Chaz didn’t nod, but he tapped the side of his nose.
Jack smiled. “Oh, I miss being your partner. You’ve always thought outside the box and usually helped us get there.”
“Yes. And you need to trust me with this, but I think I have a lead that will bring the guy in.”
“Okay. Then go for it. I will tell people you’re interviewing someone who came up on your list of Czech files.”
“Thank you. I’ll be back in an hour. No more.”
“So, three days.”
Chaz laughed. “Oh, Jack. I’ve missed being your partner too.”
“Yeah, but you’ve obviously warmed to your new partner. I assume the working condition is good? Declan can be a bit rough around the edges, but he comes highly praised.”
“Uh, yeah. Fine.” Chaz was struck for a moment. Jack was fishing for info on Declan and to be sure he was a good fit for the unit, but Chaz realized he’d been thinking of Sully as his partner in this investigation for the past week. He missed him so much in that moment, he thought he’d burst.
“Well, good. Protect yourself today, okay? This mission is dangerous and I don’t want any of my detectives to have close calls and come back as a vamp.”
Chaz chuckled. “I can assure you, Jack, I will not change at all.”
THE ADDRESS listed for Juan Sandoval was three hours north of Toronto. As soon as Chaz got off the highway and onto the back roads, his cell phone signal cut out. He switched to the mapping app without GPS and hoped he didn’t get lost. Not because he was afraid—he’d done worse drug busts as a cop than this—but because, without any connection to Sully or Artie, he wasn’t sure if he could relay that they’d found their killer. He wondered if he should have gotten Sully from Artie’s place for backup but pushed those thoughts from his head as he reached the address.
The three-story white house had an immaculate garden. Some of the plants were fading due to the frost at night and colder temperatures of the fall, but the wisteria and rose bushes still hung on. The driveway was stone and shimmered as Chaz drove up. He parked in the driveway behind the same car Sully had described, but now it had no plates. The garage door was open a fraction, and Chaz noticed another car, a Honda, inside. Some gardening equipment, tools, and a bunch of soccer balls and nets. The house was modern, well-kept, and clean—a family home. Something domestic that Chaz could only dream of owning one day. Not the kind of house where vampires lived, not in the least.
The sun hung heavy behind the evergreens in the background, making the scene look like a postcard. Everything stood in such solid contrast to Toronto that Chaz took a moment to bask in it before he knocked on the door.
Nothing.
He knocked again and footsteps sounded on the other side. He knocked one last time.
“Mr. Sandoval. It’s the Toronto Police. I have some questions—”
The door opened before he could finish. Juan Sandoval seemed so much taller than the six feet, four inches listed on his license. His face was set into a permanent frown, and his green eyes fixated directly on Chaz. He leaned in the doorway, clearly being interrupted.
“Yes?” Juan asked. “What does the Toronto police need from me?”
Chaz was about to launch into his questions when another person moved from deeper in the house. Another man, shorter than Juan, with sandy-colored hair and familiar gray eyes.
“Nat?” Chaz asked.
The other man flinched. Those gray eyes met Chaz’s. It was Nat. There was no doubt in Chaz’s mind now—Nathanael Wyatt was staring directly at him.
“Chaz?”
“Yeah!” Chaz said, the sound of his name even sweeter than before. “Yeah, it’s me—Chaz Solomon. Oh, my God. I thought you were de—”
Juan Sandoval punched Chaz square in the jaw.
Chapter 36
A WOMAN with dark hair and bright red lips cracked a tray of ice cubes and placed them in a tea towel. She wrapped the towel into a small bundle and tied it off with elastic before handing it to Chaz.
“Thank you,” Chaz said through the searing pain in his jaw. Juan—or Gabe, as people kept referring to him—had only punched him once, but the blow had been enough to knock Chaz off his feet. He’d fallen onto the stone steps and hurt his tailbone, but it was nothing compared to the pain when he opened his mouth. Not even the explosion at the house made him hurt this much. He slid the ice pack over his swollen lip and cheek. He hunched in one of the chairs inside this immaculate house.
