Cruz just nodded, and I looked over at him, suddenly feeling a little girly rush of something like shyness. He was so good-looking—that perfect skin, warm eyes, full lips, muscle tone—I just kind of had to marvel at it. He looked a little flushed and excited but seemed to be handling all of this pretty well, all things considered.
“Don’t you have people you should be reporting to right now?” I asked him. “Aren’t you on the park case?”
“Technically, I was off duty at eight p.m., and I’m not due in again until eight a.m. I’m on my own time right now.”
Damn. So much for sending him off to his boss. “What kind of things are you guys investigating?”
He stared at me for a moment, then shrugged, probably figuring the same thing I had: we were in this together. “Today we were mostly trying to identify the victims, see what they had in common. That kind of thing can lead to a common link.” He hesitated. “Before, you mentioned the possibility that this wasn’t related to the Old World at all. Do you really think that could be true? Honestly.”
If I lied and said it looked human, would he leave me alone? But before I could respond, the bartender called my name and tilted her head toward Will’s office. I nodded my thanks. Before I could think about it too carefully, I said, “It’s possible, but I doubt it. The wolves run in that park, and there was so much blood everywhere, and it looked so ritualistic...It looked like a lot of other supernatural crime scenes I’ve seen.”
He stared at me, and I realized my mistake.
“You’ve seen a lot of crime scenes?”
Aw, crap. The thing is, I’m not all that great with subterfuge or politics—I’m not really a five-moves-ahead kind of girl. I caught the bartender’s eye again and held up one finger, rolling my eyes a little to suggest that the delay was Cruz’s fault.
“Okay. I need to explain what I do for a living,” I began.
As I talked, his face got more and more stormy. When I finished, Cruz was quiet for a long moment, digesting. “Let me see if I understand this,” he said at last. “You destroy evidence for a living.”
“That’s one way to see it, I guess.”
“But don’t you know how much damage you’re doing?” he protested, sounding heated. “These people belong in jail. You’re not only destroying any chance for the justice system to work, you’re actively incriminating yourself.”
“Keep your voice down,” I warned, and he took a breath, looking around. “We sort of have our own justice system. And in that system, everyone can tell if you’re lying, and smell where you’ve been, or do a spell that recreates the whole scene. Physical evidence just isn’t important. For that, the only thing that matters is getting rid of it before it draws attention in your world.”
He rolled his eyes. “Do you hear yourself? ‘My world’ and ‘your world’? What is that? You’re a human, too.”
I shrugged. “Not exactly. Besides, think about the practicalities. How is the modern justice system going to contain someone who turns furry for three days a month? Or who needs blood to survive? Where’s the prison cell that can hold a powerful witch? If regular humans decided to try to police the Old World...A lot of people would die.” I didn’t mention that I’d also be out of a job.
He thought about that for a long moment. “They still have to come out,” he decided. “That’s the only way to make sure everyone is held accountable for their actions. There will be a panic for a while, but then the government will change, and the laws, and the system will adapt.”
The first time I’d been taken to meet Dashiell, I’d been too young and stupid to be properly afraid of him, and we’d had practically this same conversation. Confident in the soundness of my argument, and with all the wisdom of my eighteen years, I had told the cardinal vampire of the city that surely the vampires’ exposure had to be inevitable as technology advanced; cell phone cameras, CCTV, ATM videos, and so on had to make it tough to stay under the radar. Wouldn’t it be easier to just come out, get in front of the story?
He’d allowed me to blather on about it for a while, then held up a patient hand. “Miss Bernard,” he’d asked calmly, “have you ever heard of the lions of Tsavo?”
“Uh, no.”
“In 1898, the British Empire was trying to build a simple railway bridge over a river in Kenya,” he began. “But in March, two lions began attacking the camp, eating the workers. They’d developed a taste for human flesh, you see, and for nine months, those two lions terrorized the region. There is some disagreement on the numbers, but they killed and ate at least forty, and possibly closer to a hundred and fifty people in that time.”
