The Devil’s Kiss

by Stacey Kennedy

  “How bad is it?” Talon asked.

  She gave him a knowing look. “As bad as it gets. Once we started connecting them together, the number of killings is a staggering amount.”

  “Why didn’t we know about it?” I piped up, asking the obvious question. If a supernatural creature killed a human, the Council should have known it immediately.

  “In many of the cases, it appeared that either an animal did it or it was committed by a human,” Hadley said. “Now we know different, of course.”

  This just confused me. One case I could see being overlooked, but a staggering number… It seemed odd, but I kept any questions to myself. There was no need to look stupid in front of one of Kyden’s ex-lovers.

  “What have you discovered so far?” Kyden asked.

  She glanced at him, her eyes twinkling. “We have our files at the Bureau. I suggest you come and have a look at them. It may help you here, and whatever helps you, helps us. We have come to a dead halt on these cases.”

  “Are we allowed to come to the FBI?” I asked. “I mean come on, it’s the FBI for frig sakes. I doubt we’re allowed to just walk in.”

  Hadley nodded with a grin. “I have passes for four of you to join me, and Caliana has helped with regards to the humans and assures me that we will not have a problem once you are there.”

  “Caliana?” I repeated.

  Kyden arched a brow. “She’s a vampire.”

  “Oh, right.” I gave my hand a wave. “The whole glamour thingy-mi-jiggy.”

  “Yes, the glamour thingy-mi-jiggy.” Hadley laughed.

  I noticed she wasn’t looking at me. Her eyes were quickly scanning Kyden’s body—slowly ran over every curve of his muscles. My teeth ground together and my muscles flexed with jealously. “Ahem,” I said loudly.

  She met my gaze, and the desire running through her eyes was fierce. “Yes,” she purred.

  “Please keep your mouth shut,” Zia said sternly.

  Okay so maybe I put my foot in my mouth a few times and Zia knew it. Resolved, I swallowed back my remark and looked at Kyden, who had a barely contained smirk on his face. I quickly punched his arm. “It’s not funny.”

  He laughed loudly and flinched. “Oh, but I think it is.”

  Hadley looked confused. “Sorry, have I missed something?”

  I shook my head, sighing deeply. “No, nothing. Please continue.”

  She studied me, then her eyes widened with understanding. “Are you two together?”

  Kyden nodded. I remained silent, afraid if I did anything, Zia was going to be very unhappy with me.

  “I hadn’t heard,” Hadley said. Then, surprising me, she took my hand in hers. “I apologize. If I had known then I would have kept my eyes to myself.” She glanced at Kyden. “One has finally stolen your heart. I never thought I’d see the day.” Her gaze met mine again as she smiled softly. “I meant no disrespect.”

  My smile in return was unencumbered. It was nice to finally meet someone from Kyden’s past that wasn’t a complete bitch and didn’t rub it in my face that they had been together. “It’s fine. Sorry, I…”

  She raised her hand to stop me. “Think nothing of it. I would do the same. Trust me.”

  “Can we go?” Ryker grumbled off to the side. “I am about to be sick.”

  Ryker’s your G.I. Joe type, rockin’ bod, handsome face. To me, though, he was just Ryker. A tough-ass Guardian. Apparently, now that this situation had upped the ante, Talon felt the need to bring Ryker onboard to help.

  Fine with me! The more help, the better.

  “Ryker!” Hadley exclaimed, her face lighting up. Obviously, Kyden wasn’t the only one Hadley had a fancy for.

  Ryker pushed forward and stopped just a few inches away from her. “Been a while, Hadley. You are looking…” his gaze lingered on her body, “…well.”

  She laughed flirtatiously. “Working for the FBI is a cushy job. It leaves the body in good form.”

  “That it does,” he purred.

  Now I was on the verge of being sick. “Okay, let’s go.”

  “I’m going with you,” Ryker said, staring heavily at Hadley.

  “I will join you also,” Zia added.

  “You all need to change. You can’t go in looking like that,” Hadley told us firmly.

  “What? You mean walking into the FBI half naked is inappropriate?” I said sarcastically.

  She laughed and gave me a knowing look. “Nexi, if you walked in looking like that, I am pretty sure Kyden here would see just how lucky he really is, he’d spend an hour fighting off half our squad.”

  * * * *

  When thinking of the FBI, I think scary, dangerous. Not, your everyday white-collar business suits. Not that the building didn’t look fantastic sitting along America’s Main Street—it did. It was just your typical commercial building. The only thing that made it awe-inspiring at all was its sheer size. We think supernaturals are a problem—the fact that a government needs a building of this magnitude to control their criminals is mindboggling.

  “This is the J. Edgar Hoover building?” I asked, staring at a large cement building with hundreds upon hundreds of windows.

