I'm back!
Thank you for all the reviews while I've been MIA - I will get round to replying asap, but I thought you'd prefer me to get this to you. Enjoy!
Old Hunting Grounds
Merle, the werewolf Betty Jo had sent to give us the lowdown, shifted his weight on the plastic and chrome chair and it squeaked ominously. Cheap motel furniture wasn't built for someone his size. Merle was a big guy.
Bigger than Daisy's brother Pete Winchester, who was no shrimp himself. Otherwise known as Smoky Pete the werebear, he had picked us up from the airport and driven us to this fine establishment, which had to be one of Jackson's cheapest motels. Between him and Merle, they made the table in the room Daisy and I were sharing look like it belonged in a doll's house. There'd been some posturing between them but now their minds were mostly relaxed, and I was fairly certain Merle was telling us the whole truth.
Not that it was particularly welcome truth for the Jackson supes, but still.
Hector's latest victim had been identified as a preacher from Silver Dawn, one of the smaller churches orbiting the Fellowship. Silver Dawn preached that both vamps and twoeys needed 'salvation', and did not advocate violence. Not officially at least, but their name suggested they might do otherwise in private.
There'd been a flurry of increasingly strident media coverage about the murder, both in print and over the airwaves – we'd listened to local radio on the way here and gotten the tenor of it. The preacher left a widow and three children behind, and was being lauding as an upstanding family man, which as far as I knew was the truth but it sure didn't help matters when his demise was being used to whip up a frenzy of fear against the twoey community. There'd been nothing Betty Jo could do to stop the story getting out either: the body was dumped on the steps of City Hall.
Right across the street from the offices of the Jackson Clarion. Hector was sure set on making headlines.
Merle told us what Betty Jo had discovered so far, which wasn't a lot. The vehicle used to dump the body was stolen. It had been abandoned five blocks away, and the scene was already crawling with police and journalists by the time the supes got to it, so nobody got a clear whiff of the perpetrators. The cops had some sketchy footage from a traffic camera but all it showed was two men scrambling out of the vehicle, baseball hats pulled low over their faces. They'd jumped into another car and vanished into the night. Merle reckoned they were long gone.
"Y'all had any trouble with this Silver Dawn recently?" I asked when he finished.
"No more than usual." Merle shrugged. "They don't do much. Hand out fliers at the mall, a few debates on local radio. Nothing much to speak of."
"Anybody had a run-in with the preacher? Anyone with a grudge against him?"
"Don't think so."
"This took time to set up," said Pete, frowning. "Stealing a car, maybe two. Finding somewhere to take the guy where they wouldn't be disturbed for a few hours."
While they tortured and killed him went unspoken. I shivered.
"Yes," Daisy said thoughtfully. "I've never heard of this guy. Hector must have talked to someone here, someone who thought the preacher deserved this. Someone angry." She narrowed her eyes at Merle. "Where do we find twoeys like that?"
…
The diner was half-full, but when the three of us walked in the drop in noise level was noticeable. Two guys sitting at the far end of the counter gave Pete a long, suspicious once-over.
They weren't the only ones to do that.
It was no surprise folks were twitchy. This was a twoey hangout and everybody in the place was a little tense. Ignoring the looks we were getting, I bitched loudly to Daisy about our imaginary drive from Atlanta – we'd picked that as our cover story. Folks turned back to their food once the three of us picked a table and sat down.
I looked around while we waited for the bored-looking waitress to come over. The place was a dump. The table was sticky under my hand, and chipped, and the waitress's apron was in need of a hot wash or two. Mind you, we fitted in: Pete and his sister were shrugging off well-worn leather jackets, and I'd borrowed a frayed denim coat from Daisy and worn it over an old sweater and faded jeans. I'd used heavier make-up than I usually wore in the day too. Daisy had given my white trash make-over an approving nod before we left the motel.
We ordered coffee and donuts. Daisy and Pete kept up the conversation while I listened in to the customers. Most of the minds around us were red swirls of anxiety or tension, but there were a few humans. I honed in one of them, a middle-aged woman who was a clear broadcaster. She was sitting near the door with two friends, all dressed in the same uniform. Looked like they'd just come off an early shift at the hardware store down the block. She was the only human, and she was thinking about the murder, and what it meant for her twoey friends.
… is gonna make everything worse. No wonder Wanda keeps to herself. Emmylou gets picked on enough with her daddy being gone. If those little shits knew her momma howled at the moon too, or whatever it is werefoxes do once a month, it would only get worse for the poor kid. And if those those stuck-up teachers knew… Lord knows, they call me in enough over Mason…
Her thoughts turned to her son, and I moved on to someone else. Fifteen minutes later I sat back in my chair and gave Daisy a small shake of my head. I hadn't found anything of use to us, just a whole lot of worry and bitterness.
