Dirty Deeds

by R. J. Blain

  “Like what?”

  “Technically, he needs a month between killings for three or more killings to technically qualify, but the FBI has expanded the definition to only include killers who have a methodology to their slayings plus a connection between the killings. It turned out if the rules were limited to only people who killed three people with a gap of a month between killings, we had a lot of serial killers around. We mostly treat those people as standard murderers. Serial killers are a different breed of cat. They’re more deliberate in their killings. So, the FBI quantifies them by people who have a deliberate approach to their multiple killings. It’s gray territory. We, being the general branches of law enforcement, generally do agree there is a significant psychological difference between a serial killer and someone who is a repeat offender murderer. The repeat offender might just have a temper and kills someone in a moment of passion versus the serial killer, who will take their time carefully planning the murder and using the same method each time. I’m of the opinion Eugene Marlando is a serial killer. He has a methodology. His killings are exceptionally brutal. Your attack definitely fit into the exceptionally brutal category. But, you were his last victim, and that is concerning.”

  I went cold. “You don’t think he’s finished with me.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. What I don’t understand is the why.”

  “He’s a single male lycanthrope,” Wayne said. “And she has his virus. The why of it seems simplistic enough to me. Her virus has thoroughly rejected him, but does his virus know that? Probably not. So his virus would want her, especially if he’s aware she survived. We’ve seen this before.”

  The bitterness in Wayne’s voice worried me even more than the prospect of facing off against a serial killer. “And if I were to decide to no longer be single?”

  Wayne chuckled. “I’d be really happy with that development. It would also mean I’d go right for Marlando’s throat with zero care of the consequences.”

  “I’m going to do you a favor, Wayne,” his boss muttered. “I’m going to add your name to the list of people permitted to claim his kill bounty with a notation that you are courting her, and that Marlando is probably the originating source of her virus. That will give you the most legal protections. However, if she wishes you to leave her territory, you will do so at her request.”

  “If I wish for him to remain in my territory, can I use restraints?” I asked.

  “You can use whatever tools you have at your disposal. You do have legal rights because of the bounty on him to restrain him at your leisure, especially as the bounty has been vetted for a live capture. Frankly, Miss Gray, I don’t care what you do with Wayne, just return him in tolerable condition. According to your records, prior to infection, you were a rather skilled practitioner. If you’re rusty with your practitioner skills, get in some practice time. Frankly spoken, we only need Marlando’s body intact enough to identify.”

  My wolf perked up at that. “You want me to use practitioner magic on him?”

  “Lycanthropes are resilient, but they are not as resilient to fire as they might like.”

  I raised a brow. “You want me to char him?”

  “I don’t want this guy getting back up when you’re done with him.”

  Right. I could do that. “Understood, Lenny.”

  “Good. I’ll get a bounty set up in the system for you. Accept it before you settle down for the night. I’ll leave you to discuss the details. Wayne, call me if there’s any trouble.”

  “You got it.”

  Wayne gathered his briefcase, shook his head at the general destruction in the room, and while his boss left through the window, he headed for the door. “Let’s get moved to a more secure room, then we’ll talk.”

  Right. Talk. My wolf wanted nothing to do with talking, especially not after having heard details about the source of my infection, which had given her life through me.

  She wanted two things.

  She wanted to secure Wayne as ours, and she wanted blood.

  I was running out of reasons to deny giving her both.

  Chapter Eight

  If the asshole lycanthropes wanted a piece of me, they’d have to scale to the top floor of the hotel to get it, and they’d have to skirt around a mob of angry cops and FBI agents. While I’d seen law enforcement types get protective of their own, they’d all seemed to take a great deal of offense to the corgi, the tabby cat, and the pack of wolves interfering with our night.

  The entire thing baffled me.

