And it was all real.
“What was the story about the Flame?”
“A firestarter who finally burnt out,” Chip said. “His brother sold him out for a music career and then traded him to a blood wizard. The Oracle. He’d dead now too, along with Nat. And the Judge is missing. The entire underground scene is changing because of it, because once a kingpin is down, power is redistributed. I’m so, so worried that what I’m researching now about this sex-trafficking ring is much worse than I realize.”
“Maybe, but maybe not. Maybe it’s just a bunch of workers being killed for no reason. It happens all the damn time and no one makes it into a conspiracy.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. Maybe I want a something big like a war so that everything in my life makes sense.”
Sully laughed. “You know, I think I’d like that too.”
When Chip kissed him again, it was sharp and rough; grief flowed out and over him like a sudden gushing wound. When Sully realized Chip was shaking, he didn’t know what to do. He was so unaccustomed to this kind of emotional labor. The man’s a fucking mess. But it wasn’t a mess Sully didn’t want to deal with. Wasn’t a mess he couldn’t relate to.
“Hey, hey,” Sully said. “Shh. I’m so sorry. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
“I fucked it up, though. I fucked up everything.”
“We all fuck things up.”
“Well, you know, for me it’s true. Worse than before.”
“And I bet you’re Atlas carrying the world too, Chip. But sometimes you just gotta let it go. I bet you’d be surprised to realize that the world keeps on spinning even when you do. Shh.” Sully wrapped his arms around Chip and rocked him back and forth. When the weight of the motion became too much, Sully tried to push his own guilt and sorrow away. He grabbed Chip’s face and turned him to stare into his eyes.
“Brown eyes and black hair,” Sully said. “I am not Nat. I am not anyone from your past. You have no past when you’re with me.”
“Then what is there?”
“Present,” Sully said. “I love the present. I love each new thing about it. Because my past is shitty too, and my future is kinda weird, especially when I didn’t think I had one. But the present? Oh, the present is so good. It makes me want to do things to you.”
Chip took a moment before he smiled. When he did, Sully placed his lips over the grin as if he could consume him.
Chip came alive again. I’ve got him, I’ve got him, Sully thought. This was the moment where the men or the women gave into their urges and stopped second-guessing themselves. It was where Sully made his money or preserved his safety, sure, but this time, he heard another chorus behind the chant of I’ve got him, I’ve got him: I want him, I want him.
Sully swallowed hard and pushed the thought away. Present moment meant that all was desire itself: his body and his cock and the sex act between them. Nothing else, nothing else. No Reggie, no blood, no strange urban myth that made Chip’s body wrack with sobs. Not even the sex worker deaths could disrupt this moment. They already wasted too much of their time wallowing in that sadness.
Sully kissed down Chip’s jaw and hovered by his ear. “Do you want to fuck me?”
Chip’s entire body grew rigid. Sully slid a hand over Chip’s waist and lingered over the tent in his pants. Blood throbbed between them.
“Oh wow. Is that a yes?”
“Yes. God, I want to fuck you. But I’m so full.”
“I can do the work.”
“I know… but… I want you to have fun. Is that okay?”
“Sweetheart, we’ll do whatever you want.”
Chip bit his lip, already swollen from their kiss. Sully hovered over his mouth again, toying and bringing Chip out of his shell. Their positions switched as Sully brought out every last trick he’d ever learned. When their lips met again, Sully was on top of Chip as Chip’s desire bloomed stronger. Chip placed his hands on Sully’s shoulders, then leaned them both back on the bed.
“Will you sit on my face?”
Sully shuddered. Oh, he could definitely do that. He gestured to the drawer where he kept the condoms and dental dams. “Do we need both? One or the other?”
Chip swallowed, his eyes lidded with desire. “Whatever you need.”
Sully was surprised Chip hadn’t said “everything” in that breathy tone, like he had on the phone.
“We’ll see. Right now, I want you naked.”
“You too.”
