Carpe Demon (Carus #3)

by J. C. McKenzie

  Oh boy. “Not really. No.” Inside joke.

  Wick’s eyes narrowed and the stench of old cat piss wound around my body and punched me in the nose. My nose hairs curled at the jealous scent. “I see,” he said.

  “Wick…” My voice trailed off, because what could I say? What would take his pain away? And remove the ache of helplessness in the pit of my stomach?

  Angry vibrations of energy rolled off his body in cinnamon waves. Part of me wanted to reach out and soothe his anger and pain away, the other part thought he deserved it. Hadn’t he hurt me? If he hadn’t allowed Christine to throw her scantily-clad body all over him, if he’d fought Lucien’s compulsion harder, if he hadn’t been used against me again and again by Lucien, my decision might’ve been made already. Not all his fault, but still painful.

  We could’ve been bonded before Tristan ever had a shot. Even now, when my decision appeared obvious due to the obstacles, I hesitated to commit to Tristan because my wolf and a part of my heart still yearned for Wick.

  Wick’s yellow gaze softened, and the muscles in his face relaxed, but his back remained ramrod straight. “It’s okay. I get it.”

  He walked up to me and smoothed his hands up my arms before cupping my face. Leaning down, he placed a soft kiss upon my lips. No heat, just…sweetness.

  “I hope you make the right decision,” he said, pulling away.

  So do I.

  Chapter Six

  “One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains; another, a moonlit beach; a third, a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town.”

  ~Diane Ackerman

  I let the door slam as I exited my car, an older-model canary yellow Honda Prelude I bought to replace the rusty red Ford Contour as my A to B car. I couldn’t decide whether to call it “The Poo-lude” or “Lemon,” both names fit. It needed a paint job to make it less conspicuous. Or maybe I should go the other direction with the car’s appearance—tint some windows and put on a pimped-out spoiler. Then I’d fit right in with some of the sketchy areas I frequented for work. Good thing about owning such a crap car? No one wanted to steal it. Bad thing? No way would I take the officers by surprise with the sounds my car made.

  Red bounded out after me and wove around my feet, her warm fur caressing my skin. Despite being almost midnight, the summer air licked my skin, warm and heavy with humidity. I wore shorts, an old black T-shirt with a faded AC/DC logo and black flip flops—items easy to rip through or pull off in emergencies. Shifter fashion would never make the covers of any magazines.

  “This better be good,” I warned Stan as I stepped forward and shook his hand. Middle-aged and balding, Officer Stevens smelled of soap and leather. I liked his uneven teeth the most. They pointed in different directions like individuals with multiple personalities, adding character to his otherwise stern face.

  “Got someplace better to be?” he asked with a grin.

  Summoning Sid for Lucien so I could dance the naked hokey pokey? No, not really. I shook my head.

  Stan lifted his chin, nodding at the officer beside him. “This is my supervisor, Sergeant Tony Lafleur. He’s filling me in on witness accounts.”

  Lafleur stepped forward and offered his hand. If I looked up “cop” in the dictionary, Lafleur’s unsmiling face would be smack dab in the middle of the definition. With steely blue eyes, shaved head, smushed-in nose and slightly rotund, but solid belly, Lafleur screamed career cop, and smelled of gun oil and paper.

  “Okay.” I shook Lafleur’s hand and met his cop stare-down, his grip strong and sure, but not bone-crushing. I glanced around the parking lot. Did Stan expect me to strip down and shift in front of another norm? Not happening.

  “He knows,” Stan said. “About you.”

  My eyes narrowed at Lafleur, who had the intelligence to look away.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Not me, if that’s what you’re asking,” Stan grumbled.

  “How then?” I demanded, glaring at Lafleur.

  “Your agency contacted me,” the sergeant said, his voice a crisp even tone. “They wanted to know how the liaison agreement was working out for us. Imagine my surprise. I was not aware we had such a relationship.”

  I opened my mouth to argue. A liaison? With the VPD, I had acted on my own, not as an SRD pimp.

