Shadows & Dreams (Kate Kane: Paranormal Investigator)

by Hall, Alexis

  “But what if I kill someone? What if I’ve already killed people?”

  Endymion appeared briefly in the doorway in a shimmer of purple. “We’ve all killed people, darling,” he purred. “One gets over it.” And then he fucked off again.

  “Not helpful, Dimmy,” Acton called after him.

  Hugh shuddered and took another sip of blood.

  “What’s past is past,” Acton went on. “But I can teach you to control yourself now. You need never hurt anyone again, if you don’t want to.”

  “Why would I want to?”

  Acton gazed at him serenely. “Some feel that violence is sometimes justified, in the right cause, or for the right person.”

  This was edging outside my comfort zone. Hearing these two have a heart-to-heart about power, violence, and the ethics of being a vampire made me a little bit worried about how cavalier Julian was about all this stuff. I kept telling myself I knew what she was, and what I was getting myself into, but maybe I didn’t. On the other hand, she was amazingly good in bed.

  “Look, before you get started on the Twelve Step Programme, can I ask some more questions about the deadly vampire army that’s set to destroy London?”

  “What army?” asked Hugh.

  “The woman you saw has been turning people all over North London. There must be hundreds of you by now.”

  “I don’t know anything. Sometimes I’ll go somewhere or I’ll do something, and I won’t know why I’ve done it, but I’ll know it’s what she wants.”

  Well, that had been less useful than I’d hoped.

  A long shudder passed through Hugh’s body. “What’s going to happen to me now?”

  “You can stay here for as long as you need,” said Acton.

  I leaned over and whispered in Acton’s ear, “Um, about that. Can I have a quick word?”

  He nodded, and we nipped into the study, leaving Hugh with Elise.

  “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this,” I told him, “but the Court are planning something big. They’re going to try and wipe out the Morrígan’s entire bloodline. All of them in London at least. Can you take Hugh out of the city until it’s over?”

  “Of course, Katharine. Thierry will take him to the house in Durham.”

  “Thanks.” I stared blankly at the bookcases. “Um, this is a bit of a funny question, but is Patrick in?”

  “He’s upstairs. I think he’s having a hard time of it at the moment.”

  “Yeah, he’s split up with his girlfriend.”

  “I’m sure he’s doing what he thinks is best for her.”

  Sure he was. When you were dating Patrick, he only did what he thought was best for you. Although, towards the end of our relationship, I’d begun to suspect he just did what he wanted and then decided it was best for you afterwards.

  “Is it all right if I go up and see him?”

  Acton patted me paternally on the shoulder. “Our home is your home, Katharine.”

  I left Hugh to be looked after by Acton and Thierry and told Elise I’d be right back. Then I climbed up the spiral staircase to Patrick’s emo-loft. Hard-core cello music—I mean, not Metallica on Four Cellos hard-core, like actual classical music hard-core—was filling the air with sad. He was probably lying on his bed reading Wuthering Heights.

  I emerged into his room to find him huddled against a wall with his head in his hands. A copy of Swann’s Way was lying discarded on the floor.

  “Wow,” I said. “Is this what you did all those times you dumped me?”

  Patrick looked up at me with red-rimmed, tear-stained eyes. “Come to gloat, have you, Katharine?”

  “No, Patrick, it’s nothing like that—”

  “I’m not taking you back, Katharine. I still love Sofia. It kills me to be apart from her, but I can see now she does not belong in my world, and she never can, and she never will.”

  Why was there never a stake around when you needed one? “Sofia seems like she’s a smart girl. I’m sure she knows what she’s getting herself into.”

  “No! How can she know?” He leapt to his feet and started storming about the room. “How can someone so beautiful, so innocent, know the kind of darkness I walk in night after night, the danger, the constant, constant temptation?”

  I got out of his way. “I think she’s in danger right now.”

  “I know!” He put an actual wrist to his actual forehead. “That’s why I had to leave her.”

  “Patrick, I know this might be hard to understand, but I think she’s in danger for reasons that have nothing to do with you.”

