“Does someone have to be touching it for it work?” I asked.
“If someone’s touching it, they’ll be dead.” Her voice sounded flip, like I should have realized that. “Even without a victim if you use it to call the magic you should be able to feel it. I mean, I would hope a death witch could.”
Her voice was intended to make me feel bad, but the expression on Jakob’s face took the power away from her. She was trying to needle me, but he was the one who looked hurt.
“So it’s not Romans 8:26,” Simon said, ignoring all the emotions in the room. “Any other guesses?”
“It would have been something about suffering; all the stories talk about her tragic suffering and her pain,” the woman on the other end of the phone said, and while I wanted to correct her I agreed. That verse didn’t sound right at all.
“What’s near there? Close enough that the kid who read the verse off the sword could get it wrong. Something that talks about comfort and relief from pain?”
Simon looked at me with his head tilted to the side. “You think he recited the wrong verse, not the one on the sword but the one that would make this thing work?”
“You heard her, it wants to work. Helping the kid remember the right wrong verse sounds like magic to me.” I thought about it for a minute, wondering where I could get a Bible at nearly seven on a Friday night. Did we have one in the library? “Come on Simon, if you have one verse memorized you know others, right? Comfort and suffering, maybe somewhere in Romans?”
I was banking on his Baptist upbringing, on the verses he’d memorized as a kid having stuck with him. From his expression, I wasn’t going to get very far.
“Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us,” Jakob said and the bracelet practically turned white with magic.
The woman on the other end of the line laughed. “Still Catholic after all these years. Well, did it do anything?”
“It did.” I swallowed hard. I could have been holding it, any one of us could, and that magic would have killed us.
“Romans 8:18,” Jakob said. Suddenly, I really wanted the day to be over.
****
The mysterious and slightly crazy Rowan wanted to know all about the case, then she wanted to talk about the bracelet. It seemed she had quite a collection of jewelry and it would fit perfectly. I didn’t know how to answer her unspoken pleas for a present. The piece revolted me. It killed someone. But did I want to give it up? Uh, strangely, no. I wanted it. I wanted to keep it safe from anyone who was stupid or crazy enough to use it, and the woman on the phone? Well, she definitely sounded crazy enough.
Chapter 7
I left the bracelet with Simon. I wanted to take it home and lock it up, but it killed someone, and I was a cop. I knew the rules about evidence. Simon pulled me aside on my way out, while Jakob waited in the hall.
“The woman on the phone she…she messed with his head, you get that, right?”
“Uh, yeah, it was fairly obvious.”
“Well, be gentle about all of it, okay? The list of emotions in his head for the last twenty minutes is pretty long. I don’t think you could get him to take off work?”
“Never happen.” When Jakob got upset he took it out on his work, ripping through proposals and budgets with all the anger he wouldn’t let loose on people. “But I’ve got an hour until he needs to be in the office. I’ll do my best to perk him up.”
Something in my thoughts made Simon blush. He mumbled goodnight and I reminded him we were stuck working tomorrow and could wrap up the case then.
Jakob tried to go straight to work but I pushed him to stop by my place. His reluctance didn’t last long when I mentioned dinner. In fact, he went speeding ahead of me, getting there soon enough that I entered the apartment to the smell of tangy tomato sauce.
“Are leftovers all right?” he asked as I walked in.
“Hmmm, you made the marinara sauce before the storm and froze it, but I took the chicken in front of you out of the freezer last night. So does it really count as leftovers?”
He ignored my question and began to beat the chicken with a small steel mallet he’d bought me. Oh yes, he was in a wonderful mood.
“Want to talk about it?”
“What would I say?”
“You might mention when you started worrying about feeding the people you love so much.” Oh, wrong thing to say, I meant to make some comment about his love of cooking and how it came from the famine. Oops.
“1367.”
Yeah, completely the wrong thing to say. Okay new tactic. “Tell me about Rowan. How do you know her?”
“She’s married to my best friend.”
“I thought Mark was your best friend.” I’d heard Mark call him that. I’d seen the two of them act like best friends. Who else was there?
“James and I—”
“James who left the jeans at your place?”
He nodded, breading the chicken and dropping it into hot oil.
“Did she leave something at your place?”
“Probably, she leaves things everywhere.” He sounded annoyed about it.
“And that bugs you because?”
“I got sick of going back places because Rowan forgot her corset or some bauble.”
“How do you forget your corset? I thought those were tied on pretty tight.”
“She turns into mist whenever the mood strikes her.”
“Oh.” Jakob had issues with flashy vampires. He didn’t call them that; he just objected when other vampires turned into mist or displayed their fangs in public. He argued it scared people and made it harder for the rest of them to live a normal life. I agreed with him it might but I thought they had a right to live their life how they wanted. Of course, I’d never realized turning into a mist meant leaving a pile of clothes behind for someone to pick up.
“She’s flashy, and, let me guess, tall, thin, and blonde?”
He laughed. “No, short and dark, but flashy is perfect for her.”
“Short?” I was short, five feet four inches, and my hair was dark; I wondered how much we looked alike.
