Apart from her relief that he was safe, she needed him tonight. Her head pounded with that particularly vicious beat that meant they’d been apart too long. Thanks to Merlin’s magic, Gwen had to provide blood for her vampire husband on a regular basis, or her blood pressure would spike dangerously high. She could magically remove the excess and bottle it, of course, but tonight she wanted that personal touch.
Rounding the corner, she found Arthur standing in the living room, staring down into the fire blazing in the black marble fireplace. He looked big and tough in black jeans and a U2 T-shirt, his dark hair curling around his broad shoulders. He held a bottle of blood in one hand, but he had yet to draw its magical cork.
Good. He was probably still hungry. Her body warmed and tightened for him.
“It’s bad, Gwen.” Arthur looked up at her, his voice rasping with exhaustion. “I don’t know how much longer we can keep this up. Those bastards are killing too many of our people.” His handsome, boyish face was gray with fatigue, and there were dark circles under his eyes.
“You haven’t been eating enough.” She moved toward him, forgetting her own headache. He was right about the Magekind’s losses, but he had always been her first concern. “You’ve got to eat, Arthur. Even if it’s from a bottle.”
His smile flashed against the dark background of his short, neat beard. “You know I prefer to drink from that pretty throat of yours.” His smile faded. “Speaking of which, you’re looking flushed. Have you…?”
“I’ve got a headache,” she admitted.
“Dammit, Gwen!” he exploded, stalking to meet her in that long, sexy stride that never failed to make her heart pound. “When you get to that point, bottle it! Do you want to drop dead?”
She sighed as he pulled her into the warm strength of his arms. “I just haven’t had time.” Despite the clamor of her blood, she let her forehead rest on his firm chest. “Morgana and I have been working hard on that spell. If we can pull it off, we’ll be able to track down those Black Grails. Unfortunately, whoever has them is doing a damn good job of shielding them from detection.”
“You’ll get it.” His strong arms tightened comfortingly. “Then we’ll destroy the grails and wipe those vampire bastards right off Mortal Earth.”
“The sooner the better.” She sighed, listening to his immortal heart pound. “Hunting them down one-by-one is like pulling teeth. I’m not sure we’d ever get rid of them all without destroying those grails.”
It had been little more than three months since they learned of the existence of Geirolf, a demonic alien from the magical universe they called the Mageverse.
Merlin had captured the creature sixteen centuries before and imprisoned him in an enchanted cell on the Mageverse’s alternate version of Earth. The cell had held the demon until he’d escaped last year.
By passing himself off as a god to gullible—and psychotic—mortals, Geirolf managed to hoodwink them into forming cults that made human sacrifices to him. The alien then fed off the life force of the victims.
To strengthen his hand still more, Geirolf had created three perverted versions of Merlin’s Grail, then used these Black Grails to transform his cultists into a vampire army. He and his forces had almost managed to destroy the Magekind, but they’d trapped and killed him instead.
Unfortunately, that hadn’t ended the threat. Geirolf’s second in command had transferred the dying alien’s powers to his vampire followers, then scattered them all over the planet. The Magekind had been hunting them ever since, trying to wipe them out before they did even more damage.
Now Geirolf’s nasty little brood had started using the Black Grails to create yet more vampire followers. Fortunately, Galahad and his new wife, Caroline, had stumbled on a solution. When they’d destroyed one of the Black Grails, every vampire it had created was magically wiped out.
However, two more grails remained. Until they were found and destroyed, the ranks of Geirolf’s killers would grow.
“The sooner they’re all dead, the better,” Arthur growled. “Merlin created us to keep mankind from committing mass suicide. With this planet teetering on the edge of a religious civil war, we can’t afford to waste so much time hunting monsters.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a choice,” Gwen pointed out dryly. “These particular monsters are killing people.”
“So are the terrorists.”