Pete sent me a clear thought then, the way we'd practised on the way over. Those two at the counter are our best bet. Been bitching about the packs and the cops.
I looked over at them. Their backs were to us, and they were talking, quick and low, with their heads together. The one on the left was whip thin, his faded red t-shirt hanging lose around his biceps and his shoulder blades ghosting against the material when he gave a jerky shrug. That movement, along with the jittery rush of his mind, clued me in. He was a user, on some nasty-ass drugs.
His friend was pot-bellied, with greasy dark hair that hung limply down his back. He'd slung a biker jacket carelessly over the stool next to him, and I compared the emblem stitched on the back of it to my vague memories of the Jackson pack that chased me back to Bon Temps all those years ago, after I'd killed Lorena. I didn't think it was the same emblem, but my hand reached for my throat anyway, feeling for the soft leather pouch that Daisy had tied round my neck with a cord.
Still there, tucked safely under my sweater.
I'd explained to Daisy that I had history with the packs here, and although I figured time might have faded memories of my previous Jackson trip, someone might recognise me. Daisy had whipped up some sort of gris-gris that she said would stop anyone looking at me twice. It made me feel secure enough to approach the locals, even if, as far as I could tell, all it had done so far was smell of dirt and dried herbs.
I nodded to Pete and we slipped out of our seats. As we crossed to the counter he slung a heavy arm over my shoulders, cementing my role as the dumb blonde girlfriend.
"Hey," he said, taking the seat next to the skinny guy in red and putting himself between me and our targets. I stayed on my feet, close to Pete but not quite leaning against him so I could get a clear read. Pete leaned forwards, his elbows resting on the counter. "I heard you talking. Bad business, huh?"
"Nunya yours," said the skinny one aggressively, his beady eyes fierce. What few teeth he had were yellow and broken, wrecked by whatever drug had stolen his life. His mind was filled with suspicion bordering on paranoia, and his hand tapped restlessly on the counter as if it had a mind of its own.
"Easy there, Caleb." His friend laid a hand on his arm in a calming gesture. His nails were chipped and black with grease, like Tray Dawson's had been. Maybe he was a mechanic. He eyed Pete, greed and caution warring on his face plain as day, echoing the struggle in his head.
Oh. Caleb's buddy was hoping we were customers for the drugs burning a hole in that jacket of his. Two packets of weed and three white pills, something I couldn't catch. He was one of those people who thought in pictures, not words.
"What d'you want?" he asked.
"Nothing you're selling," Pete replied easily. I wondered how he knew, then I twigged: he'd smelt the pot. Can't hide that shit around twoeys. "I'm in the market for some information, though."
They both tensed. Caleb sniffed, slow and deliberate. "You catch a whiff of cop there, Dale?"
Pete laughed. "Only time I spent with the cops was on the wrong side of bars."
It was the right reaction judging by the way Dale relaxed. Caleb didn't, clenching his fists. But he kept quiet and I figured that was the best we'd get from someone wound so tight.
"Heard you talking 'bout the murder," Pete began again.
Dale interrupted, eyeing him with renewed suspicion. "So what. Whole town's yapping about that."
"I'll bet," Pete said. He dropped his voice. "So, what's the word? The cops gonna catch whoever did it?"
They exchanged a look. Pete had gotten them thinking along the right lines, but tuning into both of them was like listening to two overlapping radio stations: confusing as hell. Caleb's thoughts were scattered, so I focused on Dale, who was going to do the talking anyway, from the way he leaned forwards. He said, "Why you asking?"
"Thinking of stopping here for a while. Got my girl and my sister with me, see." He nodded and they both looked over at Daisy. "I wanna know how bad it's gonna get."
The pulse of recognition from Dale panicked me a little until I realised he was looking at Pete not me. He said, "You one of them old ones, ain't ya?"
Pete shrugged modestly.
"Your womenfolk are squibs though." Twoeys had appropriated that term from a certain book series to mean someone from twoey roots who couldn't shift. I held back an eye roll at the way Dale used it to dismiss us, and it was a good job I did because he turned to me and asked, "Where you from, doll?"
"Hotshot, Louisiana," I said, sticking to the story we'd planned and sending a silent apology to Calvin for what I was about to say. "You won't have heard of it. Real podunk shithole."
