2 Death Rejoices (28 page)

I double checked to make sure no one else was around, then slipped my shirt over my head. “You know, in the name of science and history, posterity even, maybe you should consider Declan's project and let him interview you for real.”

“It's ‘Declan' now, is it?” He watched me undress without expression. “Making friends, are we?”

“God, I hope not,” I grumbled. “Who the hell wants one of those?”

I lifted one side of my butt and then the other to wriggle out of my panties, cautious of slivers from the old, weathered dock, and then hesitated, scanning the flat black surface of the water for suspicious movement. My imagination played tricks on me while my logic took a dive. Science attempted to soothe me —
Come on, Baranuik, what could possibly be in there? —
but my gut told me in no uncertain terms,
Be afraid
. Ripples became indications of danger rather than the natural brush of fish and wind, and I felt watched, as if the lake itself had gained a dark intellect.

“Come to me, my pet,” Harry said. “Nothing will harm you. Do you doubt my ability to protect you?”

Again, there was a disturbing lack of warmth in his voice. Where usually even his irritation was tinged with benevolence, there was nothing. I slid into the cool water, drawing in a gasp at how chilly it
still was, even though it was August. Shaw's Fist is one of those spring-fed lakes in the Rockies that never warm up. How Harry was tolerating the temperature without a good feed heating his sluggish veins was beyond me.

Cutting a naked swath through the dark, moonlit water, Harry glided up next to me. Water is really the only place I'm graceful; I'd taken swimming lessons before I could walk, and a body of water affords me the rare opportunity to be agile. I hauled in a deep breath and dove swiftly beneath the surface, reveling in the freedom of movement and taking full advantage of the situation to glimpse Harry's manhood, naked and pale against the dark depths. When I came up for a breath, his eyes were stern and narrowed. He offered a hand to me, dripping fingertips splayed.

“Come, my sprightly sparrow, I wish to show you something.”

I swallowed hard. “I'm not sure I should. You're overtired and you haven't fed. I'm gettin’ a weird vibe.”

His voice was iron. “Then perhaps it would be in your best interest not to vex me further, DaySitter.”

“Is this the part where you do the Villain's Soliloquy, outlining all your nefarious deeds, and then try to drown me while the scary music plays?”

He made a grab for me, and I shouldn't have flinched, because the surprise in my eyes exasperated him. He hauled me through the water up against his slippery skin, holding me with a hard arm. “You should know me better than all that.”

“I was joking.”
Sort of.
“I know you wouldn't hurt me, Harry.”

“Take a deep breath, then,” he advised, his face blank. He'd walled-off from me. Even skin to skin, I floundered through our Bond and couldn't pin down what he was feeling. Our Bond had been broken once before through some desperate but careless magic on my part, but we'd done things (
delicious, sexy things
, my brain reminded me) to repair the damage, and I'd hoped it had healed. Evidently, there were still cracks, crannies, and blind spots. Or maybe I'd simply never be able to read Harry as completely as he was able to me.

I took a deep, noisy breath and held it while he pulled me down through dark water barely lit by the moon. Under the water, bits and blobs and tiny writhing things filtered past my view, but a big
movement caught my eye, a deeper black slash against the lightless gloom, something wrapped in a slick length of chain that jutted up from the yawning depths. I squinted as we closed in on its position, though we had to get pretty close before the silt lightened enough to see clearly.

It was an algae-covered duffel bag. Realization made my eyes spread wide in the cold depths of the lake. Wresting my hand from Harry's grip, I stroked for the surface. My lungs threatened to burst, tightly jerking in my chest for air while my heart drummed. I kicked, thrashed, and shot upward with the rising bubbles from my nose, bare hands skimming out in front of me until the dock's slick piling, with all its human impressions long washed away, broke my cresting forward movement. Each imperfection in the wood was a solid reminder that I was indeed still alive.

There was no logic to my thoughts as they tumbled one over the other. I had to be sure. When I broke the surface, I craned for and found Harry rising. My panicked hand shoved strands of wet hair out of my eyes.

Harry reached for me, laying one cool palm on my back. “It's been disturbed.”

I gasped to catch my breath, hanging on the dock. “That's wrong, it's wrong!”

“Then by all means, correct me.”

