“Very good.” The light turned green and they crossed the street. “I ran a marathon last year.”
L…i…a…r…
And there was that strange aftertaste. “False.”
“Jackson loves sushi.”
There it was again and Roxy laughed. “I take it he hates sushi?”
“Yeah, he hates anything raw. And seriously, before I started cooking for him, he ate like a child. He’d eat the same two or three things over and over. He lived on peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches—well, he still does, actually, but I try to mix it up now and then.”
Roxy waited a moment. Nothing. “I can tell you’re telling me the truth now.”
Arianna brushed a strand of auburn hair from her face. “That’s cool in a bizarre sort of way. Remind me never to lie to you.”
“Speaking of food,” Roxy said, “I’m starving.”
“Regular food or the liquid variety?”
She laughed, marveling at how easy and fun it was to be around Arianna. Like so many of the people up here. “Both. But I’ll wait till later to go find the other kind.”
“It doesn’t bother me like you might expect. I’ve seen Jackson do it a few times. Told him that I want to be a part of his life and that’s an element of it.”
Despite that admission, Roxy would never take blood in front of her human friend.
They found a little Italian place that seated them right away.
“Having said that about the feeding thing, if you order some fava beans to go with that Chianti, I probably will freak out a little bit.”
“Don’t worry. Beans aren’t my thing.” Roxy adjusted the napkin on her lap. “Vegetarian pasta? How do you feel about that?”
“A much better choice,” Arianna said, examining the menu. “Yeah, Jackson worries about taking too much from me. I’ll be glad when our changeling request goes through.”
So that answered her earlier question. “How much longer do you have to wait?”
“At least a year from when we get married.”
“And when is that?”
“I keep telling Jackson we should just elope. I’ve always wanted Elvis to marry us, but he wants a big wedding, so we’ll see.”
“Those Vegas weddings aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.”
Arianna looked confused. “They’re not?”
Roxy laughed and told her what happened in the hallway with Gibson. Then she flashed her ring.
“No way!” She grabbed Roxy’s hand, twisting and turning it so the light caught on the facets. “That is seriously gorgeous. I cannot believe I didn’t notice it. What was the look on Santiago’s face when this all went down?”
“He was speechless.”
Arianna shook her head, laughing. “Santiago? Speechless? I’d have paid money to see that. I’ll bet it was hilarious.”
Roxy recalled the horrified look on his face when she dropped that bomb. She got a strange sense of satisfaction knowing she’d shocked him, that she’d caught him totally off guard. “Yeah, it was priceless.”
After dinner, the two women headed to the department stores to look for cocktail attire.
“Are you worried?” Roxy recalled the conversation she’d had with Brenna, who was worried about putting Finn through the procedure. “You know, about the changeling process?” She held up a lavender dress and looked in the mirror. The hem hit just below the knee, but she decided she wanted something shorter. Sexier.
Arianna continued looking through the dresses hanging on a rounder, stopping at a green sequined top. “Not really. Lily is going to be my second sponsor and we’re doing it up at the medical center. It’s not without its risks, of course, but then, nothing worthwhile is.”
It didn’t take long for either of them to find dresses and shoes for the party. As they were walking back, the wind changed direction, and Roxy caught a whiff of something that made her hesitate.
“What’s wrong?” Arianna asked.
“I’m detecting a strange mixture of scents. Darkblood, human and Guardian.”
“You mean together? Not separate as if the three individuals were here at different times?”
“The energy signatures have virtually the same amount of deterioration. If they weren’t all together at the same time, it was pretty close.”
“Was there a capture done here recently? Maybe a DB had a human and one of the Guardians discovered them.”
“I suppose it’s possible, but Santiago told me it’s been quiet lately. No captures or take downs. It is someone familiar. Although I haven’t met everyone in the Seattle office yet, his scent has a few markers from there. And he’s definitely a man.”
“And the others…?”