“But the terrorists can’t work magic.” She sighed and rubbed her aching forehead across his chest. “If we don’t get rid of these vamps, God knows how many people they’ll murder. Their magic is powered by death, so they kill even when they’re not hungry. And unlike you boys, they like to drain their victims instead of just nibbling.”
Thoughtfully, Arthur stroked a big hand through her hair. “What do you think about asking Llyr’s help with the spell?” he asked. “A little Sidhe magic could come in handy.”
She sighed. “At this point, we can’t afford ego. As long as we find those grails, I don’t care whose spell does the job.”
“I’ll contact him, then.” His hand dropped down to cup her backside. “After, that is, I take care of my wife. I feel the need for a little nibbling myself.”
Guinevere laughed, her grim mood lightening. With a wave of her hand and a swirl of magic, she made their clothing disappear. As her husband bore her back on the fur rug she’d conjured on the floor, Gwen sighed in pleasure.
There were vampires, and then there were vampires.
It was close to midnight and shift change when Faith started yet another circuit through Bomar. It being Monday night, the Clarkston neighborhood was, for once, almost painfully quiet.
Behind her head, Rambo whined.
“Yeah, I’m bored, too.” She instantly winced at her unthinking reply. “Great. Just great. Now I’ve cursed us.”
Every officer knew simply thinking things were slow was an invocation to the evil cop gods, who would promptly deliver a fifteen-car pileup or a serial-killing axe murderer. The last time Faith had complained about being bored, she’d found three dead bodies in an Atlanta convenience store not two hours later.
It never failed.
Sure enough, ten minutes later she glimpsed what looked like a man lying near the basketball hoop in the city park. Faith slowed the car for a closer look, frowning past the swing set and jungle gym.
The figure lay in the spill of light from one of the park’s security lights. It looked oddly dark and mottled, as if covered in dirt.
Or blood.
Faith grabbed her mike and radioed dispatch that she was getting out for a safety check. Then, ignoring Rambo’s questioning whine, she swung the car door open.
The leather of her belt creaking, she ducked through the wrought iron gate in the park fence.
Judging from the size, the victim was an adult male. He lay on his side in a twisted, contorted position, covered in dark patches that did indeed look like dried gore. As if to confirm that suspicion, the breeze shifted into her face as she approached, bringing the scent of blood and human waste. Faith gagged.
“Sir? Sir, are you all right?” No answer, not that she’d expected one. Not with that smell. Instinctively, she dropped her hand to her service weapon and looked around for his attacker.
She saw nothing but the spidery silhouettes of the park’s play equipment. In the distance, a dog bayed, the sound faint and lonely. The swings swayed in the breeze, knocking against the legs of the swing set with a metallic ring.
Holding her breath as every hair on the back of her neck rose, Faith looked down at the body.
White male, early thirties. Shirtless. He lay on his back, arms and legs spread wide. Something had scooped a big chunk out of his torso, leaving his belly a red, stinking ruin.
Faith swallowed against her heaving stomach, then dropped to one knee to lay two fingers against his throat. His skin was cold. He’d been dead a couple of hours at least.
Good, her inner coward whispered. I sure as hell don’t want to r
un into whoever did this to him.
Her instincts concurred, strongly suggesting she get her butt back to the safety of the patrol car and Rambo. Ignoring both mental voices, Faith grabbed her radio handset off the clip on her shoulder. Glancing down at the body, she finally recognized him.
Samuel Cruise, the drug addict with a phobia of the city jail, was just as dead as he’d predicted he’d be.
But it was damn sure no witch that had killed him.
THREE
Half an hour later, the area was swarming with cops. Units were parked up and down the street, blue lights revolving slowly across the trees and neighboring houses to give the park an unearthly glow.
Faith watched Detective Gordon Taylor walk toward her. A heavyset man in a cheap, rumpled suit, he wore an expression of irritation. “Weston,” he growled, as he stopped at her side and looked down at Cruise’s body. “This your…” He broke off. His expression shifted into horror as he saw the man’s ruined torso, then went carefully blank again. Looking over at Faith, he drawled, “You got me out of bed at midnight for a dead junkie?”
