Death Be Blue (The Terra Vane Series Book 1)

by Katie Epstein

  “A wendigo?” he asked as he assessed me with those piercing blue eyes. They didn’t have the blue-gray coloring like Kaleb’s, I noticed, they were more crystalline. But I also knew that a wolf shifter’s eyes turned golden when they changed or when they were pissed off. It was an early warning sign I’d seen more often than I should have as my stubbornness had a way of annoying control freak shifters.

  “That’s what’s in the report,” I replied snidely, then forced myself to get back on track before I had a suspension slapped onto my wrist.

  “I don’t get it.” He rubbed his hands up and down his face as if he was trying to erase his disbelief. “Do you have a death wish? Is that what it is?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You came up with the idea of putting yourself up as bait for a killer who ate his victims. I would say that’s the perfect example of a death wish. Then you put Kaleb in danger. He had no choice but to intervene because you were just about to be eaten by a creature rumored to be extinct. Am I right so far?”

  He was evidently waiting for an answer so I nodded.

  “I’m glad we agree.” He looked at my report again. “It says here that you thought the wendigo put something into his mouth and he visibly cringed before continuing with his change. You also highlighted that his irises had a blue ring around the edges that made his eyes appear as if they were shining.”

  “Yes.”

  “And this happened after he put something into his mouth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Before this, you boarded the carriage with the known assailant and he veered away from the city. Then he took you to the grasslands where you exited after appearing scared. The driver he’d used was paid to leave you with the killer. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, but I also highlighted that a sketch of the—”

  “The driver has already been apprehended after a communication was sent out to a Ground Patrol firm. After receiving a partial summary of your report, they found him and brought him in about half hour ago. He will be dealt with. As will the remains of the wendigo, our known killer, who is now burnt to ash without any formal identification.”

  “I didn’t have time to ask for his citizen badge,” I snapped, before falling silent beneath Cole’s warning glare.

  “It is fortunate for you that when I called a contact of mine at Portiside Prison, some confidential information was brought to light. My contact was aware of a wendigo who had been discovered some time ago when Portiside was still forming its society. This wendigo is the only known one of its kind, and on several occasions it failed the reform program of the prison it was assigned to. It was relocated to the Territorial Shifter Hold to test its survival rate against the rogue shifters. They didn’t know about the escape until I told them of your report.”

  “What?” I asked, wondering how the wendigo had escaped past security. The Territorial Shifter Hold was the second most guarded place in Portiside. The prison being the first. It was where a lot of rogue shifters were sent to live out their time when they could no longer integrate into society. It was also a place where prisoners who could not officially be reformed were sent in place of a death sentence.

  “I also called a professor I know who works at the Portiside Schoolhouse,” Cole continued. “He knows all there is about the different species who reside here. Including a little bit about wendigos.”

  “And?”

  “He told me that none of the information documented about them said that they could move as fast as you described in your report.”

  “Kaleb’s report should back up mine.”

  “I’m not disputing your report, Terra,” Cole said, using my first name. I hated the way goosebumps of the nice kind rose up on my arms when he did so.

  “Then what are you alluding to?”

  “I’m alluding to the fact that wendigos don’t have unnaturally fast speed, or blue rings around their irises. Nor are they supposed to be extremely flammable. I’m not liking that you thought he popped something into his mouth beforehand.”

  “Are you thinking drugs?” I asked, knowing that drugs weren’t a big thing over here like they were on Earth. Who needed drugs if you had access to magic or super strength by birth? Even the human citizens rarely touched the lab-created stuff. There was little need for them to when they could buy the legal herbs and potions available over here.

  “It’s just an assumption. But from what I understand, you did something extremely dangerous tonight that was borderline protocol. And I could have had two dead agents as a result of it.”

  “But—”

  He put his hand up to stop me. “I don’t want to hear it. You throw yourself in danger time after time, and on this occasion, you dragged your partner into it. You may have a death wish, Agent Vane, but I will not have my other agents risked because of the need to protect you unnecessarily. Are we clear?”

  Now it was back to Agent Vane. The tic in my jaw felt like it was working overtime. His words cut deep. And it hurt that he wouldn’t have considered any other agent in this regard because they could heal faster. Not to forget that we had also taken a very dangerous killer off the streets—something I was about to remind him of.

  “He was escalating. He would have continued to kill. And it’s only because of my vision that we discovered he was hunting in the Victorian Quarter. He was taking his victims elsewhere to kill them.”

  “That may be …”

  “Anyone could have been next. What if it had been a child? Or someone you knew? What if he had decided to take a few out at the same time? He was getting arrogant and hungrier, I could sense it in him, and there was nothing that would have stopped him. Nothing.”

  “If you had waited for back-up …”

  “Then we would have lost him. We acted with the information and resources we had at the time, and now he’s gone. Done. Finished. Any future victims are safe from his claws and another killer is off the streets. That’s what we’re hired to do, Chief Cipher. We’re hired to put ourselves in danger to keep Portiside safe for its citizens. I will not apologize for that.”

