Hypnos

by RJ Blain

  “Interesting.” For a moment, something darkened the detective’s expression, and I assumed he was one of the idiots who disliked the existence of those who required the blood of others to survive. “Chief Kirkland suggested we discuss motives while we wait for the labs on the vics to come in. Evidence is sparse. The little we have from two witnesses is incoherent at best, but they both mention a fish in their ranting and raving. Both are terrified to fall asleep, and nobody knows why. They’re incapable of rational thought at this point.”

  With such limited information, I couldn’t make any real guesses, but one thing did occur to me. “Perhaps they fear entering a coma, too.”

  “That’s what I thought as well. They’re unable to tell us anything else beyond their fear of this fish.”

  When odd things happened in the supernatural world, it was my job to find the right specialist, put them on the case, and try to stack as many cards in my favor as possible. “We’ll need to call in some specialists. Empaths might be able to get a good feel for them and cut through the ranting and raving to get to the heart of the matter.”

  “What type of empath?”

  The suspicion in Detective Davis’s voice cracked me up. “Not the kind who’ll take you to bed and keep you there until you’re drained dry. Drainers of that type have their uses, but I only call them in when I have a rape case or a drainer victim requiring aid. No, I mean a standard empath. They’re generally harmless and rather useful.”

  “So sex fiends are drainers, the vamps are suckers or leeches, and do I even want to know what you call illusionists?”

  “A figment of my imagination.” I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be rude. Just because you don’t like a certain type of magic doesn’t mean you gotta be mean about it.” I paused, glancing at Isaac. “Okay, I’m mean about it, but I do it to keep my quads on their toes. And Sucky McSuckyface here likes when I tweak his nose. It’s when I’m being overly polite he begins to worry.”

  “I’d like to know which terms you use.”

  “What do you call drainers? Of the sexual bent, that is.” I expected something rude and common.

  “Rapist.”

  “Some of them are therapists for victims, doctors, and the best prostitutes money can buy,” I countered.

  “Prostitution is illegal.”

  I rolled my eyes. “So is having sex with someone you’re not married to. Nobody cares as long as everyone consents. If we charged boyfriends and girlfriends for enjoying themselves in the bedroom, no one would ever solve any real crimes. If you really want to go bust some drainers, give me a call first. I want to watch that train wreck.”

  “How are you even in law enforcement?”

  I laughed because even my own father asked me that question sometimes, and he usually did it in front of one of my quads just to piss me off. Luke snickered, Eddy joined me in rolling her eyes, and even Isaac grunted. “I pick my battles, Detective Davis. Prostitutes don’t hurt anybody. A drainer with a consenting partner? Let them have their fun. Everyone walks away satisfied from that relationship, and the so-called victim just has to rest in bed for a few days if they go too far. My job is to bring the real risks to society in for justice. Now, if a drainer influences potential clients before money changes hands or they add an addiction element, that’s a different story. That’s when I wade in and beat heads together.”

  “I see.”

  More disapproval. I wasn’t surprised, and in a way, his innocence amused me. How long would it last with me around? I gave it two or three days at most. “You should donate to Sucky McSuckyface here in a few days. It’s a good experience and you can start developing resistance to a blood sucker’s attacks. Isaac typically stuns his donors, but after a while, you’ll shrug it off. I hardly notice him trying to stun me anymore. He has to get creative if he wants to force me into anything. Most don’t learn how to do anything other than stun victims.”

  Isaac growled, and I gently swatted his head. “Behave, Sucky McSuckyface.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “Very. Back to work. Have the vics been profiled yet?”

  “Chief Kirkland has a file on the identified vics, but we’re still missing information on some people,” Detective Davis replied, his expression turning serious. “It’s sparser than I like.”

  “Have the files brought here; we can look for connections while I drink my orange juice and keep the worrywarts happy. We can have a sleepover party.”

  His serious expression turned strained, and his cheeks reddened. “Here?”

