Night Games

8

The days were starting to blur together for Jack. Too little sleep and too much time spent twisting every piece of information to try to make them all make sense somehow. They had another victim and were still spinning their wheels. It was maddening.

Peyton was working on tracking down the elusive Gregor. They were still waiting for the New Orleans files. As Jack had suspected, Hurricane Katrina had messed with where they stored the old boxes of cold cases, and they’d been piled in some warehouse since, never reorganized. Luca had finally sent a junior field agent to work with the Magickals down there to sift through and find what they needed. What a snafu.

Grit burned Jack’s eyes as he poured two mugs of liquid caffeine from the espresso machine in the office lounge—one cup for him and one for Selina. She’d be in soon, and anticipation quickened his blood, despite the fact that he’d seen her only hours before, when he’d slipped out of her bed to head home and get ready for the day. He wouldn’t have minded showering at her place and driving in together, but she’d been more than a little resistant to the idea since they started this affair. She liked her boundaries.

He didn’t get why that irked him so much. Most of the time, he was a keep-it-light kind of guy when it came to women. Sure, they were friends, lovers, co-workers, but his wife had pretty much taken any chance of him committing to a real relationship with her when she died. What he had going with Selina should be perfect. He liked being with her, the sex was amazing, and she’d been clear from the start that this was a temporary affair. It would probably end when this case did and she went back to the Seattle PD. So why the hell did he want to push her for more than that? He knew he would never do it, but the temptation was there. He couldn’t even begin to explain it, didn’t even want to try to, so he put it from his mind. Something to think about later.

“Mornin’, Jack.”

“Delta.” He smiled at a blond agent who’d transferred to the Seattle office a couple of months before. Gorgeous vampire, short, but stacked like a brick house.

He wasn’t interested. A few weeks ago, he’d considered asking her out, but now he didn’t have even a smidgeon of desire for that kind of pursuit.

Catching sight of a slender elf walking past the windowed walls of the break room, her stride purposeful, as if she were on a mission, he dismissed the pretty blonde from his mind and followed Selina.

“Grayson,” he called, and she spun around to face him.

She didn’t bother with pleasantries, just dove into speech. “You know, thirty years is a long time for a psycho to go straight.”

Selina opened the door to his office and waved him in, which made him grin. She was lucky he wasn’t the kind of man who felt the need to posture and prove his manhood.

Handing her a cup of coffee, he dropped into his chair and leaned back, rolling her comment over in his head. “I suppose it is, but Magickals like our guy have five centuries, right? Three decades wouldn’t be that long to wait for round two.”

“I don’t know. What we’re dealing with is a compulsion, a sickness. It’s not about thinking, Well, if I have five hundred years, every thirty or so is a nice gap. It’s about playing out that compulsion over and over again.” She settled into her usual chair opposite his desk, dropped her bag to the floor, and crossed her legs.

Damn, he loved her legs. He had to concentrate to keep his gaze on her face. Those legs had been tangled with his while they slept every night. He’d never have pegged her for a cuddler, but he wasn’t about to complain when it meant he had her soft and naked in his arms. Not when it let him think about something other than this total bitch of a case.

She made an impatient gesture. “I haven’t been able to get that out of my head. Why here, and why now? But then I thought ... what if it wasn’t just here and now?”

“Right.” He went with that line of thinking quickly enough, excitement humming through him. “What if there have been killings in between, somewhere else? What if New Orleans wasn’t even his first stop? Maybe we’re only picking this up now because we have you—someone who’s dealt with this before.”

“And Merek by extension, who’d heard me talk about it with Theodore.” She seemed to realize she had coffee in her hand and took a deep swig.

He laced his fingers over his belly, turning his head to look at the whiteboard on his wall. The three victims’ pictures were up there, along with stats and time lines. One Normal, two Magickals. So far. He glanced at Selina. “You think we need to crawl through the databases and look for similarities?”

“Yeah, I do.” She nodded decisively. “What if it was missed before because Magickals try so hard to avoid attracting Normal attention? Maybe one or two deaths occurring in a particular way wouldn’t garner the attention that four would. What if the combination of Normal and Magickal victims has made him impossible to trace?”

