Nick frowned after them. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why? She seems nice, and being new kind of sucks for anyone.”
“Cordi.” He sighed my name, wearing his “you’re being thick” look. “She’s going to be their Queen. You don’t want to get involved in shifter politics.”
I thought that over as we walked to his truck. “Aren’t I already involved in shifter politics? I’m dating you. Wait a minute before answering. Leglin?”
My hound, all two hundred or so black and tan pounds of him, appeared next to me. He grinned, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, and wagged his tail. It hit the side of Nick’s truck with a loud thump. “Hey, bub. How was your play date?”
Scoping out his tail while the hound grumbled, I spotted a bare spot. “We’re not buying that bird a Christmas present this year.”
Nick laughed, and opened the rear passenger door. Hot air billowed out. I really needed to introduce him to windshield shades. “Here you go, Linny.”
Once we were all in the truck, I tugged my tee away from suddenly sticky skin. “Turn on the A/C before answering, or I’ll melt before I can hear it.”
He started the truck and switched the air conditioner on high. Another blast of hot air struck me in the face. “I won’t ever be a pack leader, so dating me doesn’t stick you in the middle of shifter politics.”
I adjusted the vents and fastened my seat belt. “Why won’t you ever be a pack leader?”
“Because it takes over your life, and I like mine the way it is.” He eased the truck out of its parking spot, changed gears, and we began rolling forward. “Besides, I’m not patient or dominant enough to lead a pack.”
“Okay, but it’s not like I’m never around shifters. I’ve had cases involving them.”
He grinned. “But you don’t discriminate, and neither does the boss. Any shifter’s case is welcome, so that makes you a neutral party.”
The idea of being friends with a future Queen of something was cool. “Yet I’m dating a wolf and hello! My roomie is also part wolf shifter. If those two things don’t remove my neutrality, why would being nice to Terra suddenly involve me in shifter politics?”
“It’s complicated.”
It was my turn to sigh, and I looked out the passenger window. “Stuff with you guys always is.”
I didn’t mean just shifters, but all supernatural people. It’s not like humans couldn’t be complicated, but some supes had made “complicated” into a fine art. Returning my attention to Nick, I admired the flex of muscles in his forearms as he guided the truck into a turn. “How do you know Terra’s going to be their Queen?”
His response was a shrug. “Everyone knows.”
“I didn’t.”
“Right now, the only organized feline group in Santo Trueno is the Pride. Now more tigers are coming here.”
“Because of Terra?”
“Only a white tiger can be a clan Queen, and she’s a white tiger.”
I knew Logan was a black tiger, and he’d told me that was rare, rarer than white. “Why only white?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a tiger. Are you hungry again yet? We can pick something up.”
Leglin shoved his head over the seat and between us, his ears perked. I scratched under his chin. “I’m not, but he is.”
Nick didn’t treat the hound like a dog either. “Mexican or Chinese?” The hound grunted. “Mexican it is.”
I leaned forward to look at him. “Do you really understand what he’s saying, or do you guess?”
“For us to know, and you to find out.” With a grin, Nick signaled a right turn.
***
Arriving at my apartment, Mexican seemed to have been the correct choice, since Leglin parked his big rear beside the table and poked the food containers with his nose. “Give me a minute, and I’ll feed you.”
He had a bowl for water, but I always put his food on a plate. It seemed more fitting for someone with an ancestor who could take human shape, even if Leglin couldn’t. Probably a good thing elf hounds couldn’t shift, or they might have beaten up the elves. Elves don’t like shifters, and the feeling’s mutual, since the pointy-eared snobs sometimes hunted them.
With elf hounds, at that. Leglin had never hunted shifters, and that was part of the reason I’d wanted him.
Arranging his double order of beef fajitas onto a plate, I grabbed a placemat off the table, and put both down on the floor for him. “There you go. Enjoy.”
Nick collected a plate and utensils for himself before sitting down. “Are you sure you don’t want any?”