Dale stiffened and looked at Pete. "Panthers out there, right? No-one looking for her?"
I shrugged and Pete said, "Nah, they got enough problems breeding true. Won't miss a dud like her."
"You tagged?" That was slang too, for someone registered with the BSA.
Pete snorted. "Do I look like it? How do the packs round here take to loners? Will I get any hassle?"
"Ours don't care, long as you keep yourself to yourself. The others though... They check up. I'd stick to this side of town if I was you."
Pete nodded, and sucked his teeth. "Get a lot of loners?"
"Some. Passing through. You know how it is." Dale was watching Pete closely now, wondering where this was going.
We'd planned this part too. Pete pulled a battered photo out of his back pocket and laid it on the counter. It showed Hector with his arm round Daisy. Two hundred-dollar bills peeked out from underneath it. Right before Pete spoke I caught his thought that these two would rat out their own mothers for much less than that. He taped the photo. "That guy fucked with my sister. I'm real eager to find him. He's from Texas. He'd have passed through in the last month or so."
Pete let them have a good look-see, and then spread his hand protectively over the pile. They both frowned, searching their memories.
And so did I, just to make sure they didn't lie.
"No, don't remember him," Dale said, with a disappointed sigh. His honesty surprised me until I heard him think that pissing Pete off with a lie was a real bad idea.
Caleb wasn't so ready to give up, and his hand twitched as if to snatch at the money. "What about those guys that showed up a while back, round Christmas time? One of 'em was from Dallas, big Cowboys fan…"
He saw the spark of interest on Pete's face and pounced on it, rambling on about three werewolves who'd crashed a party, wolves no-one had seen before. They'd turned up a few times, and then vanished. Moved on, he reckoned, but Hector might have been with them.
Daisy had described a couple of twoeys she knew from Houston who might be helping Hector, but disappointingly none of faces in Caleb's memories matched them. I did get a real clear image from Dale though: a bird's eye view of a street map, zoomed in on the area where these out-of-towners had been staying. He was a real visual guy.
Caleb wound up his story and eyed the money hungrily. I patted Pete's thigh twice. Once meant keep asking; twice meant I had everything. Pete took his hand away, pocketing the photo and one of the bills. Caleb shot him a sharp look, but Pete just shrugged and said, "Maybe the fucker was with them, maybe he wasn't. Be grateful you're getting that much."
"Better be careful," Caleb said sourly, snatching up his reward. "You get caught beating on someone now, cops are gonna have itchy trigger fingers."
"No shit," Pete said, getting to his feet. "I wasn't born yesterday."
"Cops might just take it into their heads to pin the preacher on you too," Caleb said darkly. Wouldn't be the first time.
The bitterness of his thought shocked me into speaking. "Won't they want to find the real killer?"
He glared at me. "Cops don't care who takes the blame darling, long as it's one of us." Hell, wouldn't put it past the packs to nail it on a lone wolf either, just to get things settled down.
As Pete steered me towards the door I had a sinking feeling some bright spark might well decide that delivering up an innocent scapegoat was a great idea, but that would never work. Not while Hector was still out there, free to kill again. Even if we stopped him, it would take a miracle to calm the situation down.
Unless...
Caleb had given me an idea. Once we found Hector, what if one of the packs claimed they'd 'caught' the killer and turned him over to the police in a flurry of publicity? That might undo some of the damage.
I wasn't sure Daisy would go for that, though. Turning Hector in would lead the authorities back to her other friends from Tooth 'n Claw and then… Well, that might make things worse. A lone killer was easy to pass off as a bad apple, but a whole group? That would make folks even less inclined to tolerate twoeys.
I put my speculations away as we got into Pete's pickup. As soon as the door shut behind me I spilt everything I'd heard. I tugged the street atlas out of the glove compartment, flicked through it and pointed out the block I'd seen in Dale's mind.
"Here. This is where those werewolves were staying."
Daisy took the map from me, pursing her lips and nodding as Pete whistled softly. "Damn, girl. That's some talent you got."
I shrugged. "They might not be anything to do with Hector, though. One of them being from Dallas is a pretty slim lead."
Daisy looked up. "You did good. Your plan was a good one."
I shrugged the praise off too, mumbling something about doing this because I had plenty of twoey friends.
No need to mention the other reason I was determined to get this investigation over and done as quickly and efficiently as possible. The reason that had me glancing at the sky, estimating the time until sunset. The reason that had me itching with trepidation as the light faded.
Not that I was going to ask Daisy what time said reason was arriving.
No need let her know how much the thought of dealing with Eric was unsettling me before he was even here.