“Could be. Our first victim had cut ties with her Magickal husband after she was divorced, which is why she was overlooked until I asked Rick.” The wheels in his head started spinning with more possibilities, further inquiries to look into. “Our killer may not even have stayed in this country, making it even harder to connect the dots. But we have Interpol now, and we can contact them as well.”

“Good. We should do that.”

Many hours and multiple cups of coffee later, they had some answers, and they weren’t good. Thousands of crime scene descriptions and photographs had scrolled by on their computer screens. They’d looked at everything they could get their hands on. Normal and Magickal divisions. Police departments for every major American city, NSA, CIA, FBI, Interpol, Scotland Yard. They’d even looked through the Canadian Mounties’ files. Or at least the ones that had been digitized. Jack wasn’t quite certain how Luca got the unit access to all the information that he did, but Jack suspected it might not be through entirely legal or legitimate channels. Then again, anything to do with magic and Magickal crimes wasn’t entirely aboveboard. It was the nature of the beast.

They’d hit pay dirt with the Mounties, the Normal side of the FBI, and a few American PDs. The photos had been eerily familiar, the crimes unsolved, and long considered cold cases. Just like in New Orleans. Just like their murders in Seattle.

“Five cities in the last thirty years.” Selina sat back in her chair, her expression stunned, even though the idea to check into this had been hers.

“There may be even more than this.” He had to say it out loud, but his stomach churned all the same. It wasn’t the images that bothered him—he’d seen worse—it was that no one had put the pieces together until just now. Thirty years of unsolved crimes, thirty years of people dying because no one thought to check into Normal victims that hadn’t been flagged as obvious Magickal crimes and taken over by the Magickal divisions. He sighed and let his head drop back for a moment. “I’ll have some people keep digging, see if they find more, but this gives us something to go on. We have to start somewhere.”

“Yeah.” But she looked as grim as he felt. “We need those New Orleans files. I want to go back over them, too. See if I missed anything now that we have this new data.”

All of the other cities had had five deaths, not four. According to the information they now possessed, New Orleans was the anomaly, not the rule.

“Shit. We need to look into Gregor’s history, see how many of these cities he’s been in, when, and if we can tie him to any of the victims.” He rubbed a hand down his face, his eyes burning from staring at a computer screen for so long. While he was glad to have more data to work with, he wasn’t happy that over two dozen people had died before he’d even come on the case. This bastard was careful, he was smart, and he was damn good at covering his tracks. And he’d been perfecting his technique for decades.

Just the kind of criminal who made Jack’s life hell.

Selina tapped her finger against the computer screen, her shoulder bumping against his. “His pattern is escalating.”

As if that told him anything. He shook his head, trying to see whatever it was she was seeing. “He always kills five, and the violence seems consistent with what we’ve seen so far.”

“No, I mean the amount of time between each city is shortening. Seven years, five years, four ... this last one was only a year ago.” She nodded, giving the screen a final tap. “He’s escalating.”

Great. More good news.

“Heads-up.” Jack cut a glance at Selina as they sat down in the break room to eat, guzzle some much-needed caffeine, and continue to pore over the new information they’d unearthed. If her stomach roiled, she told herself it was the coffee, but she knew it was a lie. Look how many more people had died because she’d failed. Look at what she hadn’t prevented. Guilt burned like acid in her veins, and she reached up to rub her thumb along the metal lines of her necklace. The talisman she’d worn for so long felt like an albatross around her neck, weighing her down.

At Jack’s words, Selina glanced around and saw a woman bearing down on them. “Should I run?”

“Nah, she’d catch you.” He flashed a grin that made her insides melt, which should not happen at her age. It probably wasn’t even healthy for her. He waved with a French fry. “Plus, she’s not someone you need to avoid, as far as I know. She’s new.”

“Well, hey there, darlin’.” She winked at Jack before offering Selina a hand to shake. “I’m Delta Dubois, and as Jack said, I’m new around here—I just transferred in from the Houston office.”

