shocked even him.
A bed, a floor, a desk—Lian was naked on all of them. Naked and spread, her pussy dappled with blonde curls and wet, so wet, gleaming with diamonds and dewdrops, aching for his cock. He could feel it, feel her shudder as he took her, sank his erection balls-deep into her cunt, slamming into her with a lust so fierce he could taste it on the back of his throat.
She reached for her breasts, lifting them, offering them to his ready mouth. They were ripe fruit more than ready for tasting. She was astride him now, leaning down, brushing hard nipples across his lips. “Tell me, Buck. What did you see?”
“Eyes…”
He spoke. One word and he jerked back from that place that had opened so unexpectedly and without his permission. He ripped himself away from the pornographic images he’d been so thoroughly enjoying, hard beneath his jeans to the point of agony—and unbelievably furious.
“What the fuck was that?”
“Pardon?” Lian’s face was completely expressionless other than a slight questioning slant to her eyebrows. They could have been chatting about the weather for all the emotion she showed.
And they hadn’t been chatting about the weather. Buck had never gotten an instant hard-on from an incoming low-pressure system. He swallowed down a lump of lust and glared at her. “You gettin’ in my head, lady?”
Her lips made a little moue of distaste. “What on earth could I possibly want in there?” She flicked her notepad to a fresh page and stared at him expectantly. “Tell me about the eyes.”
Shit. She’d gotten that out of him somehow. He was damn well going to figure out exactly how, too. He refused to believe that his own suppressed desires had stimulated that little episode with the naked bodies and the fierce fucking.
But for now, he had no choice but to answer her question. Not doing so would bring more. And he wanted to be the one asking. He didn’t like it when the shoe was on the other foot.
“They were strange eyes.”
“I’ve been told I have strange eyes. Were they like mine?”
Buck shook his head. “Nope. These were—” God, they were almost impossible to describe.
“Can you draw them?” Lian pushed paper and pen toward him.
“I dunno. I suck at art.” He doodled, shaping a bulging almond eye socket then doing his best to recreate the slitted pupil. “Something like that.”
“Cat’s eyes?”
“No. Yes. More than cat’s eyes.” He frowned at what he’d drawn. “They were fuller, more prominent than cat’s eyes. More feral. And the color…”
“What color were they, Detective?”
“Burning amber. No whites, just this strange sort of flickering fiery orangey brown.” He shrugged. “I’m no good at this shit, Doc.”
“You’re doing fine.” Her voice was encouraging.
“I saw a piece of amber someplace in a museum. It was lit from behind. These eyes were like that, only the light behind them moved. Like fire.” He leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. “Best I can do.”
Lian reached into her briefcase next to her feet and pulled out another folder. “I want you to look at something.” She flicked through papers.
“Okay.”
Buck watched her. There was something real strange behind those eyes. She was a puzzle, a mystery, and he wasn’t real fond of either. But he sure wouldn’t mind investigating Dr. Lian Herrick. And of course, he’d have to peel her out of those clothes first…
“Here.” She pushed a small photograph across the table. “Look at this.”
He leaned over it and pursed his lips into a silent whistle. He was looking at a photo of a painting. A scroll type painting, not framed like an old master, but hung from some ornate pole. Black cord and tassels fell heavily from either side, but there was no point of reference to tell him anything about how big the thing was.
Holding his attention was the subject matter. He’d seen examples of Oriental art before, so he recognized the soft brush strokes and the almost monochromatic color scheme. There was a stark mountain rearing up one side of the painting, rising from a plain that was bare of life, of plants—just a wasteland disappearing into the distance.
Above this desolate scene were clouds—roiling, stylized, angry clouds.
And within those clouds—an eye.
As Buck took in the detail, a slow icy finger danced its way down his spine. It was all there. The strangely spherical shape of the eye, the slitted pupil and the little flicks of flame in that dark glowing shade of amber. It was a photo. Nothing moved, of course, but for an instant, he could have sworn the light swayed and shuddered inside the eye.
He lifted his head, feeling a sense of unease turn the muscles into a knot of aching tension. “What the fuck is this?”
“Is that what you saw?” Lian’s voice was cold, commanding.
“Close enough.” He sighed. “Yeah, damn close.”
“Okay then.” She gathered her papers, closed the files, tapped them neatly on the table and then packed her case.
“Okay what?” He watched her.
“Okay I’m done here.” She stood.