  That shut him up for all of three seconds. And then he turned to me with a look of cold hatred. “It won’t work, Katharine. You know if I go back to her I can only destroy her, but that’s exactly what you want. I won’t be a pawn in your jealous mind games.”

  Sigh. “I swear I’m going to slap you if you don’t snap out of this. The people who tried to kill me fifteen years ago are going to try to kill your girlfriend. I don’t know who they are, or what they’re doing, or why they’re doing it, but unless you want Sofia to wind up eight pints of blood lighter, you need to go back to her right now.”

  “Get out,” he roared. “You’ve done enough damage.”

  I got out.

  Elise was waiting for me downstairs. Hugh was still shaking on the sofa, and Thierry was sitting next to him, holding his hand, and talking to him softly while Acton hovered supportively nearby.

  I beckoned to Elise. “Let’s hit the road.”

  “Thank you for having me,” said Elise to the Knights. “It has been a very pleasant evening.”

  Thierry glanced up “You are always welcome, Elise. I am just sorry we did not have time to extend our full hospitality.”

  “You are too kind.”

  Realising this could take a while, I dragged Elise out the door, which was harder than it looked, what with her being made of solid marble. We piled back into the car and headed for home.

  “Have we have achieved case closed, Miss Kane?”

  “Pretty much. Now, I just have to work out what to say to Tash. Something slightly more tactful than ‘Your brother’s been recruited into the army of an indestructible vampire queen.’”

  “Perhaps you could say he has gone to stay with a very nice family in the north of England.”

  “That just sounds like I’m having him put down. I might as well just say he’s gone to live on a big farm somewhere in the country.”

  “You could suggest he has contracted a rare blood disorder and has gone away for treatment.”

  “And one of the symptoms of this rare blood disorder is death?”

  “Giving all credit to Miss Shawcross, I consider it unlikely that she will think to check her brother’s pulse when she next meets him.”

  “Yes, but he can’t eat any more. What’s he going to do at Christmas dinner? Claim he’s become a nothingatarian?”

  “I believe you are overthinking this.”

  I gave a look which was sadly wasted because she was being all responsible and paying attention to the oncoming traffic. “You’re the one coming up with the elaborate cover stories. My plan was just to say, ‘Hey babe, vampires are real and they got your brother.’”

  “I’m sure you know best, Miss Kane.”

  In any case, I was going to wait until morning. They say giving people bad news never gets any easier, but it gets way harder after midnight. We got in at about two, and I made myself a cup of Bovril to keep me warm in place of a girlfriend who was actually there. I was just climbing into bed with it when my phone rang. Unknown number.

  I sighed. What now? I picked up. “Kane.”

  “Hello, sweeting. I was just thinking about you.”

  I sat up so quickly I nearly spilled my Bovril. In the background, I could hear the raucous sounds of a typical Saturday night at the Velvet.

  “That’d mean a lot more if I didn’t know you were covered in half-naked lesbians right now.”

  “It’s
just you and me, I promise.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  There was a longish pause.

  “I miss you, Kate,” Julian said, at last.

  That was news to me.

  “This”—she sounded a little sulky—“is where you say you miss me too.”

  “Oh, yeah, right, sorry, long day.”

  “You are a terrible girlfriend.”

  “So are you.”

  “We’re made to be together, sweeting. Nobody else would have us.”

  I felt myself smiling. “Speak for yourself. I’m a fucking catch.”

  “And I, my dear, am a motherfucking vampire prince.”

  I put down my Bovril and snuggled under the covers, holding the phone close to my ear. “So, is this the point where I’m supposed to ask you what you’re wearing?”

  “Why don’t you try and see where it takes us?”

  I sighed. “It’s one of those fucking awful frilly shirts, isn’t it?”

  “You do know the purpose of this conversation is not for you to criticise my sartorial preferences?”

  “Sorry, I’ve always been crap at this sort of thing.”

  Julian’s voice turned silky. “What sort of thing is that, dear heart?”