The woman’s accent was more bayou drawl than Texas twang, so Selina would bet she was originally from Louisiana. She was short and curvy. Her thick blond hair fell in waves down her back and her wide violet-blue eyes made her look like nothing so much as a sweet ingénue. Until you took in the delicate points to her fangs and the obstinate tilt to her jaw.

Classic southern belle, and Selina had learned a long time ago never to mess with a southern belle. They were scary women, and their men didn’t become southern gentlemen without learning a little respect—and fear—from their mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, and wives. She’d seen one southern belle slit a werewolf’s throat and very politely explain that “he’d needed some killin’ ” and then “blessed his heart.”

Yeah. Selina didn’t mess with southern belles.

She shook the blond vampire’s hand. “Agent Dubois, welcome to Seattle. I’m Detective Selina Grayson. I’m on loan from the local PD for a case.”

“Things sure are busy around here. I’m pulling double duty right now.” Her grin said she was more than a little pleased by that. “With the extra twenty-something deaths you just found, Cavalli asked me to help y’all out with profiling your vampire. I’m a bit of a vamp expert, and they’re using that skill over on the Karsen case, too.”

“Thanks, any assistance is welcome.” They sure as hell hadn’t had a profiler the last time she’d taken a swing at this killer. “We do have a suspect, but we need to track him down. Have you ever heard of a vampire named Gregor?”

“Gregor Night.” Her face seemed to pale a bit. “Yes, I know him.”

“You know him better than I do.” Selina wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I’d never heard his last name before. Must be in the classified FBI file.”

The vampire’s smile was faint, and she edged toward the door. “Something like that. I’ll take a look at your victims, work up a profile, and see if it fits with Gregor’s usual M.O.”

“I’m looking forward to what you find.” Selina tilted her head at the retreating blonde. “It was good meeting you.”

“You, too.” She turned those violet eyes on Jack. “Can I borrow you for just a moment? Luca and Peyton want to have a little powwow about the other case, and your presence is requested.”

“Huh.” His eyebrows arched, but he rose to his feet, grabbed an extra fry on his way out, and popped it in his mouth. “Let’s see what the boss needs.”

Selina watched them walk away, and they were soon in a tight cluster with Cavalli and Peyton. Deep frowns formed on everyone’s faces, and they gestured while they talked. She stuffed down her worries about the case and focused on them.

The three men standing there brought their differences into sharp contrast. They were tall, muscular, good-looking, and had an air of leashed danger about them. Luca was the tallest, with a lean swimmer’s build, dark hair and eyes, and a suave demeanor. He attracted attention just by breathing. Peyton was handsome in an all-American kind of way. Brown hair, blue eyes. Nice to look at, but he could easily blend into a crowd if he needed to. She had a feeling he used that ability to his advantage. Jack fell somewhere in between the other two, with his dark hair and light eyes. He was attractive, but not in-your-face about it like Luca. He had a sprinkling of gray in his hair, just at the temples. She liked it. He had some years on him. No matter how much older she was than him, there was no mistaking that this was a man, not a boy with a badge like she’d seen with a lot of human cops.

She liked that, too.

She liked everything about him so far, which, if she were honest with herself, she’d admit was a serious problem. Now was not the time to fall into like with a man. There wasn’t a time when she could do that. She was out of minutes to spare, no matter how much Jack appealed to her. No matter how much he seemed to get her, without her having to draw him a map. Very unusual for a male of any species, especially a Normal.

She didn’t usually take Normals as lovers. At least not for the last century or so. Not because she had something against them—she didn’t. It was just ... once she’d been around a few hundred years, they’d all just seemed so young. Or maybe they just made her feel old.

Which made Jack unique. He didn’t seem young, and he didn’t make her feel old. Being around him made her feel more alive than almost anything other than her adrenaline rush of a job did. Touching him was like coming into contact with a live wire. Chemistry like that didn’t come around very often, she knew.

Why him and why now, though?

The question that had plagued her with their case now took a far more personal turn. It was as if Fate were mocking her, taunting her with what could never be. A man who made her feel alive, right when she was going to die. The cruelty of that made pain shoot through her, but she gritted her teeth. There was no getting around what was coming—she could feel the vast break, this huge difference in how her life was now versus how it was going to be. It was difficult to describe it, even to herself. Whatever she was now, whoever she was now, would no longer exist in the very near future.