“You used your World War One duffel bag? Don't you watch CSI? If they found him, they'd follow that bag to you instantly.”

“There must be a
him
to find, love, before there can be any following,” Harry pointed out.

“How could he be gone? And where?
Where?
”

His arms caught me to him. “He may still be here. In the water. With us.”

“Let me out of here,” I said, struggling and slipping in his tight, wet grasp. “Have you lost your mind? Let me go, I've got to get out.”

When it was clear he wasn't about to let go of me, I drew my feet up, sure that any second I would feel Neil Dunnachie's cold, dead fingertips close in on my ankle, from beyond the grave. Or beyond the duffel bag, as the case may be. I wrapped my legs around my Cold Company, high on his chest, and begged, “Please, Harry, I need out of this water.”

“Perhaps he is undead.” His pupils spiraled out until black lens ate up iris. Harry's voice dialed down to husky. “Shall we test this theory? Shall we call to him with blood, my pet?”

“Oh, God,” I moaned, watching his fangs elongating with deliberate slowness in his open mouth, and I pleaded, shrinking back while my breath hitched in whisking sobs. “Please don't Harry, not here. Please.”

He drove me up against the dock's piling, thrashing waves into a rocking storm around us. Forcing his lithe body against me, he reared back to strike and I cowered, stunned tears springing into my eyes. A ragged cry leaked from high in my throat.

“That's enough, Harry.” Chapel's voice came from the dock behind me.

I didn't want to look back, exposing more of my throat to Harry, but I had to see. For a dizzying second, I'd never been more glad to see a stake in my boss's hand.

Harry growled; the sound of it made every hair on my body try to stand up despite being sodden. The Bond flared in my veins, a confused tug of war playing havoc with my equilibrium.

Chapel stepped forward, raising the stake, and my eyes locked onto it.

“Let her go right now, vampire. I don't want to kill you, but I will not allow you to hurt her.”

There was an audible snap in my brain, and something else took over. Maybe the words
kill you
triggered me, maybe it was the threatening tone, maybe it was the V-word, maybe it was pure Bond action. I didn't even think. Whipping around, I slap-gripped the dock and drove up out of the water in a wet, naked rush. My feet thumped the planks. I launched in a ungainly tackle, took an astonished Chapel to the ground, knocking my own breath out and not caring a bit. Rearing back, I punched him hard, twice, three times, before he recovered from his surprise to block me. I drove my knee up between his legs then swung to plant that knee on his wrist, grinding it until his grip loosened on the stake. He yelped as I wrestled the stake out of his palm. Snatching it, I had no trouble this time snapping it in half. I pitched one piece to my right, the other to the left. I aimed my fist at Chapel's throat and felt my lips curl back from my teeth in a feral snarl.

Chapel didn't flinch, but the smear of blood across his familiar mouth stalled my punch.

“Please, ducky, some decorum,” Harry called placidly from the water, unseen beneath the dock. “Do forgive us, Agent Chapel. My pet is in quite a mood this evening. What I wouldn't give some days for a scold's bridle.”

Confused, I jerked my chin over my shoulder at my Cold Company, blinking away sudden tears that fractured my view into prisms. My arm went instinctively up to cover my breasts as I stopped seeing red and started noticing the nip in the air brushing places it shouldn't.

Harry splashed over to rest his arms on the shallow side of the dock, propping his chin on the nest of his strong forearms. He looked satisfied; I'd go so far as to say he looked tickled. Damp and smug, he said, “Now, Agent Chapel, what did you call me?”

Chapel rubbed his jaw. “I— uh, I'm sorry, Lord Dreppenstedt, but…”

“You called me ‘vampire’ as though it were my name, as though I were a stranger, a monster. The way you said it, too. Your tone. So uncaring. So hurtful.”

Chapel and I were silent as Harry's oddly pleased crooning continued.

“And you, MJ, brawling in the nude like a common harlot.” He actually
tsk-
ed me. “Given a proper weapon, you might have killed poor Agent Chapel.” Harry smiled benevolently. “So nice to be filled with pride and have somewhere to direct it for a change. I thank you both for your kind indulgence.”

I had no words. I think I made myself clear with the flailing of my angry arms and the tilt of my scowl. I heaved my clothes in Harry's face. “You putz!” I glared down at him. “This was some sort of stupid test.”