Chip shifted to the opposite end of the bed and Sully followed after, undoing Chip’s pants and loosening his shirt. Chip’s stomach was swollen, overwhelmingly full like he’d claimed. Each action Sully did seemed painful to Chip, but his cock responded with each tug or incidental brush.
“I thought you were sitting on me?” Chip said.
“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Sully smiled at his double entendre. He shucked off his shirt, his pants, and his boxers like they were nothing. The chill of the room made him shiver, but as he moved over Chip’s body, the heat from his flushed skin warmed Sully instantly. Chip latched on to Sully’s thighs, anchoring his body and giving him direction. Chip grabbed Sully’s dick, stroking it a couple times before he rolled the condom over Sully’s cock. He didn’t even flinch, Sully marveled. Chip had gone for the condom right away, and it made Sully groan. The trust. The care. He didn’t have time to think much longer before Chip took him into his mouth.
“Oh God. Yeah.” Sully allowed his body to relax into Chip’s guidance. Sully hit the back of Chip’s throat rather easily because of the odd angle. Chip was deep, warm, and almost too overwhelming. When Chip’s fingers came to explore around Sully’s sac and hole, Sully let out a low, guttural cry.
Chip hummed around him in response. When Chip unwrapped one of the dental dams, Sully gasped and readied himself. Chip slipped his mouth to Sully’s balls until he dragged his tongue back to play with Sully’s hole. He licked, plunged inside, and buried his entire face between Sully’s cheeks in a matter of seconds. The plastic was so thin, it was like nothing was there at all.
“Oh God.” Sully fisted the bedsheets. It was all he could do to keep his balance. Chip’s noises—along with the feel of his tongue—were enough to get him close to the edge. Sully bit the inside of his lip to keep from coming. Not right now. Not like this. Chip engulfed him with each careful stroke. Because of my blood? Does he have my scent now? Is he that animalistic addict who wants me no matter what? Sully shuddered at the thought. It was harder and harder now to keep everything in mind. To be completely vigilant. Each stroke of his tongue unraveled Sully until he was completely vulnerable in Chip’s hands.
“I’m going to come,” Sully uttered. “Oh my God. I’m coming. I want to come on you.”
Chip didn’t miss a beat. He tore off the condom, wrapped his fist around Sully, and ushered him to his release. Sully cried out as he shot over Chip’s chest and legs, marking his dark skin with white lines. Sully folded over Chip’s body and pressed into his thighs. He kissed what bare skin he could find on Chip’s swollen stomach, scraping his teeth along the skin; it was instinct, more than anything, and Chip’s body reacted.
When Sully realized Chip was coming, he tried to make the experience good. He doesn’t need you to; he came without you, Sully thought. Then he corrected himself: he came because he was rimming you. You made him come. Just by existing.
“Jesus,” Sully shuddered. He tasted Chip and grape juice, sugar and smoke. He didn’t know which was better. The feeling of skin against skin overwhelmed him. He’d let them get so, so close. “Fuck.”
“Come here?” Chip asked between pants.
Sully obeyed—except it didn’t feel like obeying the orders he was usually given in bed. He met Chip’s mouth with a frantic kiss.
“God, my clothes,” Chip said, gesturing toward the floor. In Sully’s haste to get Chip undressed, he had knocked his wineglass of juice onto Chip’s shirt.
“Oh shit. My T-shirt too.” Sully scrambled over t
he side of the bed. He righted the glass and sopped up some of the juice. When he heard Chip laughing, the tension eased out of his body. None of it mattered. It was just clothing.
“Hey, lucky for us,” Sully said, “I’ve been doing some stain removing lately. I think I can have this solved in no time.”
“Okay. I’m not worried,” Chip said. “As long as you lie with me for a while first, okay?”
“Yeah, I can do that,” Sully said, crawling back into bed. “Easy.”
Chapter 14
“HEY, GORDON?”
“Yeah?” The lab tech’s Maritime accent was strong on the other end of the phone line. Chaz realized it was seven in the morning, and the tech had probably been working all night. “Sorry, didn’t mean to disturb you. Your shift is almost done, right?”