  I mourned for the loss of his innocence, which would die from exposure to me. I’d even feel guilty about it for a change. “If I faint in my own home, nobody cares. If I faint at work, it’s a problem. So, I’ll work from here unless we have to hit the streets. If we can start looking for connections in their files, we might get some leads on why the city center was hit. We need to figure out who the real targets are and who were just in the way.”

  “I have a file on the statuette’s owner as well.”

  “Excellent.” The statuette’s owner would likely have the most critical piece of the puzzle to help us solve the mystery. “Have you spoken to the owner since yesterday’s incident?”

  “She’s not answering her phone or door, but she travels a great deal for work.”

  “See if you can push through a questioning warrant. Throw my name around and cite the city center case. We need to know what she can tell us about that statuette. We’ll want a good empath on hand to check for lies. It’s a little suspicious about the timing; the thief didn’t wait all that long before using the statuette—assuming the statuette is the source of this event.”

  I’d seen too many elaborate coverups to completely surrender to the idea that the statuette was definitively the cause of the city center event.

  “Forty-eight hours following the theft, approximately,” he replied.

  “Plenty of time to pick targets and plan a deliberate attack, but I’m also concerned that there’s a general sense of urgency. If time wasn’t a factor, a smart thief would wait until the case died down to act. Since you accused me, I’m assuming you’re light on leads, which would make it trivial for the thief to vanish with the statuette.”

  Detective Davis grimaced. “You’re correct.”

  “You’ve unwittingly signed up for a year of teasing over this issue, and I’m sure Luke would just love to help me with the teasing.”

  Egging the cop would entertain me for however long we worked together. With luck, we’d go our separate ways within a week. If we went our separate ways within a week, he wouldn’t have to deal with my father or mother. Any longer than a week, and my parents would inevitably become involved.

  Cases like the one we dealt with rarely resolved within a week, and my already chaotic life would become even more complicated.

  Then again, maybe we’d get really, really lucky. Stranger things had happened.

  Luke chuckled. “Glad to help, boss.”

  Detective Davis sighed. “I’ll see if Captain Kirkland can send someone over with the files.” He pulled out his phone to place a call, getting to his feet and excusing himself, heading for the door.

  “Eddy? Luke? Once Isaac is done, escort Detective Davis to the copper shop to make sure we get all the files we’ll need.”

  “Captain Kirkland isn’t going to be happy with that,” the detective warned.

  “He’ll live. He’ll cooperate once he finds out I donated today. He’ll probably request a patrol to keep an eye around my apartment from Berkeley’s cops and the FBI because he’s paranoid. I’ll catch a nap until the documents arrive.”

  With a long-suffering sigh, Detective Davis stepped outside to call his boss.

  Chapter Four

  It took Isaac an hour and a half to feed, and he left me shaking from blood loss and barely conscious.

  I really needed to have a talk to my boss about Isaac’s feeding schedule soon.

  Luke sighed and checked my puls
e for the third time in five minutes. “Ray, you’re on babysitting duty. You get to check her pulse and blood pressure every ten minutes. I’ll leave a reading chart for you; if she drops below threshold, call me. I’ll give you directions, but you’ll probably have to call for an ambulance. We’ve been through this rodeo before. They’ll bring bags of her type over, top her up, and she’ll sleep it off. She’ll whine about being cold, and if you take your eyes off her, she’ll sneak off and find the nearest heat source. Give her a few hours to rest. When she gets up, order her steak and make certain she stays hydrated.”

  “How did I go from investigative work to babysitting?”

  Eddy giggled. “You’re a lucky, lucky man. That’s how. At least she’s pretty, right?”

  “How is someone like you in the FBI?”

  Poor Detective Davis. Did he realize he faced off against a dragoness who operated on pure spunk? Eddy’s grin revealed her teeth and her unusually pointy canines. “I’m so badass they feel the need to leash me.”

  Detective Davis sighed. “Try to bring the files promptly. While you’re at it, bring steak if that’s what you want me to feed her. Assuming Special Agent Abrams owns a frying pan, I can cook.”