  My chest was heaving from the exertion of my impassioned speech. It had taken a lot for me to fight him like that, but I was beyond keeping my head down to stay out of trouble. I could understand his concern for Kaleb. They were brothers. But he was also meant to keep his personal life out of it. Kaleb was a big boy and had agreed with my decision to put myself up as bait. I may be okay kicking myself in the shins about it, but Cole shouldn’t be.

  “I see,” Cole said eventually as I held his gaze. If I could pat myself on the back for such a feat I would have done so. Staring down a predator of any kind wasn’t fun. Fighting the wendigo must have really elevated my ego.

  He waited a moment before burrowing into his desk drawer to retrieve some papers. He then tossed them across to me as he leaned back in his chair.

  “Here are your sanctioned papers. They state that you’re on a seven-day break from your job as an EFA with a pending notice that you are to report back to me before being enrolled back onto a shift.”

  “What?” I asked, not quite sure if I’d heard him correctly. “You’re suspending me?”

  “Be lucky that isn’t the case.” He nodded his head toward the paperwork. I leaned closer and snatched it up to read.

  “You’re officially desisting me?” I asked, as the words seemed to float around the page. The official paperwork that prevented an agent from duty and all of their perks and benefits was now in my hands, with my name on it. It might not be something that would go on my permanent file, like a suspension would, but it still grated.

  “Think of it as forced annual leave,” he replied, and I slowly looked up to see him studying me like a complex puzzle. Those eyes of his … They pulled me in for a moment, as if I could sense something deeper going on inside of him. Then his face flared with anger once more and the moment was gone.

  “I take an evil killer off the streets and
you’re taking me off duty. How is that fair?” I dared to ask.

  “You went outside of protocol and, because of that, your life, or that of your partner, could have been forfeit. I need my agents to walk the line, Agent Vane, and if you can’t learn to do that, then the next step will be a suspension.”

  “You’ve always done this,” I said to him before I could stop myself. “From the moment I was enrolled into the academy. You’ve done nothing but try to throw obstacles in my path to stop me from being a respected agent. And I don’t think looking after the weak human is a good enough excuse anymore.”

  “Terra …”

  “No. I’ve had enough. Seriously. I’m sick of it.” I stood up out of my seat, the paperwork scrunched up in my palm. “Dan tried to stop me from becoming an EFA. He begged and pleaded with me every step of the way to back out. But that stopped when I earned my badge. He respected me after seeing that I was capable of surviving, and since that moment he has let me be. But not you. Oh no. Not you. While Dan often asks me to go over to Earthside to help out on FBI cases, you try to keep the more serious ones out of my path. The only reason you couldn’t let this one slide is because all of the other agents were too busy to take it on. And I would bet a month’s currency that you told Kaleb to watch my back, or to keep me in line.”

  “Will you please sit down?” he demanded, but the demand was a quiet and threatening one. Cole didn’t need to raise his voice to dominate the room.

  “What’s the point? I’m off duty, aren’t I? Rules and protocol don’t apply to me for the next seven days.”

  “Sit down, damn it!” he shouted, and his chair slammed against the wall as he stood up. His eyes flared golden and everything in me, every instinct, every heartbeat, told me to get my ass out of there while it was still in one piece. But my stubborn nature was another one of my downfalls. My feet stayed rooted to the spot while my eyes remained focused on his. I didn’t move an inch, and I certainly didn’t sit down.

  My breathing was heavy as I tried to control my own temper, but I didn’t mind riding the heat of it. A small part of me knew that once I calmed down I would regret even opening my mouth. But rationale was a little absent right now.

  “You push me at every turn,” he said, and he slowly stalked around the desk like the predator he was. He stopped about a foot in front of me, and I had to look up to keep eye contact. His eyes shone as if they were literally on fire, and some of my anger seeped away.

  “I didn’t mean …”

  “Shut up. You know you mean it.” He stepped closer and it took all I had to remain where I was. “You push me and challenge me because you think you can. But there is a limit. One you need to start adhering to.”

  The arrogance of his comment stoked my temper once more, but this time I had the brains to keep my mouth shut.

  He leaned close and my heart pounded so hard against my chest I could barely hear anything else. Panic at what he could do in such close proximity made me lose my head for a second. He came closer and I tilted my chin up for something. Anything. Nothing. I don’t know. Then he said, “Don’t push me again.”

  His words jolted me as if a bucket of cold water had been dunked on my head. My cheeks flamed and I quickly righted myself.

  “I earned this,” I told him through gritted teeth. “I earned my badge like the rest of them, and you make me out to be weak.”

  “You are weak,” he simply stated as he moved back to his desk. He looked smug, as if satisfied with what his closeness had done to me. “But that’s because you’re human. It doesn’t mean you’re a weak agent. Know the difference.”

  Emotion caught in my throat from the backhanded compliment. I waited a few seconds before replying, “I have one of the highest arrest records here. I face every challenge thrown my way. And I’ve just helped take out an extremely dangerous killer. I may not do things in a way that suits you. But you need to remember that just because I don’t have fur, doesn’t mean you can’t trust me to get the job done within my capabilities. I don’t need to be coddled or babysat.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest again and I noticed that his eyes had returned to normal, or at least normal for a shifter. He was studying me in that quiet, threatening way of his, and this time I remembered the rules of animal dominance and cast my eyes to the floor. It went against the grain to do so, but this wasn’t like dealing with an equal member of my own species. This was dealing with a wolf shifter who was extremely good at holding back his inherited fiery temper. I really needed to remember that.