“Yeah, the boss has us burning the midnight oil, but it’s almost done. So you’re not bugging me. What do you need?”
Chaz sighed and glanced down at his office-issued phone. After hitting a brick wall trying to track down leads for the man named Reggie, who visited Sully, there was nothing left to do but trace his own phone number. Chaz had called Artie’s number in Manitoba, and even though she assured him that the numbers were clean, he was still afraid.
“You there? Don’t fall asleep on me, man, or I’ll be next.” Gordon chuckled.
“No, no. I’m here. You know the office-issued phones? Can you pull up the numbers on mine and run a trace for me?”
“Sure, no problem. What are you looking for exactly? You’ve got quite a few numbers here.”
Chaz had been calling boat docks, trying to track down who Hector Juarez, the vamp victim, really was. His license photo didn’t match the body, but the body was a mummified husk of a person. After using some software to fill in the body’s face, they’d finally made a positive ID and were making connections with the first case, but Chaz doubted the reliability of the witnesses. Without talking to vamps, it was impossible to understand Hector and, more importantly, the vamp who killed him.
“Yeah, there’s a lot. But go back to when I was in Winnipeg. That night I called a number from my hotel room,” Chaz said, then read Artie’s number aloud from memory. “You got it?”
“Yeah. Says it’s for a fly-fishing magazine based in Etobicoke. Is that what you needed?”
“Yes. Perfect. What are the chances you can get me the billing information for that magazine?”
“Hmmm. The entire magazine’s distribution? I think I’d need a warrant for that.”
“No, just this fly-fishing magazine. And looking for anyone who purchased it with a credit card. Can you do that without a warrant?”
Gordon made an unsure noise on the other end. Chaz’s heart panged, realizing that the list of Artie’s customers from something like this might prove useless if Reggie used cash. Which was possible. The only reason Chaz used a credit card was so he could build up his line of credit, because he bought very little of anything else and his normal identity had been created out of nothing. Using his Visa made him feel like more of a person too. A real-life person who bought things and read magazines for fun.
“I don’t think I can do this,” Gordon said. “Not without a warrant.”
“Shit. I kind of figured.”
“Should be easy to get one, though. If this case has to do with the sex magazine you found?”
“And does it?” Chaz asked. “Do they have the same publisher? Distribution center?”
There were a few clicks on the other end while Chaz stewed in his seat. What if Artie’s magazines were the same kind that ran the Cupid ad? It would make sense about Sully knowing so much about the terms. Did that mean Sully was trafficked? Or that Sully was at risk from a deranged vamp? Chaz swallowed hard. It had been a couple days since he’d visited Sully and had basically broken down in front of him. He couldn’t believe it had happened, but Sully had been there. Kind and caring—but with something else hidden underneath his skin. Sully had suffered, but Chaz couldn’t even begin to fathom what it could be.
“No. Those magazines are not related. Completely different publisher and circulation. Damn,” Gordon said. He sounded disappointed, while Chaz was relieved.
“That’s okay, Gordon. You tried. They’re not related, so I’ll try another route.”
“Hmm.”
“What?”
“Well, there is an online system for the magazine where people’s e-mails are stored.”
“What do you mean?”
“If they want the digital version as well as the print. It’s an optional service, and it won’t give you the complete billing history, but depending on the mailing service, it could be our way into the system.” Gordon clicked around on the computer without waiting for permission.
“Wait. Are you…?” Chaz didn’t finish his question. Gordon was hacking, possibly with the unit’s approval, through some newly developed law that Chaz didn’t know about, or he was doing it without permission. Either way, Chaz knew it was best to be quiet and take whatever gift of information Gordon would give to him—especially since no one else was talking.
“Aha. Yes,” Gordon cried out moments later.
“What did you find?”
“If I sign up for the mailing service, I get an e-mail. But we can put a trap on that e-mail and see who else they send out stuff to. And we can get a partial billing history that way.”
“That’s great.”
“More than great. You can even use this in court.”
“Really?” Chaz couldn’t imagine this case getting that far, or even having to testify about it. He already felt much too compromised.