Roxy sniffed the air again and stiffened. Not only were the human and Darkblood both female, but, if she wasn’t mistaken, the DB’s scent matched the ring.
Her thoughts turned to the pawnshop blade. What were the chances of this female being the same one? One thing she learned when she didn’t fly up from Florida immediately when she saw that picture was that you needed to take advantage of every lead as soon as you had it because if you waited, the opportunity could be gone later. Could this really be the same individual?
“Can you track them?” Arianna asked.
The scent wasn’t strong, but it was strong enough. “Yes.”
“Well, then let’s go.”
“As in the two of us?” Roxy shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Arianna moved the shopping bags to her other hand. “You sound just like Jackson. But believe me, you don’t become a human comfortable living with a bunch of vampires without some decent self-defense training to bolster your confidence. Besides,” she said, patting her coat pockets, “my knife skills aren’t half bad. I’ve been working with Lily.”
Roxy begrudgingly agreed. If she detected any active Darkblood scent, she’d call for backup and wait to go in.
The trail led to a dingy apartment building not far from the market. She eyed the narrow stairway up to what she assumed would be the residential area and didn’t like the looks of it. This was no place for Arianna. “Listen, I’ll handle it from here. Take my bags and go back to the field office.”
“I’m not going anywhere. You can go in, but I’ll wait outside. Consider me your backup.”
Normally, Roxy would never have taken her up on it, but the only active scent was the human’s. Both the Darkblood and Guardian scents were older. The human female must be somewhere inside.
“Take our bags and go over there.” She pointed to a small coffee shop at the entrance where people were milling around. No telling if a Darkblood would be coming back soon or not.
Arianna took Roxy’s shopping bag from her outstretched hand. “Do you need me to call it in to the field office?
“Let me see what I’m dealing with first. It appears that only the human is here.”
“Fine. If you need me, just call.” Roxy liked the strength she saw in her friend’s eyes. Given what Arianna had told her about how she met Jackson, she was no stranger to what vampires could do to humans. If anyone knew the plight a human faced in the hands of a Darkblood, Arianna did.
The stairs were narrow, littered with cigarette butts, and smelled of urine. Before Roxy got to the third floor, she could hear a woman’s faint crying. It was coming from the same room as the target scent.
Roxy gently knocked on the door. “Are you okay in there?” she called. The crying stopped, but no one answered. “Please, I think I can help you.”
She held her breath, listening, but still no answer.
Damn the Darkblood who fed from her, Roxy thought bitterly. She had a pretty good idea that they hadn’t wiped this woman’s memory after they’d taken her blood. Or if they had, it wasn’t complete.
People with recollections involving vampires often ended up in mental institutions. Their stories so far-fetched and unbelievable, all because Darkbloods didn’t bother to completely wipe their memories of the harrowing
experience. That was one of the first edicts of vampire law—if they fed from a human they were to leave no trace. As a result, Guardians were tasked with cleaning up their mess in order to keep the existence of the vampires a secret from humans.
“I…I know what happened to you. Or at least, I have a pretty good idea of what happened.”
“Who are you?” The voice came from just on the other side of the door. Roxy wouldn’t have any trouble kicking it in, but she preferred to have the woman come to her on her own accord.
“A friend who can help.”
The door opened a crack, but a chain prevented it from opening much wider. A young woman with tear-stained cheeks peered out at her. She brushed her hair from her face and that’s when Roxy saw it. Two unhealed puncture marks on her wrist. She bristled. Just as she’d suspected.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Roxy. And before you think I won’t believe what happened to you, I wanted to let you know I know about the woman who did this to you.”
The girl’s eyes went wide. “You do?”
“Let’s just say that I’ve been tasked to keep people like her, members of the Darkblood Alliance, under control.”
“Are you…like them?”
Roxy thought about lying to her and then she remembered Arianna not far away. “Let me get my friend up here. You might be more comfortable with her here, too.”
