by Mary Hughes
“Not the whole world.” Her expression was completely serious now, her attention focused on him. “But what else can we do with people who are immune from normal mind control? We can’t constantly be putting in calls to Iowa.”
“We can if I have anything to say about it.”
She shook her head. “Every time we ask for a favor from that ancient fuh—” she glanced at her son, listening very attentively, “—I mean, that ancient fudgy dude, we end up owing him more. I don’t want to be in debt so deep he owns us. He’s sneaky, sweetheart.”
“He has everyone’s best interests in mind.”
“V-guy interests, sure. But everyone’s? I’m not so certain.”
Bo’s gaze shifted to the door and beyond, as if seeing Mrs. Cook and Mr. Butler and all the people in the apartment. He took in a bushel of air and let it out slowly. “He has a lot of competing needs to balance. That’s not easy.”
She followed his glance and understood something I didn’t, because she rose and went to him, putting her hands lightly on his shoulders. “You struggle with it, but that’s because you’re a good soul. I’m not so sure about him.”
“I’m a good soul because I’m lucky enough to have you at my side.” Bo gazed down at her, his eyes warming. “You can’t compare the Ancient One and me. He’s at a different level. He’s not coping with a handful of my kind and a few dozen humans. He’s balancing the needs of thousands, guiding them over the course of centuries. He has to see the big picture.”
“If you ask me, that only means he’s lost sight of the small one.” She glanced at their son.
Bo followed her glance and sighed again. “You don’t fight fair, Detective.”
“It’s not fighting when I’m right.” Her tone held equal parts smugness and love.
“Clue me in here?” I said. “What are you talking about?”
Elena didn’t answer, focused on her husband. “Do we tell her or not? Leave the Ancient One out of it. We’re here, he’s not. It’s up to us.”
“It’s up to us here and now,” he agreed. “But whatever we decide, it’s Elias who will eventually have to deal with it.”
“I can live with that.” She started to turn out of his embrace.
He pulled her back. “If you tell her, she’s no longer off limits to Nosferatu.”
“I know.” She searched his face. “I don’t think we have a choice.”
“Nosferatu,” I said. “That’s the name Blackthorne gave to those Lestats’ boss.”
Elena spun to face me, consternation written on her face. “Bacon-wrapped damn.”
“Damn,” Rorik said happily.
She clamped her eyes. “Super-frag-me-ilicious. There goes that vice.” She glanced at her son.
Bo was staring mournfully at me. “We’re screwed. She already knows everything.”
“No, she guesses,” I said. “But think of all the trouble she can get into if she guesses wrong. I personally think you should tell her the details.”
One corner of Elena’s mouth quirked. “Except she’s a Ruffles.”
“Even more reason to tell her,” I shot back. “So she doesn’t go around blurting things about vampires like her brother.”
“Point,” Elena said.
“Fine.” Bo’s hands flailed in the way that meant anything but fine. “Tell her. But ask yourself where it ends.” He strode to a liquor cabinet, yanked out a heavy crystal decanter and poured three fingers of something with fumes so strong they nearly knocked me senseless from across the room.
Elena returned to the couch and sat next to me. “Okay, here’s the deal. V-guys are real. We don’t use the term in public—mostly. Sometimes we slip. But we try hard not to say anything because there’s maybe one v-guy to every couple thousand humans. They’re hugely outnumbered and vulnerable.”
“But aren’t they super strong?”
“The older ones are. But fledglings are only a bit stronger than humans. And strength isn’t everything—even ultra-mega-strength can’t stand up to extreme ordnance.” She glanced at the locked cabinet, with its grenade launcher and who knew what else. “Mostly. There are really ancient ones who can, like Dracula—”
“Dracula’s real?”
“Oh yes. But he’s not a threat right now because…well, it’s complicated.”
“Dracula is real. Wow. Does he look like Jonathan Rhys Meyers?” All the times Dirk talked vampire, I’d never once thought anything of it because, well, Dirk. Since meeting Blackthorne though…dozens of questions bubbled up all at once. “And what about the other legends? Drinking blood, sleeping in coffins in native soil, killing people for food…” Which creeped me out until I thought of Blackthorne’s hot mouth at my neck, sucking, and I got a full-body shiver of pleasure.