Her precognition wasn’t as powerful as Merek’s—it was more what humans would call a gut instinct—but it was there nonetheless. Maybe if she reminded herself of that enough times, she’d figure out how to rid herself of this soft spot she seemed to be forming for a certain human agent.

She just needed to remember that she’d gone to bed with him for a distraction, and that was what he still was. An amusement to keep her from going crazy during this case, a source of endless orgasms that left her too limp and sated to recall even her own name.

That was it. A distraction. No more, no less.

With that stern inner lecture, she picked up her turkey sandwich and forced her mind back to their serial killer while she ate.

Today’s revelations had been an unpleasant shock. While she’d suspected enough to voice the question, five more cities with five more victims each was worse than she would have guessed. And knowing this murderer, she’d thought she’d braced herself for the worst.

What a time for a man to blow her expectations out of the water. If it was Gregor, she’d wring his neck with her bare hands. She’d reserve judgment for the moment because going into a case with a conclusion already set was a surefire way to overlook something important. But Gregor had a lot of questions to answer.

“Bastard,” she muttered.

“Sing it, sister.” Tess strode into the room, a paper cup from Starbucks clutched in her hand. She gave the espresso maker a look of pure loathing before she dug through the big refrigerator in one corner of the room and pulled out a lunch bag. She grinned at Selina. “Who’s a bastard, exactly?”

“Careful, Tess.” Selina arched an eyebrow at the werewolf. “That kind of chip on your shoulder will leave you bitter.”

“Yeah, so?” The redhead’s jaw jutted pugnaciously. “It’s my party and I’ll be bitter if I want to.”

“True enough.” Selina should keep her mouth shut, she knew that. Her advice was clearly unwelcome, not to mention uninvited. “But consider for a second who the bitterness hurts. It might drive him crazy right now, but he’ll move on eventually. And you’ll still be bitter. Is that what you want?”

She didn’t specify who “he” was. They both knew this was about Luca Cavalli. Saying his name might just piss the medical examiner off more, and Selina had found over the years that she liked to make nice with those kinds of people. It made cases go a lot smoother that way.

“Shut up.” Tess glowered at her.

Selina nodded. Yeah, she shouldn’t butt in anyway. And since she knew Tess was sexing it up with Peyton, he was probably in a better position to help her get past Luca than Selina was.

Time for a change in topic. “The full moon’s coming in a couple of days.”

Tess grunted, but Selina could see the small flash of a fang when she took a swig of her java.

Right. That worked well. Small talk had never been Selina’s strong suit. She preferred to cut to the chase. She cast about for a neutral topic. “Uh ... aren’t you doing that study for Chloe? To study the effects of the werewolf Change–supressing drug she developed?”

At least, that was what she thought the drug did. Vampirism and werewolfism were two different strains of the same Magickal disease, therianthropy, which was why they were the only two species that could create more Magickals without having a child. Both strains of the disease had horrible side effects, and while the vampires had come up with a serum to block the worst of their condition, the wolf packs hadn’t gotten their act together until Chloe Standish tackled the disease.

Chloe had once told Selina there was no way to cure lycanthropy, but mitigating the worst effects was possible, which meant no more full moon rampaging, trying to keep young wolves from going mad and biting humans, losing wolves who couldn’t control their magic and didn’t make it through the forced Change at full moon.

Blowing a lock of hair out of her face, Selina raised her eyebrows at Tess’s silence. “You and Alex are both working with Chloe on this, right? I saw Alex yesterday at the Mathison crime scene, and he looked good considering the full moon is right around the corner.”

“Yes, we’re part of the clinical trials.” Tess sat back in her chair. “They’re going well, too. Chloe’s been pretty happy with the preliminary results for the prototype she developed. It’s been working for Alex and me, anyway, though I don’t know about any of her other patients.”