“I don’t want anyone else here. You should leave.” The young woman didn’t close the door, however, which was encouraging. She hadn’t mentally shut Roxy down yet.
“Please,” Roxy pleaded, “my friend is…” She didn’t want to admit that Arianna was human because that would draw attention to the fact that Roxy was not. “We can help you. We’re not like that woman who…who did this to you.”
“I’ll…I’ll think about it.”
After sending Arianna a quick text, Roxy slid down against the wall until she was sitting on the floor just outside the door. An orange cat with mottled skin around its eyes and mouth came from around the corner and weaved around her bent legs. She opened her arms and he promptly climbed onto her lap and started purring.
She laughed. “Well, you’re a friendly guy, aren’t you?” A rustle sounded from the door. The young woman was watching her. “Is he yours?” Roxy asked her.
“I don’t know who he belongs to.”
Roxy didn’t look over at her, just kept scratching the cat’s ears, which elicited even louder purring. “He’s really sweet.” A drop of saliva hung from one of his teeth and she chuckled. “Except for his drooling.”
“I…I used to have a cat that drooled when you pet her.”
Encouraged that she was talking, Roxy continued the conversation. “You did? So did I. Her name was Jezebel. I’m not sure if I’d rather have this or a cat who kneaded you with really sharp claws, although Jezzie did both. Now, I have a dog. Ginger. I really miss her.”
The girl sniffed. “My cat’s name was Buttons. He was black and white and all four paws were white, like mittens.”
“Why didn’t you name him Mittens?”
“We did, but my…my sister couldn’t remember his name. Kept calling him Buttons.”
The cat jumped from Roxy’s lap and headed for the crack in the door. A few fingers stuck out low in the opening and he rubbed his back against the frame.
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” the young woman asked cautiously.
Given that Roxy was sitting cross-legged on the ground, hopefully her intimidation factor had decreased. “Yes and no. I would never do to you what they did. Most of us have scruples. I’m here to make sure that—” She almost said vampires, but decided that word might be too frightening for the young woman to hear out loud. Verbalizing things gave them power. “—that it never happens to you or to anyone else.” The cat came back and sat in her lap again.
“So are you a…a Guardian?”
Roxy cringed. How did she know that term? “No,” she said, exhaling. Her breath ruffled the cat’s fur enough that he shook his head, flinging saliva onto her jeans. “But I used to be one.”
“What happened?”
Roxy sighed, remembering a moonless night almost a century ago. A humid summer night in the Keys, not cold, like it was here. Scents were more concentrated, more alive, in that kind of weather. Like a living petri dish where things grew whether you wanted them to or not. “My…partner and I were tracking several Darkbloods who had taken a human.” Their victim was a sweetblood, but the girl didn’t need to hear that whole explanation. “We split up and I managed to kill one of them, but the other one got away.”
Ian had lied to Roxy, told her the Darkblood had escaped with the human, but that wasn’t true. She didn’t find out about it until the next night. The night that changed everything.
“He…uh…was killed by Darkbloods and I was blamed for not being there to back him up. No one listened to me. It got pretty ugly. So I quit.”
A door slammed shut several stories below them and footsteps bounded up the stairs. Arianna’s green eyes were blazing when she got to the top. “Where is she?”
Pointing to the door, Roxy stood slowly, the cat still in her arms, and shook off the ghosts of her past.
Ignoring the fact that it was chained, Arianna thrust her hand through the small opening and touched the young woman’s shoulder. “What did those bastards do to you?”
“You’re…you’re not one of them?”
“No, I’m not,” Arianna answered. “I’m just as human as you are. Can we come in?”
“She’s not…human,” the young woman said, looking at Roxy.
“True,” Arianna admitted, “but she’s one of the good guys and we’re both here to help.”
The young woman narrowed her eyes. “How do I know you’re not just saying that? How can I trust either of you?”
“Do you think we humans can fight these guys ourselves?” Arianna asked. “Believe me. I’ve tried. We need the help of people like Roxy.”