  “You’re confused,” Wayne stated while taking a look around the room, which was even nicer than the one on the ground floor. He emptied his pockets onto the coffee table, although he kept his phone with him. “First, yes, the hotel’s insurance will cover the damages to the room, and it’s entirely possible they will be awarded additional damages, especially since you’d captured one of them. Yes, Lenny is my boss, but I’m not a full-time agent. I’m on call as a specialist. I’m a hybrid, I’m a pack beta, and I can often talk my way out of a lot of situations. They bring me in when they don’t want something to escalate. View me as a mediator. Because I’m a lycanthrope, I’m perfectly capable of taking a beating, but when they don’t want rounds fired, they bring me in. I’m badged, and I can legally carry a firearm, but I usually don’t have a gun with me. I can just shift and handle most situations that way. When I’m not working as a negotiator, I’m usually working with the vics while they’re undergoing medical treatments, and I help them get through questioning, handle an attorney if they need one, and otherwise make sure they get the help they need.”

  “I never would have guessed.”

  “That’s the whole point. You’re not supposed to guess.” Wayne set his briefcase on the coffee table and retrieved his laptop, turning it on to make certain it had survived through the excitement in the other room. It had. Once satisfied nothing had been ruined, he moved the bags of our new clothing to the bedroom and checked the bathroom, which had an even bigger tub than the other room. “So, that’s my dirty secret. I’m a businessman by day, FBI agent by night. I signed up for training with the FBI when it became clear the virus was going to beat the cancer, and they wanted to do some trials with newly infected lycanthropes in peaceful roles within the FBI. Negotiators, trauma specialists, and even the equivalent of badged social workers. Trials like mine make it better for other lycanthropes. They weren’t expecting me to develop the hybrid form, although James has it. Unmated males rarely pick it up without having a parent or mate with the hybrid form. You must have startled them when you developed the hybrid form.”

  “A little. They figured my virus worked so hard to keep me alive, so she just developed better than most. And she really doesn’t like the source virus. She gets pissed off whenever anyone mentions him.”

  “Is she angry now?”

  I shook my head. “She’s pretty relaxed right now.”

  “That’s probably one part pixie dust, one part perceived safety. That’s why pack structure is so important for lycanthropes. Being around other lycanthropes in a safe environment settles the virus. Being affectionate with other members of the pack makes the virus happy. To start with, you can get used to cuddling up with me. When you’re comfortable, I’ll introduce you to James and Laurie. After that, we’ll get you used to the rest of the pack. In any case, I’ll make sure you have a private place to hide if you’re not ready to interact with them. The Massapequa house has plenty of space, and you can lock yourself in your office if push comes to shove. They’re more likely to show up unexpectedly at the Long Island property, though. I’ll make sure they give you the space you need. You virus should settle down within a few weeks. It won’t take long for you to see they mean well.”

  “And I’ll have to see you every day.”

  “That’s right. Ideally, you’ll enjoy seeing me every day. If I’m particularly lucky, you’ll want to cuddle with me every day after work. I think we would both benefit from an intensive cud
dling therapy plan. We could tie it in with your lease agreement. That would give me five years to convince you, using intensive cuddling techniques, that you should stick around.”

  My virus’s opinion hadn’t changed: she wanted Wayne out of his clothes, and she wanted him out of his clothes immediately. She also wanted the blood of the asshole who’d almost beaten me to death in an alley, but she wanted Wayne first.

  I found it difficult to negotiate with the furry pervert, who had liked Wayne from the start.

  He’d secured his hold on the furry pervert of a virus through the clever offering of my favorite foods, too. I feared it would take one more salad to completely reduce her to a drooling mess. I would likely break under the first decent steak to cross my path, something I hadn’t been able to treat my virus to thanks to my shitty financial situation.

  “Tell me about your daily life.”

  He chuckled, headed into the bathroom, engaged the stopper on the tub, and turned on the faucet. “Do you like your water cool, warm, or so steamy we fog up every mirror on the entire floor?”

  The only kind of steamy my virus wanted involved removal of clothes and a bed. I did the equivalent of smack her across her furry nose with a newspaper to settle her down and replied, “My virus isn’t picky, and neither am I.”

