“Jolene, remember Nate Winston, my neighbor and friend?”
Her nostrils flared. I knew what that meant. She had just remembered that he was human. Werewolves were good with scents. But she said nothing, merely gave him a polite nod.
“Hello.”
He raised his hand in a polite wave. Nate knew better than to offer his hand to most of the Weres and Fae who crossed my doorstep. In some cases, it would be taken as an insult. In others, an act of submission. Either way, it just wasn’t a good idea.
“So, who’s the victim?”
I cleared my throat. “Tygur Jones. He’s been sucked dry as dust. I doubt if there’s a drop of blood left in his body.”
She paled. “Crap. You didn’t say it was Tygur. He’s big news in the Were community, Lily. This is bad, really bad.”
“I know. I have to figure out what to do before word gets out. The minute you lodge an official report, my business might as well be toast.”
“Well, it’s not like your salon would be the first casualty.” Jolene let out a long sigh. “Vampire executions are on the rise and more businesses are closing their doors an hour before sunset. Do you know if Tygur had any bounties on his head?”
I shrugged. “He talked about work, but never anything like that. Tygur liked to leave the details of his life on the doorstep.”
She nodded. “Makes sense. So, tell me what happened. The more we know about vampire kills, the better we can design a way to combat them, so don’t leave anything out.”
I closed my eyes, dredging up the memory. “Tygur’s appointment was from seven until nine. He arrived here about ten minutes late—traffic was a bitch tonight. We talked. He undressed and put on his robe. Then, he asked me for a drink. I had forgotten to stock the minibar, so I had to go downstairs to get the scotch.”
Jolene glanced up from her tablet. She was taking copious notes. “So you left the room to fix him a drink?”
“Yes. I was here, in the kitchen, when I thought I heard something upstairs. I figured it was probably Tygur. You know, going to the bathroom or something. When I headed back upstairs with both the glass and the bottle, I came to the hall in time to see a black mist ooze out of the room. It headed toward me, but then stopped cold. The temperature in the hall must have dropped twenty degrees in ten seconds. The next moment, the mist vanished through the wall—the one leading to the outside. I caught a whiff of anise. Between that and the mist, I knew it was a vampire.”
Vampires smelled of graveyard dust when they first rose, and then their natural scent took on the fragrance of anise. It was rumored their blood tasted like sweet licorice, but I had no clue if it was true, and I wasn’t interested in finding out.
Jolene glanced at me. “What about your wards?”
“They’re not expired. I just had them redone recently, so I’m totally confused about how it got through.”
All the old song and dance about vampires being unable to enter a home without an invitation was just that—an old wives’ tale. Vampires could enter any building they wanted, anytime they wanted. Which was why wards were so popular and expensive.
The price went up with the strength. It could cost a fortune to ensure the safety of a shop’s customers. Usually, the witches charged less for homes, since everybody had to have them. They made up for the discounts by jacking up the price for businesses. I spent at least 25 percent of my yearly budget on protection.
Jolene set down her tablet. “Then something had to have happened to disturb them. Who do you get your wards from, Lily?”
I shrugged. “Dani makes them for me, and you know how powerful she is. I pay her for quality ingredients too—no cut-rate crap.”
Jolene chewed on her lip for a moment. “Right. Well, let’s move on. But I suggest you consult her. Get her over here to check them pronto. You have to know where—and how—they short-circuited.” She picked up the tablet again. “So, what happened next?”
I stared at the table. “I ran into the room. Tygur was on the floor. I checked for a pulse. That’s when I saw the fang marks. He was dead. I checked again just before you came. I panicked, thinking I might have made a mistake but…he’s dead.” I pressed my lips together.
Jolene waited silently for me to continue.
“There’s something else,” I added after a moment. “There’s a piece of skin missing off his chest. I keep feeling I should know something about that, but I can’t seem to remember what.”
“Probably because of the shock. When you remember let me know, though I don’t know what good it will do. I suppose you’d better take us up to see Tygur now. You haven’t called his wife yet, have you?”
