Night Life

by Caitlin Kittredge

  "I'm telling you right now, Wilbur," Mac said, some steel creeping into his tone, "I'm willing to go to bat for Detective Wilder in this instance."

  I shot Mac a grateful look, but he was staring down Roenberg. The captain set the silver disk aside with a nervous flick, and I realized with a start that it was a caster. Metal casters were rare, and expensive. It took a skilled witch to control the flow of energy through metal, and that was why Sunny and every other caster witch I knew used wood or cloth.

  And Roenberg didn't have the blood as far as I could smell.

  He snapped the folder holding Bryson's complaint shut and set it on his desk, arranging the edges so they were perfectly even with his blotter.

  "Are we done here?" Mac asked him.

  Roenberg smiled, close-lipped. "Not even close, Troy. Young lady"—he finally deigned to address me— "how long have you been on the force?"

  "Seven years, sir," I said, willing myself not to chafe at the young lady part.

  "And why did you become a law enforcement officer?"

  Did he really expect me to stand up straight, with a tear in my eye and a quiver in my voice, and say, To protect and serve, sir?

  Apparently so, because he snapped, "I'm waiting, Detective."

  I bored into him. He stared impassively back at me, eyes flat. I was less than nothing to him. The thought of losing my job for good kept me from leaping the desk and trying to wring his turkey neck, but it was an uphill fight.

  "I believe that there are evil people in the world, Captain," I said. In the closed room my voice was rough, with a growl underneath it. The rage floating in my animal brain had smelled blood and come out for a closer look. "I believe that there are people who need to be caught, and punished. I became a cop to do just that." And to escape those insistent voices that told me I would never, ever be anything more than another dead end on the Wilder family tree, too stupid to pull herself up and too drunk to realize it.

  Roenberg shrugged. "Why not become a social worker? Or a security guard? Something more suited to your temperament? Why bring your issues into my squad?"

  "Social workers and security guards have never had the pleasure of interviewing a thirteen-year-old rape victim," I grated. "They've never seen what a .45 automatic can do to a human body. I have. And it is because of this that I will continue to be a cop until I'm either dead or too old to shoot straight."

  Mac reached over and touched me on the wrist. I realized my voice was raised, almost shouting. The rage opened its nose and took a deep breath, scenting prey. Not here, I prayed. Please. Not now.

  "Very touching," said Roenberg. He tossed my file at McAllister. "You're suspended without pay pending the investigation into your conduct with Detective Bryson and a full review of your case log for the past year. Your closure rate is unusually high."

  McAllister jumped up. "Excuse me?" Fortunately his yelling covered my muttered "You slimy little…"

  "Captain," said Mac, face flushed to a bright Irish rouge, "I understand the need to discipline Detective Wilder for the altercation, but she's one of my best detectives. Her closure rate is something to be proud of."

  "Troy, I'm sure you think Detective Wilder is the most wonderful thing to grace this city since crosswalks and streetlights," said Roenberg. "And I'm sure she's been happy to take advantage of the politically correct attitudes some of our fellow officers have been brainwashed into." He swiveled his chair to face me and pointed a finger. "Detective, you are here to fill a quota, and nothing more. Any success you've had since then is a happy accident."

  I moved for him then. Mac's hand clamped down on my upper arm, digging in and hurting me. The were snarled at the back of my head, urging violence and vengeance. I focused on the pain and let it hold me in McAllister's grip.

  "We'll be going now, sir," he said to the captain.

  "Leave your gun with Lieutenant McAllister," said Roenberg. "And for your future employment, Detective Wilder, may I suggest a career a bit less taxing on your highly emotional personality?" He waved a hand to dismiss us, and I noticed for the first time that Roenberg sported a tattoo on his left palm. I had just enough time to think that the spiked tribal-style circle didn't suit a tightass like him before Mac dragged me out and shut the door.

  "That prick!" I exploded as soon as he did.

  "Will you shut the hell up?" Mac hustled me down the hall and past Rick, whose moon face wore a deeply concerned expression. "What were you thinking, pulling out that impassioned speech crap in front of Roenberg?"

  "I thought maybe I'd appeal to his memory of the time when he was a real cop, but apparently that time was never," I grumbled.

