Night Games

7

“Where are you from, originally?” Jack glanced over at Selina as he drove them back to his place after dinner. They’d spent the entire time discussing work, going over details of the case. It had been a long, frustrating week and a half of accomplishing not much. Between Selina, Peyton, and Jack, they’d questioned everyone who might know anything, pored over every file until they had all the words memorized, stared at every crime scene photograph until it was seared into their brains, and they were no further ahead than they had been ten days ago.

“Where are you from, originally?” she countered.

“North Carolina. Camp Lejeune. Then I joined the marines and was stationed down near San Diego, at Camp Pendleton. When I wasn’t overseas, which I was quite a bit.” To put it mildly. He’d spent more time away than he had at home. “Now you. Where are you from?”

She shifted in the passenger seat to look at him. “What, I don’t sound like an American to you? Do I have an accent showing?”

“Not at all, but since you’re not Native American, it’s not that likely that you were born in the U.S.” He turned into his driveway and hit the remote to open his garage door. “Am I right?”

“Yeah.” She shrugged, smoothing the fabric on her slacks. “I lived a couple of human lifetimes in England, which is where I was born.”

“Did your parents stay there when you came here?” he prompted, because she never seemed to be willing to talk about her family.

“No. They were dead,” she said shortly, staying true to form.

“How did they die?”

Not answering, she looked out the window as he pulled forward into the garage.

He pressed the button to lower the garage door a little harder than was necessary. “Were their deaths what brought you to America?”

“No, first I spent some time in France and Spain, then decided it was time to emigrate.” She recited the facts by rote, as if she’d given this answer many times. “I ended up in New Orleans for a while, went to Georgia, then New York, then back to New Orleans, then came west to Seattle.”

“That’s a lot of moving around.” Annoyance spiked through him about how she sidestepped talking about anything that mattered to her.

“After you look exactly the same and don’t really age for about twenty years, people start to wonder why you still look so young. It used to be, they thought you’d sold your soul to Satan for eternal youth. Now they think I’ve had some work done.” She looked down at her nearly flat chest. “Though why I’d have them do my face and not give other parts of me a boost, I don’t know.”

He didn’t take the bait to talk about her breasts, which he knew she expected. “What did the rest of your family think about you leaving Europe?”

She turned to look at him. “I don’t have any family left now.”

Which didn’t answer his question at all. He’d asked about her family then, not now. He opened his mouth to call her on it when her hands reached over the console to cup his cock through his trousers. A wicked grin formed on her face, and she curled a pleasure spell around his dick.

The air whistled out of his lungs as lust slammed into him. “Fuck me.”

“That’s the idea.” Her grin spread, and she unzipped his pants. “I thought it was time to change the subject.”

All the blood rushed out of his brain and went straight to his cock. He was rock hard in moments, and her hands dipped into his boxers, one grasping his shaft and the other moving deeper to fondle his balls.

He let his head fall back against the seat, swallowing hard as her slim fingers stroked up and down his dick. Fire fisted in his gut, and when she lit him up with a spell that felt like a thousand feathers brushing across his overheated flesh, his hips all but lifted off the seat. His knee slammed into the door, but he ignored the discomfort. No man in his right mind would interrupt a moment like this.

The rush of her warm breath washed over his cock, and his muscles shook with anticipation. Yes. He wanted her mouth on him. A groan was the only response he could make when her lips sucked the tip of his cock into her mouth. Her hot tongue flicked over the head, and he shuddered, twining his fingers in her hair and urging her forward. She scraped his skin with her teeth, and his breath hissed in. “Suck me hard.”

She chuckled and gave him what he wanted, drawing him in deep. Her hand still caressed his testicles, and then moved up to cinch around his shaft, pumping him between her fingers in time with her mouth. Every so often, a pleasure spell would streak over his skin. He couldn’t predict them, and they left him hanging on to his control by the slenderest of threads.

His hips rose to press into her, and he used his grip on her hair to push her down while he fucked her mouth. Heat pounded through him, and he didn’t think he could wait. The warm suckling, the tight grip she had on his cock, any minute now his skull would explode.

“If you don’t stop, I’m going to come.” He didn’t want to make the offer to quit, but most women didn’t take kindly to no warning before a man came in her mouth.

“Mmm,” she hummed, and the vibrations were half her and half magic.

He couldn’t hold back, his hand tightened in her hair, and he jetted into her mouth, coming in long, hard spurts. She sucked him through it all, dragging it out until he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Everything centered on what her mouth did to him. He shuddered again and again, sweat sliding down his skin, his lungs bellowing as he tried to drag in enough oxygen.

Letting his cock slide free of her mouth, she sat up and licked her lips. “Was it good for you, too?”