So Chloe had really done it, then. After so many centuries of werewolves dying at full moon, the Standish witch had actually pulled it off. Selina’s debate about pack politics with Darren came to mind. She’d liked the man. To be honest, she’d liked both of Jack’s parental units. Her conversation with them told her they’d make far better pack leaders than those who ruled now. She hoped they would win that fight—she wished she’d be around to see it. The thought stabbed at her soul, and she pushed it away. There was no point in wishing. She met Tess’s gaze. “How long before it’s on the open market? Is it just like the serum vamps take to suppress the need to feed on blood?”

“Yes and no. It’ll take years for it to be available to all wolves. Drug trials need to go on for a while before they can get FDA approval. There’s a Magickal branch for that the same as everything else—the things I never knew as a human.” She pursed her lips. “But Chloe’s drug will definitely be on the FDA fast track because it fills an unmet medical need for a serious disease. They have guidelines and requirements for which drugs can be fast-tracked.”

“Huh.” Sounded like way more bureaucracy that Selina cared to deal with. She dealt with more than enough of it just working for the PD.

“How’s the case going?” the werewolf asked, clearly ready to talk about something besides her issues with Luca and her involvement in the lycanthropy drug trial.

Selina snorted. “We found out this guy has probably killed more people between New Orleans and here. So I wouldn’t say it’s going good, but I’d say that progress is being made.”

“With something like this, I guess that’s all you can hope for.” Hard sympathy shone in Tess’s golden eyes. As a coroner, she had to see the lethal results of some crimes. It wasn’t as pretty or fun or glamorous as the movies liked to pretend. It was dirty and ugly and numbing sometimes. Other times it was exhilarating.

Sighing, Selina propped an elbow on the table, her chin in her palm. “Yeah. It’s a damn shame, but yeah.”

“No other victims before New Orleans?”

She made a negative sound. “None that we found. Looks like that was ground zero for this guy.”

“Hmm. I did find something interesting when I compared the autopsies for our current victims. I’m not sure it’ll be useful, but ...” Tess shrugged. “Let’s wait until Jack gets back so you can both hear it.”

Selina straightened, every sense going on alert at the mention of a new clue. She wanted to demand answers now, but Jack was technically in charge of this investigation. She didn’t like it, but she’d have to wait. It had been a long time since she’d been a rookie and had to clear anything with anyone except her captain. She hadn’t liked it then, and she liked it even less now. It was all she could do not to growl in impatience. “Fine. Eat your lunch while we wait for him.”

Nodding, Tess drank her Starbucks coffee and chowed down on a roast beef sandwich. The meat looked pretty damn red and raw to Selina, but werewolves had weird cravings around the full moon, so she didn’t make a comment.

The lack of conversation made her mind circle around to the case again. Even without Tess’s little autopsy tease, Selina had plenty of new information to chew over, starting with the fact that New Orleans had been an abnormality. Only four victims there. What did that mean? Was there another victim that she hadn’t known about? After they’d found a Normal victim, Selina had gone back and checked for others. She’d been thorough to the point of obsessive, especially after her cousin became a victim. Her supervisors back then had clued in on the obsessiveness when they’d yanked the rug out from under her investigation.

She was pretty damn sure there hadn’t been a fifth victim. They’d need to have the NOLA PD crawl through their old records to check again, but there was no guarantee how fast that would happen. Still, Selina didn’t think there was anything to find. Which meant something made New Orleans different. Was it that it was his first time with that specific pattern? Had something gone wrong with one of his murders? Did someone survive and not report the crime? Why would he add one more the next time and stay with exactly that number for the other cities? Questions chased themselves in circles in her head until her temples throbbed.

She sensed Jack approach before he spoke, her claircognizance recognizing him and filling her mind with the knowledge.

“Hey.” Jack’s knuckles brushed the back of her shoulder, and she jerked away from the touch. That was verboten at work, and he knew it. A hot shudder ran through her, an awareness that was purely physical. Her nipples tightened and thrust against her bra as if they were sitting up to beg for Jack’s attention. She crossed her arms and nodded toward the werewolf.

“Tess has something for us.”

Peyton slipped into the room with his characteristic silence, but he perked up at the news. He settled into Jack’s seat next to Tess, his gaze locked on the female wolf. “Oh, yeah?”

