The Judah Black Novels Box Set

by E. A. Copen

  I reached out to turn off the little television. “Well,” I said to Tindall. “If there wasn’t open animosity between supernaturals and everyone else, there’s going to be now.”

  “This is the L.A. Revelation all over again.”

  I turned to look at him. His face had gone white, and a droplet of sweat trailed down the side of his face. Los Angeles was Ground Zero for the Revelation, the few weeks of chaos where the rest of the world found out about supernaturals.

  It started with the vampires, who were only forced out of the coffin, so to speak, thanks to a high-profile murder case. The defendant used his vampirism as an excuse to commit murder. When the heat got too heavy, the vamps forced the werewolves out to shift attention away from them. That’s when the riots started. It was all peaceful protests at first, marches and picketers with signs outside of restaurants and businesses refusing business to anyone they thought was a vampire or werewolf. No one knows who fired first, but it happened in L.A. Overnight, the protests turned into riots and swept through the city, leaving a death toll in the hundreds.

  After that, the fae came forward pre-emptively, but only after BSI was already a done deal. A lot of vampires and werewolves were bitter. By coming out last and late, the fae had avoided much of the violence directed at the other two.

  “Jesus, Tindall,” I breathed. “Were you there?”

  “I was still working the beat. Back then, if you had a badge and a gun and they had enough riot shields, you got one. They told you where to stand, and God help you if you moved from that spot. I’ll never forget it. There was this feeling in the air right before everything went to Hell, like a sort of…anger static. Fury so thick you could taste it. It’s hard to explain. I’m kind of getting that same feeling.” He let out a sigh. “Just a few more weeks. We can hold things together just a few more weeks, don’t you think?”

  I nodded and patted Tindall on the back. “All the more reason we need to make sure Maude doesn’t keep his office for the next few years.”

  He bowed out of the break room, and I followed. “So, I heard you had someone detained? You got a suspect already?”

  “No,” I answered. “Just witnesses of a sort, though they claim they saw nothing. Last one to have seen our victims alive. Not sure how he was involved with the porno production, but his name’s all over the paperwork for it.”

  “The same vampires?”

  I lifted my pinky finger and said in what I deemed to be a fancy accent, “Italian vampires.”

  Tindall grunted. “I gotta say, I don’t envy you in the least. Vampires kinda make me feel sick. Anything that lives by taking life from others…”

  “Everything does, Tindall.”

  He crossed his arms. “I don’t.”

  “Do you eat? Even plants are alive at some point. Something’s dying to keep you alive.”

  He scowled at the thought, grinding his teeth.

  I thought hard about asking Tindall to help me take their statements. With two witnesses, we could get done twice as fast if I had help. The blood slave might open up and say something if he were separated from his master. Then again, it was more likely Crux would take offense at the suggestion.

  “I think I can handle a vampire. You work on putting my team together for me like I asked.”

  “You betcha.”

  We parted ways at the end of the narrow walkway between cubicles, me going left while Tindall went right. As I closed on the interrogation room, I thought over the line of questions I had for Crux. First of all, I needed the basic play by play for the evening. I needed times, names. Who was in the room and who wasn’t? And, of course, I’d need to get his alibi.

  I also needed more information, something telling me what kind of creature was responsible. Last time, going in blind had almost gotten me killed.

  If it was some kind of angry spirit I was hunting, I needed to hear about knocking, dark shadows, an unexplained sense of dread, disembodied voices, objects moving by themselves or a general, unexplained oppressive, creepy feeling.

  I paused outside the interrogation room and peered through the one-way mirror. Crux was sitting stiffly in the chair while Sven ran a comb through his master’s hair. Well, hairs. Crux had fewer than ten on his whole head, but it didn’t seem to matter to Sven. He ran the fine-toothed comb over and over those same ten fine white hairs, smiling to himself as he did. Sven hadn’t said a word to me back at Aisling, but I still needed to get a statement from him, too. I hoped he was in a more talkative mood.

  Crux looked as sour as ever. He glanced at his Rolex twice while I stood outside, curling his lip each time. I stood outside and made him wait an extra three minutes just because. I don’t like to be rushed.