  I toed the line of telling terrible lies, and my virus huffed her displeasure over my more methodical approach to Wayne, his clothing, and the bathtub.

  “Let’s go with warm bordering on so steamy we fog every mirror on the entire floor. I don’t know how good the hot water heaters are at your apartment.”

  My virus approved of his commentary, and to cover her interest, I opted to perform a demonstration of one of my better practitioner tricks. I held out my hand, concentrated, and muttered the two-word incantation to summon fire, which lacked smoke and warmed only what I wanted it to. “I’m not bad at my practitioner tricks, so I could make the water as hot as I wanted. That’s tiring, though, so I usually settled for cool bordering on warm.”

  I snuffed the fire out and shook my hand to make sure it wouldn’t reignite, something I’d had problems with when I’d first been learning how to tame the flames.

  “Okay. I’ve worked with practitioners plenty in the FBI, and that was smooth. If you need an easy guide on how to flirt with me, that’s how you flirt with me. You show me a refined control of your magic tricks. You already impressed me with your control of your hybrid form, although you have a few new tricks to learn in the next few weeks. But that display? That was nice.”

  My virus had me licking my lips before I could stop her. “You like practitioner tricks?”

  “I couldn’t learn practitioner tricks as a child because of the cancer. I’d get intense headaches if I tried. As an adult, it’s hard to find someone with the patience to teach me, and I often don’t have the time. So, I watch people who can do practitioner magic with great interest.”

  “I can make a dress out of fire,” I informed him.

  “Can you work with any other elements?”

  “I can make a dress out of ice, but I don’t appreciate getting that cold. It’s easier to keep a flaming dress from burning me than it is to prevent frost bite in really bad locations. There is no point in making a dress out of air.”

  “There is definitely a point in making a dress out of air,” he replied.

  My virus liked the way he thought. “Mud dresses are not appealing, and the dirt gets everywhere.”

  “I would happily volunteer to help you get clean after wearing such a dress.”

  I bet he would. “How does this whole cuddling business work?”

  “I’ll get changed out of my clothes, shift to my hybrid form, join you in the tub, and give you free rein. You’ll cuddle up however you see fit while we soak. As we’ll both have fur coats, nobody’s modesty will be cruelly offended, and if you desire naked cuddling while human later, that’s entirely up to you. James was serious about how we try to handle things in the pack. Take your time, get used to having physical contact with other lycanthropes, and indulge however you see fit. I’m a willing participant in however little or much you wish to do. Considering your trauma, you should start on the easy end of the spectrum, get your virus adapted to being able to show affection, and relax. We’ll go hunt for Marlando and his pack of idiots, toss them out with the trash, and ultimately hunt for the bastard who beat you. If you’ve been hiding from your family because of your infection status, we can reach out and see about working on that, too.”

  I stilled. “I was estranged from my family when I turned seventeen. They’re puritan. I’m a practitioner.”

  “Puritan? How so?”

  “They’re vanilla and hate magic.”

  Wayne grunted. “If you want to reach out to them, we can make arrangements. If not, that’s entirely up to you. Still, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. I was a headstrong kid; I’d decided I wanted magic, and I broke the household rules. I paid the price for that. I’ve been living on my own ever since. That’s fine. My parents are probably glad I’m gone.”

  I’d accepted that long ago.

  “Well, I have amazing parents. They would love to meet you, and they would have zero problems with showing you what it’s like to be part of a family. Whenever we have a new wolf in the pack who needs to figure things out, we drag them over to visit my parents. They’re like lycanthropes but a little saner and not as overbearing. Consider them training wheels for handling lycanthropes. If you can handle them, you can handle the pack. I have a bad habit of volunteering my parents to help people get used to being part of a family because they’re great. I often refuse to visit their house and make them come to mine instead, as I do not at all appreciate their hotspot. While I’m at no risk of getting cancer again, the hotspot makes my virus rowdy, and when my virus is rowdy, he wants extra cuddles and a mate. So, they usually come to me. I’ll be less inclined to dodge my childhood home if you’re coming with me, because I won’t have any problems with my virus being rowdy. My parents might have problems with my virus being rowdy, but that’s their fault for living on a hotspot.”

