“What did you need to see me about? Where are the others?”
“I don’t want the others to get worried.”
A chill ran down my spine and my hackles tightened. “Why would they get worried?”
Tucker licked his lips and ran his fingers through his long dark locks again. Maybe that was his nervous tick. Maybe I needed to start learning Tucker-speak like he was going to have to get used to my sense of humor.
“I need to show you something.”
As we walked toward the parking lot, he explained. I could see that he was used to walking as he talked and this hand explained the story almost as much as his words did. “I still have contacts within the department. Men I worked with who seemed to think I liked the spooky cases.”
“Do you like the spooky cases?”
“I fed info to the Havertys.”
I filled in the rest of the story like we were partners on one of those crime solving shows. “And when it was one of the pack, Haverty needed to know how to buy his way out of trouble.”
Tucker’s pace slowed. “How did you know?”
“Most trite Mob story I could think of.”
Tucker, obviously confused, kept walking. “My guy down at the morgue called me last night. He didn’t hear about the I.A. investigation and me getting taken off patrol.”
“Internal Affairs investigation?”
“Yeah. Without Haverty’s money greasing palms, I’m under investigation for meddling in some cases. They’ve got me filing squad car camera tapes on the midnight shift.”
“Do squad car tapes have to be filed at three in the morning?”
“No.” Tucker growled the last word. His frustration with the situation rippled across his shoulders and in the energy between us. I wanted to put my hand on his arm, but I wasn’t sure if we were there yet.
“Zach said he had a body that looked like something up my alley.”
I don’t know if it was the mention of a dead body or an alley that made my feet stop mid stride.
Tucker walked on for a few feet before turning back to me. “What?”
“You’re taking me to see a dead body?”
He walked up closer and lowered his voice. I imagine that there did need to be some discretion taken in a public place on a very busy afternoon.
“Without Haverty here to reign in the other predators, they might be killing. But I’m not jumping to conclusions until we know for sure.”
“Why do you need me?”
Tucker squared his jaw. There was something in his dark brown eyes that gave away his answer and I filled in the blanks. I was getting eerily good at it. “You think that I can reign them in.”
“I didn’t want to be right about the chaos, but this might just be the beginning.”
“And what makes you think that I will be able to?”
“Because you are Violet Jordan.”
Faith sparkled in his wide eyes, and I couldn’t tell him he was wrong. He’d just have to see it for himself.
THE DALLAS COUNTY Morgue is not what you see on television. It is a bright clean structure off the major highway that can’t be told apart from the design warehouse and the Holiday Inn to either side.
Tucker flashed his badge to a secretary at the desk, and he swept back into the innards of the building like it was home. I stumbled behind him, trying to absorb every detail for future writing assignments. The smell was not as bad as I’d feared on the drive over and everything was miraculously cleaned with bleach, which I’d imagined covered up all manner of sins.
He took us down a long hallway. On one side was a bright window, letting in the perfectly sunny February light and the other side of the hallway was also a window. The room was lined with morgue tables, each with an inhabitant at some stage in the process of being hacked to bits.
From then on, I kept my eyes on Tucker’s neck, hidden under the collar of the coat that we had just bought him.
“We’re almost there,” he promised.
The fridge for the county morgue took up the entire square footage of my second floor. Like everything else in this place, it was clean and run with an efficiency that both awed and frightened that medical examiners have so much business that they need that kind of efficiency.
“Zach,” Tucker greeted.
The two men shook hands, and I saw Tucker shift into something I hadn’t seen in a long time: the caring police officer.
“Knew you couldn’t resist this one, Briggs.” The young man plucked a clipboard off a wall and checked the sheets. “The others haven’t even come in to see the body yet. They don’t know what to make of it.”
“Let’s see what we’ve got.”
I was silent, pretending to be nothing more than a shadow behind Tucker.
The attendant led us to a small square door that opened, and then slid out a large metal tray with a body reposing underneath a white sheet, just like on TV. What the TV doesn’t convey is what it smells like. CSI would be a much less popular show if it offered Smell-O-Vision.
The nearest that I can tell was that this young man had seventy-five pounds of ground beef underneath that white sheet. It smelled angry and bloody and my stomach flipped over on itself.
“It’s not pretty. Are you sure the lady can handle it?”
I held my stomach. “I appreciate your sensibilities, but I can handle it.” Need to handle it. I squared up next to Tucker as the young attendant reached for the corner of the sheet. I would never admit out loud that Tucker’s low stable energy and the warmth that brushed my arm was exactly what I needed to keep standing there a moment later.
The attendant pulled the sheet back and we were accosted by the sheer gore of it all. I snapped my eyes shut, but evisceration was pasted on the inside of my eyelids. The real deal was better than the imagined one with the taint of Violet added to it. I pushed my eyes open.
“M.E. thinks it was a pit bull attack.”
“Not a dog,” Tucker said quickly.
“How can you tell?” the attendant asked.
But I didn’t need to ask. I figured if anyone knew, Tucker would know. But was I smart enough to figure out that it wasn’t another big cat?
