by Gaja J. Kos
What I made out of the lines, though, made me doubt I’d read it correctly.
The symbols depicted on the pages had zero ties to black magic.
Only light.
Could it be that the variations twisted them so thoroughly in a more sinister direction? And if they had, how the fuck was I supposed to find out what other changes the alteration brought?
I frowned and kept on reading, but before I could finish the paragraph, my phone rang.
Roth.
“Sir, I’ve just found a source—”
“You need to return to your hotel ASAP.”
My fingers clenched on the edge of the desk. But I didn’t move. Not yet. “What’s happened?”
“Our facial recognition came back with a hit.” The brief pause cackled with tension. “We know where Isa Vogt is.”
14
My chair clattered onto the ground as I jumped to my feet. “You found Isa? Where?”
“An agent will be waiting at your hotel to brief you further.”
With that, the line went dead. I would have scoffed at Stein’s brusque attitude if my entire body wasn’t buzzing with adrenaline, with the need to hunt. But also fear of what I might find.
Worse—what I’d have to do once I found Isa.
The shopkeeper entered the room just as I stashed my phone in my bag. I grabbed the book off the desk and, before he could as much as open his mouth, thrust it into his hands. “Bill me for this.”
His slightly breathless answer came from behind as I pushed past him into the office, then the store proper. “It’s an antique.”
I stopped by his desk and pinned him with an unrelenting stare.
“I don’t care how much it costs.” I whipped out my ICRA card. They would probably grill me once the bill came, but I couldn’t leave the book here. Not when it was the first that actually provided something concrete. “Just do it.”
He scurried behind the counter and did as told.
Oh yes, my superiors would definitely have a fit when they found a several-thousand-euro charge on their account. I snatched the book off the counter before the man could proceed with his intention of wrapping it. A brief pained expression crossed his face, but he didn’t chide my manners. Smart man.
Because there was just one rule right now that dominated everything.
Never get between a wolf and its prey.
That distinct stale airplane smell still clung to me when my Frankfurt ICRA liaison dropped me off in Hanau. We’d exchanged only a few sentences on the ride from the airport—mainly to let me know where I’d be staying and who would be my standby driver since it would take the local office some time to allocate me a car. A bike, as I’d asked, was out of the question with the somewhat more limited resources they had here. Thankfully, I was too busy going over all the information Roth’s agent had dropped in my lap to snarl out my displeasure.
Depending on drivers and public transport was fine in Berlin, where I hadn’t been tracking, merely chasing down leads. Here, however, with Isa on the move…
I pulled out my list of possible locations she might visit and crept away from the masses teeming on the street. With the Grimm festival still very much in full motion, there were more tourists ambling about Hanau than I cared to have in my godsdamned way. But there was an upside to that.
Isa’s possible locations narrowed down to discreet bars that carried blood.
I padded deeper into a side street and clung to the shadows as a group of children rushed by. There was no way Isa would risk the public. ICRA’s facial recognition might have picked her up from the background in someone’s social media post, but that had been some massive fucking luck. The picture itself, with her clearly trying to keep a low profile, was proof enough that she was well aware of just how cautious she needed to be.
Though why she’d chosen Hanau of all places was beyond me.
After another turn and another side street, I entered the first of the establishments. My eyes needed a second to adjust to the dim interior—a dead giveaway that the bar catered to a supernatural population. A few vamps nursed glasses of blood in the far corner, but otherwise, the place was quiet. I walked up to the bartender wiping down the counter.
“Hi,”—I pulled up Isa’s photo on my phone while flashing my ICRA badge with my free hand—“have you seen this woman?”
The blonde werewolf leaned on the counter and took a good, long look at Isa’s face. Had to love people who didn’t give you a hard time as soon as you asked a question.
“Sorry, no.” She threw the towel over one shoulder. “I can keep an eye out, though.”
I stashed away my phone and handed her a card. “I’d appreciate that.”
Her warm smile stayed with me long after I hit the streets again. I repeated the process several times over, with some bartenders and waiters more forthcoming than others. Unfortunately, none had seen a cold, dark-haired vamp slinking about. Great.
By the time I checked out the ninth place on my list, my patience was wearing thin.
Pushing aside the pang of hunger that hit me as the scent of bratwurst ensnared my senses, I weaved between the tall tables situated haphazardly throughout the space. Several of them boasted a vast assortment of supes cradling their beer or blood, some more raucous than others, while the places by the wall seemed to draw a calmer crowd, mostly focused on devouring the aromatic food.
Part of me wanted nothing more than to snag a meal for myself, but now wasn’t the time.
I squeezed myself through to the bar. The werewolf on my right refused to budge, so I elbowed him a bit, which earned me a snarl. I snarled right back, and his warlock buddy quickly ushered him to an empty table by the wall.
As soon as I made sure they’d stay away, I turned my attention to the bartender. Judging by the harsh expression twisting his features, he wasn’t impressed by my performance. I gave him one of my no-nonsense looks.
I really should have known my fairly pleasant streak would end soon enough.
