by E. A. Copen
"Why don’t you sit this one out?" I said as we made for the door.
"You sure you can handle them on your own? I hear they’re vamps. I know how you feel about vampires.”
I raised a hand and placed the other over my heart. “I solemnly swear to be on my best behavior.”
“That’ll be the day,” Tindall said and headed back into the crime scene.
CHAPTER TWO
Aisling was not a place I frequented outside of work hours. Yet I’d been in there enough. I was already on a first name basis with one of the owners. The club was a two-person venture. The elusive Kim Kelley, whom I’d never met, ran the financial side of the club while Robbie Fellows worked as Aisling’s face. Well, faces. Being one of the fae and a master of glamors, Robbie could shift his appearance at will.
That night, he was in one of his favorite forms: a slight, soft looking young man with indigo eyes. A shock of flame-colored hair sat on his head, all swept to one side. He was wearing some kind of leather harness with more buckles than a belt store and tight leather pants. When I stepped away from the crime scene, he licked his fingers, slicked them along the edge of a golden, glittery wing of eyeliner, and paraded over to meet me.
I turned the other way, attempting to put a line of cops between me and Robbie. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Robbie… Okay. That was exactly it.
“Agent Black,” he called. When I didn’t answer, he repeated himself louder.
Damn. So much for escape. I stopped and waited for Robbie to fight his way through the crowded hallway before turning around, a false smile plastered on my face. “Robbie.”
“Before you go making a fuss and pulling up files,” he said waving his hands emphatically, “I had no idea what they were doing in there.”
“You’re telling me someone was filming a porno in your club and you didn’t know about it?” I raised an eyebrow and crossed my arms.
“Know about it?” Robbie sneered. “Of course I knew about it. But I didn't know specifics and I don't want to. I’m already steaming. That manky wanker didn’t so much as cut me in. Do you know what kind of profit a Continelli film usually turns? I’ve been bloody robbed!”
Robbie was making such a fuss, several officers turned away from their stations and started toward us, hands on their weapons. I waved them down. Robbie would get himself worked up and turn on the waterworks if he thought it would get him whatever he wanted. It wasn’t the first time he’d cried foul. Still, by the dark, intense glare and fixed scowl on his face, I got the feeling this was more than an act.
“Robbie,” I said. “I don’t think Harry’s in any position to be writing checks. His guts are painting the wall.”
“No, no. Not Harry. Can’t squeeze blood from a stone or pounds from a gannet. I’m telling you, I shoulda been making a fortune.” He pointed back at the crime scene. “It’s my partner. She’s trying to cut me out. She's going to try and pin this on me somehow, you just watch.”
I drew a hand down over my face as if it would wipe away the headache he was causing me. It didn’t. “Whatever disputes you have with your partner, Robbie, you’ll have to handle it in court. I’m investigating homicides.”
“So, you’ll look into a vampire thing and leave me to fend for myself? Is that it?”
My hands clenched and unclenched as I forced myself not to imagine strangling him. “This isn’t a vampire versus fae thing, Robbie!”
“Four of my people disappear and BSI can’t lift a finger. One rich fang-mouth bumsucker bites it and the whole county descends like a pack of hungry vultures?” He shook his head. “I see how it is.”
“I’m looking into those cases,” I promised Robbie for what must have been the twentieth time. “I’m doing the best I can, but you and I both know we’re talking about natural transients, Robbie. Illegals.”
“Refugees,” he corrected. “Fleeing what they perceive to be an impending genocide in Faerie. This is America. It’s supposed to be the land of opportunity.” He spat on the floor between us. “That’s what I think of your opportunity, love. That fanged bitch? She set this all up. She’s trying to cut me out and now she’ll try to frame me or one of mine for this.”