  Stan cleared his throat and shook his head in a slight movement. Lafleur caught the action and squinted at us.

  “They named me as the liaison?” I asked instead. “And Stan as my contact?”

  “Yes.”

  How’d they figure that out? I’d contacted Stan to fish for a connection between recent thefts and the objects my retrieval target had pawned. Had I told Agent Booth? I couldn’t remember, but she handled that entire case off the books anyway. She wouldn’t have blabbed to anyone. Gauging from Stan’s current expression, he hadn’t filled anyone in either.

  Stan had only called on my services once—to sniff out a mass murder body dump site compliments of a turtle-shaped supe, called a Kappa, hell-bent on making supe-smoothies for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The Kappa had a formidable appetite.

  Sergeant Lafleur was absent at the time. At least, I don’t remember seeing or smelling him there. He had a countenance that would plaster itself to my memory. So many people milled around the crime scene—experts, contractors, technicians. The other officers hadn’t taken any special interest in me, and if a supe had been present from the SRD, I would’ve scented them. So how’d the SRD catch on? Those were the only times that I’d been in contact…

  My place!

  I’d called Stan in to help clean up a Kappa-induced mess in my apartment. The Kappa had sent a team of possessed norms to my place. Lucky for me, he’d underestimated my skills in badass-ery. The SRD must’ve run surveillance on my house and put it together.

  “Who did you speak with?” I asked. Sweat trickled down my back.

  Lafleur pursed his lips and looked toward the building doors, illuminated with police lights. “Seems like I should be the one asking the questions.”

  I bit my tongue and rocked back on my heels on the asphalt.

  “Is it true?” Lafleur asked.

  “What?”

  “You can change into an animal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s your—”

  I growled a warning. He almost asked the whereabouts of my fera. A no-no question for Shifters. Red howled and launched herself at Lafleur’s calves. Not that she’d do any damage, but it made her feel better. And me.

  Settle, I told her.

  Red huffed, released the sergeant’s pant leg and slunk back to my side.

  Lafleur glanced down as if sensing some of Red’s attacks and cleared his throat. “My apologies, Agent. I forgot how touchy your kind finds that question.”

  “Touchy? Your kind used the information to eradicate countless lives of innocent Shifters.” I dug my nails into my palm.

  Kill, my feras screamed in my head. They preferred to strike first and ask questions later.

  Red surged forward and batted his leg one last time, snarling her frustration, before darting behind my legs again. What a wuss. The sergeant couldn’t see or touch her, much less harm her in any way.

  My wolf growled. The falcon squawked.

  “Forgive me for not pointing you to the nearest and easiest way to kill me,” I said.

  Lafleur tucked his thumbs into his belt and pushed his belly out, reminding me of a bad television actor playing the quintessential cop cliché. “Not fair to judge me for past actions made by other people. Not like any of us here were around during the Fork, anyway.”

  A lot of norms used the “Fork” instead of saying the “Purge.” They found the latter more derogatory. It did insinuate the events exterminated norms like unwanted pests. Regardless of the name, it was a horrific time for both norms and supes. Natural disasters and viruses rampag
ed across the globe, and the fragile humans dropped like hot potatoes to reveal the existence of death-defying supernatural beings.

  Norms reacted by reaching out and killing all things “weird,” and unfortunately, Shifters were one of the easiest to spot, constantly accompanied by animals. Every redneck with a gun took out their anger, frustration and fear on the animal familiars, decimating enough Shifters to give the first couple of years during the Purge the label Shifter Shankings.

  A lot of house pets were innocently slain as well.

  The Shankings occurred almost eighty years ago. But Sergeant Lafleur was wrong. Born in the first year of the Purge, I was there. I’d always assumed my birth parents died during the volatile time, shot down by a Billy Joe or Betsy Loo. A small part of me hoped they still lived, giving me up for my safety, but I’ve never confirmed or debunked any of my theories. I might have family—a mother, father, sister, brother. Or I might have absolutely nothing.

  Realizing Lafleur and Stan awaited a response, I mumbled. “Whatever. Do you want my help or not?”