When he could catch his breath, he laughed. “Wow, you really didn’t want to talk about it, did you?”

She huffed out a breath, turning to face forward in her seat. “It’s not relevant, Jack. Let it go.”

“Is it that terrifying to you that someone might be curious about you? That they might know you? That they might want to be close enough to be called a friend?” Because at the moment his friends-with-benefits plan was more co-workers with benefits and not much else. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem with him, but with her ... it was. He didn’t like that it bothered him, but he couldn’t help it. “How did you get along so well with Merek if you’re this closemouthed about yourself?”

“Kingston had a past he didn’t want anyone digging into either. We respected each other’s boundaries, and it worked for us.” Her glance told Jack what she thought of his attempts to disrespect her boundaries.

Before he could retort, her gaze dropped to his phone, which had been trapped underneath her when she bent over the console. She was already reaching for it when it rang.

He frowned. “That one’s mine, not yours.”

“I know, but it’s important. Something’s wrong.” She handed him the vibrating, blaring phone. The number was one he didn’t recognize.

He pushed the button to answer and flipped it to speakerphone. “Hello?”

“Hi, Jack.” The voice was both young and grave at the same time. “It’s Alex. Nemov. Merek and Chloe’s adopted son?”

“I know who you are, Alex. I saw you at the wedding a week ago.” His mind raced, trying to sort out why the teen wolf would be calling him. “What can I do for you?”

“Uh ... before Merek and Chloe left, I might have heard them talking about a case you were taking on. Where Magickals were tortured with the metal they’re allergic to and then drained of blood.”

“Yes, why do you ask?” Only he was pretty sure he knew why. There was only one reason to call and ask about something like that. They had another one. His muscles tensed, and he pushed the button to open the garage back up. “Where are you right now?”

He heard the teen swallow. “I’m at my girlfriend’s house to pick her up for a date ... she’s running late from softball practice, but her stepdad was going to let me in to wait. He didn’t answer the door ... and something just didn’t feel right. So I walked around the house and saw him through the window. He’s dead. The way Merek described.”

“What’s the address?” He looked to Selina, who’d already reached into her bag to get a notepad to write it down. Alex rattled off the street number.

“You can bring Detective Grayson with you, right? She’s there with you.”

Jack froze, his hands poised to turn on the car. Selina hadn’t said a word, so how had the kid known that? “She’s working with me on the case, yes, but it’s after-hours. What makes you think she’s with me?”

A short laugh came through the line. “I may have been eavesdropping when Merek told Chloe he had a vision of you two bumping uglies.”

“Nice.” Jack hit the gas to back out of the garage, and punched the button to close the door behind them the moment they were clear. The sky had opened up while they were inside, and rain poured down on the car. He flipped on the windshield wipers.

“So she’s with you, right? Or should I call her, too? I haven’t called the cops yet.” The wolf sounded annoyed with himself for not thinking to dial the police’s number. “I should call them.”

“We can take care of that, Alex,” Selina replied. “We’re on our way.”

“How did you get my number?” Jack asked, mostly to keep the kid talking, to keep him distracted from the fact that he was a few yards away from a stiffening body.

“Merek said he had a feeling I might need it someday.” Alex snorted. “When Merek has a feeling, you listen and you program the number into your phone right then.”

“Good point.” One didn’t argue with the premonitions of the most powerful precog alive. “Sit tight. We’re not far. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Sooner is better. I’ll be waiting.” The line went dead as Alex hung up.

They pulled to a stoplight, and Jack braked and fastened his pants, while Selina clipped her seat belt into place. He had no memory of her taking it off, but considering what her mouth and hands had been doing to him, he wasn’t that surprised. “Looks like I’ll have to make it up to you later.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Her gaze flashed naked heat for a brief moment before she masked it. “Let’s go.”

“Put the light up, would you?”

She grabbed the portable blue strobe light, put it on his dashboard, and turned it on. Jack pressed his foot on the gas, speeding through the streets to get them there as quickly as possible. Selina stayed on the phone the whole way, calling people to let them know where to go and what they needed.

She hung up as he turned onto the correct street. “Peyton is going to be awhile. He’s out in Renton doing something for Cavalli that he can’t give specifics about.”

“With those kinds of assignments, it’s best not to ask questions.” The car fishtailed on the wet pavement a bit as he skidded to a stop at the curb.

Alex was already on the sidewalk waiting for them, his face far more composed than any teenager’s should be in the situation. “Hey.”

“Thanks for calling.” Jack offered him a hand to shake.

Selina nodded to him, tugging on a pair of latex gloves. She pulled another pair out of her bag and handed them to Jack. “We’re going to go in and check things out. Wait out on the porch for our backup, would you?”

