“Cross my heart.”
It wasn’t until she was in her own vehicle and buckling herself in that Pandora realized she’d just given a very attractive man carte blanche to call her any time. Her reflection in the rearview mirror smiled sleekly back at her.
Well, that might not be such a bad thing, girl. He’s a hottie. Who knows where it might lead?
Driving away, she completely missed the similar expression of satisfaction that crossed Cheney’s face. His thoughts, however, were much simpler.
Gotcha.
In spite of being plagued by unsettling images and thoughts about his experience with Pandora’s critter, it wasn’t until the following day that Cheney actually had a chance to do anything constructive about it.
He’d locked the sample away in his desk drawer, figuring he needed some time to consider how it could best be handled. Sure, the lab boys would probably have a field day analyzing it, but for some reason he felt it shouldn’t be made public. He didn’t want Pandora discussed any more than she had been when she’d cut a swath through the precinct. And this wasn’t a formal investigation but a private one.
He’d fielded the lewd comments, ignored Buck’s curiously raised eyebrows and gone on with the routine paperwork which always seemed to pile up on his desk, regardless of the fact that everyone knew they were now living in a paperless society.
Yeah. Like that would ever happen.
Another restless night passed, another morning of mundane chores dragged on. He wasn’t complaining, of course. Since the Afterglow and the consequent generations of improved DNA collection and tagging, the murder rate had declined and there was a helluva lot less for trained detectives to do than there had been back in the day. Perps stood two chances of evading arrest—slim and none.
But the essentials of human nature hadn’t changed. Every now and again somebody went off the deep end and regressed into violence. Oddly enough they were almost always in their human selves when they did.
One might expect vampires to account for corpses on a regular basis. Or werewolves to gnaw on a body part now and again. But it didn’t happen. Apparently humans were the prime candidates for losing it, for picking up a convenient weapon and beating another human over the head with it.
There was a moral in there someplace, Cheney knew. Some day perhaps he’d figure out what it was. But until then, he just did the paperwork.
By the time midday rolled around, he knew he couldn’t put it off any longer. A decision on what to do with that little pile of bagged muck in his drawer simply had to be made. And, as he’d done on so many occasions before, he accepted that there was really only one person he trusted with the details, one person whose advice would do anything other than muddy up the waters.
“Hey, Buck. Lunch? I’m buying.”
“Dude. You got it.” His partner pushed back from his desk with a big grin. “What’s the occasion? And how much are you gonna shell out on my behalf? I’m feeling a real need for something expensive.”
“I need to run something by you.”
“Aha. Woman trouble. I knew it. You’ve been looking frazzled the last couple of days. Come to think of it—” Buck stroked his chin thoughtfully. “It’s that redhead, isn’t it? The lawyer?”
Cheney rolled his eyes. “Sort of. But not really.”
He endured the five-minute walk to their favorite sandwich shop, riddled as it was with jibing comments, ribald suppositions about his sex life and more than a couple of remarks about redheads.
It wasn’t until they were tucked into a back booth with food in front of them that he finally held up a hand and cut Buck off. “Enough already. Time to get serious here.”
With that, he gave his partner a brief rundown of events and an inadequate description of the thing he’d seen. Buck sobered rapidly.
“Jesus. What the fuck was it?”
“I have no damn clue, Buck. Never in my life seen anything like it.”
“I wish I’d been there.”
“So do I. Maybe you could’ve picked up something I missed.” He thought for a moment. “I’m going to try something here.” He took a half-eaten pickle off a small plate and pushed it across the table. “Look.”
With a brief instant of focus, Cheney opened his mind and recalled the thing he’d discovered in the illusion. It didn’t take a great deal of effort to recreate the brutally ugly image—in the center of the empty plate.
“Fuck me sideways.” Buck’s voice was hushed, his eyes wide. “God in heaven. What is that thing?” He looked up. “And how the hell are you doing that?”
