The Judah Black Novels Box Set

by E. A. Copen

  I swallowed. “Uh…dead?”

  Her whole face twitched. “Extremely.”

  I cleared my throat and shifted in my seat, eager to take control of the conversation again. “So, what? You gave Harry some film space and the girls, and he wiped away some of your debt?”

  “He offered to cut me in as a silent partner. Only, instead of a royalty check, he offered to apply my earnings to the debt. Crux was here to sign off on the agreement. He handles the Stryx finances.”

  “So, Robbie was right. You were trying to cut him out of a deal.”

  “To pay a debt he caused!” She closed her eyes a moment and took a few deep breaths.

  “Still, you’ve got to admit it looks pretty suspicious, you pulling all your security the one night there’s a murder in your club…Why?”

  “My money pays for them, Agent,” she said nonchalantly. “Robbie and I had an argument. He viewed the security as an unnecessary expense. I decided if I was going to sink the last of my money into a private army, I was going to keep them at home. I’m sure now Robbie realizes how useful they are.”

  “I’m going to need the names of some people willing to vouch for your whereabouts. I’d like to talk to them, too.”

  Kim gave a sultry smirk. “They walked you in here, agent. Ask if you want. Trust me. They didn’t let me out of their sight from midnight until about five in the morning. That’s when I got the call something had happened at the club. I would have gone out there, but, well, I didn’t want to fight with Robbie in front of everyone. Besides, my bodyguards were a little tired. Seems I took a lot out of them.”

  “Okay. Enough with that.” I slammed my hands down. “I get it already. Sheesh.”

  “It’s not my fault I have to eat, agent.”

  “I thought you lived on blood?”

  “In a pinch,” Kim answered. “Though not all of my kind subsists solely on blood. Succubine vampires like those in my family are still inextricably tied to blood consumption through our culture. But it’s pleasure we prefer, whether those of the flesh or the mind. It’s why Aisling was such a perfect joint venture, agent. Why would I ruin it?”

  Kim had a point. Only an idiot would destroy their primary food source for something as petty as a lover’s spat. For all the rumors I’d heard about her, I couldn’t believe Kim was that stupid. While she had a powerful, pulsating aura, it wasn’t magick fueling it. Magick in my visions of auras always appeared as a sort of vibrating layer around the body, ebbing and flowing with the power of the environment. As I’d been sitting with her, I had slowly been sending out random pulses of magick to test how she reacted. She hadn’t so much as blinked. She may have been a vampire, but Kim wasn’t a practitioner in any sense.

  Still, I had a few more questions. “Crux said Harry was angry the night he was killed because one of your girls failed to show up for work. Do you know who it was that didn’t show?”

  She shrugged again. “I tried not to learn the specifics about Harry’s project. Whatever he was doing, I didn’t have names. He paid the girls in cash and filmed behind closed doors. All I did was give him the space. You should ask Robbie, though. He’d notice if someone didn’t show.”

  “You don’t have signed release forms?”

  “The film wasn’t an Aisling venture. If anyone has those forms, it’s Crux. He was Harry’s producer.”

  “How about the missing fae?” I asked, still writing in my notebook. “Know anything about that?”

  I’d asked the question so quickly I think I stunned her. When I finally looked up, I saw Kim frozen with her mouth agape, halfway through forming an answer. The confused look on her face told me she was thinking hard on how to answer. She did know something. She just didn’t know if she could say it without incriminating herself.

  After a moment, she composed herself and gave me a disgusted look. “What use would I have for a bunch of fae? Fae blood is poisonous to vampires.”

  “In small amounts, the toxin produces an LSD-like high for vampires,” I pointed out. “A lot of money in that venture.”

  “If that’s what I wanted to do, don’t you think I’d find a better way of doing it than kidnapping my own people? Hell, Robbie would trade a few drops of blood to me for a fuck if I asked. I wouldn’t need to murder people.”

  “I didn’t say they were murdered.”

  Kim’s only answer was a silent smile.

  I stood. “Well, thank you for your time. I’ll show myself out.”