  “Sorry, I thought we were having phone sex.”

  “Technically, Kate, I think we’re currently failing to have phone sex.”

  “Oh come on.” I fluffed up my pillows and got comfy. “Do people ever really get off on that sort of thing?”

  “I’ve been alive for over eight hundred years and in my experience, the answer to the question ‘Do people ever really get off on that sort of thing?’ is invariably yes.”

  It was a nice idea but . . . “Look, I’m kind of a hands-on girl.”

  “Well,” Julian purred down the line at me, “why don’t you put your hands on, girl?”

  I gagged. “I cannot believe you just said that.”

  “I thought it was about your level.” Julian laughed.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Would that you could.”

  “Is this supposed to be getting me hot?”

  The mirth vanished from Julian’s voice, and she wrapped around me like velvet chains. “You don’t like the thought of fucking me, Kate?”

  I tasted wine and rose leaves, so rich and sweet that, for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. A shiver of awareness ran through my whole body as though I was waiting to be touched. Distantly, I wondered if I ought to be freaking the fuck out, but right now, it felt pretty damn good.

  “I like the thought of you fucking me,” Julian murmured. “I’m thinking about it now. I’m on my hands and knees. Would you like that, Kate? Me, on my hands and knees, and you’re holding me down.”

  I felt a brush of silk at the edges of my fingers and my hand closed around empty air. But I could imagine she was there, just as she said, her body a pattern of silver and shadow, trembling against me. I could breathe again but words weren’t happening. “Ngh.”

  “You pull me back by the hair. It hurts, but I like it, and I know you like it too. You like hurting me, Kate, just a little. You twist my head around and kiss me, and it stings like your hand in my hair.”

  I felt the ghost of a touch against my lips. My back arched against a fall of empty air, and I slithered down my pillows. The tips of Julian’s fangs pricked my tongue, and I gasped. I put a hand to my mouth and saw a smear of blood on my fingertips.

  “And then you fuck me. Your fingers deep inside me.” She gave a long sigh of pleasure that swirled over my body like a scattering of petals. It felt weird as hell, but I spread my legs and Julian’s voice slipped over me and into me. “You hold me down and make me take it. And I want it.”

  “God,” I gasped, “I wish you were here.”

  “So I do. I want you to fuck me. I want to taste you. I want to make you come.”

  “That, uhh, that’d be nice.”

  “Touch yourself, Kate.”

  And I did, without even thinking about it.

  “Taste yourself, Kate.”

  And I did, without even thinking about it.

  “Do you want me?”

  I was drowning in her. Sex and power and wine and rose leaves.

  “Yes, fuck, yes.”

  “Touch yourself and think of me touching you. My mouth on your cunt, my fingers inside you, your blood on my lips. How much I want you. How much I want you to come. I want to hear you. I want to hear you gasp. I want to hear my name.”

  I gasped.

  “I want to hear my name, I want to hear my name while you come. Touch yourself, make yourself come, and say my name.”

  I was slick with wanting her. I could taste blood. My fingers moved as she commanded.

  “Now, Kate. I want to hear my name.”

  By then, it was only the word I could manage.

  The next day I slept late and woke up happy. Then I remembered that I had to tell Tash the Teetotal Lesbian that I’d found her brother but couldn’t bring him back yet because Reasons.

  I had a shower and found Elise in the kitchen with a frying pan.

  “Miss Kane,” she cried. “I have discovered something remarkable.” She picked up an egg with one hand and cracked it open. “You see, this fluid is entirely colourless but with the application of a little heat . . .” She tipped it into the pan and pointed excitedly. “It is transformed by alchemical processes into a wholly different substance.”

  “And it’s good with salt and pepper too.”

  “That is not all, Miss Kane. I have learned that if you separate the colourless part from the yellow and whisk it vigorously with sugar until it is light and frothy, then the application of heat transforms it into another substance again.”

  There was something strange happening to my oven. Oh yes, it was on. And inside, a tray of meringues was cooking merrily.