“I already saw everything, Selina. Don’t worry about me having a meltdown.” The young werewolf cocked an eyebrow and followed them anyway. “I’m pretty sure the flashing light and messed-up park job will clue them in on which house it is.”

Instead of arguing, Jack loped up to the house. The front door was open. He glanced at Alex. “You went inside?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “The shield spells were down, and Merek showed me how to pick a lock. Other than checking for a pulse, I didn’t touch ... the body.”

“What’s his name?” Jack squeezed the kid’s shoulder.

“Jason Mathison.” The wolf put his hands in his pockets. “I’ve been going out with his stepdaughter for about a month. His wife is pregnant. She’s going to have a son in a couple of months. She’s Normal. He’s an elf.”

Jack frowned, stepping inside the house. It looked like a regular house, nothing strange, except he could already sense that creepy sense of stillness. Quiet where there should be noise and life. “Jason Mathison. I know that name.”

“Shield Security Consulting,” Selina murmured.

He blinked. “They installed my security system at home, using bespelled talismans because I have no magic.”

“Mine, too. The electronic system, that is. I do the shields myself.” Selina turned to Alex. “You said the shields were down when you got here?”

A bathroom off the hallway was where the carnage started. It looked like Mathison had been shot there and dragged to the bedroom, a thick blood trail pointing the way.

“Yeah, which has never happened before.” Puzzlement filled the teen’s voice. “Even when he knows I’m coming over, I have to wait on the porch for him to open the shield circle and let me in.”

The bedroom was the same as before. Only worse. The wreckage was just as bad, the splattered blood, the body draped facedown on the bed, the twin holes ripped into the neck, flesh festering from the application of iron.

But this time Jack recognized the face that went with those lifeless eyes. He’d known this man, had worked with him to secure his house even against powerful Magickal beings. It was bitterly ironic that someone who specialized in security would be killed after his house was broken into. Sickness coated his stomach, but he pushed aside personal reaction.

Sirens approached outside, growing louder by the second. Selina turned for the door. “I’ll meet them outside, get the perimeter sealed off. Tess should be here soon to start processing.”

People began trickling into the house. Uniformed officers, a couple of agents in FBI jackets. Jack directed them to various rooms. Alex faded into the background, wandering around the place, not saying much. He eased closer when Selina came back a few minutes later. “It looks like he entered and left through the back door.”

Approaching them, Alex pitched his voice low. “Look, I’ve been here before several times, and there’s a couple of differences I sense that you should know about.”

Selina arched her eyebrows. “What’s that?”

“Well, some of it might be the cops here, but maybe not.” He frowned, shook his head. “Two things. First, I sense a vampire male. One that I’ve ... met before, but I can’t place where.”

“The killer is a male vampire.” Jack’s heart thumped at the thought that Alex might know something they could work with, but how a sense could help them, he wasn’t sure. He’d have the teen walk the perimeter of the house and see if he could pick up the scent again. Considering vampires could fly if they half-shifted, Jack had his doubts the trail would lead anywhere but a dead end. This murderer had been too smart for something so easy to give him away. They couldn’t overlook the possibility, though. “And the second thing?”

“When we came through the house the second time ...” Alex lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “I sense a Normal male came through the house.”

“I’m a Normal male.”

“Not you. I know your essence, and none of the other men here are Normals.” Alex shook his head. “That’s all I’ve got. Someone was here that I’ve never sensed before. I don’t know if it’ll help at all in your investigation, but ... I sense a Normal male.”

“And I see one.”

The drizzle splashed down on the glass of a sunroom at the end of the hall, but Selina still caught a flicker of movement from the corner of her eye. A man stared at her through the glass for just a moment before he turned and fled.

“Don’t move! Stay right where you are.”

He didn’t, of course. He ran as if someone had lit his ass on fire.

“Laramie, cut him off!” She didn’t wait to see if he did as she said. He’d do his job, and she knew it. Her heart leapt into a gallop, and she charged down the hall toward the man. She pulled her weapon and slammed through the glass door on the sunroom, bursting through it so hard it crashed against the side of the house.

Sprinting around the detached garage, she saw the man hopping the back fence.

“Freeze! Seattle PD! Stop and put your hands up.”

Yeah, as if that ever really worked, but it was police protocol to give fair warning before you tackled someone’s ass to the ground and made him eat pavement.

Her heart pounded in her ears as she raced for the fence, grabbed the top, and used a small spell to propel herself over it. She hit the alley beyond at a dead run, sweat pouring down her skin. Rain plastered her clothes to her body, dripping down her face and clouding her vision. Muscles screeched a protest as she pushed for more speed, but she ignored the discomfort. If this son of a bitch turned out to be an innocent bystander who knew nothing, she’d kick his ass.

There. A flash of his dark coat as he went around the corner of a house.