Pete was bushed. He'd had a long drive over from Texas to meet us, so we dropped him off at the motel. One eye on the darkening sky, I went with Daisy to grab some fast food. I figured a certain someone would be staying at Russell's, and that meant I had time enough to eat before I needed my game-face. But there was a line at the drive-thru, and the sun was gone by the time we were done.
…
The motel balcony shuddered slightly with our footsteps. Pete had the room before ours and Daisy knocked at his door to let him know we were back. He called out he was just getting out the shower and Daisy barged right on in. Pete wasn't my brother and I really had no desire to see him in a state of undress, so I didn't follow. Instead, juggling the bag of food and a tray of sodas, I wrestled the room key out of my jeans and opened our door. My mouth watered at the smell of hot, greasy food and I crossed to the table. As I was putting the sodas down, a movement in my periphery made me look up.
I gasped, dropping the food bag heavily onto the table.
Eric was stepping out of the bathroom, like a pale avenging angel floating on a cloud.
Or a devil wreathed in smoke from the pits of hell. He was naked, except for a single, too-small towel wrapped around his waist and another around his neck. His hair hung dark and wet, and beads of water glistened on his chest and shoulders and arms. A pulse thrummed in my ears, so loudly that I saw rather than heard him say my name.
"Eric," I replied, and it came out breathier than I wanted.
He smiled – and the small part of my mind that wasn't frozen in shock noted it was the quick, easy smile of a man with things on his mind greeting a friend. Not the teasing smirk he wore when he was deliberately flirting, and I felt a twinge disappointment over its absence.
He said something about Pete letting him in, but I barely heard it. He took the towel from around his neck to rub his hair, which at least meant I didn't have to look him in the eye, but the movement did interesting things to his chest, things that made my mouth as dry as a sand dune. A bead of water trailed down towards his navel, and I swallowed, hard, fighting the urge to quench my thirst on damp skin.
When he tossed the towel on the bed and reached for the one at his waist, my eyes followed his hands automatically. I almost sighed when he turned his back.
Not that that helped any. Once the second towel landed on the bed, I had a great view of that world class ass as it disappeared inside the jeans he was pulling on. That sparked some extremely pleasant memories that held me captive, frozen in place until he straighten up.
A dozen stripes criss-crossing his lower back caught the light, shining paler than his skin. The spell broke.
"Those are new scars."
Eric stilled, and it took me a second to realise the voice came from behind me. The words could have be mine but for the curiosity behind them: I'd seen those scars before, although they'd paled some since that night in Pam's office.
Daisy was the one who'd spoken, leaning in the doorway behind me, her eyes fastened on Eric. He turned to face her, raised an eyebrow and said a single word I didn't recognise, but I could hear the question in it.
Daisy nodded gravely, and said something back in words that weren't English. Something was off about her voice, more than the language she was using. She didn't sound like herself.
Eric's face went blank at whatever she said, and his reply was short, dismissive.
She moved towards him though, gliding past so close to me that I brushed her mind unintentionally. It was smooth and still, no drums, no multitude of voices this time. Just a picture that made me pull back mentally as if I'd touched a hot stove: Eric, bare-chested and grinning around his fangs, mouth black with blood and skin glowing faintly in the moonlight, luminous against a bank of dark snow.
That snapped me back to reality like a bucket of ice-water.
"I take it you two have met," I said evenly, busying myself with the food to give them a moment.
But the mood broke and Daisy gave herself a shake and stepped back, eyeing Eric speculatively. "My grandmother remembers you well, Northman."
Oh. Her grandmother. And Eric. Right.
Well, he had been around a long time. At least Daisy sounded like herself again, if rather amused. The cold silence from Eric told me he was less so.
I kept my back to him, replaying the scene I'd walked in on, trying to work out what he was up to while I got the meal unpacked. Was he flirting or not? I waved Daisy over to eat and only then did I turned to face him.
He'd put on a t-shirt. Something old and faded I was pleased to see, both because it made him seem like the Eric I knew and because I was still in the scruffy clothes I'd worn to the diner. I didn't need to feel at any more of disadvantage for this conversation.
"Slumming it, Eric?" I nodded at the bathroom. "I know for a fact Russell's place is nicer."
"I am not staying at Russell's." I gave him a questioning look and he explained. "It is better no-one knows I am in Jackson."
Good point. De Castro, for one, would love to catch him unguarded. But that didn't entirely explain the little scene I'd walked in on. I said suspiciously, "So the place you're staying…"
"Is lacking in facilities, yes," he finished smoothly. "The bear offered yours."