“Somehow I don’t think it’s an overdose, detective.”
He grunted. “Looks like a dog attack to me. Bet whoever he buys his drugs from turned his pit bulls loose on the guy.”
“Hell of a way treat a customer.” Faith frowned down at the body, considering the theory. People figured out some pretty creative ways to commit murder, but she still wasn’t sure she bought it. “You know, I’ve seen dog maulings before. This one…” She crouched and shone her flashlight into one of the wounds. “Look at the distance between those teeth. I’ve never seen a dog with a bite like that. Looks more like a bear or something.”
Taylor eyed her. “Who died and made you CSI?”
Faith glowered up at him, stung by the insult. Cops in general did not have a high opinion of CSI. For one thing, most real crime scene techs didn’t conduct criminal investigations—they just collected evidence and handed it over to detectives.
Despite his scorn, she straightened and faced him. “Detective, I arrested this guy last night. He literally begged me not to lock him up in the city jail because he said people who go to that jail die. He even claimed some of them get eaten.”
Taylor stared at her. “You suggesting one of our jailers ate him?” His voice dripped incredulous contempt.
“I’m not suggesting anything, detective,” she told him with elaborate patience. “I’m reporting what the man said.”
“He was a junkie, Weston. He probably saw flying monkeys, too.” He nodded down at Cruise’s mangled corpse. “And it’s a lot more likely monkeys did this than the jailers.”
“Knowing the jailers, I’ve got to agree. I can’t believe any of our guys would be involved in something like this. But—”
Taylor cut her off. “Where’s the coroner?”
“En route. He lives on the other end of the county.”
“Glad I’m not the only one to get hauled out of bed for this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of surgical gloves. “Help me roll him.”
“We haven’t taken pictures of the body yet. I was waiting for you.”
He gave her a superior-officer-to-dimwit-subordinate sneer. “So go get a frigging camera already and snap a couple of shots.”
Simmering, Faith stalked back toward her car to retrieve the cheap digital she carried to record accidents. Clarkston didn’t have the budget for a crime scene photographer.
Taylor watched her walk off. One of the other patrol officers stepped over to him.
“Weston asks way too many questions,” the uniform said in a low voice.
Taylor grunted. “Yeah. We’re going to have to do something about her. She’s becoming a pain in the ass.”
Over the past month, watching Faith work out in her home gym had become Jim’s favorite guilty pleasure.
He lay on the carpet next to her weight bench with his head on his paws. His stomach growled, but he ignored it in favor of concentrating on his pretty partner. He’d learned to eat kibble, but his belly never stopped hoping for something more substantial.
At the moment, however, his focus was on Faith, though he knew good and damned well he was no more likely to sample her than he was a T-bone. At least, not any time soon.
Sweat gleamed on her long legs and arms as she did barbell presses in a series of smooth, controlled thrusts. Every time she forced the weight bar upward, her hips unconsciously rolled.
He’d love to paint her like this. The morning light spilled a golden shimmer across her sweating skin that he badly wanted to capture. Her arms weren’t brawny by any means—certainly nothing like his own—but the flex of those working muscles fascinated him with their clean, elegant shapes.
During his twelve-year career as an professional artist, Jim had painted any number of people—mostly urban studies of the folks who inhabited Hot ’Lanta. His edgy, stylish pieces now commanded critical acclaim and large sums of money. But the painting he wanted to do of Faith would be something different.
Something private.
Faith finished the set and sat up on the bench, panting, her pretty breasts rising and falling under the thin blue T-shirt she wore. Absently, she picked up the towel that lay across the bench and wiped her sweating face. He loved the fierce, intent expression she wore when she was working hard, but he loved watching her when she was spent, too.
She sat back, unwittingly giving him an idea for another portrait in his Faith series: leaning against the wall, breathing hard, a heathy flush on her face, strands of red hair tumbling down around those high cheekbones.