“We heard there was a big cat loose last month. Could it be that?”
Myers? Could Myers have done this? I could imagine his doe eyes doing anything like this, panther or no.
Tucker looked to me. Right. No jumping to conclusions. Look at the facts. Guess we were going to figure out just how many crime procedurals I’d really watched.
It was a woman. Long hair hung off the half of the scalp that was left. Her face was missing, which, horribly enough, helped the curiosity of my examination take over.
There were very few clawed marks on her. Nothing like the marks on my shoulder. The gashes were singular and long, not the swipe of a claw but not a knife either. The wounds edges were ragged.
“Do you smell that?” Tucker whispered to me.
Steeling my stomach, I took in a deep breath. Over the gore and filth, there was something animal there. A stench that I hadn’t encountered before.
“Not a cat,” I shook my head, knowing that I was going to be smelling that for the rest of the week.
A buzz filled the room and the attendant jumped like he’d been prodded with a stun gun. “You okay here, Briggs?”
“We’re good.”
The attendant left quickly as Tucker walked around the table to face me.
“Can you sense anything else?”
“Sense how?” I asked as I clamped my hands behind my back. I didn’t want my curiosity to get too sated with the feeling of the raw meat.
“I don’t know. Spencer . . . He could sometimes sense things, echoes of things.”
“Well, he didn’t teach me.”
Tucker looked up at me. “Will you at least try?”
I looked down at the body and saw a golden butterfly earring on the lobe of the girl. This was a girl, someone’s daughter. Someone’s girlfriend. She needed
her story told, and it looked like I was the only one in the room with a pen.
Carefully, I dropped my borders and let my power lap around the room. Tucker’s warmth stood steady before me with the void of anything between us. Even humans have a life about them, an ebb and flow of energy. The woman before me had no ebb or flow.
But there was something there. Something left over just like Tucker had said.
I closed my eyes and like with the Veil that I couldn’t see, I could feel an energy spread over her. Magic. Shifter magic.
“It was one of us.”
“Another wanderer?”
“No, another shifter.”
“Any one you know?”
I opened my eyes and arched an eyebrow. “You four are the only shifters I know.”
“There’s that tall young man.”
I gulped. “Been following me again.”
“Still following you.”
I looked down at the body before me. This was done to this innocent or not so innocent woman because the Havertys weren’t here to protect her. I felt the irony of that situation in the pit of my stomach as though I’d eaten a stone for lunch. And, frankly, I was really glad that I hadn’t eaten lunch at all.
“Okay.”
The articulated confirmation confused Tucker. “What?”
“Find out what you can about the girl. Where they found her? What she was wearing? Anything that will help us figure out who did this. Wait . . .”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I prefer Violet.”
His comment about being followed had jogged a memory. “Was this in the news on Saturday. The woman attacked by dogs.”
Tucker pulled out a note pad and began jotting down notes. He still didn’t lick the tip of his pen as I expected him too.
“In Saturday’s paper, there was a rash of missing people and a missing something. Could these all be rogue wanderers?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can we look into it?”
“Yes, mmm . . . we will get right on that.” Tucker ducked his head.
I took in one more lungful of the scent of whatever was still lingering around the girl. What was that smell?
On our quick way out of the morgue, I offered to buy Tucker lunch, but he declined. “We’ve got work to do.”
We stopped at my car. “Don’t you need to sleep? You’re working nights.”
Tucker shook his head. “I live with three other guys. I get more sleep at work.”
Smiling, I shook my head. “I can’t imagine living with that many people.”
“Sometimes it’s nice. Nash is pretty clean. Shadow is quiet as the grave.”
“And Tyler?”
“Well, Tyler is like living with your lazy younger brother.”
“I don’t have a younger brother either.”
“You’re not missing out on much.” Tucker cracked a smile and for an instant, I almost didn’t see the man who’d lied to me. For an instant, I almost saw handsome.
And then the winds changed, and I smelled something different about him. The pig hoof was still there but there was something more familiar and warm, and I relaxed the moment that I smelled it. Could it be his energy getting better? Could it be that as he changed his aroma did? Just like with Shadow. There had been more there than just dog breath. Could I actually be making a difference?
“I can hear the wheels turning,” he said.
I shook my head and licked my lips. “I’m sorry. Working on a few theories.”
“I’ll look into the girl, see what I can cull out from the others.”
“Cull. I like it.”
Tucker looked down at his boots, but I saw a smile. But the smile faded. “Let me handle this and can you keep looking into breaking the mark?”
Now was time for the serious talk.
I shook my head. “It’s painful. Blood and fire and power and I’m not sure that I want to go that route.”
“But it will break the mark,” Tucker insisted. “I’d give my right arm to not feel the burden of it any more. To guarantee that Jovan will never have power over us again.”
I watched his hand curl up to his chest. I was pretty sure that he didn’t know he was doing it.
“There has to be another way. And, as I’ve been telling lots of people lately. You make yourself the best you you can be, and we’ll see what evil can come of that.”