  After a short pause, I finally went over to the door and put my hand on the doorknob. “Here goes nothing,” I said and opened the door.

  Chapter Five

  As soon as I stepped into the interrogation room, the pleasant smile on Sven’s face faded. He stopped combing Crux’s hair, tucked the comb into his pocket, and stood there, still as death. Crux adjusted his suit jacket and pushed away the paper cup of coffee in front of him. Fine white slime floated on the surface.

  “It’s about time,” said Crux. “If I’d known it would take this long, I would have waited at the club. At least it didn’t smell like wet dog.”

  “Nice to see you, too,” I said to Crux, pulling out the chair opposite him. “Can I get you anything? Freshen up your coffee?”

  I said it in jest, but Crux smiled. “No. Sven tends to all my needs. The only thing you can do for me is get this over with. As I stated before, I’m not even sure why I’m here.”

  “Because you’re the closest thing I’ve got to a witness,” I said, sitting down. “And you knew the people on set better than me. Anything you can give me will be helpful.”

  “I’m not sure what I can give you that isn’t public record already,” said Crux with a shrug. “You’ll have to be specific. What is it you want?”

  I took out a little notebook and flipped to the first blank page. Clicking my pen, I said, “Let’s start at the beginning. What was your involvement with Harry’s film? Why were you there?”

  Crux crossed his arms. It looked weird because of the way his long fingers were able to wrap around his gangly little arms twice. “Harry was my cousin. He has an eye for beauty from behind the camera but no business sense. I was his producer. I slapped my name on whatever he put out and took a percentage of the profits. I also brokered a deal with Ms. Kelley to get him the room in Aisling.”

  I made a note. “So, Robbie Fellows was never aware of your deal?”

  “I’m not sure the deal has any bearing on Harry’s murder.”

  Okay, I thought, I’d better just stick to the standard questions for now. “You said you weren’t in the room at the time of the murder. Is there anyone who can account for your whereabouts, Mr. Continelli?” He opened his mouth and gestured to Sven, so I cut him off. “Besides Sven. No offense but, if it came down to it, the testimony of your food supply isn’t going to hold up in court.”

  Crux leaned forward and sneered at me, showing one long, sharp fang. “Are you insinuating I had anything whatsoever to do with my cousin’s murder, Agent Black?”

  I forced a smug smile. “Just covering all bases.”

  “Fine,” said Crux, turning his head. His nose looked even more like a beak in profile. “Sven and I went to the room next door. The room was empty, and I was in the mood for a snack. No one saw us go in or out except for the people already in the filming room, and if anyone popped in while we were otherwise engaged, I didn’t notice.”

  No reliable alibi, I noted. “So, if you were in the next room, you must have heard or seen something out of the ordinary.”

  “What part of otherwise engaged do you not understand? By the time we heard anything, most of it was over. Harry didn’t even scream. It was the girl who screamed. We rushed out, and everyone was just on the floor, bleeding. I didn�
�t see anything.”

  I sighed and rubbed the ache in my forehead. “Okay, then. Can you give me the names of the actresses and the crew in the other room? Who was working with Harry on his film?”

  “I don’t know.” Crux waved a dismissive hand at me. “Kim would have signed release forms.”

  My fingers flexed into a fist around my pen so tight, my fingertips started to tingle. I wanted nothing more than to throttle him. Nerves shot and running on about four hours of sleep, this wasn’t the best day or time for me to be interrogating a vampire who also happened to be the equivalent of foreign nobility. If I lose it and punch him in the face, it will do more good than harm, I thought. It’d even up his features a little. It sure as hell would make me feel better. But I couldn’t hit him. He hadn’t done anything other than annoy me, and that wasn’t a crime…yet.

  Sven cocked his head to the side and said, “Harry was angry.”

  I stared at Sven’s granite face and had to force myself to blink because my eyes were so wide it hurt. The voice that had come out of the gargantuan man didn’t match my expectations at all. I’d expected something deep and booming, perhaps with a Swiss or Austrian accent. He certainly had a Schwarzenegger look to him. Instead, he had one of the quietest, meekest voices I’d ever heard, the kind that made me want to pinch his cheeks and say, “Aww, how cute!”