I fished out my notebook and a pen. “Frame you for the murder? Why would you think she’d do that? So far there’s no evidence—”
Robbie cut me off. “Opportunity, right? Whoever did it had to be in the club tonight. Kim and all her people called in tonight and left me short staffed. Why do you think I outsourced muscle to your friend and his gang? Kim’s men usually handle security. Lo and behold, the one bloody time we actually need security, her trained professionals aren’t here.” He wagged an index finger in my face. “She knew something was going to go down. If you need a suspect, I’d start there.”
I scribbled furiously in my notebook when Robbie turned to go. “Wait,” I called after him. He paused and did a half turn, resting one wrist on his out turned hip. “Where would I find Kim and her people in off hours?”
“Protected by the pearly gates of her estate, no doubt,” Robbie said, waving a dismissive hand. “They have a couple hundred acres outside of town.”
“Thanks. And Robbie, I am looking into those disappearances.”
He gave me a pouty look. “I wish I believed you,” he said and then went off in a huff.
“He hounding you about those illegals?” I almost jumped out of my skin at the sound of Tindall’s voice behind me. He chuckled. “Jesus. Didn’t mean to scare you. Boy, Robbie’s got you all upset, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah,” I said, giving Tindall a clap on the shoulder. “I’m going to go on downstairs and see about those witnesses. Why don’t you wrap up things with the medical examiner?”
Tindall nodded. “Just stepped out for a breather. They’re, uh, trying to scrape up what’s left of Harry now.”
The thought made me gag. I nodded and headed for the spiral staircase to the lower level.
It wasn’t just Robbie’s protests getting to me. If his concerns were unfounded, I would have just shrugged it off and moved on. But his concern was real and so was the problem.
Over the last few months, the fae population in Paint Rock had swelled. Most of the new residents were family members of existing residents. They claimed they were refugees, fleeing some kind of fighting in Faerie. BSI thought differently.
Faerie was a dimension right next to—or on top of, depending on who you talked to—our own. It was inaccessible to humans and most fae kept to themselves. If you asked most people what kind of supernatural they’d rather have living next door, I guarantee you, hands down, they’d all choose some variety of fae. Most people thought all fae creatures are gentle and peace-loving when the description only applied to a minority.
Generally, few fae come to Earth. They preferred their own realm. But, when they did show up, a BSI agent’s prime directive was to track and register all supernaturals in a given area. I was trying, but a lot still slipped through, especially since so many had come illegally.
The reservation had a federally imposed cap on the number of residents I was obligated to enforce. I had been forced to go door to door with eviction notices for all the illegal fae. You can imagine how well it went over. The move was unpopular and created a large homeless fae population virtually overnight. Since the Paint Rock reservation was federal land and everyone who wasn’t documented had to leave, they had nowhere else to go but Eden. Robbie took in as many as were willing to work for him. Not just to strip, mind you. A place like Aisling needed bartenders, waitresses, cleaning staff, hostesses…He put them to work holding signs under a glamor if he had nothing else.
Say what you want about Robbie, but he had his good moments. I may not have liked him much. Didn't mean I couldn't respect what he was trying to do.
But some of them had gone missing. All four of the cases were dead ends due to lack of documentation. Until I got hits in the missing persons database, I had nothing other
than word of mouth to chase them down. I just didn’t have the time, even with the extra help I’d taken on recently.
Some of my extra help was waiting for me. Saloso Silvermoon stood at the bottom of the stairs with his arms crossed, leaning against the wall. His plain black t-shirt clung to his arms and chest in all the right places to turn heads. Sal wasn’t good-looking enough to sell underwear in a magazine ad…but he was as close as anyone could come in Paint Rock.
When I stepped off the velvet lined, wooden staircase, he kicked off the wall. “How bad is it?” he asked, keeping pace with me.
“Bad, just like you said. Thanks for the call, by the way.”
“Anytime, babe. I saw Robbie head your way. Everything good?”
“As good as can be expected.” I stopped away from the small crowd of officers at the bottom of the stairs and turned to face him. “How much have you seen?”
He shrugged. “Smelled more than anything. The whole club stinks like…”
“Death?”
