by A. J. Aalto
Willpower? Booze? A good shrink and a new job? I shook my head, studying the remaining entrails. Something about the color seemed wrong. Greenish. Like the insides of a lifelong alcoholic, pickled. When Hood’s footsteps receded and a second, louder set took their place, I closed one eye against the glare of the winter sun and peered up.
Batten moved to shadow my face. He was pure manly perfection, from the tips of his oddly beautiful feet, all the way to his deep lake-water blue eyes framed strikingly by lush, black lashes and playful eyebrows prone to darting upward at my antics. I knew firsthand that his body was a hard, muscular six-foot journey of the most heavenly delights known to womankind. His only flaw was a tendency to be an asshole, but even that had no power to cool my hormones most days, and most nights I had impure fantasies about him being an even bigger jerk in just the right way. I had not forgotten how delicious forbidden sex was; it was especially hard to ignore when it was standing right in front of me. Clean-shaven, he was a knockout. With a goatee, he was soul-crushingly sexy.
Today, alas, he was sporting the early signs of a push-broom style mustache. Faced with Charlie Chaplin, I expected ragtime piano music to start any second, and my libido mercifully snuffed out like a cheap candle.
“Wow,” I noted, crinkling my nose, taking my gloved fingers off my wrist-elastic. “Thanks for the comic relief, Groucho.”
He wilted. “It’s Movember. I take it you disapprove.”
“Was it your intention to morph from MegaHunk to Manstrosity? Ooh, I bet that's SyFy's next dating show!” I could see the terrible CGI intro graphics already.
Batten glared down at me, hands on hips. The hands and hips and everything in between still looked rock-hard and sexy as ever, but there was no way I'd be turning down the chance to mock him.
“Is it real?” I asked.
“Of course it’s—” He sputtered into silence, eyes seeking patience in the distance before returning to me. “As opposed to what?”
“Maybe you had a tragic accident with a toothbrush and some bootblack.”
His jaw did a clench-unclench dance, muscles rippling with displeasure.
“Is it a stick-on? It looks like a stick-on,” I said helpfully.
“It’s not a stick-on. Stop saying stick-on,” he ordered.
“You look like the dude from Jeopardy,” I continued. “There’s grey in it.”
“I’m almost forty,” he said through his teeth. “What’s the goddamned case?”
“I’ll take What’s Under The Truck for five hundred, Alex.” I crooked one finger toward the shaded body. “Careful getting under here, old-timer. I hear a hip replacement’s costly.”
He hunkered next to me with a feral, vital fluidity that almost made me forget his ridiculous facial accoutrement, but I saw the flinch around his eyes as his knees popped.
“It’s awesome, truly,” I assured him. “For the first time in my life, I feel hotter than you.”
“Please,” he muttered. “Grasp reality with both hands firmly.”
Reality is not being allowed to grasp Kill-Notch firmly with both hands, my brain taunted. “Reality and I aren’t on speaking terms at the moment. We’ve got half a corpse under here.”
“What the—” He made a grab at my ass, and if I hadn’t rolled to one side, he would have had my Beretta mini Cougar. “How many times have I told you, you do not need a gun?”
“Think I’ll keep it, Wyatt Earp. I wanna live. It’s this new thing I’m trying.” I waited until I was sure he wasn’t going to grab for it again before shimmying closer to the body under the truck. “Besides, Chapel said I’m allowed. Got my papers and everything, so you can stop trying to ineptly cop a feel any time now.” I shot him a warning look, because that was the extent of self-control I had.
“You shouldn’t be allowed to carry anything more dangerous than a feather duster.”
My eyes narrowed further. “Are you picturing me in a French maid’s outfit?”
He surprised me with a twitch-smile of admission and got down on his knees beside me to look under the truck. His humor promptly dissolved as he considered the scene for a moment, then popped to his feet with easy agility and went back to walk the gore trail along the markers, placing his boots carefully, eyes sharp, his darting gaze missing nothing. He crooked a finger at me and, feeling a bit like an obedient pet, I rose and went to his side.
“What’s that?” He stabbed a finger at an organic smear.
“Blue gunk.”
“Thank you, Doctor Baranuik.”