Elena said, “Some of it’s true, but not the way you think. You should get it from the expert. Bo, honey?” She fluttered her eyelashes at him.
“No.” He tossed off his drink and poured another, crystal clinking against glass. “I’m not getting co-opted into this again.”
“But sweetheart, I can’t use words like symbiosis without sounding like an ass.”
“Ass.” Rorik clapped his hands.
“Fine.” Bo brought his drink to the couch and flopped onto my other side. “If only to save my son’s innocence. My kind drinks blood for our veins, not our stomachs. It’s like transfusions by mouth, so it must be human blood. We don’t need much, maybe three pints a month, so we don’t have to kill. In fact, many of us live in symbiosis with humans, in households like this. We offer protection in return for the gift of life.”
“See?” Elena said. “This is why you had to explain. If I said ‘gift of life’ it’d sound like a bad movie.”
He grimaced, but there was an edge of helpless aw she’s so cute love to it.
I wanted that.
But my wantee was Blackthorne, an alleged assassin, so it wasn’t happening. I muttered, “Mace and the gang weren’t cooperative.”
“V-guys are predators by nature,” Elena said. “Some still hunt humans, just as some humans still hunt and fish. But innocent humans are never killed.”
“More of my kind would kill,” Bo said. “If not for the Ancient One.”
“Yeah, point. That ancient fuh…I mean fudger has his uses.”
“V-guy philosophical differences?” I asked.
“Political.” Bo drank off his glass, his strong throat bobbing as he swallowed. “The Iowa Alliance versus the Chicago Coterie.”
“We’re Alliance,” Elena said. “Led by Kai Elias. The Iowa Alliance because he lives there. The Coterie is led by Arnaud Nosferatu, from his Chicago stronghold-slash-mansion.”
“Alliance versus Coterie?” I said. “Then who are the Lestats?”
“Gang muscle,” Elena said. “There are branches of the Lestats all over the country. The Chicago Lestats are run by the Chicago Coterie.”
“But not even Lestats kill humans?”
“Not in Meiers Corners.” Bo snarled it. “I make sure of it.”
Elena said, “Rogue v-guys kill humans.”
My hand rose to my throat. “Assassins?”
“No, usually insane,” Bo said. “Or fledglings, too young to know better. The blood thirst can be overwhelming. But Sun-Hee—now that you know all this, you have to be careful. There’s an unspoken truce that noncombatants aren’t to be harmed. But humans in the know are assumed to have chosen sides. They can be captured, or worse.”
Strangely, that thought didn’t bother me nearly as much as the question behind all my others, the one that hadn’t been answered but that I really did not want to ask straight out. I tried one last time. “So you’re part of the Iowa Alliance, and the Lestats are part of the Chicago Coterie. And the guys at Dawn trucking?”
“Casual labor,” Bo said. “They come and go
. They don’t live in Meiers Corners. But believe me, none of them kill, not in my town.”
“Yeah, but…but Blackthorne’s an assassin,” I finally blurted. “Right?”
“Oh, Sun-Hee.” Elena took my hands. “Don’t worry. I haven’t assigned you to a cold-blooded killer.”
Apparently she hadn’t seen him in action. But hearing her say it, I realized how silly I was being. Who better to assign to watch over a killer than a cop?
Maybe a cop who still had both her guns. Or one of those really cool grenade launchers. “Then Blackthorne isn’t an assassin?”
“He was trained as one. But that was a long time ago.” She gave my fingers a brief squeeze. “You can trust me when I say he’s not the same person now as when he was as a boy.”
“A boy?” My voice didn’t work right. “He was trained to kill as a boy?”
She winced. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“You can’t drop that on me and not explain.”
“It’s not my place. Not my secret.”
“I don’t care. Tell me.”
