The man's confusion cleared, but he didn't hand me my license back, looking down at it with mistrust. "Oh! You're the, uh . . ."
My eyes narrowed at the derision that had crept into his voice. "Demon," I finished for him, snatching my license. "Yes, that's me." My charmed silver felt cold as I shoved my licenese away. Sure, be mean to the demon when she's got no magic. "They're over there, huh?"
I turned away, teeth clenching when he called after me, "Ma'am, if you could wait a moment? You need an escort."
Since when? I thought, my heels clumping to a stop. Behind him, at my car, Wayde made a bunny-eared kiss-kiss at me and went back to sleep. Irate, I leaned against a tree growing into the sidewalk. The trunk was still wet from last night's rain, and I crossed my arms and gestured to the cop that I wouldn't go anywhere.
He gave me a warning look and actually touched his wand, but when I pushed myself away from the tree, he turned and paced quickly to the van. Satisfied, I slumped back. Stupid ass. Now my mood was thoroughly ruined.
Sighing, I strained to hear the radio chatter, but it was too far for anything but background gibberish. Jenks would have been able to hear it from here. Ivy, too. My gaze went to the nearby music hall, and I shivered. The building had gorgeous architecture, but there was something wrong with it. Even the gargoyles avoided it.
A faint, familiar voice pricked at my awareness, and my face, screwed up in a squint from the sun, slowly became a frown as I turned to the park. The masculine sound rose and fell in a politically practiced wave designed to soothe, assure, and convince. It brushed against me with the warmth the November breeze lacked, and my pulse jumped. Trent? What was he doing out here?
The sidewalk was still empty, and I pushed away from the tree again, concerned as I remembered his missed call an hour and a half ago. If it had been important, wouldn't he have called Ivy or Jenks? But they were already out here. Damn it, I'd missing something, and I took a step forward when he and Nina came around a bend, their pace holding a businesslike quickness.
Jerking to a halt, I hesitated. Nina looked about the same. By all appearances she was channeling that undead vampire as she slapped Trent on the shoulder and pulled them to a stop when she noticed me waiting. They were too far away to hear what they were saying, but it was obvious that Trent wasn't happy.
I hadn't seen him in months, apart from visiting Ceri when her little girl, Ray, had been born. He looked good, if a bit preoccupied with hiding his anger behind a pleasant, fake smile - better than good, actually, and I fidgeted, remembering the passionate kiss that I'd promised to forget. His fair hair moving in the breeze caught the light, and I could tell the movement bothered him when he tucked it behind his ear. He was clean shaven, ready for the office as he stood in a patch of sun in his thousand-dollar shoes and a wool overcoat that came down to his knees. It hid his athletic physique, but I'd had a pretty good idea of what was under it - every wonderfully toned, tan inch of him - thanks to having burst in on him in the shower once. Oh my God, seeing him with a towel around his shower-wet hips had been worth the entire twenty-three hundred miles stuck in a Buick with a carsick pixy.
He was about my age, my height, and way out of my tax bracket, even if he had given up on his bid for mayor and was no longer even a city council member. The illegal bio-drug lord, murderer, and real-time businessman blamed it on wanting to devote time to his new family, but I knew that coming out of the closet as an elf had hurt him politically. I felt no sympathy.
The thought of his silky hair in my fingertips as my lips moved against his rose through me, and I looked away as he and Nina clasped hands. The woman shook like a man, firm and aggressive, with a men's club air about her. Why is Trent out here? I probably should've used that hour and a half and called him, but I'd been afraid of what he wanted.
My eyes were squinting again when I looked up. Nina was bent over Trent's hand, probably commenting on the missing digits. Al, the demon I was hiding from, had taken them. He'd been well on his way to killing Trent at the time until Pierce had taken the blame for my being brain dead - which I hadn't been. My soul had just been trapped in a bottle until my aura could heal.