“Five foot tall, perhaps, but no more and she hates being reminded of it. It’s even funnier when she’s standing next to James who makes most bears look small.”
“They’re opposites?”
“Very much so.” He nodded, plating my food. I pulled a stool up to the kitchen counter and took the dish from him. The chicken had become chicken parmesan and the pasta nestled up to it perfectly. In less than twenty minutes he’d prepared food that could have come from a fine restaurant. There were worse ways to manage your famine issues.
“Tell me more,” I said, shoveling hot food into my mouth. “How old is he?”
“They were made together in the nineteen-seventies.”
“That’s awfully young.”
“It was a complex making. They inherited a great deal of power.”
“And what does James do with it?”
“He’s a college professor. Decades of life and he’s never wanted to do anything else. He claims he prefers research but ask him any question and he starts to lecture.”
I was going to mention the woman didn’t sound like a professor’s wife but I didn’t want to bring her up again. Talking about his friend lightened his mood. I preferred it that way.
“What does he teach?”
“Medieval history,” he said with a wide grin.
“No wonder you two got along.” I smiled back, realizing the connection. Jakob could talk to me about how things had been and I did my best to keep up, but a historian…it was the closest he would get to talking to someone who had been there.
“James would call me at all hours asking about some trivial details, some note of music, or wording in some poem. Although, I must admit I think he always wished I was a Celt and not a German.”
“He prefers Celts?”
“He’s Scottish and studies Scottish history.” Ah, so th
at was the accent I’d heard on the woman. “He takes great pride in his heritage. When we went to Scottish games I had to wear a kilt in his clan colors.”
“You wore a kilt?” I tried not to laugh, all thoughts of dinner pushed aside. Jakob was conservative in just about every way. I tried to imagine how he’d look in a skirt, well a kilt. My mind got as far as the tight blond hairs on his legs and how there would be nothing underneath when I pushed back from the counter. My body was against his in no time.
“You’re not done with dinner.”
“It’ll keep.” I ran my hands over his back, stroking his skin through the fabric. The apartment wasn’t as warm as his place. I could feel the coolness coming off him. “Come upstairs with me.”
“I need to be at work in an hour.” It was the weakest protest I’d ever heard. He’d already turned around and started kissing me. I broke the embrace to lead him up to bed.
My bedroom took up the second floor loft of the apartment. The bed practically filled the smaller space, which looked bigger thanks to a wall of mirrors opposite the wall of windows. I undressed as I came up stairs, clothes staying where they fell; he shook his head at my impatience.
When we got upstairs I was naked, and I knelt on the bed, making him face the mirror while I underdressed him. I loosened the knot in his tie with my lips on his, sliding it out of his shirt before letting it fall gently to the floor. The shirt followed after it, buttons undone with a kiss, while he stood beside the bed, his eyes fixed on the view in the mirror.
I knew my hair covered the top of my back, dark brown waves falling and tumbling, never quite curly or straight, leaving my ass completely naked for him. Jakob put his hands in my hair and started whispering in the old German I loved so much.
“What are you telling me, my love?” I didn’t recognize the words, but as I took off his undershirt I hoped they were very naughty.
“To be careful,” he translated, grabbing me for a long deep kiss while our bare skin rubbed together. My nipples pressed against him, hard and tingling. My hand went to his belt.
“Careful?” I asked, working on the reluctant leather, suddenly eager to have him naked.
“There are too many things in the world that could hurt you, magical jewelry…”
“Werewolves, other vampires.” We’d had problems with both.
“Exactly.” He stopped me, held me back and looked at me, his hungry eyes taking in every part of my body. “You are more precious to me than any other person, be careful.”
“I promise.” I nodded but I was nodding to mist. A second later Jakob was with me on the bed, completely naked, both of us kneeling. His mouth covered mine while his hands explored down the length of my body; cool caress brought fire wherever he touched. I moaned, giving in to the pleasure and his other hand caught me, laying me back on the bed.
His kisses trailed down my neck, going farther, reaching the already aching peak of my breast. One nipple tightened under his mouth, while the other gave itself to his gentle touch. I moaned, pushing back against him, eager for more. He surprised me by bringing his mouth to mine, kissing me while his arms wrapped around me. He was being gentle, going slow. I kissed him back, more eager, my hands drifting down between his legs to the hardness there. I gripped him, playing with his body, making him moan.
He shifted, brought his mouth down my body again and with a quick kiss to my breast, moved lower until my body lay beneath him. His head dipped down over my stomach, soft kisses low on my belly, and I begged for more. His hand danced around my thighs, his fingertips barely touching me but sending bolts of electricity through me.
I knew what would come next but still I wasn’t prepared. His mouth was on me, his tongue between my legs, pressing down. My body came alive, every nerve tingling, every inch of my skin hungry for more. He teased me, driving me mad with the need for more. I knew he could make this edge of pleasure last, he could draw it out in sweet torment, but I didn’t want to wait. I wanted him inside me now.