  As soon as he spoke, Crux glared at Sven. Then, he picked up the cup of coffee and tossed it at him. Thankfully, I’d left them sitting in the room long enough the coffee had cooled below a dangerous temperature. It must have still been warm when it hit Sven in the face, though, as he flinched at it.

  “Who told you to speak?” Crux demanded.

  Sven hung his head. Coffee dripped down his nose.

  I stood and placed the palms of my hands on the table. “Mr. Continelli, I’m going to have to ask you to wait in the other room.”

  Sven’s head shot up. At the same time, both Sven and Crux shouted, “No!” There was more fear than panic in Sven’s voice.

  After another moment of hesitation, I sank back down into my seat, leaving my hands on the table. “Another outburst like that,” I threatened in my best mom voice, “and I’ll separate you two.”

  I let the silence hang in the room until I was certain it had sunk in. “Now, Sven mentioned that Harry was angry the night of the murder. What happened to make him so angry?”

  Crux gave me a belligerent shrug. “One of his girls didn’t show up to the set. Harry waited hours for her to show. She didn’t pick up her cell, didn’t call in, didn’t text…The little whore just decided not to show. He lost a whole day of filming because of her.”

  I lowered the notebook and glared at Crux across the table, afraid to ask. “Why didn’t he just…you know, film other scenes? Find a replacement? I mean, he was in a strip club. I’m sure someone was willing and able.”

  “Harry had a type.” Crux waited as if I should automatically know what he was about to say. When I didn’t guess and gestured for him to continue, he gave an exaggerated sigh and exclaimed, “He had a thing for this girl. Couldn’t perform when she didn’t show. You see, Harry’d injected himself into this film. Sex Files was supposed to be his crowning masterpiece. A little bondage, some mild blood play, nothing hardcore.” He gave a little cough and shook his head.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Sex Files?”

  “It was only a working title,” Crux explained, waving a hand. “But the concept was brilliant. You’d appreciate it, actually. Beauty and the Beast meets CSI with an erotic twist. A spunky, red-headed BSI agent falls for her co-worker who’s a vampire, but he just wants the pretty trainee—”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “They settle everything with an amicable three-way?”

  “Laugh all you want, agent, but the adult entertainment industry is outselling Hollywood these days. More people are willing to pay for well-conceived genitalia-laden plots than thought-provoking rom-coms.”

  I dropped the notebook with a loud crack, interrupting him before he got too far up on his soapbox. “So last night…Walk me through it. Harry was pissed. Things didn’t go as planned. You two had words. Things got heated. You left…”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Who was the girl who didn’t show up? What was her name, Crux?”

  “How should I know?” he spat back. “You humans all look the same to me.”

  “Forgive me, Crux, but I’m just not willing to believe you were in the room right next door, and you didn’t hear, see, or smell anything out of the ordinary.”

  “There was the pounding,” Sven offered.

  “Quiet, you!” Crux raised a hand to strike his companion.

  I reached across and slammed his wrist down against the table, pinning it there. For the record, vampires are second only to werewolves when it comes to raw, supernatural strength. Exposure to daylight lessens their strength, but even a weak vampire is stronger than me. Crux was not a weak vampire. As he made his open palm into a fist, I felt the muscles and tendons in his arm flexing. The look he gave me told me his hand stayed on the table—and my head attached to my neck—only because it wasn’t worth the effort to strike me.

  “You will remove your hand,” he said, his tone laced with vitriol.

  “Strike him again in front of me, and I’ll cuff you for assault.” I pulled my hand away, but only after making my point. Crux adjusted his jacket while I addressed the gentle giant next to him. “Tell me about the pounding, Sven.”

  “It sounded like a big hammer,” Sven answered after a short pause. “Just slamming and slamming on the ground. I was really scared. Not scared like you feel when you’re watching a scary movie or at the funhouse. I thought the wall would fall down. I thought we would die.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. If anyone would know what death felt like, it would be a man whose sole purpose in life had become to serve as food for an ungrateful, abusive vampire like Crux.