  “Keep him, Olivia! He’s not useless.”

  I wouldn’t mind keeping him; I’d tolerate a lot in exchange for admiring him on my whim. “Chief Kirkland wouldn’t like if I stole his cop, Eddy.”

  “He’d love it. He’d beg Detective Davis to get your help on tricky cases using his prowess.”

  There was no way I’d admit I could be talked into a lot with a hunk of a man and some inappropriate usage of his prowess. I almost pitied the next man who came my way with even a hint of mutual interest. Thanks to work, it’d been months since I’d even tried to go on a date, blind or otherwise.

  “Eddy, you didn’t donate. You have no excuse for any dumb ideas today. I’m sorry, Detective Davis. Please ignore her.”

  The cop took the discussion better than I anticipated, chuckling and waving his hand to dismiss the issue. “She’s always been addled. I’ve learned I have bad days when she shows up. How often do you have to deal with her?”

  I stifled a yawn. “I consider it a good week if I only see her three times.”

  Eddy scowled, and she faked a hurt sniffle. “I see how this is. Go on. Join forces against me. I’ll just go with Luke and make certain they give you both extra paperwork.”

  She would, and going with her flow would mitigate the worst of her ambitions to make us suffer for our teasing. “You go ahead and do that. We’ll be here waiting.”

  Within ten minutes, Luke’s quad cleared out of my apartment, leaving me alone with Detective Davis. “Sorry about this. When Isaac’s that hungry, it’s safest for me to feed him. My magic helps speed my recovery. After I get some rest, I’ll take a bath or head down to the bay for some time in the water.”

  I expected my bathtub would have to do; if I got too absorbed in recharging, it would take Luke’s quad to drag me out of the water, and it might cost us valuable hours.

  I wouldn’t tell him it would take a week for my wrist to fully heal even with help. Jamie’s first wave of treatment had stopped the bleeding and closed the wounds. After I got some rest, he’d work on healing the bruising and encourage tissue recovery. I could use my hand, but it would hurt.

  “You’re pale.”

  I forced a smile as most people took me at face value. “I’ll be fine in a few hours. My magic helps. As long as I don’t stop breathing, don’t worry about it. It’s just minor bruising and some lingering damage left, and Jamie will take care of that after I get some rest.” Moving to my bedroom took more work than I was willing to invest, so I stretched out on my couch, propped my feet up on the arm, and closed my eyes.

  Sleep would sucker punch me within a few minutes, but until then, I wanted to discover how Detective Davis handled the situation.

  What he did when he believed I wasn’t watching would tell me a lot about him. I listened to his footsteps, which retreated in the direction of my bathroom and bedroom. I peeked through my lashes. His explorations took him to my bedroom, but he didn’t linger long, emerging with my comforter.

  I expected that sort of thing from Luke, his quad, or Eddy, but I wasn’t going to complain about just about anyone tucking me in before a well-earned nap. I blamed my father.

  He’d never stopped tucking me in even as an adult, and I’d never complained. Forget never complaining, I deliberately went out of my way to nap on my father’s couch so he could indulge.

  Detective Davis scored full points for consideration, and I drifted off, content with my first real look at the man.

  Either Isaac had drained me far worse than I thought or someone had slipped me sleeping pills, but I was down and out for almost an entire day according to my alarm clock. In my sleep, I’d taken a hostage, and if Detective Davis wanted to escape, he’d need to take off his shirt.

  To complicate matters, I’d dragged the poor man to the middle of my bed, and I’d curled around him like a dragoness protecting her hoard.

  Blackmail would come, and Eddy would lead that charge. The poor man probably hated me, especially as I’d treated him like a living pillow for my enjoyment.

  A faint memory of a ghostly fish invading my dreams taunted me.

  “Well, this is different,” I observed. A better woman would’ve let the cop go, but I was warm and didn’t want to move. “I don’t usually take Eddy’s suggestions seriously.”