  “Yes,” Stan said.

  “After I’m done, you’ll tell me who you spoke to on the phone?” I asked Lafleur. He inclined his chin with the slightest of movement.

  “Where can I shift?” I asked.

  Lafleur pointed to the public outhouses, available year round for the hordes of tourists flocking to the area.

  I blinked.

  My wolf huffed.

  “For you to undress,” Lafleur explained.

  Ewww. “Gross. No. I’m not placing my clothes on an outhouse floor, no matter how upscale the area.”

  Lafleur grunted and shared a look with Stan.

  “Told you she’d say no.” Stan shrugged.

  “Show her the van, then.”

  Stan nodded like a bobblehead. He waved low with his hand for me to follow, a little too much like an owner beckoning their pet dog for my liking.

  “I’m not fucking Fido, you dolt. Just point out the van and when I paw at the door, let me out.”

  Stan’s cheeks flamed red, and he pointed to one of the nearby vans. I stalked over to it without further commentary, Red close on my heels. When I threw the van doors open, two techs, both incredibly nerdy-looking, gasped and looked at me with round eyes.

  “Out,” I said.

  They scrambled to their feet and scurried out of the van to stand by Stan and Lafleur. After they brushed by, I climbed into the back, waited for Red to hop up and slammed the doors shut. The van reeked of perspiration and many hours of too many people crammed in a confined space. A divider separated the front seats from the back portion I crouched in. No windows to reveal my naked form. Good.

  I glanced around at the various switches and buttons and mini screens. The surveillance van looked exactly like those ones in the movies. Go figure. Hollywood got something right. Movement on one of the screens caught my eye. A man in a white plastic body suit moved around with a camera taking pictures. The bright flash distorted the images on the monitor every few seconds, blanketing the screen with fuzzy white. The camera man moved around an object and kneeled down to take another picture. Flash! What was that? Flash! Was that a…Flash! An arm?

  My stomach rolled. I leaned forward. Between the flashes, I made out more of the objects. Five arms, three legs, one head, or at least half of one.

  My wolf growled, Death.

  What is it? Red stood on her hind legs, hopping up and down, and strained to look at the screen.

  Nothing good, I replied.

  A knock on the back door made me jump.

  “You ready?” Stan called out.

  “Give me a sec,” I said. With one last glance at the screens, I shucked off my clothes and folded them into a neat pile on top of my shoes. Rolling my neck back and forth, I stretched before willing the change. Bones crunched and extended, muscles condensed and skin folded in upon skin before fur erupted from every hair follicle. The familiar sting and strain lanced across my body before my shift completed.

  Hunt? My wolf asked.

  Track, I answered. Hunt later.

  Now a wolf, my senses heightened. The body odour of the techs flashed into my nose. One had a substance abuse problem; the other had a girlfriend who liked to drown herself in rose-scented perfume, and they’d had sex recently. Outside, Stan shuffled his feet back and forth, and the sour tang of his anxiety leaked through the doors. I huffed and raked my claws against the metal.

  Stan grunted before opening the doors. “I hate that sound.” His body shook as a shudder racked his body. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

  I jumped out and opened my mouth wide, the closest to a smile I could achieve in this form.

  “Look, I’m sorry I called you like a dog.” Stan’s lips twisted into a grimace, and he looked away, stealing a moment before he spoke again. “The crime scene begins a block that way. I figured you’d want to work your way in.”

  Stan pointed toward the docks on the other side of the van, and I bobbed my head up and down to show him I got the message.

  Red hopped out of the van and jumped up to bump her small body against mine.

  Not play time, I told her.

  She leaned against my front leg. I know, she said.

  Let’s go see what all this fuss is about. I loped around the van in the direction Stan indicated, and knew after my fourth step my life had become more complicated. The faint scent of almond wafted with the breeze and grew stronger with each step I took toward the crime scene and flood lights. Demon.

  My jowls curled up into a snarl.

  Hunt now, my wolf demanded. Not later.