  Sven took a long pause and a few deep breaths. “And it was so cold…So cold. Cold like death.”

  “Yes, but we didn’t see anything,” Crux interjected. “And everyone who was in the room is dead.”

  Crux was right. For now, my best lead would come from records I didn’t have. Since Robbie had pointed the finger at Kim, I needed to pay her a visit anyway. Kim did owe me an explanation for her suspicious absence from Aisling. It wasn’t a smoking gun, but it was sure suspicious.

  “Crux, can you think of anyone who would want Harry dead?”

  “Almost everyone,” answered the vampire with a click of his teeth and a sigh as he again folded his arms. “Harry was sort of the black sheep of the family, the dirty money no one wanted to admit we needed. The family certainly had people who had motive, but I doubt any of them would be so moved as to come here.” He thought for a moment and then his eyes lit up. “Although, there was an incident at the club when we first came to town. We were canvassing the club for talent. There was one girl Harry liked for the film and paid for a private show. A few minutes in, three rough-looking fellows in leather jackets rushed the room and gave Harry a beating he wouldn’t soon forget.”

  I flipped to another blank page in my notebook and began scribbling down notes in messy handwriting. “You saw this directly?”

  Crux pointed to a tiny bruise on his chin. “One of them broke my jaw. I’m lucky it’s healing well of its own accord. The benefits of being a vampire with a ready food supply.” He patted Sven.

  “Would you be willing to give a description to a police sketch artist?”

  “Would it get us out of here faster?” he quipped back and then added, “Not a good one, no. I didn’t get the best of looks. I was busy having a broken jaw.”

  I tapped my pen on the table, frustrated. For every advance I made, Crux forced me back two steps. He just wasn’t willing to cooperate. Why should he? It would be just as easy for him to call in a few favors and track down the killer himself. As he’d said back at Aisling, this kind of killing warranted retaliati
on from the Stryx. Revenge killings were their ancient custom. Unless I found the guilty party first, I’d wind up with another body to deal with. But, without more information, I wasn’t going to get far. It was a vicious circle. I needed someone other than Crux to come forward. How was it in a nightclub full of people, the only witnesses were a vampire and his blood slave? All I had to go on was a bad feeling, some supernaturally cold temps, and unexplained pounding.

  I flipped to a new page of my notebook, scribbled down some numbers and tore out the page, sliding it across the table to them. “This is my phone number. If you think of anything, anything at all, please give me a call as soon as you can. No detail is too small.”

  Sven took the page with a shaky hand and gave it to Crux.

  “And why would I call you?” Crux asked flatly.

  “Because if you don’t, and you decide to take matters into your own hands, then you’re committing several crimes,” I explained. “I may not be able to arrest you, but I can deport you. I can even seize any of the assets you’ve brought with you, including Sven.”

  Crux snatched the paper away from his ward and frowned at it. “Your idle threats don’t frighten me, agent. I know my rights. I also know my family has sufficient pull with your superiors to make your time here in Paint Rock a living hell.”

  “Where are you staying, Crux? In case I need to get in touch.”

  “At the Holiday Inn in Eden.” He smirked at me. “Don’t worry, Agent Black. I won’t be leaving town until this matter is settled.”

  “I’ll call you if I need anything else,” I promised, standing. “You two are free to go for now. Thanks for your cooperation.” I moved toward the door, halting only when Sven called out to me.

  “What do you think it was?” he asked. “The thing that killed Harry?”

  I turned back around, putting my hands in my pockets. “I don’t know yet. I’ve still got a lot of information to sift through.”

  “So, the fae could be behind this,” Crux scoffed.

  I pressed my lips together, thinking carefully about how to answer. In this climate, the wrong answer would spark more problems. “It could just as easily be a human or another vampire. The only thing I know for certain is, whatever it was, it came in and out of the room without anyone seeing anything. But no, I don’t think the attack was racially motivated considering one of the victims was human.”