  Detective Davis sighed. “Good morning. How much of yesterday do you remember?”

  Yesterday had happened? I took a few minutes trying to remember what yesterday was, when it had happened, and drew nothing but blanks beyond feeding Isaac so he wouldn’t chew on Ethan, his second favorite flavor of blood and magic. “Zip, zilch, nada. I think I dreamed about a ghost fish because of you and that statuette.”

  “You dreamed of a ghost fish? What do you remember?”

  “Ghost fish. That’s it. I don’t remember most of what I dream anyway, so I’m impressed I remembered that much. What have I missed?” I really needed to let go of Detective Davis, but he was so warm and wasn’t putting up a fight. I should’ve released his shirt at a minimum.

  “A blood transfusion.” The cop sighed again, and in the sound, I heard the worn patience of someone nearing the end of his rope. “Luke neglected to mention you are clingy in your sleep.”

  “He did? Huh. Usually the first thing he does is mention I go for the nearest heat sources. I’m sorry. It’s complicated.”

  “He had told me you seek heat sources. He neglected to mention you consider people heat sources. Let me guess. Water-based abilities create a general heat loss and lower your body temperature?”

  I wouldn’t tell him I just liked attention and physical contact, a trait nurtured by my father more than my mother. “Something like that? Aside from a blood transfusion, what else did I miss?”

  I wrote off the blood transfusion as a necessary evil; Isaac usually didn’t drink so much I needed one, but it happened, and I was grateful no one had woken me up for that part of my day.

  I was also grateful they hadn’t opted to cart me to the hospital, which meant Jamie had either handled it himself or he’d called for backup from one of the other quads.

  “Not much,” he admitted. “There’s been no new incidents, no changes in the vics, and no sign of the statuette. To make matters worse, the forensics labs haven’t found anything useful. In good news, they’ve eliminated mundane chemical or biological warfare as the cause of unconsciousness, so it’s been officially flagged as a supernatural terrorism event.”

  The official flagging would give me full jurisdiction over the entirety of California for the case, and crossing state lines would be a simple matter of notifying the FBI I was on the move and needed jurisdiction. I could even wrangle country-wide jurisdiction with a single phone call and no real effort on my part.

  It would make things easier later, esp
ecially if I needed to take the investigation on the road. Getting Detective Davis jurisdiction would be interesting, however.

  “Have any witnesses come forward?”

  “The few who weren’t dropped into a coma don’t remember anything suspicious. They barely remember the event at all. One of the doctors called in suggested we look into mass hypnosis for possibilities.”

  “Mass what?”

  “Hypnosis. You know those magicians who put people under and get crowds to do what they want? That, except someone has found a way to do it on unwilling suspects. They don’t remember anything, which is making investigating complicated at best.”

  “What sort of ability can cause that? Empaths can, but not on that level!”

  “I have a few theories.”

  “Hit me with your favorite.” Since Detective Davis wasn’t complaining about my handling of his person, I relaxed and enjoyed the situation.

  “I agree with the doctor; hypnosis seems the most likely candidate, and with the right magical ability, it can be used to suppress memories—or temporarily erase them. I believe they’ve been erased. If the magic is strong enough, perhaps permanently. Someone did use magic on them, though.”

  “Radiation signatures?”

  “Chief Kirkland brought out his most sensitive scanner, but there is a minimal signature. His scanner wasn’t sensitive enough to register the signature. The FBI is trying to secure a better one. The signature is likely going to be our only clue, and until we can get it registered, we’re stuck.”

  “Have all vics been confirmed to have the same type of radioactive signature?”

  “As far as Chief Kirkland can tell, yes.”

  “One culprit, then.” I hummed, wondering how it would change the investigation—if it changed the investigation. I doubted it would. It would crank the perpetrator’s threat rating through the roof, however.

  “It’s looking that way.”

  It took me a solid minute to convince my fingers to relinquish their hold on his shirt. “I need to take a bath and get changed. I’ve cost us enough time as it is.”