  “You were expecting something different?” Hadley asked, a hint of amusement lit her tone.

  “Actually, yeah. Considering what goes on here, I was expecting something a little more brilliant.”

  “It does the job.” Then, she stopped walking. “I almost forgot. Here put these on,” she handed us name badges.

  Immediately, I burst into laughter. The card was obviously from the CIA. Just the thought of me being in the CIA was way too funny to keep in. I clipped it to my pantsuit and followed behind the others as they started forward, but I had to say, “Nice to meet you, Special Agent Mueller,” I laughed reading the name on Kyden’s card.

  He smirked in return.

  We made our way into the front entrance. Hadley passed the guard sitting at the table and gave him a little wave. He gave a firm nod back, then approached us, eyeing our identification badges. He logged them into his computer and waved us on. All business here—that was evident immediately.

  We approached the elevator. Hadley hit the up button and a moment later, the doors opened and we stepped in. The doors closed behind us, Hadley pressed ten, the elevator shot straight up, and my stomach leapt with it. When the doors chimed open, a sign, which read, Criminal Investigation Department was on a large glass wall.

  “Hadley,” a man said as he moved toward us. He was just a man—no supernatural here. “I have readied the files in my office for you.”

  “Thanks, Mike,” Hadley replied. She glanced back to me as we walked by. “That is the Special Agent in Charge of the Criminal Investigation Department.”

  “Are you telling me that the vampire used glamour on every single agent here?”

  She nodded, and smiled. “They think you are from the CIA following up on this case.”

  The thought made me feel mildly corrupt, so I chose not to make eye contact with them. It felt a bit wrong knowing they’d all been mind-warped.

  We entered the office, and Hadley closed the door behind us. There were more than ten boxes lining the wall. “Christ. These are the cases?” I gasped.

  She nodded grimly. “It’s a big case. I’ll go get us some coffee,” she replied before she left the room.

  “This is going to take a while,” I grumbled at Zia.

  She eyed the boxes with annoyance. “Let’s get started.”

  We each took a box and got to work. The first file I pulled out was of a brutal killing in Louisiana. A woman mauled to death, in what they thought was a bear attack. The second I looked at the picture my stomach turned. There was barely anything left of her. She resembled nothing of the pretty picture I had seen of her when I first opened the file.

  “Here,” Hadley said, drawing my gaze to her as she returned.

  She handed me a cup of steaming hot coffee. I
t’d been some time since I had coffee. Now, having my magic abilities to give me a boost, coffee was a thing of the past. When the smell hit my nose, I moaned in utter bliss. When I lifted the cup to my mouth and drank down the delicious aroma, I groaned deeply.

  The room erupted in laughter. I glanced over the rim of my cup to see everyone watching my intense pleasure. I smirked at them. “You forget the finer things when you haven’t had them for a while.”

  Kyden winked, then dug back into his box.

  I put the cup down, and lifted out another file. This one was in Montana. The woman had been killed in a manner very similar to the last. A college grad abducted. After a long search, her body was discovered in the bush brutally ripped to shreds and declared a homicide. With little evidence, and no leads, the case was closed.

  Case after case, all similar situations—young women taken, brutally murdered. “I don’t get it. How do you know these were wolf killings?” I asked Hadley.

  She lifted her head from the file she was buried in. “Call it a hunch.”

  “A hunch, huh?”

  She nodded. “When I started looking back at unsolved murders, I began to find a connection between them all. All the young women were killed so brutally.”

  “Yeah, I see that,”

  File after file that was the method of death. Very little remained of them. “I’m confused.” I said, looking back at the file. “I thought the Council was always contacted when a wolf kills?” Needing my earlier question answered, I no longer cared if I was going to look silly. I needed to understand this better.

  “They are,” Hadley answered, drawing my gaze back to her. “But that is what is so unusual with these cases. There was no evidence of a wolf doing this.”

  “Ahh…sorry, but someone’s throat missing is a pretty clear indicator,” I remarked.

  “You would think so, but that is not how we do things.”

  I glanced at Kyden. “It’s not?”

  He shook his head. “The Detectives will only contact the Council if there is a lingering scent at the scene.”

  “Oh,” I said, my mind made quick work of absorbing that information. “I hadn’t thought of that. I figured in vamp cases the fang marks were a pretty clear indicator.”

  He nodded, being patient as he always was. “Of course, those cases are easier to determine, but without the assistance of Haven or Zia, wolf cases are discovered only by the scent left there.”

  “Even if their throat is ripped out like this? How could you come to any other assumption?”

  “You can never make assumptions,” Hadley interjected. “You have no idea what humans are capable of.”

  I snorted softly. “I guess I don’t.” I glanced back at the file in my hand. “So, wolves are hiding their scent?” I commented.