“Don’t ask me. And that applies to both questions. At least it worked. Now you know what it looked like.” He grimaced. “I can’t recreate that godawful sense of wrongness, though. That creepy bad feeling that surrounded it.”
“And you say it disintegrated?”
Cheney nodded. “Poof. It was gone into a pile of dust. Like my seeing it for what it really was kind of killed it. Or something.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I really can’t tell you any more, Buck. It was mega-weird. And that’s saying something for us.”
“Yeah.” Buck hissed through his front teeth. “Pandora didn’t see it?”
“No. She sensed something was off about it. To her it was a butt-ugly dog with a bad attitude. She came to me since she knows a couple of friends of mine. She’d heard what I do—the foster thing—and figured I might be able to help. Or at least point her in the right direction to someone who could.”
“So…what you gonna do?”
“Haven’t a clue.” Cheney frowned at his food. “I suppose I should pass it along to the lab. They’ve got the equipment to analyze it. But I’m thinking since this is more of a private deal, not a formal police investigation, that’s probably not the best idea. Some case will come up and this’ll get pushed to the bottom of the pile. Or worse, forgotten, until some twinky little tech gets bored.”
“That’s one option.”
“The other side of that is that this’ll cause a ruckus because it’s unique. And scientists love unique. Papers will appear and before we can zip our flies we’ll be crawling with international experts, all hungry for a piece of the action.” He shuddered. “That’s even worse.”
“Hmm.” Buck munched a French fry thoughtfully. “Maybe there’s a third option.”
“If there is, spill it. I’m at a dead end.”
“I’ll have to talk to Lian.”
Cheney’s head jerked up. “I don’t want her involved in this. She’s busy enough. And if she isn’t, you’re not the man I thought you were.”
Buck grinned. “She’s busy.” Another fry disappeared. “But she’s got contacts. You ever consider a private lab?”
“No.” He paused. “No. I hadn’t considered that.”
“Maybe you should.”
“I doubt if there are too many around these days that can do anything more than our boys. Let’s face it, Buck. Just about everyone’s state-of-the-art.”
“You’d be surprised.” Buck wiped his mouth. “I’ll call her. See if I can get a green light to take your sample someplace special. To someone special.” He chuckled. “If she says yes, you’re in for a little treat.”
“Okay.” Cheney nodded. “At this point I’m ready to try looking outside the box. And it would be nice to have something concrete to tell Pandora when she calls. Which I know she will.”
“Smug bastard.”
He smirked. “Not really. She’s the kind of woman who gets her teeth into something and won’t give up, I reckon.”
“And you’re planning on finding out, I take it.”
“Hell yeah. She’s a tough cookie on the outside, all lawyer and business. But beneath that…”
“Beneath that?”
Cheney glanced at Buck. “I’ll let you know. Or not, as the case may be.”
“You’re cooked, dude. Battered and fried and served up with a side of neatly chopped masculinity.”
“Bullshit.”
Buck shrugged. “I know the signs. Been there, struggled against that and lost the battle. And the T-shirt too, come to think of it.” He smiled. “That, of course, was the good part.”
Cheney rolled his eyes. “I ain’t going there.”
“Good thing, because neither am I.” Buck shifted in his seat. “However, to get back to the packet of Mr. Nasty—I’m getting a strong vibe that you’re thinking dark thoughts.”
“You picking around in my brains?”
“Nope. It was the frown that gave you away. That and the fact that you haven’t finished your fries. Which is a first, by the way.”
Cheney passed off the comment on his eating habits and merely pushed some ketchup around on his plate with a bit of pickle. Buck was, in essence, right on the nose. He was having some real dark thoughts that he didn’t like at all. “It’s crazy.”
“What?”
“I’m feeling a real strong urge to make some wild-ass connections here. And they’re probably off the wall, so feel free to tell me I’m being an asshole.”
“Okay, you’re being an asshole. What connections?”