“Hey, wait up there, Herrick.” Buck grabbed her arm angrily as he stood, trying to conceal the fact that his jeans weren’t fitting quite the way they were designed to. “What do you mean, you’re done?”
“I have some research to do.”
“Can’t I help?”
She looked at him, then pointedly at his hand where he held her in place. “No.”
“Fine.” He released her. “And I was going to buy you dinner too.” When all else fails, try food and being polite. He even dredged up his best charming smile. It was a last resort for Buck and he knew it.
She turned away but paused at his final comment. She glanced back over her shoulder an
d gave him back the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen. It shot straight to his cock and made matters worse, but at that second, he didn’t care. He simply lusted.
“I’ll take a rain check, Shand.” She walked crisply away.
“When?” He called after her, making several heads in the café turn.
“When I get back.”
She was gone. There was clearly no point in wondering back from where?
Goddamn and fuck it. Women, when all was said and done, were pains in the ass. Especially this one.
Buck nursed his annoyance all the way to his truck. He didn’t know when Lian was returning, he had a real nasty case on his plate and his partner was probably home even now playing with his little kiddies.
This was one of those moments that just screamed for a beer. Or three.
Chapter Three
The night sky lay heavy over the landscape as Buck nursed his beer by his living room windows. Ordinarily, he’d have come home, dug himself up something to eat from the fridge—or even cooked something if he’d had the urge—then tumbled comfortably onto his couch and watched a game until he was relaxed enough to sleep.
He could have gone out, checked in with friends, picked up a date or even called up one of his occasional “sweeties”, women who knew him and would welcome him over to their place for an evening of sweaty sex without any commitment other than a bottle of wine.
But tonight he wasn’t in the mood for any of it.
Lingering thoughts of a shattered human life dragged at his mind, refusing to let go and disappear so he could rest.
Hence his silent contemplation of the night with his equally silent companion—his third beer.
It was a different world out there from the one his forbears knew. It had adjusted, accepted the changes—although not without difficulty—and moved inexorably onward. Species will survive at any cost. Buck knew that with a certainty, not just from what he’d seen on the job but from his reading. Behind him, one wall of his apartment living room was covered with bookshelves and filled with books. All of which he’d actually read. Something that would probably come as a surprise to his colleagues since Buck managed to play it low-key on the job.
Some were modern treatises on AGs. Others were reprints of several-hundred-year-old volumes, and these were the ones that fascinated him. In them he found a sense of the world as it was back then and a better ability to understand what it was now by comparison.
Perhaps it was the cop in him that drove him to forage through history. He knew there’d been cops in the Shand family for as far back as anyone could remember. His great-great-grandfather had been killed in the line of duty during the AG uprisings of over a hundred years before.
Thank God that had been calmed and settled. It had been every bit as violent and vicious as the racial equality battles of the nineteen hundreds. But the AG riots had been defused by something as simple as children. As more and more of them had been born with the AG DNA mutation, fewer and fewer parents looked at them as threats. It’s hard to hate a tiny child who happens to sprout wings now and again. Especially when it’s your own.
Life had adapted, accepted and progressed. Buck had read of global warming, greenhouse gases, the oil crises of the twenty-first century. Fossil fuels were redundant these days. Everything was renewable and most of it solar powered.
The air stayed clear and as fresh as possible given that people still lived, created sewage and threw away their trash in a less-than-effective fashion. Instant disposal units were still expensive, no matter how much energy they created for the homeowner.
A movement in the street four floors below caught Buck’s eye. Several women were out for the night, flittering down the street in a flurry of shining, sparkling wings.
On their way to a Fairy Bar, most likely.
It was strange, the variety of mutations, the control of each individual over those mutations and the preferences people exhibited. Some, like these girls, relished their wings. There was a whole fashion trend based around the need to keep those fluttery membranes unhindered.
Others, like himself and Cheney, preferred to keep whatever abilities they had under wraps. It was a personal choice. The blue spot marked an AG so it wasn’t as if they were hiding it from anyone.
Buck was just happier living life as much like a bland as possible and only using what he referred to as his “gift” when he needed to. Some might wonder what he was, but basically it was nobody’s business but his own. And the Police Department’s, of course.
The women in his life seemed to respect that. Probably why they were in his life in the first place. And other than an initial curiosity, they sensed that he was just what he appeared. A regular guy out for some fun and a good time.
They were almost all blands. He was, deep inside, a little scared of taking an AG to bed. It was rumored that sexual activity stimulated the mutation, although science had yet to validate that assumption.
