Champion of Midnight: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Chronicles of Midnight Book 2)

by Debbie Cassidy

  “So, you’re running point on this one,” he said. “What’s our first call?”

  I grabbed my jacket off the end of the bed. “First, we talk to Cassie.”

  His face sobered. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.”

  Chapter 3

  Cassie crossed her arms under her breasts, her chin jutting out in defiance. “Killion didn’t do it.”

  We were in her pink, perfumed boudoir filled with fluffy pillows. She’d just stepped out of the shower, hair still wet. Her body was wrapped in a bathrobe, and her pink toenailed foot tapped on the carpet in agitation.

  I sighed. “Cassie, I heard you talking about it at The Deep. It’s why you told me to take a walk.”

  Her lips turned down. “You’re mistaken.”

  She was covering for a human killer. My patience snapped. “I know what I heard. You can either talk to us or explain to Bane why you’re covering for a man-eater?”

  She averted her gaze. “He’s a good guy. He does his best to fight his nature, but sometimes it’s too much. Can you imagine fighting who you are every single day?”

  I snorted. “Yes, I can, actually, and it’s fucking hard, but not impossible.” I shoved the file at her. “Look at it, look at what his loss of control did.”

  She made a sound of exasperation in the back of her throat but took the file, opening it reluctantly to scan the awfully graphic photos. She blinked at the pictures, then glanced up at Drayton. “Why has Harker got this file?”

  “Bane has Serenity running point on this one,” Drayton explained.

  She made an ‘o’ with her mouth, then closed it quickly. “He didn’t do this. This wasn’t him.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because he swore he wouldn’t. That night at The Deep, he swore to me that it would never happen again.”

  Oh, man. This woman was delusional.

  “Cassie,” Drayton said. “It was found in the south cove, the entrance and exit to Killion’s sea riders’ harras domain.”

  “So, it could be one of the others. It’s not him,” she insisted.

  I tapped the file against my thigh. “Is a harras like a pack?”

  “Yes,” Drayton confirmed.

  So, the kelpies had their little groups too then. Interesting. “Fine, Cassie. Help us prove him innocent. Come with us. Get him to talk to us and give us the evidence we need to clear him.”

  She pressed her lips together. “Fine. I’ll meet you in the foyer in fifteen minutes.”

  We left her to get dressed and made our way downstairs. “What if she’s right? What if he didn’t do it?”

  Drayton shrugged. “Then we find whoever did. We solve the case before another human gets eaten. That’s what we do.”

  “Could it be The Breed?”

  His body tensed. “No. They wouldn’t encroach on kelpie territory. Besides, they’re not known for leaving any evidence behind. If The Breed does get hold of you, then you simply go missing. There are very few exceptions to that rule.” He sounded bitter.

  “And no one has brought them to justice?”

  “We’d have to find them first. The fuckers are ghosts. They come and go as they please. Sometimes, I wonder if they’re nephs or something else.”

  “I thought everything supernatural was a neph of some kind? That they all had Black Wing blood.”

  “Yes, so did I. But the sea dwellers are rumored to be descended from Black Wing blood and the blood of an ancient race that wasn’t human. Who knows what The Breed really is?”

  His voice was thick with emotion. He had a score to settle with The Breed; they’d hurt him somehow.

  I touched his arm lightly. “What did they do to you?”

  He faltered going down the steps, and for a moment, I thought he was going to open up and tell me, but then he took the rest of the stairs at a trot, eager to get away from me.

  Cassie joined us a few minutes later, a black case clutched in her hands. “Print and mold kit for evidence. Thought you might need it.” She smiled, her previous anxiety gone. “Now, let’s crack this case.”

  ***

  The south cove was bordered by sand dunes and chalky rock. Leaving the car parked up on the main track, we picked our way down to the beach. The sea here was filled with jagged rocks that poked up like dark fingers reaching for the sky.

  Okay, so we were here, what now? I hated that I didn’t have a clue what I was actually doing here. “How do we call Killion?”