I shifted beneath him, pressing gently with my hips and he rolled over, giving me the top. His body danced outside mine as eager as I was and in another second, he slipped inside me, our two bodies becoming one. I laid on top of him, holding him tight, my breasts pressing into him while we kissed, our bodies moving in a gentle rhythm.
I wanted more. I broke the kiss to lean back, changing the way he moved inside me, pressing down on him with my primal need. He moaned beneath me and I knew I wasn’t the only one on the edge.
I pressed myself against him, rocking above his body while his hands found my hips. He moved, lifted me, keeping the same pace but teasing me with my own body. The pleasure began to build as thought slipped away from me.
I wanted him, more of him, more of everything; my focus narrowed to our connection, to the pleasure he gave me. Just when I couldn’t take any more he moved his hands, long fingers coming forward to capture the flesh between my legs.
I moaned, driven wild by his touch, my body pounding onto him with wild frenzy. The pressure became too much, and I screamed his name as the pleasure broke over me in waves, every muscle in my body tightening around him.
I was still gasping for air when he joined me, his body driving into mine, starting the sensations inside me anew as he pressed deeper, hungry for his own release. In a second, he was undone, calling to me, saying my name as he exploded inside my body.
We laid together, me panting, him holding me tightly. Somehow we’d collapsed wrapped together with him at my back. This time I was the one watching in the mirror, seeing his blue eyes watch my face from far away.
“You are the best, you have always been the best, and I want no other woman,” he whispered in my ear, but my head was full of doubts.
“Really? You wouldn’t want someone…like you? Someone you wouldn’t have to worry so much about?” I was thinking about James, the vampire married to a vampire, made together. Jakob might not like her but she would live forever in a way I wouldn’t. Someday Jakob would outlive me; until then he’d worry about the thousand ways he might lose me. That worry could poison a relationship.
“No.” He shook his head, clearly at a loss. “Never. You’re the one I want, even if I want to lock you away someplace safe half the time. Besides, if you were a vampire, who would I cook for?”
I moved closer to him and pulled the blankets around us. “Does cooking matter that much to you?”
“Cooking, shopping, dancing, even football, all things I didn’t do before I met you matter more than you’ll ever guess. I love the way you’ve changed my life.” He looked down at me his eyes so serious and filled with love. I kissed him, stopping him before he could say another word, scared of how important the moment, any moment, could become.
“Speaking of dancing,” I said when I finally stopped kissing him. “I’m going tonight. Do you want to meet me there? Maybe upstairs, on the couch where we had our first date?”
Jakob and I met at Convenire, the local supernatural dance club and bar. We’d spent the better part of the night on a couch upstairs, talking about everything and anything before he’d taken me home.
“I’ll try, but I may actually have to work. I’m late already.” He pointed to the clock.
“That’s the beauty of being the boss, no one will call you on it.”
“I do have partners, you know.” He started to get dressed again.
“Hmm, junior partners, they won’t say anything.” I’d met most of Jakob’s coworkers at the opulent holiday party the firm put on in December. His young face, forever trapped somewhere between twenty-five and thirty, looked out of place among all the gray hair and baldness. Worse, every one of them treated him with a fearful respect, keeping him at a distance. He’d told me the fun partners tended to skip the party, but I suspected there weren’t a lot of hell raisers in the world of finance.
“If I don’t make it should I come back here?”
“Yes, please. I’d like something yummy and baked for breakfast.”
“As you wish.” He kissed me goodbye. A minute later I heard the front door shut and curled into his spot on the bed trying to think of what to wear for dancing.
****
It wasn’t that Convenire was the only witches’ bar in town; it was the only good witches’ bar. The drinks were always smooth thanks to Patrick, the water witch who mixed them with magic. The dance floor was always hot, normally because Anna and another half-dozen fire witches coated it with erotic blue mating fire.
Everyone dressed to impress. Some of them wore next to nothing even though the weather outside was still only forty-five degrees. One of Anna’s favorite dance partners, a fire witch with wide shoulders and dark skin, danced in a black leather pants with a chain for his belt. When I pushed open the door the cold wind made his nipples hard.
I’d done my best to dress up as well, but being warm meant more to me than being creative. Tight dark jeans and a navy turtle neck that shimmered silver in the light looked sexy enough. I’d thrown on a bit of silver jewelry, earrings and a necklace Anna made for me, thinking the whole time how the deadly bracelet would go perfectly. I sighed more than once imagining it locked up in the evidence room.
I arrived early, which is to say, I was only thirty minutes late. The girls never got anywhere on time; an hour late was our usual starting point. Tonight would be the usual. Phoebe sat alone at the bar watching Patrick hold three bottles upside down. His magic bent the streams of liquor into four glasses, splitting the vodka into two of them at the same time. I’d never gotten to know him but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the show.
“So why are we here again?” I asked Phoebe, startling her a bit.
“Oh hey, Mal…there’s a guy.”
I gestured to Patrick and he poured me a martini to match the one Phoebe was already drinking. She clinked her glass to mine then went on.
“How do you know if you’re dating someone if you aren’t sleeping together?” she asked. I swallowed half my glass in shock.
“What?”
Blood, Dirt, and Lies Page 8