  It says something about my life that fried eggs and meringues was not the weirdest breakfast I’d ever had. To be honest, it probably wasn’t even in the top ten. I left Elise in the kitchen, heating eggs in increasingly unusual ways, and went to ring Tash.

  I told her I’d made some progress and could she swing by the office to talk about it. I think I probably panicked the hell out of her, but I reassured her that her brother wasn’t dead, which was only technically a lie. She told me to give her a couple of hours. If I left immediately, it would give me time to finish up the paperwork. I left immediately. And I was just finishing up the paperwork when Tash knocked on the door of my office.

  “It’s open.”

  She was looking better than the last time I’d seen her. It wouldn’t have been hard because she’d been, basically, a wreck. She still didn’t have the I will try and bonk you in a doorway vibe I remembered from the Candy Bar, but she seemed to have got to that all important probably going to be okay stage in the process.

  “You said you had something?” She hurried inside and sat down. “Oh, hi, by the way.”

  “Hi. So. Look.” I tried to find a way to express the fact I had some good news and some bad news that wasn’t I’ve got some good news and some bad news. “I’ve got some good news and some bad news.”

  An oh fuck expression spread across Tash’s face. “What’s the bad news?”

  “Hugh got involved with some really bad people and can’t come home right now. But,” I added quickly, “he’s fine. He’s staying with some friends of mine. They’re looking after him.”

  “What sort of bad people?”

  Don’t say vampires. Don’t say vampires. “The less you know the better.”

  “I want to know. I’m not a child. Is it drugs?”

  “Something like that.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Hugh was a drug dealer?”

  “Not in so many words.” This wasn’t going well.

  “What, was he running a meth lab?”

  “God, no. Look, he got mixed up in something that wasn’t his fault, but it involves some really scary people. He’s out of it
now, but he’s going to have to lie low for a bit.”

  She was silent a moment. “Can I see him?”

  “Um, not just yet.”

  Tash stood up and moved restlessly round my office. “So, what you’re saying is Hugh was into something really bad that isn’t drugs, but you can’t tell me what it is, or who’s involved, or where he is, or what’s going on?”

  “The important thing here is that Hugh’s all right, he’s safe, and he’s with friends.”

  “You keep telling me that, but why can’t I talk to him? For all I know, he’s dead in a ditch, and you’re just making this up to make me feel better.”

  She had a point. I could have given the Vampires Are Real talk, but since I had no way to prove it, I’d just have sounded crazy. The other option was to get Hugh on the phone but that was risky. I had no idea what his mental state was like. I also didn’t have much choice. “Hang on a sec,” I said. “I can try ringing him, but be aware he’s been through a lot.”

  Tash nodded and sat back down.

  I fished Thierry’s number out my contacts list and dialled it. He answered in a couple of rings.

  “Katharine, chérie.”

  “Can Hugh talk? I’ve got his sister here. She’s worried about him.”

  “One moment.”

  Over the line I caught the vague sounds of someone hurrying to a telephone call, Thierry warning Hugh not to mention the V-word, and then Hugh’s voice: “Um, hello?”

  Since he’d opened with hello and not I vant to drink your blahd, I decided he was probably safe to talk to his sister for a couple of minutes at least. I handed over the receiver. I would have given them some privacy but I needed to be on hand in case Hugh flipped out. Tash didn’t seem to say much, but there wasn’t a lot she could say: I now believe you aren’t dead, I hope the mysterious whatever-it-is keeping you wherever you are ceases to apply at some point in the near future.

  She hung up, looking an odd mix of shaken and reassured.

  “Okay?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Look, I know this isn’t exactly what you were hoping for, but as far as I’m concerned, this is kind of it.”

  She nodded again. “How much do I . . .?”

  “Don’t worry about that for now. I’ll invoice you when Hugh comes home.” It wasn’t exactly industry standard billing practice, but it probably only added up to a couple of days work, and I’d felt a bit of a shithead asking Tash to dip into her student loan before she’d actually got her brother back. Besides, she probably had one more really awkward conversation in her future.