  “Exactly,” Hadley said. “It took some time to put this all together. It wasn’t until we started poking around did the fact that wolves were involved in this emerged. The coincidences between the cases were just too high. Then, when Talon contacted me, I knew we were on the right track. The biggest concern is just how the wolves are doing this.”

  “Anything is possible when using Black Magic,” Zia stated. “But the question still remains—why are witches getting the wolves to do this? What have these humans done to deserve such a horrible fate?”

  “There must be a connection between them,” Kyden said, rummaging through his file. “We’re just not seeing it.”

  Then a light bulb went off in my dense head. It would happen sometimes¯when my mind put pieces of a puzzle together¯not often, but on a few occasions. “Hadley, do you know if the girls were raped?”

  “Couldn’t say. There have been five cases of young women in the past week. We never did a rape kit on them since there wasn’t much of their bodies remaining.”

  “What are you thinking?” Kyden asked, intrigued.

  “I don’t know. I was just wondering if the cases were the same as Rynn’s attack. If there is a connection, a similar story.” I pulled the first box over again. “The odd thing is that Rynn survived.”

  Kyden arched a brow at me. “Good thing she did.”

  I waved it away, knowing his misunderstood me. “No, I know it is a good thing, but why? All of these women were basically eaten. Rynn was bit, yes, but she survived. He didn’t destroy her completely.”

  “She does make a good point,” Ryker added. “If all these cases were so similar why did Rynn’s attack veer away from that?”

  “Could it be another change in the pattern of attack?” Zia said, but it was clear she was thinking aloud.

  Hadley looked shocked, her eyes wide with excitement. “This girl survived the attack?”

  “Indeed she did. The Patriarch is looking after her as is his Beta.”

  “Did you talk with her?”

  “No,” Kyden replied.

  “Hmm…maybe I should pay her a visit,” Hadley said.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” I said quickly. Hadley snapped her head toward me. “That wolf has been through enough. Having someone from the FBI come in and interrogate her is the last thing she needs.” Hadley looked about to speak, but, I continued. “Besides, what can it help? Even if we knew more about the wolf who attacked her, it isn’t going to help any. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack. Our best bet is these files. A name, a witness, anything that gives us a lead.”

  With that, Hadley resigned and we all dug back into our files, searching, hunting for anything to solve this mystery.

  After another five hours of receiving endless paper cuts and drinking enough coffee to give me the jitters, I was pretty much at the same point I started with. Nothing really connected. Yes, all the crimes were very similar, but that was about it. No names, no witnesses—nothing.

  Zia sighed deeply. “This is far worse than I imagined.” She looked around the room at the boxes. “All the cases I have seen have the same M.O. Young women killed for no apparent reason. No evidence, no contacts, simply cold cases.”

  Kyden sighed, and threw his file back into the box. “I have nothing here.”

  “Me neither,” Ryken commented.

  “All my cases run exactly along the same lines.” I sighed. “All young women—brutally murdered.” I started putting the files back into the box. “What do we do now?” I asked Zia when I was through.

  Her gaze met mine, worry etched across her face. “I am not sure. Even if we captured a wolf, they would not be able to tell us anything about who is behind this and why. You have seen them. I doubt they will be eager for conversation.”

  Kyden added, “Which brings a question to mind about who these witches are and why did they choose Dante to be turned to the darkness? He has authority. It was a risk to take him. Seems odd that whoever is behind this would go after such a powerful wolf.”

  “Oh, I know the answer to that,” I said, hastily. “Magnus took Dante to get to me.”

  Kyden’s face darkened. “Did he now?”

  “You got it. He knew of my relationship to Valor. And because he needed to use my magical abilities to get rid of Pye, he used it to his advantage.”

  “Pye?” Hadley looked interested at the mention of his name.

  Ryker smiled, and nodded toward me. “She took him out.”

  He appeared oddly proud. Once he gave up on annoying the hell out of me, or Kyden, with his charming attempts, we had actually become friends.

  Ryker was a lot like Kyden—hence why the two of them had a hard time getting along. They were too much alike, but with my helping hand, their relationship was slowly improving.

  Hadley looked stunned, shocked, scared—any of those s words fit the bill.

  I waved away her expression before she asked any of the questions I could see were running through her mind. “This is old news and I really don’t want to relive it.”

  Zia’s sudden gasp startled me. When I met her gaze, her eyes were wide full of comprehension. “If M
agnus gave up Dante’s name,” her words came in rapid speed, “then he knows who is behind this.”

  Christ! I hadn’t put two and two together. “You’re right.” I smacked my head. “With all that happened I just never thought about it. Do you think he is involved somehow?”

  Zia shook her head. “No. Magnus wouldn’t bother with such things.”

  “But his followers would,” Kyden quickly added.