Chapter Twelve
Elena exchanged a pleading look with her husband. He shook his head. She glared, not quite The Look but he wasn’t getting any intimate birthday presents in the near future. Grimacing, she said to me, “I only mentioned it to show that the assassin training wasn’t Blackthorne’s fault. He was orphaned and at the mercy of a sociopath.”
“What?” I was going to kill said sociopath. “Who?”
Bo snarled, “Nosferatu. And you’ll have to get in line.”
“Blackthorne wasn’t at his mercy long.” Elena rubbed my arm comfortingly. “It was only a few years before he and a friend escaped to Minnesota.”
Years. At the mercy of a sociopath. My heart ached for him.
“I wish I knew why he was here now,” she said.
“He comes around occasionally,” Bo said. “To scout out his enemies, Nosferatu and the Ancient One.”
I startled. “Blackthorne’s enemies with the Ancient One? I thought you said Blackthorne is your friend.”
“He is our friend,” Elena said quickly.
“No, his friend Holiday is our ally,” Bo corrected. “But allegiances change.”
Elena said firmly, “He’s our friend.”
As casually as I could, I said, “Even if he’s a friend, there’s still Mace and the other Lestats. I don’t suppose you have any antivampire handcuffs? I’d like to be better prepared next time—”
“There’s not going to be a next time,” Elena said. “Sun-Hee, it’s far too dangerous for humans to fight v-guys.”
I was already shaking my head. “I’m a police officer. Sworn to uphold the law for everyone, whatever their color, creed or canine length.”
“A cop,” Bo said. “Like you, Detective. You wanted her to know. Now she does. Deal with the consequences.”
The Strongwells exchanged a glance. Elena said, “It’s risky.”
“Yes. Is that going to stop her? Would it stop you?”
Elena’s head turned slowly to me, her eyes cop-narrow. “Damn.”
“Damn,” Rorik echoed.
“Protect and serve,” Bo said. “At least give her the tools she needs to do her job.”
“Fine. I don’t like it, but you’re right.” Elena rose, reached under her sweater, unhooked a pair of silver-blue cuffs from her belt and held them out to me. “Here. They’ll hold all but the strongest v-guy. There’s also an antimist feature. Push that button to activate it. But that’s only if you’re backed into a corner and have nothing else, do you hear me? Don’t go after them until you’re properly trained.”
“Properly trained, got it.” I took them and fit them into my pouch.
When I left, I felt both better and worse. The world made much more sense.
But it raised more questions—including how much of the assassin, shaped by a psychopath, was left in Aiden Blackthorne today.
Aiden left the Dawn barn as the eastern sky lightened. He was in deep trouble. That blowjob had taken his head off.
Sex with a mere human shouldn’t—couldn’t—have had such a profound effect on him. Especially not with such a mouse of a woman.
No, a strong, beautiful woman.
No. A cop.
He shook his head. She was a complication he didn’t need but had a bad feeling he couldn’t avoid. And as Ric had pointed out, his bad feelings were never wrong.
He was headed for Settler’s Square to try to find evidence as to what Eloise wanted from him, using shadows where he could, when his phone rang, Ric’s ringtone. Speaking of bad feelings. Aiden answered with a light, “Hello, Mom. I’m fine.”
“Don’t you ‘hello’ me, you ass.” For a change his friend wasn’t out of breath from the almost-constant mated sex. “You had a bad feeling, someone shouted, you hung up and you didn’t call back. I’ve been worried sick. What went wrong?”
“What didn’t? Eloise lured me to Settler’s Square using a cop as bait.” Was the cop she picked intentional? Had Eloise seen Sunny and known she’d be the perfect lure?
His vision turned red. Ex-friend or not, he’d kill Eloise.
“Are you okay?” Ric said, and Aiden realized he’d stopped talking.
He continued both his glide and his story. In a few terse words he painted the rest of the picture.
“I’ve been thinking,” Ric said hesitantly when he finished. “Maybe someone else is gunning for Eloise, and you sprang the traps instead.”
“Really?” Aiden drawled. “Makes more sense to me that they were gunning for me and got me.”
“Yes, but…isn’t this like when we were attacked in Timbuktu?”
