There were some things that were inevitable when you became a cop. Finley had long ago lost whatever innocence she had about human nature. Human beings were dirty, mean, and quite often soulless. There were a handful of people she trusted, and she had known them for years. She certainly didn't consider herself naïve.
And yet, in the two days since she had had that startling conversation in Mick's apartment, since she had discovered that vampires, creatures of myth and legend, actually did exist, she found herself looking at the world with new eyes. Who else had she come into contact with who wasn't what they seemed?
Now that she thought about it, she had some serious doubts about her apartment manager.
With a sigh, she rubbed her gritty eyes and gave up on making any more progress, at least for the moment. She had finished her regular shift, gone home and left again after Javon was asleep. She had long ago accustomed herself to running on little sleep. It didn't help her complexion any but she was a lifelong insomniac, and some things just didn't change.
To the world, she was Finley Monahan, homicide cop, hardass, someone you didn't want to cross. When she stepped through that door and picked up Javon, she became Mommy, the person who fixed dinner, gave him a bath, read him a story, kissed him good night. Those two realities were polar opposites, but she knew without a doubt that the one balanced the other.
She had been going through old police records, in what was not-so-affectionately referred to as the Morgue. This was the place where cases went and were never solved. Under flickering fluorescent lights, cheap aluminum shelves held box upon dusty box filled with hastily scribbled descriptions of beatings, murders, kidnappings, rapes. It certainly didn't make for soothing bedtime reading, but Finley had figured it was at least a place to start.
If what Josef had said was true, that the Legion had been around for centuries, there must be some record of them somewhere. Of course secret societies didn't make a habit of taking out an advertisement, but no matter how careful they were, they had to have left a trace. Finley didn't even know what she was looking for, but she knew she'd recognize it when she found it.
Her cell phone beeped, letting her know she had no signal. No surprise there, since she was currently in a basement with concrete walls. Someone really needs to improve cell service, she thought with a smirk. You could charge whatever you wanted if you could guarantee a signal, especially when you actually needed one. Then again, they charged whatever they wanted to anyway.
She tossed the last folder back into the box on the table in front of her. She glanced at her watch, realized it was past one in the morning, and decided to call it a night. They were working under a deadline, but she knew if she didn't get at least some sleep, five a.m. would come a lot sooner than she'd like. There were some circles even makeup couldn't fix.
Rising, she stretched, wiped the dust off her hands, and picked up the box, intending to put it back where she'd found it. It was at that moment she realized she wasn't alone. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, her gut telling her that whoever was there wasn't there for friendly purposes.
Making a split second decision, she dropped the box and ducked behind a shelf, gun in hand.
"Who's there?"
There was silence in the room, a hollowed silence that beat against her eardrums in rhythm with her heart. A light flickered in the back of the room, and then all of the lights blinked out.
Truly pissed now, Finley decided against calling out again. Clearly, whoever was here wasn't going to play fair. She waited until her eyes had adjusted to the dark, then slowly rose. Before she could make her next move, someone spoke.
"Finley Monahan." The voice was low, menacing, and it sent an unwilling chill up her spine. "We know who you are. We know who you are helping. This will be your only warning. If you don't want anything to happen to that lovely child, you will back off."
Heart hammering, Finley took the safety off her gun. That motherfucker had another thing coming if he thought he could threaten her son and get away with it. Just as she started toward the voice, intent on inflicting some bodily harm, she heard the whistle of air as something came toward her head.
Her last thought was, Goddamn it, not twice on one week.
Josef couldn't have put the cause of his unease into words. He only knew that he felt something was wrong, and nothing he did, not feeding, not working, not pacing, could make that feeling go away. It was singularly unpleasant and he was quite sure when he found the source of it, he would beat them senseless.
His desk phone rang shrilly. He saw from the Caller ID that it was Mick.
"Josef." Mick's voice was low. "Beth can't get hold of Finley. The last she talked to her, she was going to the archives at the station. She's worried."
Instantly Josef understood why he hadn't been able to relax, and in that understanding, found himself even more worried than he had been. Deal with that later. "I'm going."
"You have the detail on her son?"
"I do." And he was going to double it. He'd promised her the child wouldn't be harmed, and he was damned if he'd go back on his word. "Meet you there."
It was close to two in the morning, but even with a minimum of staff, the station was lit up and busy. Josef parked on a side street and considered. Normally he tried to avoid police stations as a matter of habit, and now he found himself in the singular position of going into one willingly.
