03 - You Only Live Nine Times (3 page)

Shep chuckled.  “Sorry, my eyesight’s poor so I have this whole cemetery mapped out in my head.”

“No problem,” grunted Raf, rubbing his shin that had caught the edge of a cat statue.  Apparently the deceased was a beloved father, husband and puma shifter, and worthy of his own statue.

The mole stopped and sniffed the air.  “They’re over here.”

Raf followed him, trusting he knew what he was doing.  Finally, they came upon the two bored patrol officers.  They were standing at the side of a couple of freshly dug graves.

Shep frowned.  “These two were only filled in earlier today.”

One of the patrol officers, Collins he thought, looked like he wanted to gag.  “You mean, someone has come here tonight and dug up the graves of people who have only just died?”

Raf forced himself not to tell the mole to be careful as the old shifter nimbly stepped around the now open graves.  For someone so large and blind, he moved like an agile ballerina.

“Not just that, have either of you boys actually looked into the graves?”

The patrol officers gave each other sheepish looks and made noises about needing to wait for a detective.  Raf rolled his eyes and shone his torch into the first grave.  “Holy fuck!”  He did the same on the next grave.  “Double fuck!”

“First time seeing a defiled corpse?” asked Shep, jovially.

“First time seeing one actually in their own grave.”  Usually, they were neatly laid out on the slab in the morgue, not still in the suits they were buried in.

“See, we told Detective Barnes that this was weird,” said the other patrol officer, Leaky.  “Were we right, or what?”

“You were right,” muttered Raf, shining his torch around the graves, lamenting the rain ruining any footprints.  Not to mention the clumsy patrol officers.  “Shame you didn’t actually look into the graves before you called it in, though.”

The first officer shrugged.  “It’s not like it’s our problem now though, right?”

Raf directed the torch to his face and the officer.  “Why wouldn’t it be our problem?”

“Well, we’re handing it over to the SEA, right?”

“You know something about this that I don’t?”

The officer hunched his shoulders.  “Well, it’s weird.”

“And?” demanded Raf, his patience slowly dwindling.

“Well, it’s bound to involve shifters.  No human would do something this creepy.”

Both patrol officers agreed with one another while completely oblivious to the look of disgust on Shep’s face.  If this was a typical attitude of the LLPD, no wonder people like Shep were so hostile.

Raf opened his mouth to lambast the young officer, but Shep interrupted.  “I don’t know who did this, but one of the dead men is a shifter.  Wouldn’t surprise me if humans were going around defiling shifters’ graves.  Happens every couple of years, some don’t think they deserve to be buried alongside humans.”  Shep directed a small growl in the patrol officers’ direction, and they had the sense to cringe and back away.  “Although, it doesn’t explain why they dug up this other guy.  He’s as human as sure as birds of a feather flock together and then crap on your damn car.”

Raf ignored him.  “Given that one of our… victims is supernatural, I’ll give them a call, but we’re not making any assumptions about the perp, got it?”  He looked at the officers in turn who both nodded, still cowering under Shep’s glare.  Raf was sure that neither officer had any idea how dangerous an octogenarian mole shifters could be, but neither seemed to want to find out.  He nabbed his phone and started dialing.  He would call in the SEA to consult – not to take over, to consult.  He was sure that whoever they sent, they would get along like a house on fire.

Chapter Three

Presently…

“Ma’am, are you okay?” he asked again as he wrapped his thick hands around her itty-bitty waist.  Oh, those hours at the gym perfecting her physique were well spent.

“Peachy,” Isis cooed, and not at all in the sarcastic voice she was going for.  Uh-uh, that came out as totally sincere and dare she even think it – flirtatious.  Well, who could blame her?  Like a freaking damsel in distress, she’d just been rescued by a six-foot god of a man.  From his dimpled cheeks, strong jaw, tousled black hair, tanned skin to his deep chocolate brown eyes, he was yummy from head to foot.  Okay, so he was a little shorter than she usually liked her men; she usually worked on the basis of six-foot-two and up to allow for her heels but she could settle into only wearing two-inch heels when they went out.  When they went out?!  Isis shocked herself with a hard mental slap.  What the fuck was she thinking?  A honey-drenched voice and strong arms and she was actually considering stripping off her panties and waving them around saying, ‘come mate me, big boy’. 
Pull it together, woman!

He gave her a crooked smile, and if his strong hands weren’t holding her, she might have sunk to the ground.  She pressed her body closer to his chest and almost groaned at the hard muscles she felt there.  Humans should not be so ripped.  But damn, this guy was a fine specimen – a credit to his species.  A gorgeous hunk she just wanted to strip out of his pants and gobble him up… 
Freaking hell!
  Thank the stars it was dark.  Otherwise, her blush might have been seen all the way to Playa Lunar.  Her tiger should be ashamed of her… wait a second, why hadn’t her beast weighed in on this?  Whenever Isis met a guy who interested her, her pussy was always there to weigh in with her opinion.  Usually, it was either a huff or a shrug, but the cat always had something to say on the matter.  But oh no, suddenly her feline side was quiet.  Suddenly she was tongue-tied and pawing the ground like a cub. 
Suddenly, she was shy.