"Oh."
Maybe I was making too much of this. Eric had never been shy about walking around butt naked, although I was sure Rory would have something to say about it. Lord knew what she made of what he was up to with Iowa at the summit, but I was filing that under 'none of my damn business'.
I muttered under my breath, "Bet your girlfriend is real happy you're here with me and grandma's ghost."
Of course Eric heard me. "Girlfriend?" he asked blandly, but the corner of his mouth twitched.
I waved a hand. "Whatever you call her. Lady friend, significant other, your latest squeeze."I shut my mouthbefore I got to lover, knowing it would come out sour. Such a convenient term that one, no need to remember a name.
"And which her is this?" Eric asked, his eyes twinkling.
Son of a bitch was going to make me say it. "Rory," I admitted stiffly.
"She is none of those things to me," he said seriously. "That … position is vacant. Rarely filled, in fact."
"Oh, sure," I said pointedly, remembering Oskar's comment. "Y'all usually just hit it and quit it, huh?"
His eyes met mine. "Not always."
A reply burned the tip of my tongue, but Thalia walked in before I could show myself up by saying something catty. Her arms were full of newspapers. She walked straight over to Eric and dumped them on the bed – my bed, Daisy had taken the one nearest the door – without so much as a by-your-leave.
"Thalia. What are you doing here?" I said, once I finished gaping like an idiot.
"Bodyguard," she grunted, lifting her chin towards Eric.
Who had switched to business mode. He had his bag and the wet towels off the bed in a flash – onto the floor, God forbid the man ever hang up a towel – making space to park his ass. Another blur and he had the newspapers sorted in two piles.
"Thalia, go through those," he said, taking a pile for himself.
She sat down too, and they began flicking through them at vamp speed. Biting my tongue, I picked up the towels and hung them in the bathroom. When I came back Pete was elbow to elbow with Daisy at the table, shovelling down his burger and eyeing mine. I grabbed it and my soda, and perched next to the TV to eat.
"Shouldn't you check the news channels too?" I asked, once I'd swallowed a few mouthfuls.
A flicker of a smile played about Eric's mouth and he murmured, "Good idea."
Pete grimaced. "Already did, while you were fetching dinner. Nothing good, and nothing new since this morning."
"Tell me what you found out today," Eric said, not looking up. Daisy filled him in and began outlining her plan to check out where those three wolves had been staying.
Until Eric stiffened.
"What is it?" I said.
"We have a problem." He folded the paper he was looking at, and passed it to Daisy. I hopped down and moved to read it over her shoulder. It was an opinion piece, by a guy named Forester. Seemed like more of the same hysteria to me.
"What are we looking at?" I asked, confused.
"Last paragraph," he said grimly.
I skimmed down the column: … ferocious attack … family man … who knows how many wolves in sheep's clothing walk among us … turn on us at any time … Rumours of similar attacks along the I20 corridor, one as far away as Shreveport.
"Shreveport. Well, that guy was bitten too, wasn't he? Someone was bound to put that together."
"Pam has a good press officer in Indira. That detail of the Shreveport case – the bites – is not widely known." He cocked his head. "How did you hear of it?"
I glanced at Daisy but she didn't signal me to keep quiet. "Um, New Mexico. He knew about the other murders too."
"Stan shares information with him," Eric said.
"Who else knows?" Thalia asked him.
"Rita, Russell, Zola…Too many." Eric frowned and ran a hand through his hair. "But this journalist should not. I will speak to Russell while you finish your meal."
He blurred out of the room, and I heard him pacing up and down the balcony as he talked. When he came back in, he took charge.
"We need to follow this up. Russell swears only a few of his people know about the Shreveport case, and none of them are stupid enough to leak it to the press. Either the information came from Shreveport PD…"
"Or the killers themselves," I finished. "They seem to want publicity pretty bad."
"Yes," he agreed. "This Forester might give us a lead on them. Russell has a contact at the Clarion who owes a favour." He smirked. "A jackal, appropriately enough, by the name of Vicki. I spoke to her, she will help. We should split up. Daisy, you and your brother investigate the place the wolves stayed. Thalia and I will go to the paper, find out how Forester knows things he shouldn't."
"Agreed," Daisy said, curling a lip at him and Thalia. "You two would only get in the way with the local wolves. Is this Forester human?" Eric nodded. "Sookie should go with you, then. We won't need her."
I couldn't think of a good objection, so I just shrugged. Eric reached for his bag, and pulled out some cheap phones. "We should use these."
"I have a phone," I said. "And so do you."