“I’m good.” Pulling out a couple of beers, I joined him. “Here.”
“Thanks.” After popping the top, he took a drink and asked, “So are you going to eat lunch with her?”
Her? Oh, Terra. Was it some weird interspecies prejudice he didn’t use her name?
“Yes. It would be rude not to show after I accepted. Besides, Logan’s still working on my car, and I want to see how much he’s done on it.” I missed my little sports car. Nick never let me drive his truck, so my transportation choices were limited to being chauffeured or teleporting.
He sighed around a mouthful of fajita, shook his head and swallowed. “It’s a bad idea.”
“See, you’re telling me that, but you’re not giving any solid reasoning.”
“It’s…”
“Complicated. Yeah, you said that.” Rolling my eyes, I had a drink of my beer. “I’m going. Deal with it.”
Nick scowled. “You never take my advice.”
“I do too.”
“No, you don’t. You listen, but then you just do whatever the hell you want to anyway.” He glared while taking a huge bite.
“Maybe that’s because most of your advice is to run and let you get whomped on.” It was true. He always wanted me clear of sticky situations. “I mean, it’s nice that you care enough that you’d rather get your butt kicked than see me get hurt, but you know, I’m…”
“Not helpless. Yeah, I know, and I do not always get my butt kicked. It was one of the interview questions: How many times have you gotten your butt kicked? Mr. Whitehaven wouldn’t have hired me if I got beat down every time I came up against someone.”
I couldn’t prevent a grin from surfacing. “Aw, did I hurt your widdle male ego?”
His glare returned. Laughing, I rose enough to lean over and kiss him. “I’m sorry. No, you don’t always get your butt kicked. And Mr. Whitehaven did not ask you that question.”
Our boss was far too formal to use the word “butt”. He’s the only person I know who calls everyone by their full names; the only one who doesn’t call me Discord or Cordi, but Discordia.
The only exception to the rule is Kate, our co-worker and another witch friend. She’s not fond of her full name, Katherine, and they must’ve struck some sort of deal about his not using it before I began working there. Or maybe she just refused to answer to the full version. I could totally see her doing that.
Nick gave up glaring at me in favor of finishing his late dinner and then moving to the living room to watch the 11 o’clock news. I took care of clean up, and had just hung the dish towel over the sink’s edge to dry when he called for me.
“What?” I grabbed my beer before leaving the kitchen.
“Listen.” He turned the volume up as I sat down. A woman’s photo was in one corner of the screen.
“Hey, that’s…” I sat down on the couch next to him, staring at the TV.
“Rose Middleton jumped from the top of the Ferris wheel at the county fair in an alleged suicide attempt, but someone was on hand to stop her deadly plunge.” Video, probably from someone’s cell phone, showed her stopping in mid-air and then slowly descending to the ground. I was congratulating myself on not being caught on camera when the anchorwoman spoke again.
“However, her guardian angel wasn’t present at the hospital later, when Rose jumped through a fourth floor window.”
My jaw dropped. “She’s dead?”
The anchorwoman confirmed it just before Nick turned the sound back down to barely audible. “She really wanted to die.”
“No, she didn’t. I heard her thoughts. It sounded like something was making her do it. She actually thought ‘I don’t want to die’.” We stared at each other until Nick put his arm around my shoulders.
“You can’t win them all.”
Totally true statement, though it didn’t make me feel better. He noticed, pulling me into his lap for some cuddle time. One of the things I really liked about Nick was the fact he enjoyed cuddling, in or out of bed. Cuddling made him happy, and with my empathic ability, his happiness felt like a warm, fuzzy blanket covering me.
One of the other things I liked about him came along once we called it a night and went to bed. It hadn’t taken Nick long to tune into the fact I needed a little extra attention during sex in order to have an orgasm. Once he’d realized, I had absolutely no complaints in that department of our relationship.
None popped up that night either.
FOUR
There were six more suicides over the weekend. When I arrived at the office Monday morning, I discovered Santo Trueno’s mayor, Richard Wells, and the chief of police, Tom Stannett, meeting with Mr. Whitehaven.