“So?” I’d said, not carefully enough.
“Lions don’t usually hunt humans. This was very strange behavior, and they were very strange lions. But the humans didn’t abandon the area. They didn’t move the bridge, or send in a bunch of scientists to capture and study the two lions. They hunted them down and killed them. For being predators. For simply following their natures.”
“That was a long time ago, Dashiell. Times have changed.”
He shook his head. “In many ways, yes, but not in the way that humans react instinctively to a threat. They hunt it down and kill it. Look at the Americans and terrorists.” He had said Americans as though we weren’t sitting in beautiful Southern California at that very instant. “The witches can mostly pass for human, but the wolves and the vampires have very distinct weaknesses—the full moon and the daylight. We can be hunted so easily.” His eyes had met mine then, and glittered with meaning.
“You’re trying to tell me something,” I’d said, not getting it.
He leaned back in his chair, spreading his hands expansively. “Nulls appeared when the balance between magic and the natural world had shifted toward magic. But when the balance swung back, when the population of magical creatures began to drop, and then to drop further and further, nulls continued to be born. Why do you suppose that is?”
I’d shrugged. “Maybe evolution is phasing magic out entirely.”
“That is one theory,” he’d allowed. “But there’s another.”
“What is that?”
“That nulls will help us hide from human detection. That your kind will protect us.”
And the way that he’d looked at me, in that exact moment...Well, it taught me to be afraid of him.
“You’re thinking like a cop,” I told Jesse, emerging from my reverie and taking a sip of my soda. “All law and order, but that’s not how the Old World works. Self-preservation is everything to these people. If they were discovered, they would either try to take control of humans or be hunted to extinction. Probably both.”
“So they should just get away with killing people?” he protested.
“No, just...Look, right now, the only thing that unites the entire Old World is the fear of being exposed. It kind of works as its own justice system right there.”
Cruz thought that over for a moment, but then shook his head. “Okay, look, I need to think about that a little more. I’m still not sure that I shouldn’t just arrest you right now.”
“Good luck with that trial.” I checked my watch. “It’s getting late. Let’s go talk to Will.”
I grabbed his hand without thinking. It was warm and dry, and I dropped it almost immediately. What was wrong with me tonight? He followed me past the tables and through the EMPLOYEES ONLY door, where the bar’s din dropped down to a much more manageable level. Will was waiting for us in the hall outside the office that he shared with Caroline. I introduced the two of them, a little awkwardly.
“Will, this is Officer Jesse Cruz, and Cruz, this is Will Carling. He, um, owns this bar.”
The two men shook hands, and then Will said, “Come on in. I’ll show you those pictures.”
We followed him into the office, and he went behind his big oak desk and took out an oversized envelope full of photos, handing it to Cruz. I sat in one of the visitor chairs and looked at the walls, trying not to fidget. For
someone who is technically a creature of the night, Will’s life often seems more normal than mine. The walls in his office were lined with pictures of the Little League team Will coached, a huge fish he’d caught, his mom and siblings. I wondered if his family knew what he was, if it bothered them. I felt a brief flare of jealousy, missing my own past as a normal person.
“Him,” Cruz said, and I jerked back to attention. He was holding up a photo of Will with Caroline and some of the other wolves, pointing to a slender, wispy man in the back. “This is him.”
Will took the picture and looked closely. “That’s Ronnie. He’s new to the pack, transferred last year from...Phoenix, I think.” He looked up and shrugged at us. “I don’t actually know him all that well, but he works at a comic book shop not too far from here, a mile or so east on Pico.”
“Last name?” Cruz said, suddenly all business. He’d gotten out a little pen and pad. They looked brand-new.
“Pocoa, I think. Something close to that. But Scarlett said you weren’t arresting him.” He looked pointedly back and forth from me to Cruz, who nodded.