“Worse.” Sal shook his head. “Like someone’s opened a festering wound. They wouldn’t let me upstairs, but I don’t need to go there to know there’s a cold, dark energy at work here, Judah. It feels greasy, like frozen fish guts.” He gagged and then spat. A nearby cop made a face but didn't move to intervene.
I nodded. If anyone would know about bad magick at work, it would be Sal. On top of being a werewolf, he was also an apprentice to his uncle, a Shoshone medicine man. Sal had magick at his disposal, albeit in the realm of healing. Still, it never hurt to have the teeth and claws of a werewolf at my back. Unfortunately, I couldn’t bring Sal into the investigation. I could, however, always use another set of eyes and ears.
“I don’t have anything to go on yet,” I said. “Do me a favor. Once they let you out of here, drop by Chanter’s and see if he’s heard of anyone poking into magick they shouldn’t be messing with or any new practitioners in the area.”
“I’ll ask but I wouldn’t expect much. Trust me, if Chanter knew anything about it, he would have shut it down.”
“I have to cover all bases,” I said.
Sal nodded. “I’ll pull together what I can. You’re bringing Hunter out for the full moon ceremony, right?”
I winced. Dammit, I’d almost forgotten. I had to learn to keep better track of the lunar calendar or else I’d be in trouble. “Provided the investigation doesn’t keep me chained to my desk, yeah.”
“Then I’ll see you there.”
We parted ways, me leaving him by the door while I walked over to the nearest huddle of officers to ask where I could find the two witnesses. One of them pointed to a cocktail table just to the left of a big stage. Two men in police uniforms blocked my view of whoever was sitting there. I thanked the cops and moved on.
“Special Agent Judah Black,” I announced on approaching the two officers and showing my badge.
They each took a step back. “You the fed?” one asked.
“Last time I checked.”
“About time you showed up,” said one of the witnesses in a heavy Italian accent. "We've been waiting for nearly an hour."
Vampires, as a rule, come in two basic varieties. Most are like cobras: beautiful and deadly. They use their good looks, money and power to lure in easy prey. A select few of the existing lines didn't get their blood-brothers' good looks. I'd heard they were grotesquely deformed due to generations upon generations of inbreeding. The Stryx Clan, based out of Italy, was the deadliest and most well-known of the later type. They claimed to be the oldest clan of vampires. They were the wealthiest and one of the most influential, especially in America.
Unfortunately, one of the witnesses before me was a heavy hitter with the Stryx. Crux Continelli was vampire royalty as the eldest son of the clan leader. It wasn't the first time we'd met, though. I'd met Crux before. After all, federal law dictated he and his crew come and check in with me once they moved into the area, even if they were only here temporarily. He’d rolled into town about six weeks ago but had kept to himself.
Crux, by far the ugliest of the two, sat on one of the padded chairs at the cocktail table, his long, gangly arms thrown over his knees. Abnormally long fingers with untrimmed nails reached halfway down his shin. His face was uneven, with one eye sinking lower than the other. Elongated ears, a rumpled, bald forehead, and an expensive suit rounded out a spot-on Nosferatu look.
Next to him sat a man who was barely human anymore. He belonged to the vampire. Thrall, I think, was the politically correct term nowadays, though I preferred blood slave. It was disgusting, what some vampires did to their humans. This one was tall and gaunt with prominent cheek bones and sickly, pale skin. He wore a dress shirt with a high collar, barely covering puncture wounds in his neck. Though Crux had never introduced me to his blood slave, I recalled the paperwork said his name was Sven Ollar.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," I said to Crux out of the corner of my mouth.
"I've got nothing to say to these pigs," Crux said. "I don't even know why you're here, agent. Harry was a dear friend, a cousin and a full-fledged member of the family. This is an internal matter."
"Someone’s committed a crime," I said with a frown. "I'm going to find whoever is responsible. There's no reason for vigilante justice, Crux."
"Vigilante justice!" Crux stood. "Harry was my blood, agent. Blood among my kind is sacred. The sheer brutality of his murder demands I declare a blood debt." He lifted a martini and sipped at it, letting some of the liquid spill down his chin.