After Gabe had punched him, a woman with blue hair had pulled him off Chaz and took him upstairs. Nat had stared in silent horror at the whole display before he followed Gabe without another word. The other woman, with dark hair, had taken him into the kitchen. She pulled a chair from the table and sat across from him, giving him a sympathetic smile as she did.
“I’m Imogen Nicholas.”
“I’m in pain.”
“I know. You’ll have to forgive Gabe. He’s a half dragon and does not know his own strength.”
“Oh.” Chaz flexed his jaw again. The pain made so much more sense now. If a dragon shifter had hit him, it wouldn’t matter that he wasn’t in dragon form when he did—that kind of anger would always bubble to the surface and be reflected in his fighting style. At least that was what happened with werewolves. Chaz didn’t know too much about dragons except for the Judge.
Wait. Chaz glanced at Imogen, his mind still reeling. If the man who hit him was a half dragon, and Nat was here—and alive!—did that mean this was the Judge? Or maybe Chaz had been hit several times and everything was a hallucination. When Imogen didn’t disappear, even after several long blinks, Chaz’s heart rate skyrocketed. Nat. The Judge and his Flame. They were alive.
“Are you…. Are they—”
“Yes,” Imogen said before he finished. “I’m going to guess that the answer is yes.”
“Shit.”
“Mm-hmm. That’s the Judge, Gabriel Dominguez, and Nat Wyatt, the firestarter.”
“But they were supposed to be dead. Or missing.”
“To protect them, they are dead. But you found him. So I’m not going to let you leave until I understand how you did find us, and why Nat looks at you like he’s seen a ghost.”
“Because I am a ghost to him. I’m Chaz Solomon. I knew him from Divine Interventions. We—”
“It’s okay. I know that story. And now I understand the punch even more.”
Chaz nodded and tried to smile. Pain shot through his jaw.
“Do you want some pills?” Imogen asked.
Chaz considered it, then shook his head. “Probably not the best idea.”
“Tansy’s a witch. If we wanted to drug you, you’d already be drugged. So let me get you some pills. She makes good painkillers. It’ll be like you were never hit at all.”
Imogen left without waiting for him to say yes or no. Tansy must have been the woman with blue hair. Some of this story was making sense but not all of it. Chaz ran his fingers along his jawline and winced. When Imogen returned with two pills with what looked to be a red flower tucked inside a gel cap, Chaz took it without question. Within seconds his pain eased.
“Oh. Wow. She’s a really good witch.”
“I will pass along the compliment. Keep the ice there, though. You’ll need to still treat the wound so it doesn’t swell too much. And you’ll still have a bruise.”
Chaz nodded and kept his hand there. Imogen sat across from him, her hands folded on her knees. “So, tell me. How did you find Nat?”
“I didn’t. I thought he was dead. I heard the stories everyone else did.”
“Okay, good. So that cover story hasn’t been blown entirely. Maybe I won’t have to move these guys and give them new identities all over again.”
“Again? Are you…?”
“I’m human. But I’m part of the social services and government. I make people disappear or reappear, and I take care of supernatural children who have been neglected.”
“Like in sex-tr
affic rings?”
Imogen’s poker face was immaculate. But now that Chaz’s jaw didn’t ache with every breath, he could see her slight tells. A blink that lasted too long; a shudder that knocked a dark hair out of place. “Why do you say sex trafficking?”
“Because that’s how I found Gabe. Or Juan. I thought I was coming to see Juan Sandoval.”
“Why?”
“Because he took blood from Artie’s place and one of the girls sketched him for me. Then Sully—my… informant,” Chaz said, fumbling the words, “told me that he made him dress up like Nat and take him to a party at a cop bar. I met Sully there, and well, now I’m here.”
Imogen sighed. “Of course Gabe did that. Goddammit, he can’t be away from that boy longer than six hours without doing something stupid.”