  Cassie picked up a smooth pebble, wound her arm back, and launched it into the sea. She waited a moment, picked up another, and threw that one in too. Drayton joined her in the pebble throwing. Was this the equivalent of knocking on their door?

  The water began to ripple, and Cassie and Drayton quickly backed up the beach. A massive form rose out of the water, silver and black, with a mane of twisted, blackened seaweed. It tossed its head and then began to cut through the water toward shore. It was a horse, a terrifying seahorse with mist curling from its nostrils and pluming out behind it, and then it wasn’t. It was a man. A large, powerfully built male, dry as bone and standing at the water’s edge. His lower body was encased in dark pants, and he was sporting some pretty expensive-looking boots. A white shirt clung to his muscles, accentuating every dip and ripple. He raked us over with an intense gaze that finally came to rest on Cassie.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  Cassie smiled, but it was a perfunctory action. “Hello, Finlay. It’s good to see you too. Where’s Killion?”

  Finlay frowned. “Not here.” He shrugged. “I’ll tell him you dropped by.” He turned to leave.

  I took a step toward the water. “Whoa, wait up a second.”

  He glanced over his shoulder, his dark eyes gleaming in the moonlight. “I have business to attend to.”

  “Yeah? And we didn’t come down here for a romantic stroll.”

  His lips twitched and he turned to face me. “You have two minutes.”

  I handed him the file. “Is this the work of one of your people … maybe even your brother?”

  Finlay let out a bark of laughter. “Blunt and to the point. Finally, someone who doesn’t fuck around.” He scanned the photographs, his lip curling in disgust. “No kelpie would ever feed in this way. It’s messy and out of control. When we devour, our prey does not struggle, they are consumed in ecstasy.”

  “Ecstasy? I doubt being eaten is in any way pleasant.”

  “Finlay, what do you mean?” Drayton asked.

  “Digging for more information on our kind, are you, incubus? Are you going to add it to the file your siren keeps?”

  Drayton sighed. “We just want to catch whoever is doing this and put a stop to it.”

  Finlay handed the file back to me. “Kelpies secrete a pheromone that puts the humans into a state of bliss. They feel nothing while we feed.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing.”

  He smiled, showcasing neat white teeth. They flashed to razor-sharp then back to blunt, reminding me that he may look like a guy, but he was something entirely different. “In the old days, when we were permitted to hunt and feed as required, a human would last for days, suspended in a state of bliss while we fed on him bit by bit. We kept stores, and we were never hungry. Now, we are forced to live off fish and algae, to eat human food and pollute our bodies.” He snorted. “Predators were born to hunt, but we’re denied that right, because the precious human sheep must be protected at all costs.”

  “Well, if you have nothing to hide, then you wouldn’t mind giving us some prints and allowing us to take a mold of your teeth. Your real teeth.”

  His brows shot up, and he looked to Drayton. “Is she insane?” He turned away. “Get out of my territory. I’m done talking. I have important shit to do.”

  “Finlay!” a male voice called out.

  We looked up the beach to see two kelpies jogging toward us.

  “We searched the east coast and—”

&nb
sp; “Enough,” Finlay snapped. “We have guests. Guests who are about to leave.”

  My gut twinged. “What were they searching for?”

  The corner of Finlay’s mouth turned up. “I’m done answering your questions. But I’d be happy to continue with some pillow talk.” He cocked his head. “Always wondered what it’d be like to fuck one of the Protectorate.” His gaze slid to Cassie. “Killion swears by it.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

  The other kelpies had joined us, and Finlay led them back into the water. They got hip deep before their bodies morphed and twisted into equine form, and then they dove under and were gone.

  “Did you know about the bliss thing?” Drayton asked Cassie.

  “No. Killion and I … we didn’t really spend a huge amount of time talking.” She blushed.

  I gnawed on my bottom lip, focusing on my gut, on what my instincts were telling me. They were clearer with the shields down a fraction. Maybe the voice was right. “I think Finlay was telling the truth about the bliss, and about Killion not being involved, but he is hiding something.” I turned and headed up the beach. “And I think we need to search the east coast.”