Taking a moment or two to find the right words, Cheney finally glanced at his partner. “What if this thing I saw is connected to our basilisk killer?”
Both Buck’s eyebrows rose. “That’s one helluva leap.”
“I know.” He nodded. “But hear me out. This thing, this creature—it wasn’t any kind of natural deformation I’ve seen or read about. And we’re pretty much at the top of the heap when it comes to notification of new mutations, Buck.”
“Agreed. Go on.”
“So what if it was—manufactured? An artificial, man-made mess of DNA?”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re thinking the creator might have had something to do with controlling the basilisk killings?”
Cheney blinked away some real bad images. “I’m thinking that anyone trying to establish control over AGs and turn them into serial killers wouldn’t be above trying to create his own special brand of mutation. One that would automatically kill on command. It’s a natural progression.” He leaned back. “It skips a whole bunch of steps, Buck. No finding someone who’s got the right kind of DNA for killing. Fairies wouldn’t be a good choice, for example. Poking someone to death with their wings isn’t exactly effective. So he goes for creatures equipped to do the most damage in the least time. The basilisk.”
“Okay, I’m with you so far.”
“But those creatures, those mutations, have to be…” Cheney paused, looking for the right way to explain something that had been, up until this moment, a nebulous concept in his mind. “Trained, I guess is the best way to put it. That basilisk AG had to be made susceptible to external control. I really can’t believe it just happened. Boom. I’m having sex. Oh wait, I hear a voice and it’s telling me to rip her to shreds.” He shook his head. “I can’t buy that.”
“It’s bothered me some.”
“So, not being that strong a believer in coincidences—I’m wondering if that same hand is behind both these things. A controlled killer and a new kind of mutation.”
“Like I said, it’s a big leap.” Buck gazed steadily at Cheney.
“Yes, it is. And I’m probably certifiable for even thinking along these lines. But I can’t help it. Like you said the other day, unfinished business. It bugs the shit out of me.” He shifted in his seat and pushed his plate to one side. “I don’t like unfinished business.”
“Nothing’s set off any alarm bells officially.”
“I know.”
“So you’re on your own, pretty much.”
“I know that too.”
“I’ll help.”
Cheney flashed a weak grin across the table. “Another thing I knew. But I don’t want to drag you into what may well be one helluva wild-goose chase.”
“Hey, that’s what partners are for, dude.” Buck stood. “Now pay for lunch, will ya? I gotta go talk to my woman and see what I can set up.”
“Your woman?” Cheney snorted. “She’d castrate you if she heard that.” He shoved money under his water glass. “And I wouldn’t blame her.”
“Wait and see, my friend. Wait until your redheaded lawyer’s got you by the balls. Then come make snarky comments. We’ll see who’s right about the intricacies of the female gender.”
“Yeah. Like that’s gonna happen.”
Buck merely smiled, leaving Cheney with a rather discomforting suspicion that his partner might be a little close to the mark. He knew he was looking forward to talking to Pandora again and that given an inch, he’d take her the full mile. She’d gotten under his skin for some reason, and he wasn’t sure he was okay with that or not.
She was undoubtedly attractive and knew it. She used it to mask a steel spine and the persistence of a bull terrier. Yet somewhere, someplace under all the other stuff, was a woman Cheney wanted to know better.
In so many different and erotic ways.
He followed Buck out of the restaurant, contemplating how many of those ways involved getting Pandora naked.
The result was unsurprising. All of ’em.
Chapter Six
Pandora had not spent a whole lot of time wondering about Detective Cheney Fisher. At least that’s what she told herself.
She’d refused to fall asleep at night thinking about him, or dreaming of his long body plastered up against hers. She’d ignored the memory of his faint scent—something masculine and arousing—and absolutely hadn’t imagined any erotic interludes that included him.
Nope. She wasn’t going there.
Much.