  “You think I don’t know what you’ve been through,” he said eventually, and this time his voice was soft and tender. I hated that fresh goosebumps reappeared along my arms from the sound of it. I dared to lift my head to see what the hell he was up to now. Cole was all about tactics and strategy, so his intermittent behavior was unsettling. “I know what you had to go through to get your badge,” he continued. “I also remember you lying there, bloody, and almost dead on the ground when my brother had to be pulled off you at the academy. That has never sat right with me.” He let out a long breath. “I know you think you’re an equal here, Terra. And you may be so as an EFA. But not as a shifter. You need to stop thinking that you are.”

  A pressure entered my head as my anger and stubbornness clashed with the care and tenderness in his voice. I remembered the day he was talking about, and I vaguely remembered Cole being there.

  Let’s just say it hadn’t gone well and I’d stoked the rage in Kaleb’s wolf to the point where he’d completely lost control. He hadn’t been able to rein in his animal and things had become a little messy. But that had been a long time ago. I hadn’t been an agent then, and I’d been stupid enough to get into the ring with the fastest shifter on the scoreboard. It had been nobody’s fault, and it had brought me and Kaleb closer in the long run. I also thought that I’d proven myself to Cole over the past couple of years. Obviously, I hadn’t.

  With the papers heavy in my hand, my brain switched into gear to remind me that I still had a job I needed to hold onto.

  “I’ll see you in seven days,” I told him, as I rammed the paperwork into my jacket pocket and headed for the door.

  “You need to give me your badge and weapon, Agent Vane.”

  That stung. But I reluctantly removed both of them from my person and slammed them onto his desk. I said nothing as I turned to walk away.

  “Make sure you get some rest,” Cole said to my back. “You look like crap.”

  Yep. There were times when I just needed to keep my big mouth shut.

  CHAPTER SIX

  As soon as the cool night air hit me, I let out my frustration by kicking at a loose pebble on the ground. It may have been petty of me, but I was feeling a little petty right about now. The thought of spending seven days at home stuck in my craw.

  I didn’t mind having the day off every now and again so I could catch up with my stepdad, or one of the few friends I had in Portiside, but what I would do for the rest of the time I didn’t have a clue. My work was both my job and my hobby—if you could constitute catching bad guys as a hobby—and boredom tended to catch up with me outside of it.

  Lifting up my collar, I readied myself for the walk to catch The Rail. I checked my comms to see what time it was and I was grateful that I would only have a half hour wait when I reached the station.

  A light breeze caressed my cheeks and the quiet of the night welcomed me with open arms. There wouldn’t be much foot traffic during this time of night in the Indicium Quarter. It was part of the city that hosted the information hubs, as its Latin title dictated, and it mainly consisted of streamlined buildings for libraries, data hubs and offices where many of the austere financiers and law keepers worked.

  With many of the residential buildings erected on the borders, it was a well thought out quarter of the city as each building emulated one another in their color, structure, and stability. The only thing that differed between them was the size, as not one building bro
ke its cuboid mold. They all stood next to each other, stacked as straight as soldiers, standing as proud and domineering as their inhabitants.

  The manufactured moonlight of Portiside shone down on the offices where a few light-filled windows beamed. At this hour, most of the worker’s would be vampires or other nocturnal species.

  Most vampires would make the journey down from Darkwood to their jobs in the city. The only restriction many of them had to abide by was their limits when moving around in sunlight. That’s why Darkwood was an ideal place for them to reside.

  When the ancients formed Portiside, the Fey arranged it so the Weather Management System (WMS) kept the vampire lands in darkness twenty-four seven. It became a place where the vampires didn’t have to worry about burning to a crisp if exposed for too long to the sun. But there was the odd vamp who preferred to live in the city. It was usually the ones who had the money to convert their living space into a dwelling where the sun wouldn’t burn them to ash, and who didn’t want to be part of the vampire hives.

  There were a also few vamps who could walk in daylight. In some cases, it was due to their age, allowing them to bear the heat a little longer than their younger counterparts. Whereas others had been blessed by magic or possessed magical artifacts. But a lot of vamps tended to be happy with their lot in Darkwood, even if the set-up was a little weird.

  Many of the vampires liked the prestige of it, and only a few preferred the status of being independent.

  My friend, Bernard Vostreux, was one of those few vampires. He was also able to walk in the day due to the Ring of Ra, which basically meant the Ring of the Sun. He’d been awarded it for saving the life of Ramses Delray, the Head of the Osirus vampire house, many, many years ago. Or so he’d told me.

  Bernard lived by his own rules—nobody else’s—but he hadn’t opted for a job in the Indicium Quarter or Darkwood. He preferred to operate as a freelance hunter to any vampires who didn’t abide by the rules of either Portiside or Earthside. He spent a lot of time over on Earth regulating the vampires who had sanction to live there. Not that their numbers were many, but special cases were allowed and required constant monitoring.