  "Roenberg hates mouthy detectives, and he hates mouthy broads more," McAllister said. "Bad luck for you that you're both."

  I opened my mouth to spit some more vitriol, but Mac held up his hand. "Luna, I'm truly sorry but I need your gun."

  I yanked the Glock out of holster, worked the slide, and slapped it butt-first into Mac's palm. He winced. I didn't apologize.

  I shoved my case folder in a drawer and locked it, snapped my badge off my belt, and thrust it at Mac. "Here." I had to fight hard to resist screaming, throwing things, tearing someone's throat out. Or sobbing.

  Mac folded his hand around mine, closing my fingers over the badge. "I distinctly remember being ordered to collect your weapon. I've done that. We're finished here."

  I grimaced, managing a "Thanks."

  "For what? I'm relieving you of duty. You should be pissed off."

  "You have no idea how much," I said, collapsing in my desk chair. What I didn't add was at who. Were rage had put me directly in this position. Roenberg had no call to be as big a dickhead as he was, but if I hadn't attacked Bryson for no reason I'd still be sitting around the squad room, drinking iced mochas and avoiding work on my cold cases.

  Mac touched my shoulder. "Was it just my imagination, or in Roenberg's office, were you … ?"

  I shook my head. "Not your imagination. Something's off with my moonphase, and it's driving me freaking insane."

  Mac frowned. "Go home, Luna. I'll talk to the chief of detectives in the morning, and we'll get this straightened out."

  "Not if Bryson and Roenberg have anything to say. You know they'd throw a party if I got fired. Probably with streamers and little hats."

  "Chin up. Tomorrow's another day." McAllister went into his office and shut the door, probably to drag off an illicit cigarette if I knew him. Mac didn't smoke socially, but he always had a pack on him when he worked. A nervous habit, like biting your nails. Most cops who make it out of blues have one to cope with the stress. McAllister had his Camels and I had a dojo near the cottage where I went and pounded the shit out of a black leather punching bag until I was too tired and my limbs were too heavy to think straight. In stressful situations I've caught myself shuffling my feet, moving my arms ever so slightly to punch and block.

  I reached the squad room door, hauling my lone spider plant along with my usual book bag of miscellaneous crap I take to work when my desk phone rang. I kept walking. It kept ringing.

  I went back and snatched the receiver. "What!"

  "Um… Detective Wilder?"

  "Not at the moment. But hey, I'll humor you. Who's this?"

  "Ah, this is Pete Anderson, in the ID lab? I caught the print work for your Jane Doe murder?"

  I forced myself to think happy thoughts so I wouldn't scare the guy to death. "Yes, Pete. What is it?"

  "You have your computer on?"

  I flicked the mouse, and my monitor came back to life. "Yeah."

  "Check your e-mail. Your Jane Doe is no more."

  I clicked on the file he'd sent me and a screen popped up, created right here in the data banks of the Nocturne City PD. Jane Doe had a name. And a record.

  Pete said, "She was born Lilia Desko, one arrest for drugs and two for—"

  "Solicitation," I finished for him. "You're sure this is her?"

  "Eight-point match," he told m
e proudly.

  So now she was no longer Jane Doe, but Lilia. Just in time for me to no longer be on her case.

  "Thanks for all your hard work, Pete. You're a sweetheart"

  "Hey, no problem," he said, and I could practically picture his ears turning red on the other end of the line. "Oh, Detective? There is one other thing."

  "What's that?"

  "Dr. Kronen found more prints on the victim's skin with an ALS." Alternate light source. Kronen had gone above and beyond for an anonymous hooker autopsy. Maybe I should puke on him more often.

  "I'm sending you another file," Pete said.

  "The person they belong to is in the system?"

  "Oh, yeah," he said. "Is he ever. Okay, you should have it now."

  I clicked and brought up another face. Male, with hard lines, a broken nose blessed with a devilish crook instead of an ugly bump, shaggy dark red hair, a Fu Manchu biker mustache of the same color, and a look that said, were it an option, he would kill whoever was on the other side of the mug shot camera.

  He was kinda sexy.

  "Detective? Did you receive the file?"