Cold, I tugged my coat closer as Trent jerked his hand back and said something terse. I left wreckage like a hurricane among those I knew. No wonder I didn't have very many friends. His pace fast and angry, Trent strode across the grass and to the nearby curb, clearly avoiding me. It was unusual that he wouldn't try to hide his anger, but what was the point if you were talking to a vampire older than the Constitution who could read your emotions on the wind?
"Trent!" I called out, hating the snubbed feeling creeping into me.
He tilted his head to acknowledge my presence without slowing, and my next words died at the look of what might be betrayal in the slant of his lips. "Next time, answer your phone," he said curtly from almost twenty yards away, his beautiful voice a study in contrasts. "I don't call unless it's important."
"I'm not on your payroll." Realizing how bitchy that had sounded, I took my hands out of my pockets. "I was in a meeting, sorry."
Frowning, he looked away, his back hunched slightly and his shoulders about his ears as he went to a small black sports car and slipped behind the wheel with notable grace. The door shut with a soft thump. If taste and sophistication had a sound, that was it, and I dropped back to the tree and watched him check behind, then drive away, the engine a low, soft thrum of gathering power, hesitating as he took a turn and was gone.
Nicely handled, Rachel, I thought sourly, glancing at my own little Cooper and seeing Wayde watching the entire incident. Nina was coming to me, her pace slow and provocative. I could tell the second that the dead vamp left her. Her heels began to click, changing from a confident, sedate pace to a fast cadence, her arms beginning to swing and her hips to sway. Her eyes, too, were no longer intense with sly dominance, but sparkled with the emotion of having been recognized by someone she respected. Her entire posture shifted from lionlike satiation to one brimming with tense excitement.
I didn't like that they had Trent out here. What had me most concerned, though, was that Trent was here on his own. Curious. Seeing my mistrust, she slowed her pace. "You got here fast," she said by way of greeting, her smile fading as she took in my unease.
I uncrossed my arms, trying not to broadcast my wariness. The DMV office had called her to say that I was on my way? Perhaps I wasn't supposed to know that they had Trent out here, too. Curiouser and curiouser.
"I made the lights," I said as she eased to a halt beside me, looking me up and down with a soft grimace, as if seeing me through her own eyes for the first time. Smiling, I extended my hand and the young woman took it, her expression questioning when I said, "Hi. I don't think we've really met."
"Um, it's not like that," she said, her voice a little faster, a little higher, and a lot more positive than just a few hours ago in the DMV office. "It's still me. It's always me, and then . . . him, too."
"Right." I put my hands back in my pockets. She was all bouncy and excited now, but I had a feeling that something was going to go wrong with this arrangement despite her obvious enthusiasm. There was a reason the undead didn't do this all the time, and it was probably going to leave Ms. DMV Worker in a padded cell when the undead master didn't need her anymore. "I'm supposed to wait for an escort," I said, and she gestured for me to accompany her.
"So, you working for the I.S. now?" I asked, trying to keep the anger out of my voice as I swung into step beside her, and she shook her head, a faint intake of breath telling me that she'd had an interesting ninety minutes while I'd been getting my temporary license.
"Not officially, no," she said, pulling herself straight. "I'm his temporary assistant."
Is that what they're calling blood whores these days? I thought, then quashed it. This wasn't her fault. She was the victim, even if she was willing. "So you won't mind telling me why Trent Kalamack was out here?" I asked, and she laughed.
"He wanted to meet him," she said, her tone somewhere between sly and derisive.
She was having way too much fun in this arrangement with the undead, and I made sure our feet hit the sidewalk at exactly the same time, adjusting my steps to be a little shorter since she was still in heels and I had on comfy boots. Recalling the almost betrayed look Trent had given me before driving off, I said, "That's why walkie-talkie man was out here, not why Trent was."
Nina's breath hissed in angrily. My pulse hammered, and I sidestepped from her before I even knew what was happening, finding my balance as she turned to me, her posture bent and aggressive. My hands were out of my pockets, but Nina was already relaxing, a sullen expression on her face as she refused to meet my eyes. "Walkie-talkie man?" she said, her tone sharp with accusation. "It's a good thing he likes that, or I'd have to teach you otherwise."