  I looked Wayne over from head to toe, and while my virus had ideas on what to do with him, she also wanted to give him a few bites to mark him as our territory. “May I ask a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “The CDC did not mention anything about my virus wanting to bite.”

  He chuckled, a low and sensuous sound. “That is more of a statement than a question, but that is your virus informing you she wants to mark her territory. Lycanthropes secure mates through virus exchange. It’s easiest to share the virus during sex, but if sex isn’t an option, biting is a good way to pick up the virus. Biting me would almost certainly break my restraint and result in a bite back. That would result in a virus exchange and would start a mating bond. It would be enough to appease your virus without being necessarily obvious to others we’re pairing. To our viruses, it would be as good as said and done, however. So, since you’re refusing to drag me to bed, she wants to bite. It’s normal.”

  “It is?”

  “I’ve been wanting to bite you since the day I met you. You told me no. That revved my virus’s engine. Then you kept telling me no, and my virus liked that a lot. I keep trying to remind my virus rejection isn’t good, but he’s unreasonable. I suspect my virus detected your virus without me comprehending your infection status because of the perfume. And while I dislike the perfume, my virus is a bit of an idiot at times. Frankly spoken, you’ve been driving me completely crazy.” Wayne checked the water level, nodded, and grabbed a bottle from the tub’s ledge and added it, resulting in bubbles. He turned off the faucet, hit a button on the wall, and the jets rumbled to life. “There. The water level is low enough for two lycanthropes but high enough the jets can work properly. You won’t damage the tub with your fur, and I know how to clean the drains in this model if we shed some. Tonight, worry about relaxing and enjoying yourself. Tomor
row, we can discuss the issue of bites and beds. But be aware, if you bite me, I’m biting back, and I’ll be starting a campaign to get you into my bed where you belong.”

  “And if you are bitten tonight?”

  “I’ll begin my fierce campaign to get you into my bed where you belong tomorrow, but I’m definitely biting you back. I expect my fierce campaign to take you to bed will be delayed long enough for me to present your attacker’s head on a platter. There are far better ways for a man to give a woman the lycanthropy virus, and you deserved the best we can offer, not the worst.”

  “Why me?”

  “I appreciate a challenge and strength. You’re both. You’ve fought for everything you have, and you’ve worked hard for little gain. I respect and admire that. And it’s fair you don’t know me well, but I think I’ve interested you from the start.”

  He certainly had interested my virus. “And if I bite you, there’s no changing our minds, right?”

  “That’s generally right. Sometimes, matings don’t work out as intended, but the virus tends to make couples do their best to sort it out. I expect we’ll be gasoline and fire, but we’ll love every minute of it. For lycanthropes, the mating is only the first steps of the journey rather than the destination. Exchanging bites just makes the journey longer.” He shrugged. “I think it’ll make it more fun, too. Just how long can you resist your virus before you take what you want? That’s a lot of pent up frustration and lust for me to enjoy.”

  “And if I bite you, and you retaliate with a bite of your own, I’m no longer available for other lycanthropes, right?”

  “Right.” Wayne retrieved his phone, tapped at the screen, and showed me the display. “A few courting pairs have done it that way while the CDC observed. They exchanged a bite with no more than a quarter of a pint of blood exchanged. The scent did not immediately transfer, but the viruses were both documented as immediately attuning. The female typically picks up the male’s blood type, a process that took two to three months in all test subjects. The virus wants the mated pair to be fully compatible, so the blood type will change over time. With pairs who solidify their bond through intercourse, the blood type takes up to a year to shift over, sometimes longer. So a bite is thought to have a stronger mating bond for the couple, but intercourse establishes the scent faster. There are no known side effects of the blood type change.”