“It appears to be…” I took a deep sniff, leaning over and wiggling my nose bunny-style. The smell didn’t make sense at first, that warm stink of molasses swimming up from the streaks of ink-blue goop. I lowered myself down on the asphalt once more and got my face near it, one gloved hand keeping my hair up out of the mess. “Revenant nectar.”
“Vampire blood,” he translated, using the V-word, whether for his own comfort or to annoy me, I could never tell.
It wasn’t until I heard the winch on the jumbo-size tow truck that I put it together. Batten was two steps ahead of me.
“No, no, no!” I bolted back to the truck. “Don’t move the truck! Don’t touch that body!”
Batten sprinted ahead, hollering “Hold up!” over the squeal of the winch.
“What’s wrong?” Hood said, waving the activity to full stop. “The medical examiner is waiting.”
I shoved past him and flung myself to ground, belly hitting gravel. I elbow-crawled beneath the trailer as far as I dared. There, where the shade of the truck made the road dark, was a yawning emptiness I recognized now, as the revenant’s VK-Delta sleep lightened and he began to stir. Batten must have noted some movement; he flinched, and his hand sank to his ankle, where I knew he’d have a sheathed rowan wood stake.
“Down, hunter,” I said. “He’s the victim here, remember?”
“Is he?” Batten breathed down the back of my neck. “Maybe the driver will tell a different story.”
“He’s got half a body, Kill-Notch. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to lunge out from under the truck and eat our faces, so back down, fuck-knuckle.”
Hood crouched with us. “What’s going on?”
“Vic’s a revenant. If you pull him out before sundown, you’ll dust him.”
“But he’s dead,” Hood said.
“He’s not, or he’d already be ash,” I pointed out, adding the mental facepalm I’d earned for not recognizing the pattern the little details made immediately: the faintest scent of burning molasses, the greenish organs, the finger of light blue nectar trickling from opened, blood-fattened veins. Some preternatural expert I was. “He’s got a chance. He’s grounded by the sun now, but once it’s fully dark, we can pull him out and help him. Maybe.”
Batten did a double-take but said nothing. His scrunched eyebrows said it for him.
I offered, “He may be able to regenerate this much damage. We don’t know how old he is.” Ancient revenants could, with just an infusion of fresh blood, revive from years of desiccated torpor and recover their superhuman strength almost immediately. Harry, at four hundred and change, could be up and dancing not long after having his throat slit. On the other hand, my brother, Wesley, had taken a flask of holy water to the kisser mere months after turning, and was still attempting to mend the scars. I'd stopped calling him Harvey Dent after he'd developed an altogether too-good ability to laugh like The Joker at his most deranged.
“Organs?” Hood asked me.
“Don’t know. If the gastrosanguinem is intact, he might have a chance. It must be partially present or he'd already be gone.”
“Bone?” Hood boggled. “It’s all gone below the waist.” There was a definite waft of discomfort coming from Hood, and as the Blue Sense did a metaphysical yawn-and-stretch, my empathy offered a glimpse of his uneasiness. I wouldn't have expected him to be rock solid in the face of a frankly gruesome torture-and-hate buffet like we had here, but there was something deep in
him that was quailing at the notion of being permanently disabled. I supposed I understood; he was healthy and active and had to be to do his job, but this was deeper than that.
“If it can’t regenerate?” Batten asked, ignoring a beep from his cell phone.
I heard the “it” but let it go. When my cell phone buzzed in my back pocket to indicate a text, I ignored mine, too.
“If he can’t regenerate, we might have to put him down,” I acknowledged, “as a kindness.”
“Like when a dog is hit by a car,” Batten said.
I stared him down, hoping my displeasure would make him look away. He didn’t even blink.
“No,” I said. “Not at all like a dog hit by a car. This is a man.” I gave him space to be a jerk, but he didn’t take it. Instead, he seemed to be assessing whatever was showing on my face. “Immortal, yes, but still a man. He should be given the opportunity to try to recover. Darkness, blood, time. If we can get an ID, we could contact his DaySitter, if he has one.”
“He can’t live, not like that. He’s …” Hood lost words, and a lick of hopeless despair hit me. I didn’t blame him. It was hard to imagine anything walking away from that kind of trauma. Especially without legs. That would definitely make the walking part tricky.