We started walking again, a good three feet between us now - and it was her pace that adjusted to my longer step. "I'd like to see you try," I muttered, and Nina jumped as if having been rebuked. It seemed as if her master vampire was listening in and didn't like her attitude. That was nice, in a creepy, somewhat uneasy way. Still, prudence had me exhaling slowly, trying to relax before Nina tried to jump my jugular. The woman was getting a huge unexpected eddy of sensory input thanks to the vampire possessing her, input that she hadn't had time to learn how to deal with. If walkie-talkie man wasn't there to pull in the reins, there might be accidents. Sure, it was nice now, but eventually there would be running and screaming and blood on the floor.
"I thought the crime scene was at a cemetery," I said cautiously.
Nina nodded as she looking intently into the park, toward the unseen crackle of radios. "It used to be one," she said, her voice distant, as if she was listening to the dead vamp in her head, "until they moved the bodies."
I'd never understood that, but I suppose it was better than having cemeteries taking up prime property when a small town grew into a larger metropolis. "Did they miss any?" I said as I paced beside her, her heels now clacking in harsh discord with my boots. Nina was still looking into the park as if trying to place herself, though I'd be surprised if she'd ever been here before. I was starting to feel like something was creeping up on me, and my shoulders itched.
From behind us, the little cop who had stopped me shouted, "Hey! I told you to wait!"
Nina turned with the suddenness of a cracked whip, every inch of her demanding obedience. "Do. Your. Paper. Work." The man backed up, his face white. I jerked, stifling a shiver as I looked at her, her teeth showing in a pleasant but frightening smile. The powerful dead vamp was back.
"Y-yes, sir," the officer stammered, almost falling as he backed his way to the van. The smooth sound of plastic wheels on metal broke the stillness as he slammed the door shut, and Nina turned, her hand lightly on the small of my back as she calmly ushered me forward with the grace of another age, not caring that the man had called her sir.
"I believe the reasoning behind depositing the body here was because it had once been a cemetery," the undead vamp said softly, continuing the conversation as if I'd been talking to him all the time.
I remembered to breathe after about three steps. "I'll give you one thing, Nina. You're a handy man to have around."
"I've been told that before," she said with an honest, companionable warmth that raised just about every warning flag I had. Even so, the hint of amusement in her voice was soothing, and I relaxed, knowing that - oddly enough - I'd be safe now. He was back and in control, and I thought it strange that I'd feel safer with a monster in control of himself than with a woman struggling to find it.
"You're going to handle this investigation personally? Why?" I said, tugging my bag onto my shoulder again to disguise the wrong feeling her hand was making on my back.
Nina smiled and shifted her hand from my back to take my arm as naturally as if she already owned it. It wasn't as possessive, and my unease loosened, even as I disliked the fact that the undead vampire in Nina had been reading my emotions and was trying to ingratiate himself with me. "I want to get to know you better," she said, her high voice taking on the hues of fine cigar smoke, rich and multilayered.
Swell. Nina's steps beside mine had become silent next to the soft thumps of my boots. "The last vampire who wanted to 'get to know me better' ended up beaned by a chair leg," I warned, but I didn't pull away. There was a delicious tingle rising where she touched me, and I liked playing with fire.
"I'll be careful," Nina said, and I shocked myself when I looked up and saw her long black hair and delicate face, not one wrinkled and leathered, wise in the ways to screw over the world. "You are a demon, Ms. Morgan," she said, leaning her head toward me as we walked as if we were close friends sharing a secret. "I want to know who you are so I can recognize your kind when it comes again. Who knows? Perhaps the I.S. is riddled with witches on the threshold of becoming demons."
"Sure, okay," I said, knowing I was the only witch besides Lee Saladan that Trent's dad had saved, modifying our mitochondria to produce an enzyme that allowed us to survive the naturally occurring demon enzymes in our blood. I could pass the cure on, but Lee couldn't.