“This is Miss Discordia Jones,” my boss introduced me.
“Hi.” Not liking the grim atmosphere, I nodded and smiled my way across the room to stand next to Nick, who leaned against the wall at Whitehaven’s left shoulder. “What’s going on?”
“Miss Jones,” the mayor began, but Stannett cut him off. The police chief was a burly built man with thinning, sandy hair and faded blue eyes. He looked out of place, sitting next to Wells. The mayor’s hair was golden-blonde, his eyes dark gray, and his expensive suit hung well on his trim body.
“It’s about the suicides. There are some who think you may be responsible.”
My jaw dropped. “What?”
Wells scowled at Stannett. “This isn’t how we were going to handle it.”
The police chief shrugged. “No, you were going to talk circles before getting to the point. Jones has helped solve several cases, and deserves some respect for that.”
“She’s also been responsible for several deaths.”
Anger lubricated my voice. “They were all vampires or demons, except one. I don’t run around killing people for the hell of it. Each one was trying to either kill or kidnap me.”
“Was Ginger Moore trying to kill you?”
My breath caught, hot tears pricking my eyelids as I closed my eyes at the unexpected mention of my friend’s name. “No.”
“Yet you staked and killed her.”
I opened my eyes to glare at him, wondering how he knew while curling my hands into fists. “She hated being a vampire.”
Mr. Whitehaven held up his hand. “Mayor Wells, I have a notarized document on file, signed by Miss Moore, in which she requested to be euthanized and stated her reasons for the request. Discordia simply fulfilled that request.”
He had what? I hadn’t known about that.
“That doesn’t make it le…”
My boss leaned forward. I wondered if his eyes were glowing red when both men paled. “We aren’t human, and have certain long-honored traditions. One of which is that a vampire who wishes to cease his or her existence may do so, by any means necessary. Miss Moore was a young vampire, a thrall of a far more powerful master. She couldn’t end her second life without aid.” Whitehaven leaned back. “It wasn’t murder, gentlemen, but mercy.”
The present faded away, and I stood in a small room lit by a single overhead bulb, facing a metal door. I slowly turned around. Ginger lay on a worn blanket spread over a metal framed cot. Above ground, the sun was shining. Down here, everything seemed grimy in the weak light. The room, located below a mansion in the Barrows, wasn’t anything more than a dusty, concrete box with a metal door.
She appeared to be sleeping, but her chest didn’t move. Vampires don’t need to breathe, except to speak or pass themselves off as human. They don’t breathe while taking their daily rest.
I had a stake in one hand, a small sledgehammer in the other, and the echo of Ginger’s pleas from the night before ringing in my ears. “Please, Cordi. Do it today. I can’t live like this anymore!”
Nearly three weeks had passed since I had made the promise to her. I’d spent those weeks practicing on, of all things, cantaloupes. The object was to do it as fast and painlessly for her as possible: stake right over the heart, then one blow of the hammer to drive it through.
If I did it right, she wouldn’t feel a thing. If I didn’t, she would wake. So would her master, and one of them would likely kill me. In her right mind, Ginger wouldn’t hurt me, but no vampire startled out of sleep by a stake would be in its right mind.
Encased in yellow rubber cleaning gloves, my palms were sweating as I crossed the small space. Looking down at her, I almost lost my nerve. Vampire or not, Ginger was my best friend. We’d been friends since we were three years old. Ginger was the only friend who visited me while I was comatose. Who stuck by me while I figured out all of the psychic stuff.
All of which was the reason she’d asked me, and I’d promised. Real friends would do anything for each other, and the only way out of her nightmare life was to die a second time.
If I didn’t help her, no one would. Taking a deep breath, I put the sharp tip of the stake over her heart. My arm trembled as I lifted the hammer, and I lowered it again, closing my eyes to take and release a couple of deep breaths.