  Kim frowned at me. “Is that really all, agent?”

  I gave her a doubtful glance. “What else would there be?”

  “You don’t want to talk about the third-party blood you brought into the room?”

  My pulse quickened, and I suddenly felt icy cold. Did she mean the tiny scrap of bloody sheet I had in my pocket? If so, how could she have known? It was sealed in an evidence bag. I didn’t know if a werewolf would have been able to pick up on the scent. That a vampire could… Well, I guess it was blood. Fifteen-month-old dried blood inside of an airtight bag, but still…

  I carefully pulled the baggie out of my pocket and slid it onto the table. Kim’s pupils widened at the sight of it, but her nose turned up.

  “It’s not human,” she said.

  “No,” I admitted. “It belonged to a wendigo who died during childbirth. I’m trying to locate the child. I was hoping you would help.”

  Kim stood and ran her fingers over the button of her blazer. “This is the thing between you and the priest, isn’t it?” After a moment, she laughed. “Oh, honey, if you think I’m going to do your dirty work for you, you’ve got another think coming.”

  “I just need to know she’s safe.”

  Her mouth turned down into a frown. “Why does it matter so much to you?”

  My jaw worked, and I fought the gathering tightness in my throat. “Because it’s my fault,” I said quietly. The words slipped out of my mouth without going through my brain filter.

  Kim reached out and ran her fingers over the edge of the bag. “I’m told human females have a particularly strong nurturing urge toward infants. I couldn’t care less about that. I don’t understand why or how you can waste so many resources on a crying lump of meat. But guilt…” She lifted the baggie and stared at it, a dark memory gleaming behind her eyes. “I understand guilt.”

  After a long moment of staring at it, she shuddered, wadded the baggie up and shoved it in her pocket. “I can make no promises,” she said. “But I will look into it. I can at least let you know the child’s condition. What does that hurt?”

  I was about to thank her when my cell phone buzzed in my pocket. On autopilot, I pulled the phone out, accepted the call, and pressed it to my ear. “Agent Black.”

  The voice of my regional supervisor exploded through the earpiece, and I jerked the phone away from my head. “What the hell is this?”

  “You’re going to have to elaborate, Gerry,” I answered, turning away from Kim’s amused expression.

  “A dead Stryx? And you want to be the primary on this case?” He gave a bitter laugh. “You’ve got to be shitting me, Judah. You don’t know the first thing about navigating vampire politics!”

  I glanced back at Kim. “That’s becoming clearer as time goes on, actually.”

  Gerry never stopped talking, though, and the next words out of his mouth were exactly the ones I had hoped I wouldn’t hear from him. “That’s it, Black. I’m sending someone down there to get things in order. And so help me God, Black, you’d better not screw this up, or it’s the end of the road for you.”

  Chapter Ten

  Gerry’s always threatening to force me to hand my badge back in. It was an empty threat since he didn’t have the power to remove me without going several levels up. Besides, if I left my post, he’d have a time filling the position. It wasn’t like agents were clamoring for the spot in Paint Rock, overseeing operations in Concho County. But if this case went sideways and the Stryx decided to step in and take matters in
to their own hands, losing my badge would be the least of my worries.

  My boss sounded like he was about to have a stroke as he went on and on about all the trouble and paperwork this was going to be for him. I imagined the little blue vein in his forehead popping out.

  “Gerry,” I said at length. “I get it. You’re pissed. And I’m not an expert when it comes to vampires, but I know these people. I’ve developed a rapport with most of them. I can close this by myself. I don’t need a partner.”

  “It’s not your ability to close the case I’m calling into question,” Gerry spat back. “Even though I know you’ve got plenty of other open cases that could use closing. It’s your smart-ass mouth. You and I both know what your record looks like when it comes to politicians. Vampires are politicians. They love their mind games and power plays.”

  “I know, Gerry. Just give me a chance!”