“Oh yeah. This kind of record observing is one legal loophole we have. We did a similar thing a while ago with the Citizen’s Brigade zine. We can’t stop their publication, we can’t even look at who’s writing for it, but if we sign up and are part of their Brigade newsletter subscribers, we have a special leniency. It’s a less intense version of the Patriotic Act, but the law is still on our side.”
Chaz nodded along as Gordon explained some of the legalese as he typed. Gordon would buy a subscription to the magazine online, sign up for the mailing list, and then do the trap. He’d forward those names to Chaz and maybe, just maybe, there would be a Reggie in there somewhere. If not, then Chaz wasn’t sure what to do next short of arresting Artie for her records. He would never do that; even this backdoor route into them felt like a violation.
“Hey, Gordon?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for doing this. But… can you keep it between us?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m sort of following my own set of leads here. Jack hasn’t given clearance, you know? I’ve been… talking to some vampires about the crime and one of them gave me this tip. No one wants to deal with vamps and I don’t want this witness’s credibility shot.”
“I get it, sure,” Gordon said. Maybe he was too tired to care, or maybe Chaz’s lying was getting better. Either way, Chaz’s heart returned to a steady rate and Gordon forwarded him a list of names in minutes. Chaz thanked him profusely.
“Not at all. I’m off the clock now, though, so see you. Good luck.”
Chaz hung up his phone and pulled up the e-mails. He anticipated the worst as he sorted through the list of thirty, but when he found someone called Reginald Halifax, he silently thanked Gordon again.
When he looked up Reginald Halifax’s record, a couple of speeding and parking tickets came up. There was a former arrest for B and E, and theft of over five thousand dollars, which turned out to be a fancy entertainment system from an electronics store. Nothing in his records stood out as potentially dangerous. He also wasn’t registered or included as a vamp—or any other kind of creature. The photo for his arrests showed a tall man with broad shoulders, and red hair that hung over his forehead and dusted his cheeks with stubble. His face was stout, square-shaped, and he seemed to hunch in every official photo. His file stated that he’d been at a halfway house f
or the past year, but when Chaz dialed their number, they claimed Reggie had left six months ago.
“And do you know where Mr. Halifax went?” Chaz asked, not hiding his annoyance. “I thought halfway houses were supposed to report every movement to a probation officer so the files could be kept up-to-date.”
“Have you seen this city? My house full of humans is not your concern. Just last week three werewolves were mating in our backyard. Spooked the entire neighborhood with their goddamn screams.”
“I understand your complaint, but Mr. Halifax is your concern if he becomes a vampire under your care.”
“He didn’t. Guy’s a fuckin’ germophobe, so I doubt he’d get close enough to any blood to turn,” the man said. “But he’s not using that surname anymore. Halifax. I think he swapped it for his mother’s maiden name, Charles.”
“Thank you. For something.”
Chaz wrote the new name down, along with a quick description of what he looked like now. The arrest photos were well out-of-date; Reggie’s red hair was now dyed brown and he often had a mustache that was also dyed. All of which matched with Sully’s description, including the freckles. Even the germophobe label made sense, since Sully had disclosed that Reggie spent most of his first visit lathering his hands in antibacterial cream. Confident he now had the right person, Chaz typed Reginald Charles into another database. When nothing came up, he reversed the names. Lo and behold, a PI license came up.
“Shit,” Chaz whispered. He skimmed the details of Reggie’s new alias and whereabouts. To get a PI license in Toronto, Reggie needed to be fingerprinted, but it hadn’t come up in the system—meaning either Reggie had used a disguising glamour spell or he’d gotten someone else’s hand to use for fingerprints, maybe from a necromancer. His PI license was issued in Scarborough, around the outer edges of the Greater Toronto Area. The stories of the Ghoul of Main Street came to mind, along with the gargoyles that hung around the bluffs. Chances were Reggie was picking up monster-related crimes the police wouldn’t touch and charging a hefty fee for it. Or he was investigating people for a gang unit.
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