The man’s gaze caught on my badge before I could open my mouth. “We don’t serve your lot here.”
The group of vamps who’d been occupying the spot to my left promptly made themselves scarce.
I braced one arm against the bar and leaned in. “Then it’s a good thing I’m not here to drink your piss-poor excuse for a beer.”
A kernel of demonic power flared from his burly form—the watered-down variety, hinting he was half demon instead of full.
I was just grateful we were a hair’s width out of Raya’s territory. I didn’t need shit like this getting back to the demon lord and reminding her of my existence.
The rock music streaming from the speakers took a somewhat more demanding turn, as if the bartender’s simmering mood had influenced the playlist. Shit, for all I knew, he just might have had a magic wielder set something like that up.
The drums and riffs intensified as he snarled, “Get the fuck out of my bar, ICRA scum.”
“Sure thing.” I rapped my fingers against the counter, then pulled Isa’s photo from my bag and showed it to him. “As soon as you tell me if you saw this vampire.”
“No. Now get out before I throw you out.”
A cold smile touched my lips.
Liar, liar.
He strode past a beaded curtain into the back, the stench of his lie trailing in his wake. When the clatter of bottles wove to me through the music, I eased my way around the counter and followed the prick.
Right as I entered, he turned, a plastic crate filled with beer in his hands. “What the—”
I was on him before he could finish the sentence.
The crate tumbled to the floor, glass breaking as I shoved him back until he hit the shelves. One second, the room was dim with only a single, weak overhead light chasing away the shadows. The next, everything gained a blue hue as I unleashed my demon fire in a wicked display.
“This has been a long, long day,” I said, leaning into the half demon harder. Bottles
rattled on the shelves. “Go on, give me an excuse to have some fun.”
His power flared—but only briefly before he swore and went pliant under my touch.
“Shame.” I sniffed. “But I suppose hearing the truth from your mouth instead of your screams will have to do.”
A current of anger wafted from him. Mr. Charming still had some fight in him. Just not enough to push me to a point he knew he couldn’t come back from.
“What do you want to know?” he squeezed out.
“The vampire I showed you earlier. You’ve seen her, haven’t you?”
When all he offered was a curt nod, I tugged him towards me then rammed him into the shelves again. He cursed but didn’t fight back.
“She was here this morning. Alone. Drank some blood, then left.”
“Left where?”
“How the fuck should I know?” he shouted, but composed himself as a gag of blue flames hovered just over his mouth. There was nothing but venom in his eyes when he looked at me. “She called a cab, all right? That’s all I know.”
I let the flames linger there for a moment longer. “Which company?”
After Mr. Charming gave me the name of some local supe-owned company, I left him to his anger. Much to my surprise, he didn’t try to tackle me from behind—nor did any of the patrons attempt to stir shit as I marched past them. There was no way they hadn’t overheard our little chat in the back. But they also seemed to value enjoying their drinks and not getting their asses kicked over hating on an ICRA agent.
Rough crowd as they might be, they definitely had their priorities straight.
As soon as I put some distance between me and the bar, I found a moderately quiet biergarten and ordered myself a bratwurst and well-earned Paulaner. Elsa had always insisted people should reward themselves for their hard work. It might have taken me a while to get on board with slowing down to treat myself, but right now, I was grateful I had. A taste of the perfect, cool brew struck me as downright divine.
I called my liaison with a quick update, then, with some time to spare before my food arrived, researched the cab company. Their webpage left a lot to be desired, but after squinting at the unfortunate yellow letters on a black background, I managed to track down a number. I called it, sipping my beer to get me through the three-minute wait since their operators were apparently all busy.
By the time my call patched through, the waitress had already delivered my bratwurst.
“Hello, this is Agent Lotte Freundenberger from the Interspecies Crimes and Relations Agency calling.”
“Yes?” The woman’s tone held a cautious note, though it was one that spoke of a general hesitancy when dealing with ICRA, not the guilt of someone who was about to withhold information.
“A person we’re trying to track down ordered one of your cabs this morning.”
“Okay.” The caution remained a steady thread in the texture of her voice. “Can you tell me when?”
I gave her the approximate time and pickup point—as well as my badge number when she asked for it. I had to admit, I admired her reluctance to hand out information without verifying me.
Which is why I wasn’t upset as she put me on hold to reach out to the Agency.
As an annoying, generic melody played into my ear, I wolfed down half of my bratwurst and indulged in some people watching. With the evening slowly approaching, the locals were starting to come out in numbers. Their presence washed away the lingering buzz of tourists who’d ventured through this part of town, creating an atmosphere that appealed to my tastes.
“Agent Freundenberger?”
I sat up straighter and crossed one leg over the other. “Yes.”
“I can confirm our driver picked up the vampire.”
“Can you tell me where they dropped her off?” I wiped the mustard off my fingers. “And when?”
“The main train station at nine thirty.”
Which meant Isa was long gone.
“Thank you so much for your assistance,” I said to the woman, meaning every word, then heaved a long sigh when the call disconnected.
Long gone, but at least I was left with a lead.