“This part of the investigation is out of the public record. It’s just me. We’ll ask Ronnie if he knows anything, and if he can help, great, if not, that’ll be it,” Cruz said, then added firmly, “Of course, if he’s involved somehow, I’ll have to pursue it.” I had to admire Cruz a little bit for that one. Of course, he’d never seen Will turn into a wolf and snarl at an underling.
Will stood up. “Sounds reasonable to me.” He reached over and shook Cruz’s hand, indicating that the meeting was over. Good. I was tired.
I drove us back to my parking garage. Cruz was quiet beside me, and I wondered for a second if he’d fallen asleep. Then he spoke.
“My mom worked on a vampire movie once.”
“Your mom works in the movies?”
“My whole family does. My dad’s a composer; my mom’s a script supervisor. My older brother Noah is a stuntman.”
“Noah Cruz?”
He grinned. “It was part of the deal. My mom’s Mexican, and my dad’s Caucasian, but she really, really wanted to pass on her family’s surname, and he didn’t care. So their deal was that she’d keep her last name and give it to us, and he got to pick Anglo first names. So, Noah and Jesse.” He looked over. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Why the name Scarlett?”
Oh. I was a little thrown, having not realized we were on an adorable-family-story basis. “Uh, I was named after Scarlett O’Hara, but my mom always told everyone it was the book, not the film. She corrected everybody, and it was kind of a family joke after a while. I’ve never even seen the movie.”
“Do your parents know about, you know, what you can do? All of this?”
“They died,” I said matter-of-factly, “before I knew myself.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” he said sheepishly. “Um...Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
I hesitated. I’ve always kept Jack’s existence far away from my work, but Cruz wasn’t really a part of my work, and he could probably find it in some police database anyway. “A brother, Jack. He’s older. He doesn’t know.”
“Do you see him much?”
I shrugged an I don’t want to talk about it kind of shrug, and we were quiet for the rest of the drive, which was just fine with me. I pulled into the parking garage at two forty-five, feeling gritty with tiredness. “So, tomorrow,” he said, one hand on the door latch, “will you come with me to check out this Ronnie guy?”
I leaned back in the seat, feeling even more tired than a moment ago. “Do I have to? Can’t you just go without me?”
“I’m guessing werewolves aren’t just strong and fast when they’re in wolf form, am I right?”
“Yes,” I said reluctantly.
“Then I’d like you to come with me. For protection.”
His smile was so warm and charming that I couldn’t help but smile back. Dammit. Stupid powers of hotness.
“Fine. Pick me up at one.”
“That late?” He sounded disappointed.
“I need sleep, Cruz. You can work your own end of the case without me.”
He shrugged, unbuckling, and made a move to open the van door.
“Wait,” I said, and reached out to snag his wrist.
He turned back, eyebrows raised, and I blushed and let go. Was I really this out of practice with dealing with attractive young men while sober? Get it together, Scarlett.
“Look,” I began, “I know we talked about this, and I know you already made it a whole day without telling anyone about the Old World—”
“How do you know that?” Cruz interrupted.
Because you’re still alive, I thought, but I didn’t think a cop would appreciate that particular wording. “Because,” I said carefully, “if you’d run around telling people, I can guarantee it would have gotten back to Dashiell by now.” While he was still thinking that over, I added, “But do I need to be worried about you going back on our deal? You can’t tell anyone, you know, not family or your best friend or your dentist...”
Cruz rolled his eyes and held up a hand. “I’m not a child, Scarlett. I understand the stakes here.” I must not have looked very convinced, because he met my gaze and held it, giving me a small nod. “Really.”
I let out a breath. “Okay. Good night.”
Chapter 7
Jesse Cruz couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this tired. There had been no point in trying to sleep after Scarlett had dropped him off, since he was working the day shift on Wednesday and only had two hours before he needed to be at work. So Jesse decided to go have breakfast at his parents’ house. He reasoned that free food and his mother’s customary interrogation would go a long way toward helping him stay awake and thinking.