The one time he’d fucked a woman with pointed ears and a green tinge to her skin, he hadn’t found her changing beneath him. All she’d done was pant and gasp and sigh as he’d brought her to orgasm.
She’d looked a bit greener afterward, but that might have been the large numbers of tequila shots they’d both downed just before the sex.
And he’d found he had to work to keep his mind closed to her. Sex was for sharing bodies, not thoughts, nor emotions. He wanted to fuck, not see her essence on another plane while he was doing it. That certainly wouldn’t improve his performance if she was thinking of her next day’s schedule while he was licking her pussy.
Or worse—imagining him as the latest movie star. Shit. That would be a cock-killer of a vision.
There were horror stories of sex partners becoming wolves at the moment of climax. Buck didn’t believe any of them. Nor did he believe that women vampires devoured their lovers from the balls up.
If a guy didn’t recognize an AG up front, he deserved whatever he got. If an AG wanted to emerge in bed as something else, good for them. Just as long as they were honest from the get-go.
It was no different than the old days. If you were gay, make it clear. If you wanted anal sex and your partner didn’t—work it out or get out of bed.
It was only when it wasn’t worked out that it landed on his desk. And these days even those kinds of messy assaults were diminishing.
Except for now. Except for that Pleasure Pet who’d never had the chance to work anything out at all.
Buck’s thoughts had circled around to the very subject he was trying to avoid. Murder. And—as a direct correlation—Dr. Lian Herrick.
Spurred by a need to do something useful with his time, Buck pushed himself away from the window, grabbed another beer from the fridge and walked to his comp center unit. State of the art equipment hummed contentedly then flickered into life as he hit his keyboard, moving his fingers beneath the projected laser light that created a pattern of keys on the desktop.
“Hello Buck.” A sultry voice greeted him and a black and white image of a sexy face smiled from the screen. “How can I help you this evening?”
“Hi, Marlene.” Buck grinned. Marlene Dietrich was as hot today as she had been in the 1930s and he’d needed no prompting to select her as his computer’s personality. “I need information please.”
“My pleasure, dahlink.”
God, he loved that accent. “Bring up Google.” God, he loved Google too. Never had gone out of fashion in spite of a million imitators.
“Here you are. Would you like me to help?” Marlene sounded hopeful.
“No thanks, babe. I got this one.”
Marlene obligingly fell silent. What more could a man ask? She shut up when told to. Technology was pretty impressive these days.
“Okay, Dr. Lian Herrick. Let’s see what information the world of cyberspace has on you.” Buck began by simply typing in her name and hitting Search.
A host of hits came up on the screen, most of them from scholarly institution
s citing papers or references. He scanned through the first couple of dozen, finding nothing that told him anything more than that Dr. Herrick had published papers, most of them in reference to one crime or another.
So she certainly seemed to have the academic references to back up her arrival on his crime scene.
He did another search, leaving out the Doctor part this time.
Lots of hits on Herrick, but nothing pertaining to a Lian Herrick. No bio, no photos—since he tried “images” as well—the lady had covered her tracks. Which was, all things considered, quite surprising.
Buck leaned back in his chair and thought about it. It was real hard to keep one’s face off the Internet. Most everybody, at some time or at some place, had been digitally captured. Whether by friends and families or by some professional photo-hound. At a conference perhaps, or a meeting?
But for Lian, nothing.
When he searched on just “Lian”, he came up with about ten thousand oriental references to the meaning of the word.
Lotus.
There were even several X-rated porn sites offering hot sex shots of the lotus blossom as represented by nude women. He passed on those. He had his own stash of porn sites and didn’t need more.
“So where are you hiding, little lotus?” He closed down Google. “Marlene?”
“Yes, Buck?” Marlene appeared looking hopeful.
“Log me in to the Department network, will you?”
“Of course, dahlink.” A few whirring clicks later, the PD logo appeared on the screen with his welcome message beneath. He scrolled to the search feature and prepared to rummage through the more restricted files available only to officers of the law with the appropriate passwords.
And any overenthusiastic teenage hacker who didn’t have a girlfriend and knew a shitload too much about Internet security protocols.
Once again he typed in Lian’s name. This time, he fared slightly better.
She was absolutely a fixture of the Criminology Section. She’d been cited more times than he could count, seemed to specialize in AG DNA analysis, had been used as a consultant on several unusual cases and testified several times as an expert witness.
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