Aiden’s feet stuttered. They’d never been attacked in Timbuktu.
It was their codeword for danger.
“Maybe,” he said cautiously. “Now that I think about it. Is John Virid up to his old tricks?” Virid meaning green, their signal for meeting. He held his breath on Ric’s reply.
“Yes, that makes sense.”
Aiden’s breath released. “So how are things in Minnesota?” Asking if they’d meet there.
“Good,” Ric said. “Synnove is thinking of painting the baby’s room pink.”
Meaning not Minneapolis. “Nice. She still set on Maria Catherine for a name?” MC, meaning Meiers Corners.
“Yes. What would you pick?”
Meaning Ric wanted him to pick a place. Ric wouldn’t need to know where exactly—they’d shared blood and either could find the other within a few miles’ radius. “Tommie,” he said, meaning tomorrow.
“Cute,” Ric said. “’Night, Aiden. Sweet dreams.”
Night, meaning tomorrow night. Sweet dreams, meaning they should run silent until then.
Aiden thumbed off as he arrived at the park. He chafed to know what was wrong but obviously Ric was worried about surveillance. It was essential Aiden act as if everything was fine. He looked around. It was more important than ever that he discover Eloise’s game here. This was his first chance to look. He’d returned to the scene immediately after the dropping off Sunny at the station—but to clean up Lestats. Strongwell looked unkindly on hard-to-explain messes, of which body parts scattered in a public park qualified. Then he’d zipped to the depot for a quick rinse and had his mind blown by a cop who was as talented with her tongue as her gun.
But now…the electric cable was gone and the fountain pool cleared; the only sign of the trap was the destroyed outlet. Damn it.
The rising sun hit his skin. Double damn it, time to retire. He’d just have to dig in here and try again tonight.
Dreams plagued me, bad dreams of Smith the Most Wanted hiding behind the pine tree. I confronted her and in true nightmare fashion found that she was me.
I woke much too early, my subconscious stabbing m
e awake with a question. If Smith had set the trap for Blackthorne, how had she known he’d be there? He could have been anywhere in Meiers Corners or beyond.
Unless I was somehow the bait? He did tend to turn up where I was. Damn her if she was using me to get at him. It made me determined to find her.
She found me, instead.
As I showered, my phone chimed an alert. I hopped out, dripping, shampoo stinging my eyes. It was a text message.
We met last night. Want more on Blackthorne? Meet me 9 p.m. tonight. Gazebo Fifth & Lincoln.
Yes. I wanted to arrest her in the worst way, and here she was, practically jumping into my cuffs.
But I wasn’t an idiot. Well, not intentionally. After rinsing, drying and dressing, a plain white tee replacing my cut uniform blouse, I headed straight for the crime lab, tucked in the back of the cop shop. I entered my phone into evidence for CSI to examine. Not Crime Scene Investigations—in Meiers Corners CSI meant Charles Samuel Ignatek, although with his silvered hair and beard he could have walked onto the set of the Las Vegas show ten years ago and been mistaken for a regular. My small town was epic eerie that way. We also had a waitress named Penny and a martial arts instructor named Mr. Miyagi. Mostly we just shrugged and rolled with it.
I headed for the detective pen to let Elena know about the meet and to request backup. She wasn’t in—graveyard shift didn’t start until nine—so I said hi to Detective Gruen and left a note under her family picture. It was seven thirty and I had over an hour, but I wanted to check the site early, so I started out.
Gruen called me back. “Ruffles. I need you to pull a file.”
“Me?”
“Who else understands your brother’s system? Get me the skateboard-jacking ring and the peppermint heist from Randy’s Candies. Then you can pull…”
He kept me busy for over an hour. When I finally sneaked away it was after eight thirty, barely enough time to get to the gazebo and give it a once-over. I did a quick ready-check. Backup Glock 27 and both regular and antivamp cuffs. Good to go. She’d probably have her helpers, Thuggoh and the other guy, and for a moment fear seared me, raising my dark side… Lashing out at the bully, hearing bones break…