by HK Savage
“Are you scared?”
She crossed her arms and watched the two enter the coffee shop, choosing to stare at the neon outline of a coffee cup in the front window. Funny how the yellow wavy heat lines made her think of fire, not coffee. It’s all where your head’s at, she surmised wryly. She could probably see a snowball and think about how long it would take for a fire demon to melt it right about now. She shook her head.
“Are you up for this?”
Becca automatically took a breath and wheeled, prepared to defend herself, only to let it out slowly when she saw the sincere concern on Michael’s face. He wasn’t locked down. He wasn’t being Captain Rossi. Sure, he was worried about their welfare and whether or not she would be able to hold up her end under pressure. There was a lot riding on her and he had to be questioning her ability to keep her head in the game after last night at the bar. But his concern in that moment was for her on a personal level. Lack of faith she could handle, even yelling she could take. This was different; this looked like love, and she wasn’t sure what to do.
Sex was simple. Physical, active, always urgent between the two of them; it was as easy as breathing. This new intimacy in their relationship was the hard part and completely new. Letting him see her weak. Opening up and showing him how frightened she was when they weren’t in the midst of battle or facing imminent danger was more than she’d given anyone. Confronted with such heartfelt compassion, her tough façade faltered and she felt her lip quiver.
Her voice cracked. “Yeah.” She tightened her arms, hugging herself.
Pushing off effortlessly, Michael approached. There was only a hint of the oozing sensuality with which he usually came to her. This side of him was different, harder for her to accept in its realness. Sensing her discomfort, Michael stopped inches from her and put his hands in his pockets, leaving the small space between them as a buffer. “You know, after I was changed, I wasn’t afraid of dying.” His voice was low, meant only for her ears, though he spoke over the top of her head.
Becca felt the sting of her inadequacy once again. This unit was so strong. Her prescience served as a warning system. Her physical capabilities were limited to her borrowed strengths until they ran out. Only a very little of what was useful about her even stemmed from her natural abilities. Forcing her shoulders back, she blinked hard and tried to appear brave.
“I didn’t have to be.” He continued, his voice low and soothing despite the heartrending words passing through his barely moving lips. “What was there for something like me to lose? My life was gone and Black took my soul. Death would have been a welcome release from my bondage.”
“Don’t say that.” It hurt to hear him talk that way about the worth of his existence. “You’ve saved countless lives. You’ve done so much good in this world.”
The body before her remained immobile. “It wasn’t until I had something to lose that I learned how to fear again. Not until I thought I’d lost you did I remember what it was like to be truly afraid.” He felt her stare and let his chin drop to give her a full view of his face.
Passion brought forth his beast while work made him hide behind a stoic, unfeeling mask. Letting her see him for the man he still was altered how he looked to her. She could see the suffering in his eyes, the miseries he’d bourne in silence and servitude. He let her see the extent of the anguish his losses had caused him. In seeing the toll being a vampire had taken, he was made all the more human.
Tentative, she reached for him, fingers brushing lightly against his sleeves as she pulled his hands from his pockets. Unable to convey her feelings into words, Becca stepped into him and slowly let the side of her face lay against his chest. Equally measured, his hands let themselves be freed and wrapped around her, pulling her close.
“You’re a strong woman, Becca,” he murmured in her hair. “You were before you met us and your strength makes us all stronger by its addition. My CO told me when I took my first command, ‘Don’t ever doubt yourself, because to do that is a disservice to us all’ and I want to tell you the same thing. We’re a team and we make each other better. That goes for us too, we’re more together than we are apart because we love each other.”
Her hands slid around behind him and she pulled herself in as close as she could get, seeking the comfort of his nearness. What he’d said was true; she had been strong before them. However, she would have argued that she was actually a subtraction. Not only did they have to worry about protecting her due to her physical weaknesses, she provided a significant distraction to Michael. And now she was a demon magnet.
Instead of pointing any of that out, she clasped him to herself tighter yet. If he’d been human, he wouldn’t have been able to breathe. He wasn’t. He let her hold on as tight as she needed.
Chapter 24
Salvo was at the station, waiting for them. The receptionist was markedly cooler toward them as well. Apparently word had spread about Michael’s dressing down of the cops at the crime scene. When they asked for him they weren’t buzzed in, instead Salvo came out. Acting as gatekeeper on the outside of the locked doors, he crossed his arms and stared. A few hard looks were sent Becca’s way, but for the most part all of his hostility was aimed at Michael.
“What department did you say you were with again?”
“We didn’t,” Michael responded coolly. “You never asked.”
“I’m asking now.” Salvo remained unruffled.
“We’re with the United States Navy.”
Becca found a fixed point on Salvo’s blue on blue spotted tie to keep from looking like she was watching a tennis match.