The disapproval in her voice bled through. So she still looked down on my lifestyle. I wanted to defend myself, but it was a circular argument for us—no beginning, no end. We’d never agree on the subject.
“Nate, please stay here in the kitchen. Call if you need us.” I led Jolene and her partner upstairs. “His wife? You mean he was married?”
“Don’t give me that. You know he was married, and you know exactly who his wife is. Tygur and Tricia are a major power couple among the Weres. But I assume, by your answer, you haven’t done so?”
I sighed. “You’ll never understand, will you? Anyway, I don’t want to argue. As to telling Tricia…well, given Tygur was murdered in my house wearing nothing but a bathrobe, do you really think I’m going to pick up the phone and call his wife? Give me some credit. I do have some sensitivity. The news will come better from the police. Because while, yes, I did know he was married, I’m not sure if he told her about me.”
Most of the Fae were cool with casual sex, but Weres? Not really. Especially the werewolves. Chances were fifty-fifty that Tygur’s wife knew about me, but this wasn’t the time to find out. And I would never rub her nose in the fact, especially now.
As Jolene and her partner—whose name turned out to be Lucas—examined the body, I wandered over to the window, looking out into the night.
• • •
My house was located in the Blood Night District of Seattle. When the Fae and the Weres had come out of the closet, everything blew up and went to hell. A decade later, the makeup of society was vastly different as we moved to take our rightful place alongside the humans. Met by a minority of vocal and strong humans who hated us, the situation grew bloody and politicians ran for the hills when approached with the subject. Most of them had the foresight to accept the inevitable, and so they generally tried to maintain neutral ground.
Eventually, after a decade of riots, the dust settled. The political landscape had become a very different place. Treaties were set in place, the government grew into a cooperative venture, even though it was an uneasy cooperation, and life settled down for all of us.
Then, the vampires appeared on the scene. And nobody was equipped to deal with them.
More treaties were created, hanging in an uneasy balance like the sword of Damocles, but the vamps weren’t prone to sticking to agreements. The signed documents might as well have been tissue thin and used to blow a bloody nose on.
In Western Washington, the city of Seattle had absorbed a number of its bedroom communities, forming new districts. Downtown Seattle was routinely called the Blood Night District. Home to the wild-child crowd, it was party central. Unfortunately, the vampires preferred living around us, and it made for an uneasy and dangerous environment.
The Eastside was populated by Fae, with Wynter establishing her court near Woodinville. South, toward SeaTac, was where the Weres tended to congregate. North Seattle was mostly human in makeup, and West Seattle and Alki had gone from being the Ritz to housing the outliers, the poor, and the crazies of all races.
All in all, it was the same city on the surface, with a very different underlying structure.
As for me? I’m Lily Marlene O’Connell, the owner of Lily Bound. My sex salon has catered to the deepest, darkest whims and desires of the paranormal world for years. I get paid to feed on sex—
the chi stirred up by lust recharges and energizes me. In return, my clients get anything they desire. A win-win situation all the way around. Except…if I go too far.
There’s an old saying: “Bed a succubus, and you’ll become her slave. Kiss a succubus, and you’ll become a ghost.”
Because, truth? I can kill with my kiss. My passion is a weapon. I can suck out your breath in a long, luxurious kiss and kill you with a smile on your face. But Weres and Fae? I can drain chi off of them without harming them. They can handle the loss if I stop soon enough.
By opening my business, I ensured that I would be able to feed often, and enough. If I don’t, the hunger runs so wild that I can’t keep it in check, as it did in most of my past. I have too many memories I’d rather forget, but they added up. Maybe not every month. Or even every year. But my kill list slowly and steadily grew.
So, now, I throw myself into my job. I have to feed in order to keep alive. And to keep the impulse—the urge to take it too far—under control. And so, I give everything to my clients.
Unfortunately, with Tygur Jones, my everything included a vampire.