When I opened my eyes, I lifted the hammer at the same time, and slammed it down onto the end of the stake. My grunt of effort ended with a whimper as Ginger jerked, her eyes opening. A second before blood began soaking the nightgown she wore, her eyes focused on mine.
She smiled.
She smiled, her eyes closed, and as she went limp, her skin turned gray.
I yanked my gloved hand away from the stake with a loud sob, and teleported home to my bathroom, where I stripped and scrubbed myself raw in the shower, crying for Ginger, and for myself.
“Cordi?” Nick’s voice shattered the memory. I looked up then around the room, realizing I was on the floor, huddled against the wall, and he’d crouched next to me. “What happened? Are you okay? You’re crying.”
I wiped my cheeks, and shook my head. “It was a flashback. I’m okay.”
Okay except for the embarrassment of having an episode in front of not only non-friends, but prominent citizens. Also the first super flashback in front of Nick, which would probably cement his opinions about my inability to take care of myself and lead to yet another “you run, I fight” argument. Hopefully not during a situation when we didn’t have time for one.
At least Nick had enough sense not to make a big deal out of it. He helped me up, and kept an arm around my waist. The boss handed me a couple of tissues. “Thanks.”
“A flashback?” Mayor Wells stared at me, his lips turned ever-so-slightly upward. I wanted to rip the smug expression off his face. “You have PTSD?”
“It’s common among psychics with certain abilities,” Mr. Whitehaven said. “Retro-cognition is one of them. Discordia has unfortunately experienced several traumatic events while assisting law enforcement.”
“More traumatic than killing an innocent girl?”
Anger blazed. I found my voice again. “He tortured her. Made her do things she couldn’t live with. She wanted out, and that was the only way out.” I paused, staring at Wells until he blinked. “I didn’t want to do it, but it was the only way she’d find peace, and she had no one else to turn to.”
The mayor opened his mouth, but Stannett spoke first. “Jones, have you ever controlled anyone’s mind?”
“No.”
“Are you capable of doing it?”
“I don’t know, but even if I could, I wouldn’t. It’s wrong.”
“Tell me where you were over the weekend.”
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Nick shifted his weight, lifting his chin while pulling me closer to his side. “I stayed the weekend with her. We were at her apartment, except for a trip to the park and grocery store.”
“He left late last night, after we had dinner and watched a movie.” I shook my head. “We were at the fair when that woman jumped. I’m the one who stopped her. Why would I—if I could make someone commit suicide—turn around and stop them from doing it?”
The two men traded a glance, before Stannett asked, “You were there? Were there any witnesses?”
“Yeah, some of my friends and people standing in line at the Ferris wheel.”
Wells leaned forward. “How did you know?”
“I felt her fear first then heard her thoughts. She didn’t want to jump. I don’t know why she did.”
He frowned. “You make a habit of listening to people’s thoughts?”
If Nick hadn’t been holding onto me, I might’ve crossed the room to punch the mayor right in the mouth. “No, I make a habit of not listening so that I don’t lose my damn mind. But sometimes, people’s emotions are so strong, their thoughts are like screams, and they break right through my mental shields. She was scared. She screamed.”
Stannett cleared his throat, and I turned my glare toward him. “What?”
“Were her thoughts coherent?”
“Yeah. Give me a minute.” I scowled, trying to recall the exact thoughts that had passed from her mind to mine. “She thought ‘I don’t want to die’, ‘Why is this happening? Someone help me’ and ‘Oh God. Please help me’. I’m not God, but I could hear her, so I helped her.”
The police chief frowned while sitting back. “Yet later, she did it anyway.” He stared at the thick carpeting for a few seconds, his brow furrowed. When he looked up, he was still frowning. “You’re certain she didn’t want to commit suicide?”
“As certain as I can be, between the thoughts I caught, and feeling how afraid she was.”
Stannett nodded. “Nothing we’ve uncovered so far indicates any of them were suicidal. That means someone made them do it.”
Something to Curse About (Discord Jones) Page 2