  With short successive breaths, followed by a few long ones, I filtered through the olfactory messages to read the events as if they unfolded in the present instead of the past. The Demon’s trademark stench stamped each horrid image after another.

  And not just any Demon, the same one that had attacked the Vampire summit.

  Times like this made me wish I could shut off my sense of smell. I rounded the corner store building, and the full force of the massacre hit my nose like a wrecking ball. I halted and recoiled from the power. Red screeched to a halt, and cowered behind my front legs.

  Along with the overpowering demonic almond smell, old and new blood, flesh, bone, burnt skin and hair assailed my nasal passages—the stench so strong, my wolf eyes stung.

  Taking a moment to acclimatize, I rubbed my snout under my front leg, trying to clear my eyes. Then I set out, skirting various charred body parts and pools of blood. The trail led to the docks and concentrated. Most likely the landing point. I turned around and tracked it back through the massacre site. The trail wafted up from the pavement and led to a short alleyway between the store fronts before it disappeared. I had what I wanted. Sprinting back to the van, I leapt into the back, Red close on my heels.

  Stan closed the door, and I shifted as fast as I could, bone stretching, skin ripping. Fast equalled painful, but I didn’t care. I needed the stench of the bodies out of my nose.

  Red sneezed. Awful.

  I agree.

  After pulling my clothes back on with shaky hands, I opened the doors and scrambled out of the van to a waiting Stan and Sergeant Lafleur. The wind gusted off the ocean and carried the stench of the massacre to me like a tidal wave. I shuddered. My pulse raced. After the gust passed, I took short breaths to clear my senses.

  “So?” Lafleur demanded.

  “Awful,” I said, parroting Red’s previous word.

  “Yes, and?” Lafleur said.

  And if I punched him in the balls, could I get away with it? Hmm. Doubt it. But the instant gratification would be awesome.

  Lafleur cleared his throat when I didn’t respond immediately.

  My eyes tingled as I let the cat partially shift. They’d glow yellow and gauging from Lafleur’s widened eyes and the sickly sweet tang of fear rolling off of him, they had the exact impact I intended.

  “It was awful,” I restarted. “One Demon.
Landed on the dock, moved to the storefronts, went on a rampage and then slipped around the Sweet Little Things gourmet cupcake store and took off.”

  “Landed?” Stan wrote down in his notepad. “Took off? This thing flies?”

  “That’s the only thing that would make sense. Plus, I smelled feathers,” I said.

  “How are you sure there’s only one?” Lafleur asked. He probably didn’t mean to be a dick this time, it just came naturally.

  “Everyone has a unique scent. All Demons smell like almonds, but each one has something different infused with it. In this case, the Demon smelled like burnt almonds, steel, blood, stagnant grass, and money.”

  “And money?” Lafleur’s lips puckered up, and one of his eyebrows twitched. “Is that all? And you’re sure there was only one Demon, with all those smellies floating around?” He waved his hand around in the air like a flamboyant fairy, presumably representing the errant “smellies.”

  “Yes, there was only one. The scents are fused together. It’s hard to explain. That’s the best I can do.”

  “Looks like another case for the SRD.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Explain.”

  “A number of the norms weren’t killed by the Demon, but by each other.”

  “Say what now?” Lafleur looked up from his notepad.

  “The ones not burnt. The Demon didn’t kill them.” The VPD handled all norm on norm cases, which meant they’d have to work with the SRD on this one.

  Lafleur swore.

  “Andy?” Stan shuffled his feet. “How do you know?”

  Now Stan doubted me? Super. Maybe he had to ask, to do his job, due diligence and all, but his question still rankled my skin. “The Demon’s scent wasn’t on them. At all. He never touched them.”

  “He?” Lafleur’s eyes narrowed.

  I swallowed. “I’ve smelled this Demon before.” Should I share what I knew? It wasn’t much, anyway. “He’s got the head of a dog, wings of a griffin and body of a man. Stands about nine feet excluding wings.”

  Lafleur scribbled something down and then peered up at me. “That’s consistent with eyewitness reports. The SRD will probably take over this investigation.”