Chapter 3
“Definitely a vampire kill.” Jolene glanced around the room. “You have a measuring tape? I want to see how big this patch of missing skin is.”
I nodded, hustling into my bedroom, where I retrieved one from my dresser.
Jolene gave me a long look as she took it. “I never get used to some aspects of this job. The vampire kills are always hard to cope with,” she said, a slight tremor in her voice. She measured the wound on his chest. “Five inches by three. Whoever stripped the skin did a clean, neat job of it. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this—it’s too clean, professional. Either they have a delicate touch or they were a doctor or a butcher. Whatever the case, he…she…our killer has a skilled hand.”
“Could it be a woman?” I hadn’t entertained that thought.
“Why not? Vampires can mesmerize, remember? The females have as much strength as the males. There’s no reason it can’t be a woman.” She stood up, staring at Tygur. “Can you think of any reason why somebody might have wanted a piece of his flesh?”
Shrugging, I sat down on the bed. “I told you, he talks about his job but it’s always from the outside in. Never anything that might be sensitive information. I suppose…I should let Wynter know. Some of my people have very odd habits. Stealing flesh might be a fetish for some.”
Jolene shuddered. “Oh, that’s something to look forward to, all right. I don’t like to speak ill of your people, but Wynter’s a freak and everybody knows it. She’s so cold she makes the dead look warm. She also doesn’t cotton up very cozy to Weres. Go ahead and talk to her if you want, but I’m not going to be coming along for the ride. I wouldn’t be able to convince my supervisor that I should spend the time on it, anyway. Seriously, they’ve cut the budget for vampire investigations down to the bare bone. We get almost no time allotted to these cases.”
“Do you think it’s lack of financing, or that the Deadfather might be pulling the strings?”
That was the wrong question to ask. Jolene pressed her lips together and stood, packing her things back in her kit.
“Go talk to Wynter. Find out what you can. But since you saw a black mist and smelled anise, I’m reporting this as a vampire execution. There’s no doubt given the holes on his neck and lack of blood. The coroner will verify it, of course.” She hesitated. “You can really get an audience with the queen?”
I nodded. Wynter had relocated from the United Kingdom to the US. She lived on the Eastside, near Woodinville. Her sister, Summerlyn, had relocated to Australia.
The Fae Nation was as crazy as they come, and I was part of the whole wild bunch. I loved it, though I tried to keep out of the politics as much as possible. Wynter was manipulative and calculating and not exactly fond of anybody outside of her own realm. But I had a badge to the inner court, thanks to my mother making certain I was received when I was a little girl. I did what I had to in order to maintain my status as one of the insiders.
“I’m recognized by the court.”
“Good. Because I doubt if I am.” Weres and Fae generally did not get along.
“All right. I’ll talk to her and let you know what I find out, but you owe me one. Meanwhile, I’ll ask Dani if she knows of any spells that witches use that might require human flesh. I wouldn’t put it past them that the answer’ll be a big fat yes. Dani’s kind scare me more than vampires, at times.”
Nate was my buddy. Dani—Danielle Halloran—was my best friend. She was a witch who had been married to a man named Greg Fallow, until he had been caught and turned into a vampire. That had, of course, ended the marriage, and left her teetering on the edge for a long time. It had been several years ago that it happened, but she hated vampires now. She seldom mentioned Greg, but I knew he haunted her dreams and memories.
Jolene let out a snort. “Witches scare the hell out of me, too. Weres don’t get along with magic very well. Okay, I’ll ask Lucas to call in the body-bag crew. We’ll get Tygur out of your house and contact Tricia. This is already headed into the unsolved files. I’ve noted it as a vampire kill and the coroner will authenticate. That’s the best the department can do. Nobody can control the bloodsuckers. We’re trying to convince the Deadfather that it’s in his best interests to encourage his people to work with us rather than against us, but he’s a hard nut to crack. As hard as Wynter. The vamps are slower to change than the Fae.”