  I cleared my throat. "Dmitri Sandovsky? Yeah." I read. "Says here he was arrested with Lilia for pimping, and a few more times for possession with intent."

  "The two P's," Pete agreed cheerily. "Think he might be your guy?"

  I looked at Sandovsky's face, the hard mouth and the crazy gleam in his wide, dark eyes. "Oh, yeah," I said.

  Four

  Fog and sharp cold air greeted me as I left the precinct. I started the Fairlane and drove toward Magnolia, aimless.

  Dmitri Sandovsky's sheet sat on the passenger seat, taunting me with its orderly list of known aliases—none— and last known address. Surprise surprise. None listed.

  Go home. That was the right thing to do. Go home, put in twelve hours of sleep, wait out my moonphase on suspension, and go back to work a new woman.

  Instead, a passing street lamp illuminated Sandovsky's snarling face and deep green eyes, burning with the questions I wanted answered—why did you kill Lilia? Why tear her throat and take a trophy? What could she possibly have done to deserve treatment like that?

  Could I hurt Sandovsky as badly in return?

  I pulled over and looked at the sheet again. Sandovsky's last arrest had been at a shitty tenement block in the Waterfront district. I flipped open the glove compartment and grabbed a map of Nocturne City covered in marker lines. A different color marked the border of known gang territory, known mob territory, and patches of the city known to be controlled by packs. I'd been working on the map since I was in uniform.

  Waterfront had a bold border of black, meaning were pack territory. Packs ran their territories with fierce jealousy, and if Dmitri was dealing in Waterfront he either belonged to the pack that ran it or he was one hell of a sweet-talker. He would be known.

  I shoved the map back into the glove compartment and debated for just a second before I gunned the engine and took a right onto Leavenworth Boulevard. The quickest way to the Waterfront, and Dmitri Sandovsky's last known address.

  * * * *

  As I drove, Leavenworth morphed from crumbling storefronts and beggars to crumbling converted row houses and sleazy club kids wandering along the sidewalk. The road dipped and then crested, laying out the half-moon of Siren Bay below me. At night the freight cranes and containers hid from view; all mat reflected were a million lights from the high-rises circling the west shore. If the wind was blowing the right way, you could even ignore the sour salt smell that the polluted bay water spread around Waterfront as a substitute for oxygen.

  At one point in Nocturne's history, when lumber and precious metals had passed through the port, Waterfront had been the most desirable address in the city. Overnight millionaires built apartments, hotels, and fabulous wooden mansions, most of which either burned in the Hex Riots or were condemned and demolished by the city as the affluence moved out and the weres moved in during the aftermath.

  Humans thought Waterfront was deadly glamorous, a sort of miniature Dodge City hidden within Nocturne's already wildly tangled jungle. I had seen more terrified suburban yokels than I could count come out of Waterfront mugged, beaten, or worse. Every time I had to take a statement from a sniffling middle-class prom queen who thought it would be fun to go slumming with the beasts, I wanted to slap the were population upside the head. I may be Insoli, but they were idiots.

  I parked the Fairlane in front of an apartment building where residences would have gone for half a million dollars pre-Hex. Now it was beyond deserted, a squat with no real dwellers, and a smell that could have flattened me from the sidewalk. Two hoboes were asleep on the marble stoop, which had mostly crumbled.

  This was a crazy fishing expedition. Sandovsky's most recent arrest was almost a year old. A man like him would keep moving, make himself hard to find. For all I knew he lived on the road and slept only in the beds of the women he visited for a night. In my old life, guys like him were just my type, and they usually came with motorcycles, guns, and outstanding warrants.

  I walked down the block a bit, scouting. The sidewalk was full of normal humans, not a were in sight. Good thing, too. I would definitely not be welcomed with open arms. I should go home and go to sleep like a good girl. I was punchy from getting sick and from the awful scene in Roenberg's office. Damn Roenberg. Moonphase or no, the guy was due for a punch in the nose from somebody, preferably me.

  Then I smelled them, close and packed together. The scent emanated from a converted wood frame house that was now a bar, replete with tacky neon and a crookedly lettered sign telling me happy hour was from nine to whenever.