The night air was hot and muggy, even for August. He would have liked to think it was the heat that was making him feel so uncomfortable, but he knew better.
He scented Mick and Beth before he saw them. "How are we doing this?"
Beth flashed her D.A.'s Office badge. "With this. Mick is helping me with a case and you are our witness."
They passed through the doors with more ease than he would have thought. It helped that Beth was a frequent visitor. In the elevator, Josef heard the wild hammering of Beth's heart and forced himself to focus. Just because he felt something was wrong, didn't mean it was, after all.
The archive room was long, low-ceilinged and dingy. It smelled of dust, cardboard, and . . . blood.
Mick was fast, but Josef moved so quickly, Beth was startled. She'd seen Josef in fights, and he hadn't moved that fast.
Finley was lying on her side, gun in hand, breathing shallowly. The hair at the back of her head was matted with blood. Josef felt her skull quickly and with his heightened senses, was relieved she didn't appear to have a fracture. At his touch, her eyes fluttered open.
"I'm going to kill the sonofabitch," she said clearly.
He sat back on his heels, eyes level on hers. "I don't doubt it."
"My God! Fin!" Beth knelt to help her friend to her feet. "What happened?"
"Doesn't matter." Finley's words were slightly slurred, and she shook her head in irritation. Big mistake. Bright lights popped behind her eyelids. "Fuck! That hurts. Javon. You have to check on Javon. They said they were going after him." There was a hint of hysteria in her voice, but she was holding herself together, Josef noted approvingly.
"We're going to get him now," he said. He took her arm. "I'm staying with you tonight. The more of us, the better the odds."
Any thought of protest was quelled by remembering the words she had heard in the dark. She had no doubt whoever was behind this would do exactly as he had promised.
She followed Josef to his car, reassuring Beth that she was fine. "I don't need to go to the doctor. Not now."
Mick thought otherwise, but he knew Josef well enough to know he would take care of her, whether she wanted him to or not. "Did you see who did this to you?"
Another head shake, and more cursing. "I really need to learn to be more vocal. No, I didn't see him. They hit the lights. He said he knew who I was helping, and if I didn't stop, he was going to go after Javon. I went toward the bastard but there was someone else there, and I was too busy focusing on Mr. Chatty to pay attention. Stupid." It was a rookie mistake and she was all too aware she could have lost her life for it.
Josef pulled out his cell phone, dialed. "Is the boy safe?" He listened for a moment. "We'll be there in ten minutes. Do not let anything happen to him."
The tightness in Finley's chest eased. She might curse herself for her stupidity, but at least Javon was safe.
Beth touched Mick's arm. "I'm going with them."
Mick looked at Josef. There was something in his eyes that made him shake his head. He said quietly, "Come home with me. He'll take care of her."
Beth started to protest, but she caught sight of the none-too-gentle way Josef was attempting to herd Finley to his car, and the ensuing argument. There were practically visible sparks.
"Oh." She smiled. "Fin, I'm going with Mick. I think it's best if neither of us is alone tonight. I'll meet up with you in the morning, okay?"
Finley took a moment from arguing with the supremely irritating Josef Kostan to say, "Okay," and then resumed the losing battle. "Why do I need to ride with you? It's not as if I have a fleet of cars at my disposal. I do kind of need the one I have!"
Mick stifled a laugh. He could see the proprietary look in Josef's eye and wondered if his friend was aware of what was happening. Somehow he doubted it. If he had, he knew Josef would have been running in the opposite direction, pride be damned. "Let's go."
In the leather confines of Josef's very expensive sports car, Finley folded her arms and tried not to pout. She knew it was childish, but she didn't like being told what to do, and she liked having her opinion ignored even less. "This really is unnecessary."
"It's necessary to me. You're under my protection, as is your son. Your car can stay here. I will have someone retrieve it later. You're not leaving my sight."
Biting back a curse, Finley gave up. Her head hurt, her shoulder ached where she had hit the ground when she fell, and she wanted nothing more than a hot bath, a soft bed, and some painkillers.
They were silent on the drive to Finley's apartment. Josef drove considerably faster than the posted speed limit, but to Finley it seemed an eternity before they pulled in front of her building. It was an old one, pre-war, a little rundown but she loved it nonetheless. She had had nothing but happy times there, and that wasn't something she could have said about anywhere else she had lived.
