by Susan Lain
"Why not?" Alek accosted. He kept shaking his head in clear disbelief. Eliot saw his vulnerability then, how much this mattered to him. Despite his ice-cold tendencies, Alek cared for the mythkin. That realization gave Eliot hope that Alek might be able to care for other things too.
Viho looked at them both with sympathy. "When you figure that out, you will know how to save us all."
For a while it was quiet. Eliot wasn't sure if the shaman was purposely trying to be cryptic or if he simply didn't know the answer but suspected that it laid there. Alek didn't comment either. He seemed to be mulling things over. Eliot let him be.
Then Shiloh cocked her head, as if listening to faraway sounds. Eliot surmised she might be doing exactly that. She rose from her seat, sauntered like a sleepwalker to the counter with a tiny television, and switched it on. The image crackled and frizzled.
A newswoman appeared cool, but a note of distress had crept to her voice. "…were called to the residence of Geoffrey Newell, an Assistant Chief of Police. Inside the house Newell's body was discovered by uniformed officers. Initial reports suggest Newell was shot."
Eliot stood in a rush, his chair clattering to the floor behind him. "Newell's dead!"
Alek cursed out loud. "There goes our only other lead."
"No." Shiloh's dreamy voice floated through the air as she waved in place, as if caught in a trance. Her fingers traced the screen over a sobbing young woman escorted from the house into a police cruiser. "There is another."
Chapter Nineteen
"Where to?" Eliot asked once he and Alek had settled back on the motorcycle and eased into late afternoon traffic. The electric motor hummed beautifully beneath them. "The police station?"
"No. By the time we'd get there, Newell's daughter will already have been released on her own recognizance. No, our best bet is her home."
"Her father was shot there. Why would she go back?"
"When faced with turmoil, people seek the familiar. Just ask Shiloh."
Eliot decided to trust Alek's expertise. For now anyway.
Geoffrey Newell had lived in the same neighborhood as Duke Arrington. It took them mere minutes to reach the site of the shooting. Another wealthy colonial-style house, this one blue, welcomed them with a grisly sight. Red-and-blue lights of the police cars flickered bright even in the autumn sunshine. News vans were parked in every available spot. Residents stood outside their homes in small groups chatting, while police officers guarded the yellow line separating them from the members of media, cameras pointed at the house, some reporters addressing the police, others speaking to the cameras.
"How the hell are we going to get in there?" Eliot asked, wracked with nerves. Slipping in unnoticed would be impossible.
Right then, a voluptuous figure approached them. She was clad in blue jeans and a hoodie, a couple of blond strands escaping past the rim. She had her arms folded over her chest and she kept glancing around, her pace quickening. She stopped by the motorcycle. Eliot could make out distraught eyes and tear striations on a pretty face.
"Agent Saroyan?" she murmured. "I'm Gabrielle Newell. Shiloh called me to expect you. She said you could help me find out who killed my father."
"The police didn't take you in for questioning?" Alek asked, a note of suspicion in his voice.
Gabrielle shook her head. "No. They asked a few questions, but in the end decided not to continue today. I think they're waiting to learn more before they interrogate me again."
"What happened here?" Eliot asked before Alek could be too nosy or insensitive.
Gabrielle's face crumbled and she blinked back tears as she hugged herself tighter. "I was in class at Georgetown this morning. I missed lunch. My dad texted me and asked me home for brunch. I figured great, free food." She let out a watery giggle that died off immediately. "When I came home, he…he was…"
Eliot decided to help her along. "The news said your father was shot?"
Gabrielle scoffed. "If you can call it that."
"What do you mean?" Alek asked, scowling. Eliot wished the agent would display a bit of human emotions, like sympathy, considering the woman had just lost her dad.
"The house was ransacked, every room, including the study where I found him." Gabrielle shuddered, a desolate expression on her face, as she shook her head. "He…his body was riddled with holes. But…they looked odd. Here, I took a picture before I called the cops."
She fished out her cell phone, swiped through her album, and showed them a photo she'd taken. Alek and Eliot both leaned closer to inspect it.