Tucker’s eyebrow arched. “How?”
“Put a little faith in me, Tucker Briggs.”
“You’re the only thing that I do have faith in.”
“HELLO?” I ANSWERED with a yawn.
“Violet? Were you sleeping? Its five p.m. your time.” Chaz asked. Could I already hear the furrow in his brow? I do think so.
I stretched and knocked a week’s worth of newspapers off the chair, where I’d curled up for a little cat nap. “My time?”
The line was silent. I could read the silence like the seventy-two-point-font headline scattered around me. “Where are you now, Chaz?”
“Asheville, North Carolina?”
I wasn’t even shocked. He could have said he was in Timbuktu, and I would have believed that they would have sent him there.
“And then I got a call from the agency that there’s a job for me in Washington.”
“D.C. or state?”
“D.C. And I kinda need the income.”
I rubbed my eyes. Did I even bother to tell him about the dead girl? Was he going to be back anytime soon to actually help out with anything? Even if I did manage to get myself into trouble, would he be around to be able to save me from myself?
“I might have spilled coffee on your American University T-shirt if you want to pick up another.”
“Good to know. Everything okay?”
“Just peachy.”
His heart beat changed and his words were strained through his clenched jaw. “Violet, please don’t be like this. Just because I’m not there on the couch with you doesn’t mean that I don’t care what you’re doing.”
I pouted. There he was again, calling me out for being stupid.
“I’m on the chair.”
“Violet,” he chided.
I sighed. “Cristina and I looked at the spell book. We think we know what Haverty was doing and yes, your father did figure out a way to break the spell. I’m going to drop the book off at Cristina’s tomorrow. She’d got this priestess she wants to show it to.”
“And the mutts?”
I bit my lower lip. “There have been some pretty gruesome attacks lately. Tucker thinks that they might be connected to the Barons somehow.”
“Humans getting caught up in the war?”
“I don’t know if one human denotes a war, but Tucker and I are going to look into it.” I could hear teeth grind through the phone. “Aren’t you going to make me promise not to do anything stupid until you get home?”
“Do I still have to?”
I smiled. “It does bear repeating.”
“I’ll be home in three days. Max.”
I didn’t say that I would believe it when I saw his olive duffel in the laundry room, but I thought it loud enough that he should have been able to hear it.
“I’ll see you in three days then.”
THE NEXT MORNING, I clicked the SEND button on the changes to Blood Moon: The Waxing. An instant later, my cell phone rang. I saw the brightly colored Sera jump onto my screen.
“Hello there,” I greeted as I saved my work.
“Hey. Wanted to let you know that I found the perfect bridesmaid dresses.”
“Oh? Send them to me.”
I heard clicking, and I didn’t know that I had clamped my eyes closed in anticipation until I heard the ping of my e-mail getting in yet another e-mail for the day.
“Got it?” Sera asked.
I clicked open the e-mail and drew my legs up to the chair. I opened the attached pictures and had to look away the moment that the retina burning dress filled the screen. Even when I blinke
d a few times, the image stayed behind my eyelids.
“Wow, that is pink, Sera,” I finally managed out.
“I know, but you’ll be in purple with the same petticoat though.”
“You mean the bright green one?”
“Yeah. Don’t you just love it!” she squeaked.
I dared to look at the picture again and darkened the resolution of on my screen just to keep from permanent color blindness.
It was a cute dress. Very fifties with the neon petticoat underneath the full skirt.
“I’m thinking flowers to match in our hair.”
“What does your dress look like?”
“Two seconds.”
I closed the bridesmaid dress picture and waited until her next e-mail came through, blinking my eyes a few time to get rid of the vivid image still burned in my vision like a bright camera flash.
The next e-mail came with another attachment. I clicked it open and tears filled my eyes.
It was the most amazing, gorgeous white simple, satin wedding dress a girl could hope for. It had drapes and a flower and I could see it on her like she was standing right in front of me.
“It’s perfect, Sera,” I breathed.
“It is and it fits and it is wonderful, and I love him, Vi. I really love him.”
Tears filled my eyes as I heard the sheer happiness in her voice. “Good. Now that you’ve got it, fight for it.”
“What?”
I sniffed and wiped my eyes. “Nothing. Just you make sure that this is the best wedding that you can design, let lover boy have his say, and I’ll see you in six weeks.”
“Talk to you later, Vi.”
I hung up the phone and my head hit the desk. Six weeks. I was going to have to wear a neon purple dress with a green petticoat in L.A. And the only thing that bothered me was that I didn’t know if I was going to have to go it alone.
I’D ALREADY WARMED up with my Sensei when Myers walked through the door. He looked down at his cell phone and then up at the simple looking dojo that I’d made my personal therapy room for the past four months. At first, it helped me draw out my preternatural talent. But more recently it had become where I worked out my frustrations with the world.
And now I was going to work out my frustrations with a certain young man who needed to learn to protect himself. I was more sure of that after the trip to the morgue. Both of us needed to brush up on our bad-guy-beating skills. Or at least our punch-’em-good-and-run skills.
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