“What do you have, Dr. Jones?” Jack hooked another chair with his foot and dragged it over to the table. He grabbed a French fry and winced when he bit into it. “Cold fries. Nasty.”

“Nuked fries are worse. The vending machine would be a better bet.” Selina gestured toward the big metal monster next to the fridge.

Tess offered half of her bloody sandwich to Peyton, and he accepted, his fingers brushing hers. The look they shared was intimate enough to make Selina pin her gaze to the table.

“This is good,” Peyton grunted, biting into the juicy meat. His eyes went wolfish for a moment, and Selina caught sight of fangs when she glanced at him. Full moon was coming soon, and Peyton would have to lock himself in with the local pack for the duration. He was starting to show signs of the strain of keeping himself in human form—not many signs, considering how controlled he was, but they were there. His body twitched occasionally, his fangs showing every now and then.

Tess touched the back of his hand. “I could talk to Chloe about getting you in the next round of the clinical trial.”

He snorted. “Dr. Standish isn’t a fan of me, and with good reason, considering I was undercover as one of the terrorists who tortured her.”

“You were doing your job,” Tess protested.

“I doubt the distinction would make much difference to her.”

“She wouldn’t do it for you; she’d do it for me.” The female wolf shrugged. “She’s my best friend. I’ll talk to her when she gets back from her honeymoon.”

“Whatever you want.” He turned his hand over and squeezed her fingers briefly.

Tess cleared her throat, set down her half of the sandwich, and licked her lips, refocusing on the other people in the room. “Okay, back to the autopsies. For the most part, there was nothing in any of the exams that I wouldn’t expect, considering the nature of the crime. The victims were healthy, no drugs in their systems. I didn’t see the Normal victim when she was ... fresh, so I know less about her. Neither Ms. Winston nor Mr. Mathison had ingested anything for at least a few hours before their deaths. There were no signs of recent sexual activity, which means they weren’t raped.”

“That’s the big news?” Selina couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her voice. So far, none of the victims—male or female—had been sexually assaulted.

“No, all of that was what I’d expect. The weird thing was that there was no saliva in the wounds on their necks. I thought I’d find some. I hoped that it would give us some DNA to compare to if we ever got a suspect, but there was no saliva in, on, or around the wounds.”

“He cleaned up after himself.” Peyton arched his eyebrows.

She shook her head. “That would explain why there wasn’t saliva on or around the bite wounds, but there should have been some in the wounds. However, I did find traces of some kind of metal in the wounds. I’m looking into what kind of metal now, but I thought you’d like to know what I’d discovered so far.”

Jack frowned, splaying his hands on the table. “So, it’s possible he’s using something to cover his fangs. A mouth guard of some kind?”

“It’s possible.” She seesawed her hand through the air. “I’m not sure how else a vampire would keep saliva out of the wound. There’s a certain amount of transfer when they bite someone.” She sighed. “This means not only no DNA, but there’s no way to match the bite marks without the mouthpiece he’s using. Just a dental imprint won’t help me. He might be altering where his fangs would strike the flesh, the curve of the fangs. Damn it.”

Jack looked as if he wanted to beat his head against the table. “Which means we may not even be looking for a vampire. Just someone who wants us to think he’s a vampire.”

“It might explain why our guy can cast spells well enough to get through security shields. Vampires suck at casting.” Selina drummed her fingers against the table, thinking about what this new twist might mean for nailing any possible suspects. Like Gregor. Every new piece of information just seemed to leave them deeper in the dark. Fuck. Impotent rage roiled inside of her, a dark, icy thing that was beyond her control.

“I don’t know about that.” Delta appeared in the doorway, her gaze thoughtful. “Let me look into it, but draining victims completely has very specific symbolic meaning to vampires. And none of your victims are vampires, which could mean he’s protecting his own. The Conclave deals very harshly with those who turn on their own kind. All of this indicates to me that your guy is deeply steeped in vampire culture, ethics, prejudices, and taboos.” She shrugged. “Let me put together my profile, and I’ll be able to give you more.”

“Thanks, Delta. And thank you, Tess.” Selina blew out a frustrated breath. Two steps forward, three steps back. They were just chasing their tails.