“Oh, not a test of you, my love. It was important for everyone concerned to make sure that your Agent Chapel would still be willing to protect you from me, despite our…special acquaintance.”

“Are you serious? You manufactured this whole scene to make sure
Chapel
could kill you?”

Gary's mouth worked wordlessly as he got to his feet. I don't think he realized that he was half-soaked from my sodden tackle.

Harry filled the silence. “You take me to task, Agent Chapel, and choose the safety of my pet over your internal comfort. This pleases me, and I find myself perfectly satisfied. Do your best, sir, to see that I remain so.”

I snarled, “You manipulative creep. Cram a bag of old, frostbitten O-neg in your face, cuz you are cut off, mister.”

I stomped bare-assed back to the mudroom, fuming at the sound of Harry's soft laughter coming across the night yard.

If Batten hadn't been standing in the kitchen staring gloomily at two blood-filmed wine glasses in the otherwise empty sink, my stormy, self-righteous exit might have been a proud moment. He turned, saw me buck-naked, and allowed his self-control to slip just enough for his mouth to pop open. The papers in his hand hit the floor. I shoved a finger in his face.

“And
you!
” I huffed, as though that said it all. I retreated to my bedroom and slammed the door. It would have been a lot more satisfying if it hadn't rebounded off of one of my sneakers, and I had to move the offending shoe and slam it a second time.

C
HAPTER
22

MARK BATTEN WAS GIFTED;
he managed to make a simple knock on the door irritating, like he had developed his own brand of magic.
Jerkomancy.
He also didn't wait for my permission to come in, and he's lucky I wasn't holding anything I could have fired at his head. I had pulled on a dry white tank top and was still looking for my favorite pair of jeans, brimming with irritation and not in the mood to talk, for fear I'd fall into an old bad habit: blame the closest target and lay waste to face. I had fucking people skills now, dammit.

Batten's eyes were trained to note details. “Water cold?”

“You didn't give me time to get properly dressed, Cro-Mag,” I reminded him, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Fighting with Harry?” He didn't add
again
, for which I was grateful, but he looked as though he'd scored a point in some unnamed contest. “Why were you in the lake?”

Did he know what we'd found? Was the answer already on his face behind that careful cop mask? I felt my own face go warily blank. “That's between me and Harry.”

“Playing bait for monsters,” he said. “You shouldn't have gone in, either of you, but especially not you.”

“I wasn't playing bait. I'm not stupid.” I dared him to argue that point with a barbed look. When he didn't, I explained, “Harry had my back.”
Sorta
. “Besides, there's nothing in the lake.”

“You don't have to participate in this investigation at all.”

“This again?” The shift in subjects made my brain stutter. “What are you afraid of?”

“I'm afraid you're gonna drown in a squirrel suit.”

“I wasn't wearing the squirrel suit.”

“You weren't wearing a bathing suit, either.” The light in his eyes belied his carefully controlled expression.

I chewed my bottom lip. “You know me too well. I see this becoming a problem.”

“I don't like seeing you in that lake.” He slammed both hands on his hips, his legs spread wide with authority; it made me want to bust his kneecaps and then ride his body once it hit the floor. Batten was about to start in on me, and I didn't need my Talents to recognize what I was seeing: fear disguised as scorn. He wanted this solved, and I didn't blame him, but there wasn't much I could do about it that was going to fall under his idea of “safe”. I'm an all-or-nothing gal; I'm either hiding under my bed eating Cheez Doodles or launching into a full-tilt monster hunt. If he wanted this solved quickly, before anyone else got gobbled, I might have to put myself in harm's way. That realization was stirring in his face, making his square jaw muscles do the patented Jerkface Batten Clenching Dance.

“If I catch you in the lake again…” He leveled his gaze at me. “I'm gonna chain you up until this thing is over.”
Oh shit, has he seen Harry's bedside toy box?
If my nipples hadn't already been standing at attention from the lake, they certainly would have been after the thoughts his words kindled had flitted across my mind. I tried to focus on the fact that we were talking about me not getting eviscerated.

“The last time I retired, you and Chapel came to my house, shoved pictures of a dead kid in my face and pestered me until I caved. That also included someone trying to slice my guts open.” Memories of bleeding out on a hotel room floor threw a bucket of cold sand on my seething libido.