“No you’re not.” Detective Salvo’s head slowly tracked back and forth, not buying it. “After yesterday’s little show I had a buddy of mine with some pretty high clearances do some digging.” Widening his eyes, he let his jaw fall open sarcastically. “And did you know what? He didn’t find any record of you in any of the agency databases.”
“Did your chief receive a call from my superior yesterday informing him that we would be given full access to your systems?”
Arms coming down, Salvo took a half a step toward Michael. He didn’t appreciate the reminder of who had more brass behind him. “Yeah.”
Michael’s nonchalance was bordering on arrogance. “Then I don’t see as it matters what my business cards say.”
“Do you have a business card?”
“No.”
Rolling her eyes, Becca entered into the pissing contest. “You know, watching you two compare badges is really impressive, but we have work to do.” Yet again she wished Danny were with them. This was his specialty, not hers. She’d never been much of a people person. Funny, she hadn’t thought about it before, but she didn’t work with people much anymore. If she was the one responsible for bridging that divide they were in trouble. Why Michael had chosen this case and this detective to lose his people skills on was beyond her, but his timing sucked.
Running low on tolerance, she looked from one man to the other. Detective Salvo was bristling and Michael had his hands in his pockets, clearly unthreatened. She refrained from throwing up her hands and walking out the door to leave them to it and concentrated on winning Salvo to their side. “Look, all games aside, Detective, we work for the United States Armed Forces in a specialized unit. Our duty is to perform specific investigations involving unusual crimes that might involve others like us.” She rode the line of what was sharable, knowing he wasn’t going to accept the usual smokescreen of “need to know.” Let him make the connections he was comfortable with.
Brow furrowing, he gave Michael a look and shifted his focus to the smaller, non-threatening woman beside him. “You’re Internal Affairs?”
“Sort of our own special version.” She watched the skepticism fade from the lines in his face and felt her shoulder blades dropping back out of her skull to where they belonged. He wanted to believe her.
Dark brown eyes flicked to Michael once then focused entirely on her. “That would explain
why he’s such a prick.” He pointed a long finger at her companion. “But it doesn’t explain why you and your friend ran off into the woods while your dear captain here had us chasing our tails to keep us from following. Or why he had to make me look like an asshole at my own crime scene.”
“You were doing a fine job without me,” Michael baited him.
Speaking quickly, Becca kept the detective’s attention on her. “Gabrielle saw something and I followed to provide backup.” She maintained an even tone despite the image of fire that blazed through her mind. Pulse speeding up, she breathed steadily through her nose and out her mouth to slow it.
Michael shifted beside her, automatically prepared for the worst.
Ignoring the gesture, she made it clear she would not show any vulnerability in front of the detective. “We didn’t want to draw resources away from the scene while it was being processed so we went alone. We didn’t find anything or we certainly would have shared it with you.” Her eyes dropped to look up at him through her lashes, an old habit she’d developed in disarming hostile men. Combining her femininity and unimposing stature tended to diffuse them quickly and it seemed to be a winner with this one as well. “That was your concern wasn’t it? That we were leaving you out of our investigation?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.” His tone lost some of its bitterness.
Smiling partially for his benefit and partially out of relief that he was willing to be reasonable, Becca held out a hand. “Truce?”
A faint rose color tracked across the detective’s sharp, olive toned features and he took it. “Truce.” Frowning, he looked at Michael who had gone into lockdown. “That go for you too? Are you going to stop getting in my way?”
“On the investigation, yes,” he replied carefully.
Puzzled, Becca scrunched up her face but got no signal from him as to what he meant. He’d intimated that he thought Detective Salvo was interested in her before and she’d paid no attention. Surely that wasn’t what he was still thinking. The concept of Michael Rossi being jealous of the detective was ludicrous.
Seemingly placated, Detective Salvo reached for the key card hanging from his belt and let them in with a short nod to the receptionist who stopped glaring on command.
Good girl. Thought Becca, preferring the woman’s nasty looks to the wanton ones she’d aimed Michael’s way on their last visit.
Detective Salvo wordlessly led the way through the low, pale, fabric-covered cubicles to the back wall of offices. Becca assumed she would go back to the same one Chief Kowski had parked her in before but he walked them right past.
She and Michael exchanged a curious glance behind his back. Salvo stopped at the corner office and rapped twice with his knuckles on the open oak door. Signaling with a finger that they should wait, he walked in and kept his back to his guests. He and the chief had a nearly private conversation. Becca picked up the majority of what he’d said, “Internal Affairs” and “I hate that guy” being the most telling things she caught. It was up to her to maintain any sort of goodwill with the police force at this point. Michael had done too much damage to overcome easily, assuming he was even interested. In her experience, cops held grudges for a long time.
“Good morning, Chief Kowski.” Taking the initiative, Becca slipped in around the detective’s back and moved over to allow Michael entry.