I walked her downstairs, and offered her a cup of tea. She asked for a latte, so Nate fired up the espresso machine while Jolene asked Lucas to wait on the porch for the coroner.
“Be careful. The vampire might still be around, looking for more. Or it might have called one of its buddies,” she said as Lucas headed out into the cold.
The coroner was a formality, really. The moment an execution was labeled as vampiric, the body would be consecrated and buried. A grave watcher would guard the grave to make certain the victim didn’t rise, which happened anywhere from immediately to five days after death. After five days, the victim was safe and considered fully dead. There were guardians in every cemetery waiting to put the new vampires down. The Deadfather didn’t like it, but he hadn’t moved to stop the practice.
Jolene leaned her back against the door.
“I didn’t want Lucas to hear what I’m going to tell you next because I still don’t know if he’s safe or not—too many cops are plants now and I’m walking a thin line due to an incident I really don’t want to get into right now, especially with you. But I think you should run this by Archer Desmond. There’s something about Tygur’s death that isn’t tracking quite right to me. My department won’t be able to do diddlysquat because…well, vampires. But I think I can convince Archer to take a look into it because of the missing skin.”
“Who’s Archer Desmond?”
“A chaos demon who runs a PI firm. He does a lot of work on the side for the unit. I’d like you to talk to him, if you will. He’ll probably do the first look pro bono, but after that, if you want to continue, you’ll have to hire him yourself.”
Lovely. Just what I needed—another way to spend money. “I already offered to talk to Wynter, but now you want me to talk to a chaos demon? You really believe in payback, don’t you?”
She ducked her head. “You know it’s not like that.”
I let out a long sigh. “Yeah, I know. But chaos demons? They’re such a barrel of laughs.”
“I know, I know…but he’s good at what he does.” She softened. “So, how are you?”
“It goes…same old, same old.” I hesitated. Maybe it wasn’t the wisest thing to do, but I caught her gaze and asked, “So, are you seeing anybody?”
She blinked, then slowly nodded. “Yes, actually. I am.”
“A werewolf?”
“No, he’s…he’s human.”
At my double take, she shrugged. “What did you expect?” But there was an edge to her
voice that told me she was bristling. No doubt she had taken a lot of flack from her friends. Weres weren’t big on interspecies marriage or courtship, either. In fact, Weres made conservatives look liberal.
“I just…I just wondered. I want you to be happy, Jolene. I miss our friendship.” And I realized that it was true—I missed hanging out with Jolene, having a beer in the evenings with her while we sat on the porch talking about our day.
She must have caught my mood, because she let out a shuddering sigh. “I miss it too. Maybe…maybe somehow we can get back there. Or to a new place. I’ll call you later this week. We’ll talk.” She glanced over at the window and suddenly, the Jolene I remembered vanished and the cop reappeared.
“Okay, the coroner is here. We’ll get Tygur out of your house. Strengthen your wards and find the weak links. If you’re interested, call me for Archer’s number—I don’t have it on me.” And with that, she got back to work.
After the corpse wagon had come and gone, and Jolene and Lucas cleared out, Nate and I sat at the table, silently binging on cookies and tea. Nate graciously avoided asking any questions. He had been there during the big blowup, and he knew better than drag it back over the coals.
But seeing Jolene had disconcerted me. I wanted to tell myself our friendship had been a train wreck—and it had been a spectacular one—but it was hard to let go of someone I cared about.
At least the interruption had taken my mind off the hunger for a little while, but now it slammed home again. I needed to feed. If Nate left, I could head into the streets. I was about to ask him to go home when the phone rang.
Relieved, I grabbed my phone and glanced at the caller’s name. Dani Halloran.
“Dani, thank gods you called. I need to talk to you, the sooner the better.”
But she overrode me. “Lily? We have a problem.”
Uh oh. She didn’t sound happy. Dani was Irish, with a temper to match, and when she was upset, heads rolled. Sometimes, other body parts rolled right along with them.