Her schedule was full to the brim and she’d already had to rearrange meetings to steal away with him and deal with her critter problem. She wasn’t sorry that was over, since her home felt a lot better without that presence lurking in her kitchen.
Of course, not that she spent a whole lot of time there, given the long hours and after-work engagements that figured large in the life of a successful lawyer. Before she knew it, two days had passed without a word from Detective Yummy.
She’d gotten home, exhausted from an afternoon in court followed by a business dinner with a new client who wanted her to represent his corporation during some upcoming litigation. It was big money and she’d landed the account while managing to avoid being landed herself.
Business and pleasure didn’t mix, in Pandora’s opinion. Sleeping with clients was a bad idea, no matter how many overnight trips to Paris or Rome they dangled in front of her. She’d been hard pressed to refrain from pointing out to this overeager executive that he could hire other women to fulfill that function in his life.
Hiring her firm to represent him didn’t get him a pass into her bedroom nor did it get him a naked traveling companion.
She sighed, kicked off her shoes and rested her hip against the huge wood sculpture, feeling the warmth and vibrations soothe her tense muscles.
It was always like this—a sense of well-being, a calmness that she could draw from such an essential element of life on earth. For a few seconds she contemplated letting go, changing into what she had buried so deeply within her.
But then a wave of tiredness made her yawn and she moved into her bedroom. Sleep was a top priority. Tomorrow would be as busy as today. Once again she firmly closed the mental door on that side of her nature.
She absently checked her messages in between her routine of preparing for bed. Nothing from Cheney. Which didn’t matter of course. Not in the least. It merely meant he had no news, no information about anything pertaining to that thing.
Turning the lights out and slipping tiredly between the sheets, she sighed. He’d probably forgotten all about it. And her. Maybe he’d gotten a big case and shoved her little problem to the back of his drawer.
Maybe he’d been lured into some disgustingly sexual relationship with a loose and immoral woman who would cater to his every whim.
Maybe he just did
n’t like redheads.
And maybe she needed her brain examined for dwelling on this man, for letting him invade those deliciously relaxing moments when she could let go of the day and close her eyes. Christ above, she was worse than some drooling schoolgirl with a first crush.
Resolutely, she snuggled into her pillow and pushed Detective Cheney Fisher out of her thoughts, sliding into a vision of a moonlit forest, where there were no problems, no meetings, no phones—just the hushed and comforting sound of the wind soughing through leaves glistening in the night.
Sleep came quickly, and with it a dream.
She was drifting, her feet barely touching the soft moss of the forest path. All was warmth and pleasure, the trees around her gently nodding in approval as she moved beneath their welcoming branches.
She was going somewhere, that she knew. And it wasn’t far now, a destination ahead toward which she eagerly hurried. There was no sense of anxiety, just an overwhelming urgency to get there, to stand—to breathe—to accept who and what she was.
And share it. With him.
There—a few more steps and she was there, a clearing dappled with moonbeams, surrounded by ancient oaks and massive firs that enclosed her as securely as any walls could have done. Almost circular, with more soft moss beneath her bare feet, it stretched for several yards in every direction.
And it felt—right.
Pandora smiled to herself. This was the place. Her place.
She lifted her arms wide, embracing the essence of nature, opening her heart and her mind to the spirits around her. She felt the warmth of their welcome, their delight in sharing this moment with her.
She dropped her controls and felt the stirrings of wings emerging from her back. It was a joyous release, this growing of branches, this leafing in of her special gifts. Her bare toes lengthened into roots, burying themselves in the moss and through to the rich loam beneath, drawing soul-deep nourishment and bringing a tiny sound of pleasure to her lips.
She rested, lost in her ecstasy, free at last to explore all that she’d kept so well hidden while awake. She knew she dreamed, with that peculiar ability of the mind to accept what was real and what wasn’t. But asleep, she was unfettered by controls, naked in her bliss, liberated in a place where nobody could follow.
Demons are a Ghoul's Best Friend: Afterglow, Book 2 Page 5