If the bland look on his face was any indication, he was about as happy to see them as Salvo. “Captains.” He continued to stare flatly at her.
Becca studied the lines around his pinched mouth and dark blue smudges under his eyes. Her heart skipped a beat, bringing Michael’s head around. Giving him a tight shake of her head she hid with a quick duck and kept her eyes forward. “Sir, did something happen last night? Was there another murder?”
Leaning back, he folded his hands on his relatively flat stomach and rubbed it absently. “Not a murder, no.”
“Then what was it?” Michael asked pointedly. “You’ve obviously been up all night,” he lifted his chin at Detective Salvo, “and that one’s in a mood.”
Chief Kowski’s chair made a loud bang as it flipped back to its full upright position. Hands slamming on the faux wood, he came up onto his feet in a heated rush. “So now we’re sharing? Full disclosure?” he yelled, his face flushing. Several heads in the bullpen popped up. “Or does that just go for us bumpkins, not Feds?”
“Sir,” Becca tried to soothe him.
He waved her off, not having any of it. “No, I don’t think I want to hear anything else either one of you has to say. Or the rest of your damn team come to think of it. Now get out of my office!” Kowski pointed at the door.
“But sir,” she tried again.
“Don’t ‘sir’ me and you sure as shit better not try to shine that Internal Affairs baloney on me. We both know that’s not true. You’re some other shit.” A glimmer of interest in his own train of thought sparked in his eyes, “What are you, Homeland Security? Is this some sort of chemical attack?”
Neither Michael nor Becca had to fake their shocked expressions. “What?” she asked out loud while Michael was better able to control his tongue.
“Oh don’t give me that.” Kowski threw his hands up in the air. “A whole town doesn’t go crazy in a few months. You can’t convince me it’s because it’s a college town, and it is not cabin fever. It’s been a warm winter for Christ sake, nobody’s shut up or cut off.”
Before she could stop it, a disbelieving “Warm?” slipped through her lips.
The detective and his chief both glared at her, unamused.
Effectively cowed, she tried to appear apologetic. “Sorry.”
Michael was on high alert. “Define crazy, sir.”
The chief’s mouth was shut. He wasn’t in a giving mood.
“Would you be referring to an increase in volatility? Fights, maybe a rise in indecency?” Michael lowered his voice, forcing everyone else to be quiet to listen. It was a negotiation technique Becca learned from her father that he’d learned in the Marines. Michael must have taken the same class.
Anger dissipating, the chief just looked tired. “How did you know?”
He shrugged. “Remember, I was reviewing files all day yesterday. And last night, when we couldn’t come back here to expand our search,” the detective glowered and Michael ignored him, “we went out to take a look at things ourselves. In town.”
Both Kowski and Salvo perked up at that. “There was a report of a big guy who broke a guy’s hand last night at The Red Carpet.” Kowski turned to his detective. “How big was that guy you met yesterday? The one that works with these two?”
“Damn big.”
Letting his annoyance with the detective take a back seat, Michael angled himself to face them both.
Sensing that they had far too many ears tuned in and seeing this as going somewhere touchy, Becca moved over to close the door and leaned back against it.
Michael waited until it was just the four sets of ears before proceeding. “It’s not cabin fever and it has nothing to do with an unruly student body, Chief Kowski.”
The older man gently lowered himself into his seat and let his hands lay on his desk, palms flat and pressing until his fingertips went white. “Do you know what this is? Is it contagious?”
“Have you seen anything like this before?” Detective Salvo set aside their differences as well in the face of real progress. “Do you know how to stop it?”
“It’s not a chemical attack and it’s not contagious.” Michael snuck a glance at her out of the corner of his eye, asking her to let him lead.
Not certain where or how far he was going with his explanation, Becca kept her lips firmly closed.
“We aren’t sure exactly where the culprit is, but we are familiar with these types of situations.” Michael went on, picking his words cautiously. “My team and I are going to be tracking the suspect as soon as we leave here.”
Detective Salvo started to speak, then held his breath at Mi
chael’s upheld hand. Becca watched his face purple in barely checked anger.
“It’s only been since the most recent murder that we’ve been able to determine anything specific about our suspect,” he explained, allowing Salvo to breathe again. “Our team in California was able to make some connections with the fresh evidence and we’ve come up with a suspect based on their findings.”
“What can we do?” Salvo prompted, his hands clenching and unclenching nervously. He wanted to be there when they took this guy down. “You can’t expect us to just sit around doing nothing while you close in. We want a piece of this guy too.”
Only this wasn’t a guy and he couldn’t be within a thousand yards when they went after it. She knew without needing to check that Michael would be of like mind. Where they differed, was that she intended for the rest of her team to be equally far away when the demon was found.