The corpse of a middle-aged man, roundly shaped and with an eighties-style gray mullet, laid on the wreckage of a busted coffee table, wooden splinters and shards from a porcelain vase around him. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, glassy like two marbles. His torso and head were, as Gabrielle had said, a honeycomb of small circular holes.
Eliot frowned in bafflement. "What's so odd about these?"
Alek grunted. "She's right. These aren't bullet holes. They look more like punctures. The skin's red and swollen, as if after a bee sting." He looked up at Gabrielle. "Did your father own any animals with stingers?"
Gabrielle shook her head. "No. And don't you think those are too big for, like, a scorpion or a bee?"
"That's true," Alek confirmed, sounding unsure. "They're definitely too big for any animals we know of."
Eliot gasped in shock. "You think that a mythkin did this?" He couldn't believe Alek even suggested such a thing. Thus far he'd been their most stout advocate. What had changed? "I can't believe it. I refuse to."
Alek blatantly ignored Eliot, as if antagonizing him on purpose. Alek spoke to Gabrielle. "The authorities removed the body, yes?" Gabrielle nodded, so Alek asked, "What did your father work on? Did he have any enemies?"
"Dad was a cop," Gabrielle replied acerbically. "He had enemies up the wazoo. It'd be a shorter list who wasn't against him. At the moment, though, he was working on tracking down and convicting members of the Trans-phaser Liberation Army."
"What?" Eliot inhaled, surprised. "Your father was investigating the TLA?"
"How far along was he?" Alek interrupted Eliot again. "Had he identified any members?"
Gabrielle harrumphed. "No. Besides, he wasn't searching for them as some kind of special service to society. He did it because he hated people who thought the mythkin were valuable and good and deserving of protections or rights."
Both Eliot and Alek drew back at that, bristling. Eliot suddenly wasn't all that sorry that Newell was dead. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
"If he despised people who respected mythkin, did he loathe mythkin too?" Alek asked, his tone cool and collected. Eliot could tell he was distancing himself from the ugly truth.
"Yes." Gabrielle glowered, but it was obvious her glare was aimed at her deceased parent. "There was no love lost between him and mythkin. In fact, I think he…" She hesitated, biting her bottom lip. "I think he had designs on hunting them down somehow. Dad was a big game hunter in the old days, you see, before taking public office at the higher levels."
Eliot's blood turned cold. An icy fist of fear clutched his heart and squeezed. A terrifying understanding dawned on him. "Did you ever see him with black-clad military types?"
Gabrielle looked at him, eyes wide with surprise. "H-how did you know?"
"Fuck." Alek kept cursing and banging his palm against the handlebars.
Eliot sighed glumly. "I was afraid of that. You don't happen to know where he met them? At the house?"
"No. They used to pick him up in black SUVs. I saw them through the window. Never felt right in my book. Something suspicious about it all." Gabrielle tilted her head, appearing wistful. "Dad never spoke about his work with me but I overheard a lot. I guess he didn't think I'd be interested even if I did overhear something."
"Did you make out anything useful?" Alek asked, his voice as stern as his expression.
Gabrielle exhaled deep. "Nothing I can recall off the top of my
head. Give me your number. I'll send you the picture of my dad and I'll text you if I find out anything. I'll search the house top to bottom."
Alek punched his number into her phone. Gabrielle texted her the photo of a dead Newell.
As she was about to leave, Eliot commented, "If you don't mind me saying, you don't look terribly overwrought by your father's untimely demise."
Gabrielle bowed her head slightly. "I'm a cop's daughter. Always figured my dad would die a violent, even gruesome death. It was just a matter of time. Guess I've had my whole life to prepare for this night." She glanced back at her home over her shoulder. "I am sad, naturally. He was the only family I had left. Don't know what I'll do now."
Her head inclined, Gabrielle Newell strode back the way the she came, toward a forlorn home. Eliot hoped she had at least a couple of close friends to turn to in her hour of need. It sucked not to have loving people around you, comforting and granting you solace from your woes.
Eliot cringed when he remembered that nothing was yet resolved between him and Alek. They still worked pretty well together but beyond that their relationship was frayed, with both of them on edge. What was the next step for them? Was that even something he should be thinking about right now?