"Yes. One full of contacts that would identify me. I do not wish to be found carrying it tonight."
"Oh. Right." He was taking this cloak and dagger stuff seriously, wasn't he? "Don't you have to be contactable, being king an' all?"
He grinned. "You forget. Pam can always reach me."
Of course she could. I rolled my eyes at myself.
As Eric bent over the phones, I saw he wasn't serious at all. In fact, the last time I'd seen that particular gleam in his eye… Well, let's just say I knew he was humming with anticipation. His enthusiasm made me curious. Eric always did like adventure. How often did he get to lay aside the mantle of king and be himself like this?
Not often, I reckoned. I took the phone he held out to me and diligently listened to his instructions on how to silence it and make calls. Eric had programmed in the other numbers. No prizes for guessing who was number one on my speed-dial.
…
Downtown Jackson was quiet on a Sunday evening. It was cold out, and I was glad of the cashmere sweater I'd changed into when Eric told me to wear something plain and dark. We – that is Eric, with me on his arm – were doing a little reconnaissance and we didn't want to attract attention. I couldn't fault his black leather jacket on that score. He had his hair hidden under a cap and I was keeping my head down, avoiding any surveillance cameras.
I'd been somewhat alarmed when Thalia left us a block ago, but Eric just shrugged and said she was quicker and quieter on her own. I'd tracked her void and she was heading around back of the police department. Where the smokers hung out, I guessed, hoping to overhear them talking about the murder.
But that left me alone with Eric.
I was ignoring that, just like I ignored the feel of his arm under my hand. So far he'd been all business, and I was determined to do the same. I glanced across the street as we came level with the police department. The lights were still blazing, and there was plenty of activity inside. Good. I concentrated on the cops near the entrance, the desk sergeant.
Give anything to be home right now … Shit just got real … Boss breathing down our necks … Wonder how many extra shifts I can swing …
"Anything?" Eric asked quietly as we got to the corner.
I shook my head. It had been a long shot, maybe Thalia would have more luck.
He steered us across the intersection, and I couldn't help but look over at the little park and the red brick steps leading to City Hall. White stone columns glowed softly behind the trees, and I wondered if they'd left the lights on to reassure folks.
Or to discourage any copycats who might mistake the place for a morgue and take it into their heads to drop off another body. It wasn't like twoeys had a monopoly on crazy, there were plenty of ordinary human nut-jobs out there.
I shook my head as we turned left. We passed the parking lot for the Clarion offices and then Eric turned off the sidewalk into an unlit garden area. I found myself on a shadowy path that wound through shrubs and trees towards the offices.
"Where are we going?" I whispered when I didn't see a door ahead, or any sign of this Vicki we were meeting.
"Not far." Eric stopped under a large conifer that grew right against the building. It was real dark underneath it, but his face glowed faintly, enough for me to see his mouth move as he whispered, "We're taking the express elevator."
Before I could get what he meant, his arm slipped round my waist and tightened, and my feet left the floor. I stifled a yelp as we rose into the air and ducked against his shoulder, expecting a branch in the face. What I got was a nose full of leather, cologne and a smell that was simply Eric. Leaves brushed against my back, but nothing solid hit me and a second later we were in the open, landing gently on the roof, two stories up. I would have stumbled without his support; my stomach was somewhere around my knees.
"What the hell, Eric!" I whisper-yelled, pulling away and smacking him on the shoulder.
He grinned, teeth flashing in the light from the streetlamps below us. "Vicki suggested we meet here. Too many cameras on the front door."
He nodded to a dark square silhouetted against the roof-line. A stairwell. I spotted the orange flare of a cigarette at the same time as I sensed a twoey mind churning with impatience and irritation.
"Let's not keep her waiting," I muttered.
Vicki took a long drag as we got to her. From what I could see in the glow, she had short dark hair, a thin face and an intense stare. She flicked the cigarette away, and its embers lit up a mess of butts on the floor before she stamped it out. "Vampire."
"Jackal," Eric answered in kind.
"Who's the girl?"
"No-one you need concern yourself with." His tone said not to ask again. "Tell me about Forester."
"He's young, ambitious. Hungry for success." She paused. "Not real fond of supes, but he'll deal with them if it means chasing down a scoop. He step on someone's toes?"
Eric ignored the question. "Where is he getting his information on the killing?"
"I don't know." Her voice had sharpened. She was curious, but there was still a healthy undercurrent of irritation, mostly aimed at Eric. "Forester's a cagey bastard at the best of times. Guards his sources. He's got someone in the police department, but they're scrambling like headless chickens. Must be someone else."