  I had found the pack that ran the Waterfront. Lot of good it did me, too, because I couldn't go marching in and start the interrogation. Weres had the right to do as they pleased with any Insoli who violated their territory.

  I'd learned that one the hard way. Now it really was time to go home.

  I had left the Fairlane alone for barely two minutes, but there was already a fat man in a leather jacket and jeans stuffed into steel-toed shitkicker boots eyeballing it. More than eyeballing—he was leaning on the window and practically making out with the door.

  "May I help you, sir?" I snipped brightly. He turned on me with unfocused eyes.

  "Uhhh…hey, honey." The confusion broke into a rheumy smile. "Boy, you're real high-class."

  "Thank you. Does that mean you're going to stop breathing on my car?"

  "This thing yours? Baby, this piece of shit ain't nothin'."

  I took a step closer to him, intending to be imposing and authoritative to make him leave me alone. Then the smell hit me. Shit. He was a were, and had a hell of a lot more right to be here than I did. My stomach churned, the were knowing it was trespassing, the fight-or-flight fear reaching up to clamp my heart.

  "Lemme buy you a drink," Sidewalk Warrior slurred. "High-class pussy needs a free drink."

  I stared. He misinterpreted. "Oh, we can talk about dough now if ya want. I gots some money. My buddy owes me fifty dollars."

  Inhale, exhale. He's too drunk to realize what you are. Relax, this time.

  He reached for my arm, and survival instincts kicked in with a scream. I jerked away from him, leather creaking.

  "C'mon, honey. I ain't got all night here," my suitor told me. Run or fight, the were whispered. Kill or flee.

  I clenched my fingers against my palm, digging in and reaching for control. He could get me inside. Insoli plaything to a pack member. I could do this.

  "Honey," I told him, my voice a silky smooth purr, "I could die for a drink."

  "Thaasss more like it!" He beamed. "C'mon with me, dollface." He took my arm and dragged me across the street toward the bar. Choppers and road bikes lined the parking spaces in front. I barely registered, letting the drunken were lead me inside. My heart thudded my ribs, and I was more scared than I could remember being in a long, long time. No one walked into a roomful of pack weres uninvited and lived
to tell about it.

  Yet here I was, blazing the trail. Yay me.

  Darkness and blue cigarette smoke caressed me when I came over the threshold. The walls of the place were knocked out, bricks exposed. Scarred hardwood creaked under my feet; a sign above a crude plywood bar proclaimed RIDE OR DIE, a winged and bandanna-clad skull lording over the letters. The skull was a wolf's. Real subtle there, guys.

  No one so much as looked at me. The smell of weres was so thick that I couldn't even begin to tell one from the other, and they were all preoccupied with drinks, girls, or both.

  "C'mon, honey." The fat man tugged me toward the bar. "You go order yourself a drink, pretty, while I see my buddy about some money for tha party." He winked at me broadly. Ignore it, Luna, and let him think whatever the Hex he wants about your profession. You're in.

  After the tugging didn't work my pseudo-suitor shoved me in the small of my back. I stumbled up against the bar. The bartender sneered at me.

  "What are you drinking?"

  My date ambled down the bar until he reached a hulking figure on a stool with his back turned. I couldn't see anything of his "friend" aside from a blue bandanna and a motorcycle jacket emblazoned with a snarling wolf head.

  "Lady, much as I'd love to stand here and stare at you until the second coming of Christ, could I get your order now?" the bartender asked. The big guy turned as my errant date tugged at his jacket. I saw his face and choked.

  "It's him."

  The bartender followed my eyes. "Sorry, lady. I just pour the drinks. Pimping—you're on your own."

  I ignored him and strode over to stand behind the fat were, staring directly into Dmitri Sandovsky's eyes. I sniffed deep. Yep, Sandovsky was a were, too.

  Fan-freaking-tastic.

  "Well hey, pretty," he rumbled at me. "And here I thought Manley was bullshitting when he said he needed the fifty bucks to buy some company." A gravel-scraped voice with just a hint of Eastern Europe in the accent. Green eyes, so dark they were almost black. He'd shaved off the mustache in favor of a red goatee, but otherwise the face matched the mug shot. Complete with crazy smile. In person, he was still kinda sexy.