"Listen," Eliot murmured with an awkward tone matching his emotions. "I'm getting kind of hungry and tired. Would you mind giving me a lift home?"
Alek said nothing for a while. Since he sat in front of Eliot, he couldn't see his face. What was he thinking? Eliot didn't think the agent would ditch him on the side of the road, especially at a murder scene. But Alek seemed to lack a basic human ability to feel empathy for another. Of course, he could just be annoyed with the rift in their camaraderie.
"We should talk," Alek said out of the blue, his voice hushed and yearning somehow. "I'd like to have dinner with you. Settle some things."
As pissed off as Eliot still was with Alek keeping secrets from him, he was an adult and would solve problems like one. Didn't mean he had to like it right now, though.
"Fine."
*~*~*
The pack of six tiny black dogs welcomed Alek and Eliot at the door. A note on the desk by the door, inscribed with the time, informed him that Hannah from next door had returned the pups to the apartment mere minutes ago.
Eliot smiled at the eager little fur balls and gathered two up into his arms. The rest of them swarmed him, yapping at and rounding his feet.
"What am I, guys, chopped liver?" Alek muttered under his breath as he made his way to the kitchen to wash his hands, refill the food and water bowls for the dogs, and find plates, glasses, and utensils for the Chinese takeout they'd picked up on route from Reren Lamen & Bar.
Eliot chuckled as he sat on the couch, all the little critters hopping into his lap. "What can I say? Animals adore me."
"They're not the only ones," Alek murmured, studying the steaming contents of the white paper bags.
Eliot stared at Alek's back. He hadn't misheard, had he? Alek had just implied he adored Eliot, hadn't he? Confused, Eliot tried to rein in his temper that flared now that they were alone in a private place where they could hash things out. Eliot had so many questions.
"Why did you imply that a mythkin could be responsible for Newell's death?"
Alek shrugged. "The puncture wounds, well, they remind me of the lacerations I saw in Mexico City in the spring. The smog gnomes, you see, they are nothing like garden gnomes. They're sort of insectoid, with gigantic gray wings like moths and a long nose, like a weevil or an ant-eater. By breath, they consume polluted smog and produce clean oxygen—but if and when they get cross, they can just as easily blow the smog right back out, and in highly concentrated doses too. It's a defensive mechanism as well as a reaction to irritants."
"So?" Eliot asked, not sure where this was going.
"Smog gnomes also have a stinger tail like scorpions. Its highly acidic and venomous. And big enough to cause those puncture wounds we saw on the body."
"Oh." Eliot chewed on the inside of his cheek, absentmindedly petting the dogs on his lap. "But there's no smog in D.C., let alone inside Newell's house."
Alek sighed. "Yes, I'm aware. It doesn't make sense. Yet that was how I interpreted the marks. Guess we'll have to wait for the medical examiner's conclusions to know for sure. Of course, that will take a while." Holding a plate full of food, Alek snapped his fingers. "Off."
The puppies had been trained rather well, Eliot noted. They jumped down to the floor and rushed to their own meals. Alek picked up the other plate as well, carried them both to the dining bar counter, and then spun on his heels to fetch the glasses. Eliot joined him, sitting on the stool at his host's side.
"Yum, that smells freaking delicious," Eliot murmured, his stomach rumbling on cue. He hadn't eaten anything beyond two bites from a chicken sandwich at lunch and cups of tea at Shiloh Arrington's mansion.
"You want dumplings first or you want to dive straight into everything?" Alek asked as he pushed the big plate with smaller bowls on it closer to Eliot.
Sweet scent of pineapple and pepper made Eliot's mouth water. "Pineapple jumbo shrimps and noodles, please. I'll save the pork dumplings for later."
For a while, they ate in silence that was, while not entirely companionable, not uncomfortable either. Eliot quenched his thirst and sated his hunger enough before saying anything to do with the two of them. He used that time to weigh what to say and how to say it. Their relationship was strained, and Eliot wanted to fix it. He just had doubts about whether it was possible with a man like Alek who kept so much to himself.