Glancing over, she saw Jim watching and leaned down to give his head a pat. He almost growled.
The woman of his dreams thought he was a dog.
His timing sucked, and he knew it. He was supposed to be catching his best friend’s murderer. But he hadn’t realized that pretending to be Faith’s K-9 partner would mean spending so much time with her. And he hadn’t anticipated the effect she’d have on him, with her intelligence, stubborn courage, and commitment to justice.
At first, he’d tried to dismiss the attraction as simple lust, then as an inconvenient infatuation. Over the past few days, though, he’d come to suspect it was a lot more than that.
Unfortunately, it didn’t much matter what it was, because he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Oh, he could wait until he’d caught Tony’s killers, then pretend to meet her as a human. Maybe she’d fall for him.
But even if she did, humans and Dire Wolves weren’t cross-fertile, and Direkind law forbid them from marrying. The only way he and Faith could be together is if he bit her and infected her with Merlin’s Curse.
Unfortunately, a fifth of the Dire Kind didn’t survive their first transformation. Like Steve, their own magic consumed them. Hell, sometimes even established Dire Wolves triggered a magical meltdown by trying to Turn too often.
It was not a chance Jim was willing to take, despite what he’d said to Charlie. Anyway, he couldn’t stand the thought of sinking his fangs into Faith’s delicate flesh, or watching her endure the pain that would follow. He sure as hell didn’t want to watch her die.
Besides, even if she did survive the Change, she wouldn’t thank him for making her a werewolf. Maybe he could get her to fall in love with him first and agree to make the Change, but what if she refused after he told her about the Direkind? She’d know too much. The standard procedure was to bite one’s human lover and then tell him or her the facts of werewolf life. Again, not something Jim had any interest in doing to Faith.
Face it, London, he thought grimly, you’re screwed.
The next day, Faith pushed open the door to the briefing room where roll call was held. The three cops sitting at the long table fell silent and looked up. Their expressions cooled when they saw it was her.
Suppressing a frown, she gave them a nod. “Hi, guys.”
Two nodded stiffly in return. The other watched her with brooding host
ility.
She pulled out a chair and sat down, eyeing the three men. “Is there a bug going around, or did you boys stay up all night working that murder? You look like hell.”
“Mind your own—” Frank Granger began hotly, only to break off as if someone had kicked him under the table.
“That’s right, Faith,” Gary Morrow told her with a stiff smile. “The sergeant had us canvassing the neighborhood.”
Eyeing them, she decided she didn’t buy it. She’d lingered on the scene later than they had, and she didn’t look anywhere near as wrecked. All three had dark circles under their eyes, and their skin looked gray, almost as if they were suffering from anemia.
Maybe there was a bug going around.
The door opened, and a fourth cop stumbled in to drop into a chair, sloshing his coffee on the table. Andy Jones put down the paper cup and scrubbed both hands over his haggard face. His eyes were bloodshot, and he’d missed a strip of black stubble along his jawline when he’d shaved. He didn’t even grunt a hello, just sat hunched over his cup, his expression troubled.
“Something wrong, Andy?”
Jones looked up at her and started to open his mouth, but Morrow cut him off before he could speak. “He’s just tired, Weston. We all are.”
She studied the other cop’s placating smile. Granger was red with rage, but to her surprise he kept his mouth firmly shut. Faith found that almost as troubling as their unhealthy skin tone. Restraint wasn’t exactly Frank’s best quality.
She flicked a glance at the other two men. They didn’t seem to be tracking the discussion at all.
What the hell was going on?
Sergeant Randy Young walked in, looking even more drawn than the others, his shirt loose over what had once been an impressive belly. He must have lost a good forty pounds in the last two months. Faith had complimented Young on his weight loss before, but now she wondered if something more sinister than a really good diet was responsible. But what else could it be?
And why haven’t I noticed this before?
Master of Wolves Page 5