  Chapter 4

  Cassie grabbed my arm. “East coast is off limits. It’s rival pack territory owned by the Ocean Hunter harras. Juno’s gang. That bitch is vicious.”

  I arched a brow. “And yet Killion’s guys were just there searching. We need to figure out what they were looking for.”

  “Why?” Cassie looked genuinely perplexed.

  “Because my gut tells me to, okay. Look, Bane put me in charge, so we go to the east coast.” I marched up the dunes toward the road and the parked car. “Um, now if one of you will just drive me there?”

  Cassie joined me at the car. “Fine. Juno’s pack is probably deep under sea at the moment anyway, otherwise Killion’s guys wouldn’t have risked a sweep of her land.”

  “Well, it would be worth questioning her, right?” I looked to Drayton.

  “Juno doesn’t do questions.” He unlocked the car. “If Juno and her cronies show up, we make our apologies and leave.”

  Man, he was getting on my nerves with all the bowing out—first with Dorian and now Juno. It was as if he didn’t want to get to the bottom of the case. We were meant to be law enforcers, protectors of Midnight, and if we didn’t ask questions and rattle a few cages, then how the heck were we going to get any answers?

  “If Juno shows up, we question her.” My tone was firm, brooking no argument. I opened the passenger door. “Bane gave me a case. He trusted me to do a good job, and I don’t intend to cut corners and let him down.”

  Cassie and Drayton exchanged glances.

  “What?” They were looking at me strangely, almost pityingly.

  “Seriously, what the heck is going on?”

  “Serenity, you—”

  “She’s right.” Drayton cut Cassie off. “We need to be thorough.”

  Cassie snapped her mouth closed and climbed into the car. There was my gut again, telling me they were both hiding something. But I had a case to solve and some sand to examine. Yay, me.

  ***

  The east coast stretch of sand was wider, bordered by strange leafy plants that swayed in the breeze. Shells and seaweed were strewn close to the water’s edge, and the ocean was a calm slate. Far in the distance, a tiny island rose up, black against the midnight sky.

  “What’s that?” I pointed out to sea.

  “It’s Desert Rock,” Drayton said. “The sea dwellers use it to sunbathe and sometimes hold parties. It’s barren, though—no vegetation. Just a huge, rocky island.”

  We began to search the sands, looking for anything odd or out of the ordinary. Killion’s guys had said they’d searched but not what they’d found, if anything. This was probably a pointless exercise, but ignoring my gut instincts wasn’t an option.

  While Cassie and Drayton moved off down the beach, I headed over to the weird grass and began poking around. The sand here was earthy as it transitioned into soil, and pressed into it neatly—almost as if it were deliberate—was an animal footprint.

  “Drayton, Cassie, over here!” I signaled by waving my arms, then bent to examine the print. There was another and another—a trail leading away from the beach.

  “What is it?”

  “Tracks. Can you tell what made them?”

  Drayton crouched to examine the prints. “Ripper.”

  “I thought this was kelpie territory? Would a ripper come here?”

  Cassie exhaled through her nose. “No. Rippers may come across as mindless killing machines, but they have predatory instincts, and they know when to steer clear of another predator’s territory.”

  “Shame they don’t consider humans predators.”

  “Humans have become domesticated,” Drayton said. “They no longer use their predator instincts, and other predators can pick up on that, they can smell it. Humans are, and always will be, prey.”

  He had a point. “Question is, what were Killion’s guys looking for, and did they find it? Was this what they found?”

  Once again, Drayton and Cassie exchanged a look that had my scalp prickling. I stood up. “Spill it. If it’s to do with this case, I need to know.”

  Drayton pressed his hands to his thighs and pushed himself up. “It’s not important.”

  “Damn it, Dray. It so is,” Cassie said.

  “Cassie…” Drayton warned.