“You’ve fought them before?” the young woman asked skeptically.
The elevator at the far end of the hallway opened with a shuddering groan and a human male stepped out. His keys jingled as he unlocked his door and slipped inside.
“We can’t talk out here,” Arianna said. “Can we come in? I promise I’ll tell you all about it.”
“You…you will?”
“Yeah, I even killed one of them.” Arianna made a face. “God, it was disgusting.”
“You did?” the girl said, echoing Roxy’s thoughts. She didn’t know Arianna had killed a Darkblood either.
“Yeah, but that’s nothing. Those in her line of work—” she jerked her head in Roxy’s direction
“—kill these bastards all the time. Right, Roxy?”
She nodded. “I’ve charcoaled my fair share.”
“In fact,” Arianna said, “she killed two of them several weeks ago and she wasn’t even armed.”
Roxy rolled her eyes. Brenna must’ve told her.
The girl unfastened the chain and opened the door. She wore jeans, a T-shirt with a pub insignia, and was barefoot. Once they were inside, she closed the door and turned to face them, a hopeful yet wary expression on her face. Roxy backed away slowly to make sure she wasn’t encroaching on the young woman’s personal space.
The dingy room was sparsely furnished with just a bed, a table and two chairs, and a small kitchenette. Devoid of virtually all personal items, this couldn’t be where she lived, could it? It was more like a rent-by-the-hour motel room.
Roxy continued. “It’s my job to find those who did this to you and make sure they never do it again. What’s your name?”
“Cosette.”
Arianna was looking at the unhealed marks on the young woman’s wrist. “Did you see this?” she
asked Roxy.
“She fed from you, didn’t she, Cosette?”
She nodded and one thick tear tracked down her cheek. “Me and my sister.”
&nbs
p; “Your sister?” Roxy hadn’t picked up the scent of another human. In fact, she couldn’t detect any other scent, human or vampire.
Cosette explained how she and her sister had been taken captive by Darkbloods who said if she didn’t agree to help, her sister would be killed. “She called Yvonne a sweetblood and said her…her blood was really valuable. Told me I needed to seduce a guy she pointed out at a bar—she called him a Guardian—if I wanted to see Yvonne again.”
“And did you?” Roxy asked quietly.
“I—I’m not sure.” She held her arms tightly around her middle, looking like she might get sick. “I think I…must have, but I can’t remember anything about…it…or him.”
A partial memory wipe.
“Where did it happen?” She couldn’t smell that any vampires had been in here recently. Guardians or Darkbloods.
Cosette frowned. “I…I don’t remember the name of the bar, but she had me bring the man here.”
No way. Why hadn’t she smelled his scent inside the tiny room? She dropped to her hands and knees and felt around the threadbare carpet. And there it was. A few tiny crystals, no bigger than coarse salt, stuck to her palms. Scent-masking crystals. That explained why she didn’t detect anything.
“Can you remember anything…anything at all about him? A name? An impression?” Roxy stood and continued inspecting the room. She was fairly certain that no one had died here so at least that was comforting.
“No. Nothing.” Cosette rubbed her forehead. “It’s like there’s a hole in my memory.”
Why was she instructed to bring a Guardian back here and seduce him? Roxy wondered. Darkbloods wouldn’t hesitate to kill a Guardian they found in a vulnerable situation.
Could they have stolen something from him? Planted something on him?
Roxy’s hands went cold.
Of course.
She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. This could explain why she hadn’t detected a traitor within the field office. It was entirely possible that the person didn’t know they were being used.
You had to know you were a traitor in order to lie about it.
She needed to get ahold of Santiago.
Cosette waved her hand in front of her face as if all of this was unimportant, like she was wiping these questions out of her thoughts. “She promised she’d bring my sister back, but so far, she hasn’t. I’m beginning to think that she was planning to keep her all along. Maybe—” Cosette’s voice faltered “—maybe Yvonne is already…gone.”
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