  “You don’t know shit, Judah Black!” Gerry screamed into the phone. “With your record, you’re damn lucky I don’t hand this case up the line. The fact I’m letting you stay on at all is a personal favor. Nine a.m. tomorrow morning. Your office. Be there to meet your partner. And make no mistake, he’s taking the lead. You’ll fall in line, or I swear, I’ll reverse my recommendation to the disciplinary committee.”

  The phone suddenly squealed. I winced and pulled it away from my ear. As I did, I happened to see my call waiting kick on. Mara was calling. That was weird. Mara always texted. She never, ever called.

  I didn’t have enough time to react. Something in the corner of the room caught my eye. The air shimmered like a mirage, the ripples growing larger. Half a heartbeat later, a wave of magick swept through the air, knocking the phone out of my hand and to the floor. As the ripples stopped, I tried to hide my surprise. In what I had thought was an empty corner of the room stood a lean stick of a man in a white button-down, a suit vest, and beige slacks. A few strands of long, wispy blond hair fell down over pointed ears as he swept a knobby-looking stick in front of his face. He spun the stick once before bringing the pointed end of it down to strike the floor. A blue wall of buzzing magick sprang up halfway between Kim and me: a magick barrier.

  For a moment, the wheels turned in my head as I tried to make sense of two things at once. First, there had been another person in the room, a practitioner I hadn’t even sensed. And he was good. No, better than good. Judging by the behemoth amount of power he’d called forth to make a barrier without even breaking a sweat, he was one of the most talented practitioners I’d ever met. But why had he called up a protective barrier in the first place? What threat could have been so imminent it forced him from his excellent hiding place to protect his mistress?

  And why were the lights flickering?

  “What is it?” Kim asked, standing, her face the definition of calm.

  I glanced from Kim to the elf practitioner at her side, unsure, and then retrieved my phone. Great. The screen was cracked. “What is what?”

  “Dunno,” answered the elf. “But it’s big. The perimeter wards just triggered.”

  “What? Where?” I asked.

  The two of them ignored me. Kim yelled for security. Brutus and company charged in, snorting like bulls and glaring at me. “Alert the perimeter,” she ordered. “I want a full sweep.”

  Before her guards could move, the tell-tale daka-daka-daka of an automatic weapon in the distance cut through the air. Brutus growled for a report into his earpiece and then scowled when he got his reply. Even a few feet away from him, I could hear the screaming. It sounded like he was getting a report from a war zone.

  “What the hell is happening?” I asked in my most authoritative tone, meeting eyes with Kim.

  “We’re under attack,” Kim answered, taking a gun from one of her bodyguards.

  “By what?”

  As if in answer, there was more gunfire and another scream. A loud thwomf sound on the roof shook the small room and drew all eyes upward. Brutus screamed in a panicked voice, “It’s on the house! All units to the house! Protect the mistress!”

  A horrible sound echoed through the room as something raked what sounded like claws over the clay roof tiles. I threw my hands over my ears, barely able to react because of the way the noise made my skin crawl.

  “Go,” the elf screamed, presumably at Kim as both of them covered their ears.

  “Too late for that, Creven,” Kim growled back at the elf.

  The lights flickered one last time and then went out.

  I stood in dark silence, waiting, holding my breath. My heart was thumping so loud in my chest, I was sure it was attracting the attention of the vampire in the room. But if she did hear it, she said nothing. No one said anything, not for what felt like an eternity.

  Then, somewhere close to me, Brutus whispered, “Mistress?”

  The sound that followed was wet and heavy, reminiscent of the sound raw beef made when dropped from high up. Someone screamed. The room lit up as if lightning had torn through it, gunshots fired in blind panic serving as the source.

  Something wooden and heavy lowered around my neck, pulling me back. I gagged and fought against it, but all I managed to do was throw myself off balance. Something cold swept under my feet, taking them from me. I fell. Someone grabbed me, jerking me back. Massive fingers, each the size of my arm, wrapped around my leg, the contact so cold I shouted out in pain. The two forces pulled on me as if I were a rope in a tug of war, humanlike hands and fingers pulling me one way while the frozen fingers pulled the other way.