He followed her through the door, across the black-and-white tiles in the lobby that Javon loved, to the elevator. She had to admit, whoever it was he had watching her apartment was good – she didn't see any sign of them. Then again, vampires would be better than humans at going undetected.
She pulled her keys from her pocket and was irritated to notice that her hands were shaking. Embarrassed, she tried to steady them against the door.
Quietly, Josef took the keys from her hand and opened the door. He said nothing. Finley wasn't sure whether to be grateful or humiliated.
Olivia was asleep on the couch, a rerun of I Love Lucy flickering on the TV. Finley shook her shoulder gently. "I'm home."
Blinking, the older woman looked around, caught sight of Josef, and nearly jumped. The entire time she'd known Finley Monahan, the girl hadn't so much as said two words to a man unless she was cuffing him, let alone brought one home.
She could see what direction Olivia's thoughts were headed, and was inexplicably mortified. It was almost as bad as the thought of her father thinking she was having sex. "Not what you think," she whispered. "Listen, go home, lock the door, don't answer it unless it's someone you know."
A dozen unasked questions flickered across her face, but Olivia knew from looking at Finley that now was not the time for conversation. "Be safe."
Needing the contact, Finley squeezed Olivia's hand. "You too."
Finley was at the doorway of Javon's room before the door had closed behind her neighbor. His nightlight glowed gently, lighting the room just enough for her to see everything in place as she'd left it. Javon was snoring in his crib, blissfully unaware of any danger. And he was going to stay that way, she promised herself.
She ran a hand over his dark hair, marveling as always that he was hers. "My baby," she whispered quietly.
Josef, having no human constraints of needing light to see, saw the scene as clearly as if it were daylight. He saw the way Finley looked at her son, and Josef knew a rare moment of regret. Every so often, he had wondered what it would have been like to have a child. Vampires could sire other vampires, but they could father no children. He supposed that was Fate's way of keeping things fair. Vampires might look at humans as food, or playthings, but a vampire who had lived as long as he had knew that creating life was the one area in which humans had the upper hand.
With a quiet sigh, Finley stepped away from the crib and toward the door. Josef could have walked away . . . could have been out of the front door faster than she could blink. Yet he stood there until they were face to face. She stopped just in front of him, the light from the open doorway spilling across her body, turning her hair to flame.
For a moment she stood still, every heartbeat keeping him in a trance. Their eyes met for one beat . . . two . . . and still neither of them moved.
Accepting that this was a contest she didn't have the backbone to pursue at the moment, Finley looked away first. She stepped aside, around him, and toward the living room.
The spell broken, Josef followed her. Watched as she went through what was clearly her nightly ritual: filling the coffee maker, setting it to automatic brew, straightening an already neat kitchen. She could feel his eyes on her every move as strongly as if he touched her. Shaken, she finally caught his gaze.
"I don't think there's enough room in my freezer for you." She indicated the apartment-size side-by-side with a flick of her wrist. Beth had filled her in on some of the more interesting vampire living habits. "So where are you sleeping?"
He moved forward until he stood over her. Instantly irritated, she stuck her chin out in a gesture of defiance. Amused, he raised an eyebrow. "Someone's going to take you up on that eventually, you know." Before she could blink, he had her spun around, surprisingly gentle fingers examining the back of her head.
Finley let out a hiss as he probed the wound. "You don't need stitches. Apparently you're even more hard-headed than you look."
Slapping his hand away, she growled, "I don't need you to baby me!"
Instantly his eyes lit with a glow that could only be described as inhuman. Her breath caught in her throat, Finley did what she hadn't done in years – she ran.
He caught her before she'd taken two steps. Face inches from hers, he waited until her breathing had calmed, until he knew he had her full attention. "Believe me, Finley," he said quietly, "I am not going to baby you."
Her heart stuttered, but she was too proud to admit it. "Good. Then we agree on that point, at least." She tugged on her imprisoned hands, and to her slight regret, he released her. "You can sleep on the couch."
Without another word, she walked to her bedroom. She would have liked to close the door, but Javon would be up in a few short hours, and she'd be kidding herself if she thought a flimsy piece of plywood between her and Josef would be any kind of barrier. In the solitude of her tiny bathroom, she changed into a pair of cotton pajamas, slid between the cool sheets of her bed. And lay staring at the wall.