"Oh dear," Nina said around a sigh, somehow injecting the soft oath with a world of disappointment. "There are no more of you?" she asked, having sensed in my last words that there were not. "Are you sure? Pity. I think I will stay nevertheless. You amuse me, and so little does anymore."
Better and better. With a solid effort, I pulled my arm from hers as we stepped from the sidewalk and walked on the frost-burnt grass. I still wanted to know why Trent had been out here, but didn't think I'd be willing to pay the price for it. Besides, Jenks and Ivy would probably know, seeing that they were out here already.
Nina's eyes were full of a delicious delight at my rebellion as we headed for the crackling radios. The older dead vampires got, the more human they became, and seeing such an old presence in a young body unnerved me more than seeing a masculine presence in a feminine one.
"I kind of like Nina, you know," I said, not knowing why but feeling I had to stick up for the woman being used so callously. I'd lived long enough with Ivy to know that those who attracted the undead's attention were abused and warped, and Nina had no clue to the depth of misery she was in for.
Nina sniffed, shifting her shoulders to look at the sky through the branches. "She's a sweet girl, but poor."
Ire pricked through me, and the last of his charisma shredded. "Being poor is not an indication of potential or worth. It's a lack of resources."
Nina turned, her dark eyebrows high in surprise. The delicious tang of experienced, confident living vampire was growing more complex and stronger the longer the undead vamp was in her, and I felt my expression freeze as I remembered Kisten. A fairy tale of a wish slipped through me that this might be Kisten, undead and reaching out to me, but no. I'd seen him dead twice. Nothing remained of him but memories and a box of ash under Ivy's bed. Besides, this guy was really old.
"You've loved one of us before," Nina breathed, as if the undead vampire in her shared my pain.
Blinking, I pulled myself out of my brief misery, finding that I'd put a hand on my neck to hide the scar that could no longer be seen. "I don't want to talk about it."
"This way," Nina said, making me take a small detour around a patch of grass. I could see nothing different about it as we passed, and Nina sniffed. "There are bones there," she said, her low voice having the hint of old emotion.
Curious, I looked back at the earth again. "Must be icky knowing where everything is buried," I said, thinking she was better than a metal detector.
"She was about eight," Nina said. "Died of cholera in the 1800s. They missed her grave when they moved them because someone stole her marker."
We were nearing the gazebo, wreathed with people and noise, but I turned to look behind me again even as I continued forward. "You can tell that from walking over a grave?"
"No. I helped bury her."
"Oh." I shut my mouth, wondering if the missing marker was under this guy's coffin. The undead did not love, but they remembered love with a savage loyalty. Uneasy with all the people, I looked to find Ivy, standing with two I.S. agents in suits, going over a stapled printout. The sparkle of light on her shoulder was probably Jenks, the pixy making a burst of bright dust to acknowledge me but not leaving the warmth of Ivy's shoulder as they studied a clipboard.
Behind them stood the gazebo bandstand, brightly painted and open. It would have been pretty except for the bloody, contorted body hanging from the center of the ceiling like a rag doll, spread-eagled, with filthy cords holding the limbs out. I felt myself pale as I realized the body had hooves instead of feet, and the brown I'd thought was a pair of sweats was actually a blood-soaked pelt of tightly curled fur. Blood had dripped from the corpse to puddle underneath, but there wasn't nearly enough there to drain a body, and by the gray skin visible above the waist, he was drained, the blood either somewhere else or leaked through the cracks to the earth below.
My pace slowing, I swallowed hard and wished I had an amulet to soothe my gut. At first glance, I'd say that it looked like a misaligned curse had hit him and he'd been strung up as a warning - sort of a perverted public announcement against the dangers of black magic.
Then I saw the letters scrawled on the steps in blood. Stopping dead in my tracks, I felt Nina hesitate, evaluating me for signs of guilt as I took in the single word.
EVULGO, it said. It was the word that the demons used to publicly acknowledge and register a curse, and very few people would know it.
Someone was calling me out.