Overall, he thought he was handling the Old World thing pretty well, although maybe that was partly just shock and exhaustion. Part of him felt as if he were in a movie, and any minute the credits would roll and he’d go back to his normal, supernatural-free life. Films were filled with all manner of supernatural, and though he was a cop now, Jesse had been a child of the cinema. It was hard not to be, growing up in Hollywood with film-production parents. When Jesse was seven, he had seen the original Dracula at a friend’s Halloween party and became instantly terrified of vampires. He’d hidden garlic cloves in the pockets of most of his clothes, and started sneaking his parents’ empty wine bottles out of the recycling bin and setting them up around his room, figuring that since Dracula didn’t drink wine, he probably wouldn’t like seeing the bottles everywhere. They also served as a nice early-warning system, creating a terrible racket every time someone entered his room and knocked down the stack behind the door.
After about a week of that, his mother had gotten fed up and taken Jesse on a visit to the set of a vampire movie, the third in a popular series. She’d shown him all the different tools that the crew used to make regular actors look like vampires, and the makeup artist had even given Jesse a set of old fangs to keep. He still had them somewhere. After that, young Jesse’s fears about vampires had dissolved, but he still remembered that feeling of wonder and terror, knowing there was something out in the night that wanted to get you. And now...He kept waiting for the makeup person to come out and show him the fake fangs, but it hadn’t happened yet. And there was something sort of...exciting about that, he thought. The world had gotten a lot scarier, but it had gotten a lot more interesting, too.
Jesse’s parents’ home in Los Feliz was big and sprawling. His mom and dad had taken a basic ranch house and built on to it every ten years or so until it reminded Jesse of a hospital—new additions and corridors that made it hard to find anything. The house was hardly sterile, though—his mother had overdecorated it to the point of suffocation, which Jesse, his father, and his older brother tended to smile about.
When he pulled into the driveway, Carmen Cruz was outside the house watering the mums and dahlias that crowded t
he porch. Max, his parents’ pit bull mix, was prancing—there was no other word for it—in circles around her, trying to catch the falling water in his mouth. As Jesse pulled up, Max went on high alert, immediately charging the newcomer with affection that bordered on assault.
“Hey, buddy,” Jesse said happily, crouching down to let Max lick his face. “Long time no see.”
“Hijo, you were here last weekend,” Carmen said, coming up for a kiss. She was short and stocky, with good looks that hadn’t faded with age. Last year, she’d finally cut off all her long hair, and Jesse still missed seeing it when he looked at her.
“True, but in dog time, that’s like years and years.” He kissed her cheek.
“Ah, I see. Am I to assume that this unannounced visit will involve me cooking you breakfast?”
“Only if you want to. I can always hit the McDonald’s drive-through,” he said mischievously, happy to be in the familiar rhythm of teasing her. It was about as far as he could get from werewolves and dead bodies in the dark.
“God forbid! All right, follow me. Max, come.” She slapped her leg at Max, who was eyeing the flowers as though he might lick the moisture right off them. “There’s water in the house, silly dog.”
In the kitchen, his mother stirred up some híjoles caramba, Mexican omelet, while Jesse sat at the counter and drank coffee. He hated the taste of all coffee, but he’d been pretending to enjoy his mother’s for years and had no good reason to give up the charade.
For a moment, he wanted to blurt out the story of the last few days—the werewolves, the girl, the whole thing—but he swallowed it. It was exciting to know that vampires were out there, but he still didn’t want to piss them off or involve his mother. Instead, he asked, “Is Dad working this morning?” trying not to wince at each sip of his coffee. While her back was turned, he dumped in a few more spoonfuls of sugar.
“Yes, he had an early meeting, but my call time isn’t until ten-thirty today, which is why I am here puttering around,” Carmen replied, “accidentally” dropping a piece of sausage in front of Max.
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