"Is he still here?"
"Yes. It'll be tricky to get him alone. There's other people about."
…
It wasn't so tricky. Not with someone who knew the place leading us, and a vampire and a telepath who could hear people coming long before we saw them. It helped that the second floor was mostly empty this late on a Sunday.
Vicki – who was a skinny little thing once I saw her in the light – snuck us into to an empty office, making sure to pull the blinds down before she left to entice Forester to join us. She was using the perfect bait for a newshound: she was gonna hint we were twoeys with inside knowledge of the killers.
She reckoned he'd believe her. She was out and proud, so everyone at the paper knew she was a twoey herself. A couple things I caught from her told me that had cut both ways in the last few days. Some of her colleagues had pulled away, treating her with suspicion. Others who'd ignored her in the past had become real friendly overnight, looking to pump her for information.
Forester must've fallen into the second category, because he took the bait hook, line and sinker. He was practically panting when he walked in, so eager he didn't even notice Vicki locking the door behind him. Not that he had much chance to notice.
Eric stepped forwards, locked eyes with him and it was game over.
Forester was a short guy, with buzzcut dark hair and a crumpled suit, and the way his face went slack with the glamour didn't improve his looks any. Eric cut right to the chase. "How did you link the murder in Shreveport to the one here?"
I slipped into Forester's head as he answered. "I got an anonymous tip-off."
"How? When?"
"A phone call. Late one night, before the murder. A week or so ago."
"Before," Eric said significantly. We exchanged a look that needed no words: only Hector or someone with him would know there was going to be a killing in Jackson before it happened. Eric leaned forwards, bearing down on the man's will. "Think of the voice. Was it old or young? An accent perhaps?"
"Can't say. Whoever it was disguised their voice."
I grimaced, and shook my head to confirm that. I'd be hard pressed to recognise anyone from what I heard in his memory. Eric looked less pissed than I expected, and more thoughtful. He asked, "Did you record the call? Trace the number?"
It was only when Forester answered no to both questions that Eric's shoulders tightened and his presence became menacing. It was Vicki who asked the next question though, her eyes glittering with an interest I couldn't investigate, not while I was deep in Forester's head.
"You can't run a story with just an anonymous call," she said, sneering. "What else did you have?"
"Some crime scene photos from the Shreveport case. Came in the post yesterday."
I stiffened at the grisly images I wanted to scour away the second I saw them. A good deal of my revulsion came from the greed Forester felt over them; the guy cared more about his career than the brutality.
Eric hissed quietly. Whether that was at the implication someone in Shreveport PD had leaked evidence or my reaction, I didn't know. When I glanced over, he'd folded his arms and was back to looking like a marble statue. "Did you meet this informant face to face?" he asked.
"No. Never."
Eric tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling for a moment, and I knew he was reviewing the conversation, looking for anything we'd missed. He met Forester's eyes again. "Did you meet with anyone else about this?"
"No. No-one else."
My breath caught. That was a lie.
There was a wall in his mind, a blank wall. He'd been glamoured. But not about the tip-off, or the photos, just about this. Why? My mind raced with the possibilities.
Eric understood enough from my expression without me saying a word. He loomed over Forester whose mind went as slack as his face under the full weight of a thousand year's worth of iron will. "Are you sure?" Eric said softly. "Think hard. You met someone who spoke to you about the murders. Remember that person."
I pushed hard too, drilling into his mind, past the white noise of Eric's glamour and there it was. Just a flash, the barest moment. The last thing he saw before the memory had been wipe away.
A pair of mud-brown eyes, with pale eyelashes.
I burned them into my memory before I pulled back and gave Eric a sharp nod. Eric switched smoothly into action, his voice deepening and gaining extra layers. "You will not remember me, this woman, or this meeting. You came up here with Vicki. She asked you to reveal your sources. You refused. She was angry, you argued." He gestured at the door. Vicki opened it, checked outside and indicated the coast was clear. "Go back to your desk."
Vicki watched Forester leave and then turned that intense gaze on us. She was furious that we'd kept her in the dark, and intrigued by the seamless way we'd worked to question Forester. She scrutinised Eric first, sure he was more than he seemed. Then she gave me a more lingering examination as she wondered what the hell I was. A witch using some sort of interrogation spell was her best guess, given she could smell the gris-gris round my neck.
Maybe the magic of the gris-gris prevented her realising I was a telepath.
Whatever the reason, she stopped speculating and nodded sharply to herself. She smiled thinly at Eric. "You work well together. She's talented, your pet witch."