Chaz smiled. He knew the feeling. The fact that Imogen referred to the love between Nat and Gabe put Chaz at ease. Maybe he hadn’t stumbled into something sinister. Maybe this house was just a house for people who were trying to escape their reputations. The stories that the tabloids made from their deaths and disappearances made sense. After a showdown like that in the badlands, where the Oracle was destroyed, they couldn’t have a normal life. They’d be shot down at a moment’s notice.
“Wait,” Chaz said. “Is the Oracle dead, then? Is that a lie too?”
“No,” Imogen said, lips and voice tight. “He’s dead for sure. And Atticus, the other member involved in that story, is in jail.”
“Still giving interviews, though.”
“Don’t worry about him. He’s like a baby with a mirror and can’t stop staring at something so shiny. He works for us now. He had no real choice in that matter after what he did.”
Chaz nodded, mind still blooming with questions, but he didn’t want to waste his inquiries on Atticus. He didn’t care about a random construction CEO who wished to be a singer, so he stole some magic. There was something so pedestrian about that story. The Flame and the Judge, though, oh… it was the stuff of legends. But of course, being the stuff of legends meant that Gabe or Nat couldn’t really have a life. People weren’t supposed to be myths; they were born of body and even if they became supernaturals, it meant they still had a human connection—therefore, they couldn’t handle the stress of being in charge of something so large. Power corrupted everyone; the only people immune were myths themselves.
Suddenly Artie and her sisters’ plan to legalize sex work made so much more sense. They were the only ones powerful enough to do it because they weren’t human. They could handle the stress. The law was the key, though, and everything else needed to fall in line.
“Are you helping Artie?” Chaz asked. “Is that why Gabe went to the conference and grabbed the blood?”
Imogen tilted her head. She wasn’t even bothering to hide her tells anymore. “How do you know about the blood?”
“Artie told me. I’m a cop. I’m investigating the murders of vampires by a vampire. Most of the victims were sex workers, and it all led me here.”
“And you’re a vampire, right?”
“Not on paper.”
Imogen smiled. “Sometimes that’s all that matters.”
“No, it’s not. I don’t like who I am on paper. I became Chip MacDonald thanks to Atticus, but I hate it so much. I am a vampire. I’ve been one since I was fifteen years old. My real name is Chaz Solomon. And I hate what I did to Nat. I hate everything that’s come from it since, except that now I may have a chance to change something. I may—”
Imogen held up a hand, signaling him to stop. “I know confession is cathartic, but it’s okay. You don’t need to keep going. I understand now.”
“You do?”
“Yes. You’ve switched sides.”
Chaz had never considered it so bluntly before, but he nodded. “Yeah. I’m a supernatural. I’m sick of hiding that.”
“That’s not the side. It’s not humans versus supernaturals. It never has been.”
“Then what side are you guys on? I think I’m on your side. I’ll be on your side.”
Imogen smiled her warm, easy smile. “Okay, so this may take a while, but let me see if I can explain all this in the easiest way possible. Then maybe all of us can have a nice dinner as a family and no one will be punched.”
Imogen’s voice picked up at the end, as if she was anticipating the rest of the house listening in. Chaz shifted in his seat, wondering if there was some kind of peephole that Nat could see him through. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, so, so sorry…. Chaz’s thoughts were so loud, but when he opened up his mouth, nothing came.
“Is that okay, then?” Imogen asked. “I tell you what’s going on and then maybe we can all have dinner?”
Chaz nodded. “Yeah, I think I’d like that.”
“Good.”
THE STORY was long, but Chaz had a better grasp on the situation than he realized. Artie, along with her three mythic sisters, had been trying to legalize sex work for a long time. Imogen was a small part of that goal, usually working in tandem with Athena to keep her up-to-date on the laws or with Hestia to take some of the kids who were saved from the rings and finding them new, loving homes. Imogen even had a daughter she’d adopted from a pack of forest-dwelling elemental kids who had been abandoned. She and her wife, Tansy, were looking to adopt more kids, possibly some from Hestia’s house.