“Freeze!” Jack bellowed as he came up a side street. No luck cutting anyone off.

“Take the north side. I’ll go south.” She spit out the words, her breathing ragged. They split in different directions, Selina following the suspect directly, Jack speeding around the opposite corner to try to cut the man off again.

It was all Selina could do not to fire off a stunning spell, but there could be Normals watching, and she couldn’t risk the exposure. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Holding out her free hand, she flicked off a tiny spark of magic that brought down a pile of trash cans in front of their suspect. He tripped and stumbled over them.

Jack rounded the corner, coming from the opposite direction, and she knew they had him trapped. A fierce smile curved her lips and she kicked in a little more speed, closing the space between them. Alex bounded past her, caught the man easily, and grabbed him by the front of the shirt. Lifting him with one hand, he slammed him against a fence. The look on the kid’s face could chill the blood.

Selina and Jack closed in, tucking their weapons away. Jack pulled out his cuffs from the holster on his belt. “Put him down, Alex.”

The suspect kicked and wriggled, but there was no way a Normal could overpower a werewolf. Alex thunked the man on the ground, holding him while Jack slapped the cuffs on. “Subtle, Nemov.”

Alex had the good grace to look sheepish. “Yeah, you’re right. Don’t tell Merek and Chloe. Or Aunt Millie. It’s not my best day today.”

“I didn’t do nothin’!” the Normal man whined, struggling against Jack, who easily controlled the movements, pushing him until his back was against a fence and they had him surrounded.

Alex snorted and gave the man a hard look. “Yeah, then why do you have Jason’s coat on?”

The suspect’s jaw jutted pugnaciously, dirt so ingrained in his skin that the rain wasn’t having much effect. His filthy hair dripped more dirt. Homeless, probably. Boozer, for sure. “He ain’t gonna need it no more. He’s dead.”

Selina got in his face, wishing she hadn’t when she got a whiff of him, but she refused to back down. She narrowed her eyes to dangerous slits. “How’d you know he was dead if you didn’t do anything?”

The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “No crime against lookin’.”

“Stealing is a crime.” She fingered the coat, glad she was wearing gloves. “Resisting arrest is a crime. Obstructing justice is a crime. Withholding evidence in a police investigation is a crime. Start talking.”

His jaw worked. “You’ll think I’m crazy. Or drunk.”

“Try me.” She straightened back into cleaner air. The man hadn’t bathed in at least a month. “I’ve heard a lot of crazy things from drunk people over the years. Doesn’t mean they’re lying.”

He swallowed. “I saw a man.”

“Yeah, what kind of man?” She folded her arms. “What did he look like?”

“He was a tall, white guy with red hair.” He went to lift his cuffed hand, but twisted oddly as his other hand came along for the ride. “Really red.”

“And? When do we get to the drunk-crazy part?” She put a subtle truth spell behind the question, a demand for answers that most humans wouldn’t be able to avoid or ignore. It would compel all but the most stubborn of minds.

The Normal’s eyes glazed for a moment as the spell hit him. “He had ... fangs. I know it sounds nuts, but I ain’t had a drink all day.” He shook his head. “Maybe they were caps or something, because they looked like real teeth and not some Halloween costume. But the dead guy had holes in his neck like he’d been sucked—bitten—whatever.”

“Yeah, probably caps, but that’s helpful. Some vampire wannabe.” She glanced at Jack, who was already on the phone, calling for a telepath to come clean up the guy’s memories. “All right, we’re going to have one of our agents get you some food and whatever you need. Thanks so much for your help.”

“I’m not crazy.” There was a sad note of pleading in the homeless man’s voice.

“I believe you. This will help with our investigation.” She gave him a nod. “You did good.”

She took a couple of steps away, close enough the guy wouldn’t be able to escape if he tried anything, but far enough that he wouldn’t be able to overhear.

“Gregor.” Selina and Alex said it at the same time. The bright red hair, vampire, penchant for killing people. There was only one person who met that description. Gregor—a jack-of-all-trades mercenary, bodyguard, and assassin. Deadly, enigmatic, and expert at slipping through law enforcement’s fingers. Everyone on the force in Seattle had taken a swipe at him at least once. If she’d known Bess’s killer all this time, she thought she might be sick.

“I knew I’d sensed that vampire male before.” Alex’s expression was carefully blank, his face pale under his tan. “He was there. When they put a silver bullet in me. And when my father was killed. Now he killed Jason, too?”

She closed her eyes and let her chin drop to her chest. Everything about this case was determined to slam daggers into her soul, reminding her that if she’d caught this guy thirty years ago, she’d have saved so many lives. “Let’s bring Gregor in and ask him what he was doing here. If we can even catch him.”