  Behind my head, Creven’s voice grunted. “You’ll not have her!”

  Panic ran through me as one of his hands let go from under my arm. My body jerked the other way and the cold coiled up my leg all the way to my knee. Even though I was wearing jeans, it felt like the thing, whatever it was, was right up against my skin, biting and tearing into my flesh with a thousand mouths of frozen teeth. Cold shot up my leg and settled in my chest. I don’t mean a little chill. I mean the kind of painful cold that consumes every thought. Frostbite cold. I kicked at whatever it was but couldn’t connect. The thing didn’t seem to have a body beyond the cloud of cold settling over me.

  Light flooded the room again, this time brighter and tinged with blue. An animalistic roar pierced the air, and I was torn between covering my ears and my eyes as both intensified.

  “Back,” shouted Creven. As he advanced a step, I could see the source of the light was the end of his staff. “Release her!”

  Slowly, begrudgingly, the cold wrapped around my leg receded. My leg, which up until then had been numbed by the chill, suddenly came back to life, all pins and needles. I shielded my eyes against the light with an arm and caught a glimpse of a huge hand falling back into darkness. The elf pulled me back and pushed me against the wall next to Kim, who took up a defensive posture over me, snarling and baring her fangs. The barrier, which I hadn’t even realized had come down, went back up and the three of us stood behind it. Well, I just kind of sat there. My leg hurt too bad to stand.

  The elf adjusted his staff. The blinding light wasn’t just emanating from the top of it. The light was running through it, lighting up a series of wards that beat with a pulse-like rhythm of power. When he shifted it upward, I was able to see the rest of the room.

  Two of the three Brutus bodyguards were no more. Like Harry, their guts had been splattered all over the opposite wall. A few recognizable bits and pieces remained, an eyeball here, a quivering bit of intestine there…One whole leg was still intact. The third man lay in halves, the top half resting and alive on the far end of the table. The rest of him from the waist down occupied a chair. Pale terror sketched across his face. He tried to use his upper body strength to pull himself the rest of the way across the table and behind the safety of the barrier. Behind him stood a giant, grim-faced man of pale, gaunt features. He had a long gray beard and fists the size of my whole body. He managed to fit into the room only because he’d wrecked the other half. His icy blue eyes bored into us, and a thi
ck, gnarled lip turned up in a scowl.

  The giant twitched one hand, and a tree-trunk-sized spiked club swung into view. With one loud grunt, he brought it down on top of Brutus. With a sickening pop-thud-crack, it went through Brutus, collapsing the table. Then, the giant stepped forward and pointed his club at Creven.

  “Step aside, elf,” it said in a booming voice. “My quarrel does not concern you.”

  The elf lifted his pointed chin and tightened his grip on the staff. “Aye, but it don’t change the fact that I gave the lady me oath. No harm to her. Now, bugger off. You ain’t getting this one.”

  “I am honor-bound,” said the giant, narrowing his eyes. “The vampire is mine to slay. This is your last warning, elf. Step aside or suffer the same fate as these humans.” He gestured to the bodies around him.

  “Hey, ugly…” I fought against the pain in my ankle, clawing my way up the wall. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

  Dark laughter vibrated through the room. “You mock me, human. You assume I cannot breach your pathetic barrier and kill you.”

  “Who are you?” I asked the giant. “Are you what killed the vampire at Aisling?”

  The giant smiled and stroked his beard. Icicles appeared wherever his hand passed over. “Why do you defend this one? You have nothing to gain. Step aside and let me kill it. What is one more dead vampire to you?”

  “I wouldn’t draw its attention, love,” mumbled the elf. “Especially so soon after escaping it.”

  I shifted my weight and braved a step forward. “Who summoned you?”

  The giant growled and swung its club, embedding the spike in the wall. “I am sent to slay the evil you are protecting. If you intend to stand between me and my prey, then you will fall with it. But I am obligated to offer you escape once more. Human, elf, heed me. Stand aside. This is the last time I will offer you safe passage.”