"Everyone just needs to calm down. I think you'd be more comfortable down at the station."
“I doubt there’s a comfortable locale anywhere in your jurisdiction,” Crux said after smacking his lips. “And I honestly don’t know why I’m being detained. I wasn’t even in the room when it happened. We stepped out for a bite.”
I shuddered. “You were one of the last people to see Harry and Jane alive. I’m still going to need to take a statement and get some information from you.”
Crux stared down into his empty cup. “Perhaps somewhere else would be preferable if you insist on talking. I seem to have drained my cup as it is.”
I turned to one of the beat cops and told him to escort Crux and his...friend...to the Paint Rock police station where I would meet them.
One cop looked at the other and groaned. “All the way out there?”
“The Paint Rock department is better suited for special situations like this.” I leaned in closer to whisper, “Look, just keep them calm and comfortable until I can get there. And be careful. This type offends easy.”
"I warn you agent, I have excellent hearing," Crux said, indignant.
“My shift ends in an hour,” said the other cop. “After that, you’re on your own.”
I crossed my arms. “Are you refusing to cooperate with a federal investigation?”
He stepped up and looked down at me, tipping back his hat. “If the feds want ‘em, you can have ‘em. But I don’t work for you or Tindall. I work for Maude.”
“Yeah, we know where our loyalties lie.”
“Fine.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose and sighed. “It shouldn’t take you an hour to transport them from here to the precinct. Do that much for me, fellas, and my people will take over from there. Deal?”
After sweetening the deal with the promise of my eternal gratitude, they finally agreed. I hoped it was the last bit of politics I’d have to step in and jogged back upstairs to see how Tindall had fared with the ME.
Upstairs, they’d moved Jane Doe’s remains onto a gurney. The ME was going through a few things with Tindall in the hallway and paused at my approach. “Sorry,” I said, a little breathless from the jog. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You’re just in time,” Tindall announced, gesturing to the ME. “You should hear what Doctor Kalma has to say.”
“I had another look at the hole in her chest cavity,” the ME said as I came closer.
“It goes straight through, removing a large portion of the heart.”
“Looks like a stab wound,” Tindall said, leaning in. “Saw a guy get done in by a pipe in a tornado once. Went through him like butter. Not too unlike this.”
“Unless you’ve got tornadoes in nightclubs now, I don’t think that’s the case. And there’s something else.” She pulled some of the clothing away from the wound. A few inches from the hole, black, spidery veins had appeared just under the surface of Jane’s skin.
“What the hell is that?” I asked, leaning in closer.
“I was hoping you’d tell me.”
I gave the coroner a heavy glare. “I’ve never seen it before.”
Tindall winced. “Is it some kind of biohazard?”
“I ran it by Maude,” said the ME. “Unless BSI is going to call in a hazmat team, it’s not going to happen. He says you’re pulling the case from Eden PD so it’s all you guys now.” She pulled the black bag back over Jane’s head and zipped it closed, shaking her head. “There’s something else puzzling me, too. Under normal circumstances, a body cools at a regular rate until it’s even with the room temp around it. The room was about thirty-seven degrees Fahrenheit and climbing. Jane’s internal temp was thirty-six degrees when I arrived. On a hunch, I took it again a few minutes ago. She’s down to thirty-three, even after moving her into the hallway. If I don’t get to this autopsy soon, she’ll freeze solid on me.”
Okay, I thought. Definitely file under weird things I’ve never seen happen to a dead body before. Cold spots were an important supernatural indicator. It meant something had pulled a lot of energy out of an area, tapping into the magick. Doing so messed up something on the particle physics level. BSI has scientists to explain science stuff. I wasn’t one of them. All I knew was the colder something made a room, the more energy it was using to do its work. Ghosts used magick energy to manifest as an apparition. It explained why the room was so cold but it didn’t explain why Jane was freezing, especially since the ME had moved her into the hallway.