“Give him a shot at it,” I said firmly, “or at least let him end with some dignity, cast no shadow on his own terms.”
“Mars—“
“This is me, refusing to back down,” I told them, wriggling a gloved finger at my Serious Business face. “If he can’t manage it, and he asks, I’ll stake him myself.”
Batten made a low, unhappy noise and rubbed the back of his neck. “No, you won’t.”
“I can,” I said, knowing damn well I probably couldn’t.
“Did you bring a cookie jar to keep the ashes in?” Batten said knowingly, ignoring another beep on his phone.
My temper had finally had enough. “Don't take this the wrong way, but go fuck yourself with a turnip.”
There was movement in the shade of the truck, and Batten and I shut up abruptly in unison.
The head rolled slightly to face us, if you can “face” someone without much of a face to speak of. Sandpapered cheekbone showed in rough patches through bright flesh speckled with road grit. Light, inky blue nectar rushed visibly through exposed veins and filled one eyeball almost completely; the revenant had apparently fed well before going to rest. Under mangled strips of what had once been his lips, broken shards of teeth were like half-eaten Chiclets. I tried not to stare; it was harder than it should have been, considering I didn’t want to look.
The victim grimaced, or I think that’s what he did. It was hard to tell.
“Can I get a moment of privacy here, gentlemen?” I said over my shoulder, but didn’t wait for them to back away before I started inching further under the truck. Hood crunched away. Batten didn’t budge.
Surrounded by metal and blood and a fresh spark of burnt sugar, I fought a moment of dizziness under the truck, not at all reassured by the stubborn presence of Kill-Notch Batten, super-pro vampire hunter. For a moment, I had a perfectly reasonable vision of this revenant striking like a cobra and tearing out my throat before Batten could flinch.
“Hail, glorious Elder,” I said softly, conscious of the fact that the damage to his head may be causing extraordinary pain. “Death Rejoices, cherished master of the grave, keeper of the gift of immortality.”
Recognition flickered through the eye that wasn’t shot-through with inky swirls. “Hail, honored DaySitter,” he rasped with grateful formality, his accent an interesting blend of New York City and something redolent of eastern Europe; maybe Czech or Romanian. “Centuries untold celebrate your gift of submission.”
“Yeah, well, don’t celebrate my submission too soon, sweetheart. You’re in no fuckin’ condition to get your feed on.”
“Bold are you with your words,” he said. “Unfettered is your tongue.”
Batten chuckled knowingly behind me. Jerk. Sexy jerky-jerkface. I filed that chuckle away for future personal use, because my libido is a jerk, too.
“I’m not a fetters kinda girl.” Oh, you are such a liar, Harry's voice coiled up from my crowded libido's repertoire, and I heard the clank of iron and the whisper of silk and—Nope! Faceless revenant under a truck, Marnie. Focus. “I spit the bit. Say, why are you chained up under a truck? Did you hurt the nice little werewolf?”
His face peeled back in a horror-trope snarl that cold-cocked me right in the fear nodes. It took me a second to realize that he was smiling. “I made love with his wife.”
Batten muttered, “Should’ve hit it and quit it before Wolf Boy got home.”
I shot Kill-Notch a glare over my shoulder, then asked the revenant, “How did a lycanthrope get you into chains? You could have easily overpowered him.”
“I slept.”
“Was she worth it?” I asked, pure curiosity. “Could anyone be worth this?”
The revenant closed his eyelids and let out a long sigh. It was full of bliss, and was as good an answer as any. I wondered if I’d risk being dragged to death for a chance at boffing Batten one more time. The warm quiver of lust in my belly warned that I couldn’t handle the answer, so I shut my brain up, resolved to see a sex therapist, snapped my elastic, and crept back out from under the truck. When I got to my feet, Hood returned, de Cabrera following him. I reminded myself to get on Elian's ass about punctuality, because my car wasn't that fucking far away, and I'd been under the truck, crawling in revenant scrapings, twice already.
Batten was standing too close and staring too hard. I side-stepped closer to Hood and stuffed my hands in my pockets, avoiding his gaze by studying my Keds and taking my Tyvek bunny suit and neoprene gloves from de Cabrera with a scowl.
Hood crossed his arms across his chest and asked us. “Guidance?”