Eric growled softly, and took a step towards her. "Whatever you think you know, forget it."
"This isn't my first rodeo," she said, her smile twisting into something bitter. "I didn't see you, you were never here. And my debt to Russell is paid in full."
"Yes."
"Good. You can find your own way out." And she was gone, taking her resentment with her.
Eric turned to me, dismissing her as beneath his interest. "Who was it who spoke to Forester?"
I sighed. "A vamp. He'd been glamoured to forget whoever it was. All I saw was the eyes."
Eric blinked.
"Yeah, my feelings exactly. Why a vamp? Could one be working with Hector to take out Chosen?"
"Possibly." Eric paced across the room as he spoke. "But why meet with Forester at all? The call and the photos should have been enough, and considerably less risky than meeting him."
"Maybe they thought the glamour would protect them. Y'all do tend to rely on it."
He chuckled. "We do. But whoever it was did not count on you."
"Us. I doubt I'd have seen even the little I did without your help."
He grinned. "Vicki was right. We do work well together."
I looked away, and cleared my throat. "Maybe this vamp glamoured Forester to be sure he'd react the right way when they contacted him."
"Yes, perhaps. To keep him from going too far. He is … tenacious."
"Like a pitbull," I said, grimacing. "Why didn't you get him to destroy the photos?"
"That would be out of character for Forester, don't you think? There's a chance this vampire is watching him. It would be better not to alert them."
I thought that over. "You're going to tell Russell."
"Of course. He'll put a watch on Forester. If this vampire approaches him again…" He shrugged, as if to say it wouldn't be pretty, and looked at the door. "We should go. Is it clear?"
I listened for a second and nodded.
I should have listened for longer and stretched my mind out further, but I was busy puzzling over what we'd learned. I followed Eric out of the office, and we turned into a long, dark corridor than ran the length of the building.
It was empty.
It was still empty when we were halfway along it but Eric stopped on a dime, hand on my arm. "Someone is coming," he hissed. The lights came on in a side corridor up ahead, cutting us off from the stairs to the roof. "Can we go back?"
I reached out to check behind us. Shit.
"No," I whispered urgently. "Security guard, coming our way."
The guard would turn the corner any second, and the murmur of voices ahead was loud enough for me to hear now and getting louder. Eric whipped round, casting for way out, his fangs snicking down. A beat later he gathered me in his arms and the world blurred and shifted past as a blast of air ruffled my hair. A door opened and we were through it, and into the dark, the door closing softly after us, shutting out the danger.
The danger of being discovered.
There were other dangers involved in finding myself in a small space, my heart racing and my body pressed against Eric's. I froze for long seconds, fighting memories and a dizzy sensation of falling that didn't entirely come from moving at vamp speed. Eric stood stock-still, a coiled predator, a patient, waiting, presence that enveloped and overwhelmed me.
I was painfully aware of his thighs against mine, his solid, unmoving chest under my hands, his arms around me, his scent. His lips, waiting in the dark above me.
All I had to do was tilt my head, stretch up…
I closed my eyes. Willed my breath to slow, my heart to quiet, the electric thrill to wash out of my blood. Slowly, too slowly, the drumbeat in my ears faded to a dull murmur.
Eric whispered, the sound startling me. "I cannot hear anyone outside."
Not surprising, over my pounding heart and heavy breathing. Shit. Maybe he'd put that down to fright. Please God, let him put it down to that.
"Can you sense anyone in the corridor?" he asked, loosening his grip and preparing to step away.
I did not sway closer. Definitely not. Did not happen.
"Give me a sec." My voice was hoarse, but I ignored that like a champ, hoping Eric would ignore it too. I spent a good minute reaching out to the limits of my telepathy, checking as far as I could. It helped settle me. The people who'd come up here were tucked away in an office now, and the guard was gone. "We're good to go."
Eric opened the door, spilling light into our hideout, which turned out to be a supply closet. He went first, which had the advantage that he couldn't see the blush burning my cheeks. We made it to the stairs, up them and out into the cool night air without incident. I took deep cleansing breaths as we crossed the roof. It wasn't until we got to the edge I realised we had to go down the way we'd come up.
"Your elevator," Eric said, turning to me and opening his arms. He was serious this time, not a smirk in sight. Or a fang. I hadn't noticed that he'd retracted them, but I'd been more than a little flustered.
A smirk have would have been easier to deal with than the solemn expression he was wearing. I swallowed the awkwardness, aiming for nonchalance as I stepped into his embrace.
I don't think I fooled either of us.