Perhaps a less loaded topic to get things moving?
"When you brought me here last time," Eliot started quietly. "You said you inherited this place. From your parents?"
Judging by Alek's grimace, this subject was no less fraught than his secrets. "No. I was given this apartment as a gift after the previous occupant left." Alek fidgeted, tilting his neck as if it hurt. "To be honest…"
As Alek's voice faded, apparently to gather his thoughts, Eliot suppressed a sarcastic laugh that would serve no purpose. Instead he waited to hear Alek come clean about what was troubling him.
Alek swallowed, his face pale, his gaze aimed at the wall. "His name was Carl Norris. He was my…Dom back when I was a sub, when I first started playing. He taught me a great deal about sex, submission, domination and scenes. We were together for, what, three years? Yes, that sounds about right. When it became apparent that I wasn't a sub at heart, he…"
Eliot frowned, worried about where this was headed. "He left you?"
Alek turned him in surprise. "What? No. Carl brought in Martin, an actual submissive, so I could train on him as he trained with me. I learned very quickly that was my kink: domination. I also understood after mere months that Carl and Martin had feelings for each other. I didn't, not for either of them. Not…love. Carl accepted a new job out west, in California somewhere. He took Martin with him. In gratitude for ending things amicably, I suppose, Carl left me this apartment. End of story."
Eliot took a sip of his orange juice and considered what Alek had told him. Eliot could tell that Alek wasn't lying about his lack of feelings for the two men. He had a hunch that Alek wasn't cold-blooded as much as he was reserved and private. Alek held back his heart.
Among other things, Eliot concluded dryly.
Before Eliot could address the inflamed topic between them, Alek already jumped in.
"Sometimes when I look at people, I feel like I'm watching another species. Like I'm not one of them, and I've no connection with humanity. I don't know if it's because of my upbringing, learning to observe the world, not participate in it. Or if it's my…special nature that's kept me apart from others. Growing up hearing things no one else did? My mother told me I was blessed, touched by angels. Deep down, though, I had doubts. What if I was crazy…? I didn't want to inflict my burden on anyone else, so I kept my distance from passions. I learned to keep my mouth shut."
Eliot had
trouble breathing. He couldn't understand how Alek could feel so disconnected with his own kind, but he could relate to the underlying feeling of not belonging. Keeping one's true self hidden to avoid hurting others? That sounded noble.
But was it though? After Loreblast, Alek must have realized that what he sensed was real. And especially after Alek and Eliot began making serious progress with their investigation, that should have been the time for candor.
Eliot wasn't sure if he could get past this. Perhaps it was simply too soon. He knew that, for right now anyway, he couldn't trust Alek.
Then Alek continued, his voice cracking, "I've never had cause to change that approach of secrecy and seclusion. Until now." His gaze flicked over to Eliot. "Until you."
If Eliot had had trouble breathing before, now he felt like having a heart attack.
Chapter Twenty
Alek wasn't too thrilled about the deer-in-headlights look that Eliot sported on his lovely face. Had he miscalculated? Had he misinterpreted the signs of a bond forming between them? Or had his secret ruined their relationship beyond repair?
Like a coward, Alek stared down at his nearly finished meal. Once he'd eaten his last few morsels, dinner would be over and Eliot would leave. Alek struggled for the perfect magic words to convince Eliot to stay. But despite Alek's learnedness, speaking from the heart was not his forte. He didn't know what to do.
"You don't read people well, do you?" Eliot asked, startling Alek out of his glum musings.
"No, I don't." Alek could admit that because Eliot already knew that about him. Alek had made no secret of his lack of social graces. Nervous, he met Eliot's green eyes. "For example, right now I can't tell what you're thinking or how you feel."
Eliot frowned, seemingly out of bafflement. "That's what doesn't make sense about you. I know for a fact that you can tell quite easily if and when people keep things from you or if they're lying."
"That's not the same."
"Actually it sort of is." Eliot touched Alek's hand on the table, resting gently. "You see the truth behind the masks people wear. Yet, for some inane reason, you've decided in your head that this ability is different from interpreting social cues from people. But they're not."