I shook my head sadly. “Messy. Legally, revenants are dead; in this country the living dead have no rights under current laws. Lycanthropes are humans with a disability as far as the courts are concerned, and trump revenants on all legal matters. If the driver claims that this revenant assaulted him first, he won’t even have to prove it; the revenant has to be staked. Has he said anything of the sort?”
Hood grimaced thoughtfully to keep from letting an unprofessional grin slip through. “He hasn’t said a thing. I’m not sure his mouth is completely re-grown.”
Blerg. “The best you can do, besides the weapons charges, is cite the guy for driving around with a corpse under his truck. Transporting a biohazard or something. Gotta be at least littering, right?”
Hood’s face crumpled like he had a mouthful of bad shellfish. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. Where is my coffee?” I glared at the men in front of me, and then gave up hope for caffeine before returning home, where I’d do things to my espresso maker that would make Mister Coffee blush. “We need to remove the chains from the revenant. My guess is they’ll have silver content and he won’t be able to touch them with his bare hands. Er…” I thought of the evidence bags in Hood’s Hummer. “Hand, singular.”
“Unchain him and then what?” Hood asked.
“Then someone will stay with him until sundown.” I slipped my gloves off so I could call Harry. “I’m guessing you’ll want that someone to be me, though I'm positive Agent de Cabrera could use the experience.” He blanched visibly and faded back a step, but I wasn't letting him escape. “C'mon, Cuban. Golden took a zombie spider to the face; Batten's been pimp-slapped by ancient revenants; the least you can do is play blood-bag barista. Monster-wrangling builds character.” I slapped him on the shoulder and favored him with the biggest, fakest grin I could muster.
De Cabrera muttered something that probably wasn’t English and definitely wouldn’t fall under the umbrella of positive thinking, but nodded. Batten stepped away to finally answer his ever-beeping phone, his responses curt and clipped. Whatever the other person on the line was saying carved big worry lines in Batten’s
forehead, and his grip on the phone tightened. I watched him with one eye while thumbing Harry’s number.
When my Cold Company’s ultra-polite message picked up, I said, “Harry, I’m just past Lambert’s Crossing outside Ten Springs at a crime scene. There's a badly-injured but fairly civil and lucid revenant here. I need at least four pints of O-neg, thawed and toasty, as soon as possible after dusk.” I thought for a second. “And espresso. And a cookie. Please.” Then, to cover all my bases, “Thank you, your Lordship.”
Batten crammed his phone into his back pocket, grunted something at Hood, and started away from us, head down, shoulders forward like a charging bull.
“Hey, whoa.” I pointed after him. “Where does Weekend At Bernie’s think he’s going?”
Hood touched my shoulder with unexpected hesitancy. “Mars.”
I shook him off, not liking the sudden warning sign from the circle of cops, the palpable shift in mood, from serious to downright grim. The Blue Sense stirred deep in my belly and caused a flush of anxiety in my veins, coming from Hood. I moved to follow Batten to his SUV, determined to catch him before he hit the gas, but Hood put his body in my path, squaring his shoulders at me.
He shook his head. “Don’t. Just let him go.”
“What’s going on?”
He turned his face up to the sky and sighed heavily. “Sorry, Mars, you're off the case.”
“What? Why?” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “I just called in a take-out order for Sir Missenguts over there.”
“The FBI is suspending Gary Chapel and the PCU.”
CHAPTER 2
“VACATION?” I SPUTTERED into the phone. “Bossman, what are you even talking about? How can the entire preternatural crimes unit go on vacation?”
I had completely forgotten about my need for caffeine, or how good Batten had looked in his FBI jacket; funny, I never thought a conversation with Chapel could disperse thoughts of my favorite things. I was pacing back and forth in my home office, watching the first faint snowflakes of winter dust the dark window, blurring my view of the moon above the aspens. My cat, Bob, laid in a proud ginger and cream sprawl across the papers on my desk, a furry emperor on his divan waiting to be hand-fed, giving precisely zero fucks about my agitation or its source. Chapel spoke calmly in my ear, but I didn’t hear half of it; we were all being suspended, pending an investigation of our conduct by the FBI’s Internal Affairs Division. It wasn’t the first time I’d been in trouble, and it probably wouldn’t be the last, but it felt like shit all the same.