“I’m Detective Rafael Silva, LLPD,” he told her in a toe curling voice that definitely didn’t have her sex quivering. 
Nuh-uh, no way
.

“Isis Martin, SEA,” she replied in a voice that didn’t quaver too much.

His eyebrows raised, and he seemed to stiffen a little.  Her tiger whined.  Please don’t say he was one of the many LLPD officers who had problems with shifters.  She’d had more than enough encounters with incompetent speciesist detectives in her time.  And while she could joke about how LLPD detectives couldn’t solve their way out of paper bag, and how they were all incompetent asswipes, she didn’t really mean it. 
Well, mostly anyway
.  Look, she was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt based on the caramel skinned hunk currently making her insides do the cha-cha.  Or at least she would be if she were sure he wasn’t one of the asswipes.  She gave him a tentative sniff, and while her southern belle of a tiger almost swooned at the rich, earthy, fresh rain scent, Isis was rather more intrigued by the tinge of arousal.  She wiggled her hips a little closer to him and felt a growing bulge in reply.  Well, that definitely wasn’t a spare flashlight in his pants.  Her tiger preened smugly.  He wasn’t repulsed by her - that was for darn sure.

Rafael released her from his grasp and took a step back while rubbing the back of his head.  He had an embarrassed look on his face that Isis found downright intriguing.  “I’m sorry, Ms. Martin, I didn’t mean to grab you like that.”

“No apologies necessary.  If I wasn’t okay with it, you’d be the first to know.  And please, call me Isis.”

He grinned boyishly, making those oh-so-cute dimples deepen.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Isis.  I’m sorry to drag you out here on a night like this.”

“Not at all, Detective Silva,” she purred. 

“Please, call me Raf.”  Hmmm, good looks – check.  Sexy voice – check.  Manners – check.  Should she ask for her belly to be rubbed now, or was it too soon?

“Raf,” she repeated softly, letting his name linger on her lips.  He swallowed before shaking his head.  Nice to know she wasn’t the only one having trouble functioning properly. 

He cleared his throat.  “Anyway, the reason I asked for someone to come out here…”

“Let me guess, you caught a shifter doing something they shouldn’t be doing and want us to take them off your hands.”  The LLPD only ever called them in when they wanted to offload cases. 
Sigh, down to business.

Raf cocked his head on one side.  “Actually no, as I’m sure you noticed, the corpse in that grave is missing his arms.  As is the corpse in the grave next to him.”

“Ah yes, I didn’t fail to notice that my dead guy was armless.”  Particularly as she was writhing around on top of him.

“He was a shifter…”

“Leopard,” she added as her tiger sniffed.

Raf’s eyes widened.  “No kidding?”

“You don’t meet many shifters I take it?” she asked teasingly.  Her tiger yowled, he didn’t need to meet any other shifters – he’d already met her, hadn’t he?  Isis was enough for any man.  Isis was certainly enough for this man. 
No other shifter bitches need apply.

He laughed a little hesitantly.  “Not really.  Are you a shifter?”  His eyes sparkled with interest.

Isis gauged his reaction, wary of his reason for asking.  There were some humans known as shifter groupies, who loved nothing more than bedding different shifters – the more exotic, the better.  The guys just got hard-ons from talking about shifters; most of them explode in their pants after seeing the actual shift.  So sue her - she might have flirted with a couple of them when her ego needed a boost.  Being told you’re the sexiest pussy in Los Lobos was not a bad thing.  But she wasn’t getting that kind of vibe from Raf.  He seemed interested, yet it was more of an interest in the unknown rather than of the horny persuasion.

Still, she decided to tease him about it.  She placed a hand on her heart and gasped in mock outrage.  “Why Raf, what a personal question to ask.”

The poor detective looked mortified, and while Isis derived a little pleasure out of seeing him squirm, her tiger was clawing at her to set him at ease.  Raf spread out his hands in front of him.  “Isis, I’m sorry,” he told her sincerely, “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Isis smiled naughtily and took a step closer to him.  She was a couple of inches taller in her heels, and her mouth was just at the perfect height to whisper in his ear, or nibble on it if that took her fancy.  “I’m a tiger,” she murmured, “rawr.”

She moved away from him, gratified at the grin on his face, and the fact that her nearness appeared to have sent his arousal into overdrive.  Her kitty was almost rolling around at the delicious scent.  She was almost tempted to rub herself against him,
to mingle his scent with hers…

“Ahem!”

Isis snarled, fangs dropping and eyes flashing yellow as she rounded on the person who dared interrupt them.  The young police office gurgled and dropped his flashlight.

Raf stepped forward and placed a hand on her arm.  While his touch was pleasantly tingly and gave her visions of many naughty things she shouldn’t be thinking about, his skin was cool to the touch.  Her tiger chuffed at Isis to do something about that.  Shifters ran hot and thought nothing of running around in the wet and cold.  But humans were different.  They could easily catch a cold, or a bug, or pneumonia – Raf could already be dying as they spoke! 
No, that was intolerable!
  She had to make sure he was alright.  The urge to ensure her mate’s safety was paramount, it was… 
Wait a frigging second, mate?
  Her tiger nodded her head and rolled her eyes with an expression that said, ‘keep up dumbass’.   No, no, no, no – this was not her mate.  She didn’t have a mate.  She wasn’t into the whole mating thing.  Yet, here he is purred her kitty.