  Cassie ignored him. “Look, after you came to me with that file, I spoke to Bane, because I recognized the photographs. The case isn’t even recent, Harker. It’s an MED cold case. He asked them to send it over to distract you from this whole house games thing.”

  “A cold case?”

  “At least six months old. They never figured out who did it, because the body was too mangled. It got shelved. There were no others like it. They couldn’t even identify the human.”

  Bane had given me a dud case to keep me sweet. The fire in my limbs died a little. No. Fuck that. “It may be a cold case, but it’s still a case. This human still died, and I’m going to find out who killed him.”

  “We have company,” Drayton said.

  I tracked his gaze to see several shapes moving toward us through the water. Wiry, slender, and inhuman, their skin was dark with a silver sheen that melted away to reveal human skin. It was a trick, a glamour that turned the terrifying carnivorous seahorse into a perky-breasted beauty with golden waves. She wasn’t able to hide the truth behind her eyes, though. They remained dark, radiating power and knowledge.

  She was old. Ancient.

  “Hello, Juno,” Drayton said amiably. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  Juno blinked slowly at him. “I feel it is I who should be saying this to you. What are you doing here, incubus? This is my domain. There is no unlawful activity here.”

  “No,” Cassie said. “Just some ripper activity.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Rippers? You saw them?”

  “Tracks.” I pointed at the ground. “Several of them.”

  Her nostrils flared and her face rippled as she battled with her emotions.

  “Juno, should we sweep?” one of her companions asked.

  She nodded curtly. “Go, both of you. If you find them, end them. It will teach them to come back this way again.”

  Again? “The rippers have been here before?”

  Juno looked at me. “Rippers have been acting strange. Testing boundaries.” She sniffed the air, and her lips curled. “It seems others have been testing boundaries too.” Her eyes were slits, as if she was considering doing someone bodily harm.

  I held out the file. “Can you take a look at this? Maybe tell me what you think may have done this.”

  Drayton tensed. He’d warned me about questioning her.

  And she was looking at me as if considering which limb to start with when dismembering me.

  I smiled warmly. “I know you’re probably really busy, running a harras and all, but it
would mean so much if you could spare the time to help a girl out.” I shrugged. “The boss blatantly thinks I can’t close this case.”

  The corner of her mouth twitched, and she held out her hand for the file. Her slender, pale fingers were a little bit too long.

  I handed it to her and inclined my head. “Much appreciated.”

  She had a quick look, then shrugged. “It is too mangled to tell.” She met my eyes. “It is not a kelpie, if that is what you think.” She tapped the photo of Killion. “Certainly not him. This is an MED file, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “The humans are pathetic. They have no clue. If we were to feed, there would be no evidence left to find.”

  “Then how has Killion gotten on their radar?”

  “Pfft, Killion has a big mouth. He likes to brag, and people listen. His words get passed on.”

  Made sense, especially with what Finlay had said about the pheromone. It looked like we’d have to reassess our strategy. I accepted the file back.

  “You’re wasting your time, and mine.” Her tone was suddenly cold and curt. She dismissed us, turning to the ocean. “Get off my land. I have better things to do with my time.”

  Which was exactly what Finlay had said.

  “What kind of better things?” The words were out before I could stop them.

  She turned slowly to face me and pushed her hair out of her face. “That is none of your damned business.”

  “Where did you get that?” Cassie barreled forward and grabbed Juno’s wrist.

  The kelpie stared at her in surprise. “What? This?” It was a necklace of colorful beads wound around her wrist several times.

  “Yes. Where did you get it?” Cassie insisted.

  Juno shrugged. “I found it washed up on Desert Rock.”

  “It belongs to Killion. I made it for him. He wears it always.”

  Juno pulled her wrist away. “Well, it’s mine now. He should have taken better care of it.”

  The other kelpies she’d sent off to do a sweep of her territory for rippers returned clutching something that looked like a scarf. The blue and yellow fabric was torn, and the kelpie male held it out to his leader.

  Juno took it from him with trembling fingers.