“It’s difficult, though, because we want to save every single kid we see. Always. So we want to wait to adopt more until we’re done with this work,” Imogen explained. Halfway through the story, she’d made them both coffee. While she refilled their mugs, she also took out a stack of research.
“You know Artie has been typing blood, right? To find out where the people came from so they can be shut down.”
“Yes,” Chaz said. “She said she had a person covering the gang unit, but I have no idea who she is.”
“A friend of Nat and Gabe’s. That’s what they’ve been doing in all of this. While Artie types the blood and outlines the systems, Gabe and Nat, along with Jocasta, go and shut down the gang’s operations the best they can. Sometimes that involves getting the kids out and depleting the gang’s resources, but sometimes it’s a bit uglier.”
“Uglier?”
“Don’t worry. Jocasta and her team usually take over in that situation. Nat and Gabe are… consultants. Gabe also went to the blood medical conference to see what he could glean from others’ research. They’re getting closer to what we’ve discovered but are still years away. Here’s our maps.”
Imogen slid Chaz a file folder thick with papers. There were several maps outlining the orange areas that Sully had talked about, containing the missing fleets, but when Chaz dug deeper he found an entire map of Canada cross-sectioned with several other colors and expanding over far more land area than Chaz thought was possible.
“Oh wow.”
“Yes. It’s intense. It’s huge. And each color is a new type of creature that’s been exported or shipped.”
Chaz ran his fingers over the legend in the corner that told him green stood for elementals, white for wolves, blues for witches, and red for vamps. “What about normal people?”
“They’re there, but so much harder to track through blood alone. They fall under the radar all the time,” Imogen said, looking disappointed. “I know that’s not an acceptable answer. Which is why we’ve been working on reforming the laws too. We can’t just include supernaturals as victims and think we’re done. We have to legalize sex work to protect everyone involved.”
“And how far have you gotten with that?”
“Further than we suspected. Athena should present something soon. Now that we’ve gone to the blood conference and we know where all other research stands, we have a good foothold in that area, we can present to someone higher up.”
“That’s good. Great.” Chaz furrowed his brows. “If Nat and Gabe are the consultants, why did only Gabe go to the conference? Why did he need to have someone like Sully dress up as Nat?”
Imogen sighed. “Because he’s a lovesick fool, that’s for sure. I had no idea he was doing that. Nat was here with the girls, actually. Watching over some kids.”
“Your kids? The ones you’re thinking of adopting?”
“Yes. A set of twins. They were from another elemental family, so it’s likely they’ll be air catchers, but they also may be human. We don’t know yet. We still have to wait until we’re done with all this paperwork and preparation before we can think of adopting them.”
“That makes sense, I guess,” Chaz said. He bit his lip again. “Do… do Nat and Gabe have kids?”
“No. They were thinking about it, but probably not for a long, long time.”
“Why?”
“I can’t answer that,” Imogen said. “That’s their life choice.”
“So why do this, then? Why risk so much when they could have gotten away and lived happily ever after? Why put themselves at risk again, when so many people already thought they were gone?”
Imogen slid her hand over the table to touch Chaz’s. It was a professional gesture, one that had clearly been practiced because of how smoothly she did it, but he appreciated it nonetheless. “I know you’ve had to basically grieve Nat and then have him thrust back into your life,” she said, “and I know there are still a lot of unresolved issues there. But you have to understand that Nat has been underground for so long. Gabe has too. When you spend your life under the radar like that, living a normal life afterward is difficult.”
“No it’s not. Look at this house. It’s gorgeous. It’s off the grid. I lost phone signal coming up here. They could have just stayed here and have things be so, so much better.”
“But it wouldn’t be better for everyone. Happiness is wonderful, but so is purpose. They know so much about this scene and they know how to fix it. So they are going to fix it.”
Chaz didn’t know what else to say. His anger had shocked him, especially since he had spent the better part of ten years hiding just like Nat did. Only you had to do it alone. They were together. They could have been legends and lived off the tell-all books. But they had to do something risky instead. It didn’t seem fair, especially when those years lost between himself and Nat stacked up in his mind.
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