Isis snarled again at the surprised vehemence of her beast.  The patrol officer whimpered and almost wet his pants.  Raf stepped forwards to the trembling young man.  “Officer Collins, right?”

The young man nodded, and Raf gave him a calm smile.  “Have the crime scene techs arrived yet?”

“Y… y… yes.”

“Good, show them over will you.  By the way, this is Isis Martin from the SEA.  You’ll have to excuse her, she’s horrified by what has happened to this shifter’s body.  I told her we all felt the same way, right?”

Collins nodded dumbly while looking at Isis’ flashing eyes.  “Yes, horrified.”

“Good man, now go and wrangle the crime scene techs.”

“Yes,” he agreed eagerly before turning and running as fast as his feet could carry him.  They heard an ouch and a thump a few seconds later, but he just got right on back up and kept running.

“Sorry about scaring your little officer,” she pouted.

Raf arched an eyebrow.  “He was miniscule, wasn’t he?”

“I forget that most humans don’t like it when we growl.”  She made a clawing motion with her hand for emphasis.

“Didn’t bother me.”

“No, it didn’t, did it?” she mused, looking him up and down.  It was obvious that he wasn’t overly familiar with shifters, yet she turned into a total psycho bitch and her human detective didn’t even bat one of his long, black eyelashes. 
Ugh, her kitty was almost drooling over the pretty, pretty man
.

“So, you know why I called you out here.  Did something happen to get you in that grave, or did you mistake it for a swimming pool or something?”

Was it wrong how much she was enjoying the playful lilt of their conversation while standing over the grave of a now armless corpse?  Well, if it was wrong, she didn’t want to be right.  “Actually
something
pushed me in.”

Raf sucked in a breath, and his handsome face turned solemn.  “Shit, we looked around, but we couldn’t find anyone.  We thought whoever did this was long gone.  Fuck, Isis, you could have been seriously hurt.” 

Isis had to stop herself from grinning as her tiger swished her tail.  Ooh, angry Raf was hot, too.  “Whoever it was, they were strong.  If they wanted to hurt me, they could have.  Instead, they just pushed me into a hole – that kind of fall wouldn’t hurt the weakest of shifters.”

“You think they knew you were a shifter?  So what?  Another shifter?”

“No.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Knocked me on my ass, didn’t it?”  She wriggled her peachy, round rear for emphasis, and her tiger mewled as Raf actually took a long, hard look at it.  Be they shifter or human, no one could resist her derrière.  “Shifters aren’t that fast.”  She took a long sniff at the air and tried not to gag at the dead body.  “I’m not getting any scents other than the dead bodies.  So, if I had to guess, it was a vampire.”

“V… vampire?” gulped Collins, who had chosen that moment to return leading a team of crime scene technicians who immediately started setting up lights.

Isis had a brief panic about her appearance.  After being drenched earlier, she’d reapplied her makeup before she arrived at the cemetery, applying waterproof mascara and a much more hardy lipstick while pulling her hair back into a braid.  She just hoped it stood up to the blinding lights. 
Three… two… one… boom.

An infectious smile burst over Raf’s face on seeing her – truly seeing her – for the first time.  And yeah, well, her pride certainly didn’t mind that.  Okay, so her pride was pretty overinflated like a helium balloon before she met him, but it just seemed important that he, above any other man, find her attractive.  Tons of other men did, and told her so on a regular basis, but she could care less what any of those half-wits thought.

“Uh, vampire?” repeated Collins.  “Do we need to get out of here?”

Isis knit her brows together.  “Why?”

“In case the vampire’s hanging around,” he said slowly as if she were a two-year-old.  “In case he’s hungry.”

“If a vampire was hanging around,” she said in a matching patronizing voice, “and they decided they wanted you for their late night snack, you’d be dead, on the ground with a chunk of your neck and all your blood missing.”

Collins paled, and Raf shot her a look of disapproval that, fuck it, actually made her feel bad and had Ms. Kitty hanging her head in shame.  Damnit, why did she have to care how he felt?  He was just a random human, just a totally ordinary, random human.  Mate. 
Shut up!

“Look, honey,” said Isis in her sweetest tone, which she’d been told was akin to a serial killer but she couldn’t help it at that moment.  “In spite of TV and movies, the majority of vampires don’t just go around killing people at random.  They’re just like humans.  To simplify it, some are bad, but most aren’t.  I don’t know why one was hanging around here, but if they wanted to hurt us, they could have, but clearly they didn’t.”  Isis then gave the officer the full effect of her fluttering eyelashes, almost blowing him away in the process, and he softened under her charms. 
Sucker
.

Collins seemed mollified, and a little in love with her.  Raf, with a slight grimace that her tiger happily believed was down to jealousy, sent the young officer away to help the technicians.  “Happy?” she asked him.

Raf gave her a puzzled look.  “What do you mean?”

“See, I’m not a total bitch.  I can be nice when I try.”