I finished my meal, then trekked to Hanau’s Hauptbanhof. The reek of sweaty humanity in the July heat was nearly overwhelming in the busy area and assured me there was no way in all the realms I could pick up Isa’s scent on the off chance it had survived the long hours since she’d been here. Still, I explored every nook and cranny of the station, though the more I looked, the louder my instincts’ nagging became.
Isa would never risk a train.
Even if the cameras had several blind spots she could have used to her advantage, the entire thing just didn’t sit right with me.
No, this had to have been a diversion. One we’d waste precious time and resources on, attempting to figure out which godsdamned train she’d boarded.
Once I padded back outside and sought shelter under a tree mercifully devoid of any waiting passengers who encroached the sidewalks, I attempted to put myself into Isa’s shoes and map out all possible routes. Something, I suspected, I’d do a whole lot better from behind a computer where I could pull up all surveillance cameras, see which areas were free of them. But that would mean getting my ass back to Frankfurt. And my gut was telling me that would be the wrong move to make right now.
Besides, Isa didn’t have that kind of information on hand. She wouldn’t have operated based on it, anyway.
So I leaned my back against the rough trunk, closed my eyes, and opened my senses. I discarded all directions with thick clusters of humanity, then filtered out those whose supe population might have caused the same visibility issue. I also eliminated any paths so utterly devoid of life that a vamp with striking features and a personality strong enough for even humans to pick up on wouldn’t have been able to go unnoticed had she bumped a lone straggler.
Which left me with a single route.
I headed in the direction of the Main River. The unease I hadn’t been able to shake entirely ever since Stein had presented Isa as the killer reared its head. I wasn’t ready to confront her. Not really.
Yet at the same time, the impulse to find Isa presented a force that refused to be ignored.
I latched on to it, shutting down all unnecessary chatter going on in my mind. Maybe it would have been easier to just shift into wolf form and let nature take care of that mess, put pure instinct behind the wheel—but damn it, if it didn’t feel like a cowardly way out.
No. If—when—I came face-to-face with Isa, I couldn’t hide behind my wolf.
The few houses and greens on the other side of the train station gave way to a more industrial setting. I stuck to the same criteria that had guided me here whenever I had to choose a new path or turn, and it wasn’t long until I ended up in a beaten-down area with an odd combination of warehouses and fields of scorched grass. The latter would have had me turning around if it weren’t for the brush lining the pothole-filled road, offering some cover.
Or the faint tang staining the otherwise coppery and cement smell dominating the air.
I sucked in a deep breath, though I already knew what that particular trace signified.
Blood.
15
I rushed down the path, the blood a beacon calling to me.
The single consolation was that it smelled fresh—not a body, then. I didn’t think I could handle stumbling upon Isa’s latest victim, knowing that those hours I’d wasted running around bars could have saved a life.
When the thread turned into three distinct flavors weaving through the air, though, a spike of urgency shot through me nonetheless.
My feet kicked up gravel as the paved road beneath me ended. I sprinted forward, gaze trained on what appeared to be a leg stretched out from behind a dense, browning bush. I picked up the individual scents of the three males long before I saw their beaten-up forms cast about like broken dolls. Shit.
“Don’t move,” I said as one of them, a redheaded guy wi
th a beard that was more crusted blood than hair, started to raise himself on his arms. “Help’s on the way.”
I pulled out my phone and sent a pre-programmed text with my location to ICRA, then devoted my attention to the victims. None struck me as critical, but the vast assortment of injuries plaguing their bodies needed some professional care despite all of them being supes.
“I’m ICRA Agent Freundenberger. Can you tell me what happened?”
The drop in the atmosphere was tangible. One of the guys actually started to drag himself away, though his effort was quickly thwarted as the small rocks and dust dug into his open wounds.
Ignoring him, I turned to the redheaded one. “What. Happened.”
“Bitch beat us up and stole my car.”
The hoarseness of his voice coupled with what I could see of his chapped lips hinted the entire thing went down immediately after the cab had dropped Isa off. Because there was no doubt in my head this was her work.
I wasn’t entirely sure what gave me the impression—maybe it was the meticulous placement of the injuries despite their gnarly appearance; maybe it was the overpowering reek of toxic masculinity I could most definitely envision Isa punching the crap out of—but my gut was convinced she was behind the attack.
Still, I asked, “Can you describe her?”
“Vamp,” Redhead croaked. “Black hair. Green eyes. Cold bitch, if you know what I mean.”
I smothered the impulse to apply some pressure to the nasty-looking bruise on his shin. “Tell me the make and model of your car.”
As soon as he described his old VW Golf, I phoned everything in, then waited the ten minutes it took for the team to arrive on-scene. The trio, oddly enough, behaved, choosing sullen silence over another escape attempt. I didn’t bother trying to figure out just what illegal dealings they had going on in their lives, but whatever it was, I figured it wasn’t quite as bad as the state they were in.
When the team arrived, a vampire in a crisp suit and cheekbones sharp enough to kill a man approached me while the medics and another agent huddled around the three vics.