A Kiss of Shadows (4 page)

“Were there any repeats?” Jeremy asked.

“There were three men that I saw more than once.”

“Do you know their names?”

“Just their first names. Liam, Donald, and Brendan.”

She seemed very sure of the names. “How many times did you see these three men?”

She wouldn't meet our eyes. “I don't know. Many times.”

“Five times,” Jeremy asked, “six, twenty-six?”

She looked up startled. “Not twenty times, not that many.”

“Then how many?” he asked.

“Maybe eight, maybe ten, but no more than that.” It seemed important to her that it hadn't been more than ten. Was that the magical cut-off? More than ten times and you were worse than just eight?

“And the group sex, how many times for that?”

She blushed again. “Why do you need to know?”

“You called it a ritual, not us,” Jeremy said. “So far there doesn't seem much ritual to it, but numbers can have mystical significance. The number of men inside the circle. The number of times you were inside the circle with more than one man. Believe me, Ms. Phelps, this is not how I get my jollies.”

She looked down again. “I didn't mean to imply . . .”

“Yes, you did,” Jeremy said, “but I understand why you'd be suspicious of any male, human or not.” I saw the idea float over his face. “Were all the men human?”

“Donald and Liam both had pointed ears, but other than that they all seemed human.”

“Were Donald and Liam circumcised?” I asked.

Her voice came out in a hurried rush, color high in her cheeks again. “Why do you need to know that?”

“Because a real male fey would be hundreds of years old, and I've never heard of a Jewish fey, so if they were fey, they wouldn't be circumcised.”

She met my eyes. “Oh,” she said, then she thought about the original question. “Liam was, but Donald wasn't.”

“What did Donald look like?”

“Tall, muscular, like a weight lifter, blond hair to his waist.”

“Was he pretty?” I asked.

She had to think about that one, too. “Handsome, not pretty, handsome.”

“What color were his eyes?”

“I don't remember.”

If they'd been one of the more colorful shades of eyes that the fey are capable of, she'd have remembered. Except for the pointed ears he could have been any of a dozen men at the Seelie Court. There were only three blond men at the Unseelie Court, and none of my three uncles lifted weights. They had to be more careful of their hands than that for fear they'd rip the surgical gloves they always wore. The gloves kept the poison that their hands naturally produced from rubbing off on anyone else. They'd been born cursed.

“Would you recognize this Donald if you saw him again?”

“Yes.”

“Was there anything the same about all the men?” Jeremy asked.

“They all had long hair like he has, shoulder-length or longer.”

Long hair, possible cartilage implants in the ears, Celtic names—sounded like faerie wanna-bes to me. I'd never heard of a sex cult of faerie wanna-bes, but you should never underestimate people's ability to corrupt an ideal.

“Good, Ms. Phelps,” Jeremy said. “How about tattoos, symbols written on their bodies, a piece of jewelry that they all wore?”

“No to all of it.”

“Did you meet only at night?”

“No, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes at night.”

“No special time of the month, not close to a holiday?” Jeremy asked.

She frowned at him. “I've been seeing him only a little over two months. There haven't been any holidays, but no special time.”

“Did you have sex with him or others a certain number of times a week?”

She had to think about that one, but finally shook her head. “It varied.”

“Did they chant or sing?” Jeremy asked.

“No,” she said.

It didn't sound like much of a ritual to me. “Why did you use the term ritual, Ms. Phelps? Why didn't you say spell?”

“I don't know.”

“You do know,” I said. “You're not a practitioner. I don't think you'd use the term ritual without a reason. Just think for a minute. Why that word?”

She thought about it, eyes staring into space, seeing nothing, tiny frown lines between her eyebrows. She blinked and looked at me. “I heard him talking on the phone one night.” She looked down, then up, defiant again, and I knew she didn't like what she was about to say. “He'd tied me to the bed, but he'd left the door open a little. I could hear him talking. He said, ‘The ritual will be good tonight,' then his voice dropped too low for me to hear, then he said, ‘The untrained ones give it up so easily.' ” She looked at me. “I wasn't a virgin when we met. I was . . . experienced. Before him, I thought I was good in bed.”

“What makes you think you're not?” I asked.

“He told me that I wasn't good enough at straight sex to satisfy him, that he needed the abuse to spice it up, so he wouldn't be bored.” She tried to stay defiant and failed. The hurt showed in her eyes.

“Were you in love with him?” I tried to make the question gentle.

“What difference does that make?”

Frances took her hand, held it in her lap. “It's all right, Naomi. They're going to help us.”

“I don't see what love has to do with any of this,” she said.

“If you love him, then it will be harder to free you of his influence, that's all,” I said.

She didn't seem to notice that I'd changed loved to love. She answered the question. “I thought I loved him.”

“Do you still love him?” I hated having to ask, but we needed to know.

She gripped the other woman's small hand in both of hers, knuckles whitening with the strength of her grip. The tears finally slid down her face. “I don't love him, but . . .” she had to take a few deep breaths before she could finish, “but if I see him, and he asks for sex, I can't seem to say no. Even when it's awful and he's hurt me, the actual sex is still better than anything I've ever felt before. I can say no over the phone, but if he shows up, I let him . . . I mean, I fight if he's beating me, but if it's during sex . . . it gets all confused.”

Frances stood, moving behind the other woman's chair, spreading the afghan over both of them while she hugged her from behind. She made soothing noises, kissing the top of her head like you'd do with a child.

“Have you been hiding from him?” I asked.

She nodded. “I have, but Frances . . . He can find her no matter where she is.”

“He follows the spell,” I said.

Both women nodded as if they'd figured that much out for themselves. “But I've hidden from him. I moved out of my apartment.”

“I'm surprised he didn't hunt for you,” I said.

“The building is warded,” she said.

I widened eyes at that. For a building to be warded, not just an apartment but the entire building, meant that the protective spells had to be put into the foundation of the building. The wards had to be poured with the concrete, riveted into place with the steel beams. It took a coven of witches, or several covens. No single practitioner could do it. It was not a cheap process. Only the most expensive high-rises or homes could boast of it.

“What do you do for a living, Ms. Phelps?” Jeremy asked, because I think that he, like me, had actually not expected the two women to be able to meet our fee. We had enough money in the bank under the agency's account and in our own accounts so we could do charity work from time to time. We didn't make a habit of it, but some cases you don't do for money but because you simply can't say no. We both thought this was going to be one of those.

“I've got a trust fund that matured last year. I have access to all of it now. Trust me, Mr. Grey, I can pay your fee.”

“That's very good to know, Ms. Phelps, but truthfully I wasn't worried about it. Don't spread it around, but if someone's in deep enough trouble, we don't turn them away because they can't meet our fees.”

She blushed. “I didn't mean to imply that you were . . . I'm sorry.” She bit her lip.

“Naomi didn't mean to insult you,” Frances said. “She's been rich all her life, and a lot of people have tried to take advantage of that.”

“No offense taken,” Jeremy said. Though I knew that there probably was some offense taken. But he was a very businesslike businessman. You didn't get mad at a client, not if you were taking the case. Or at least not until they'd done something really awful.

Teresa asked, “Has he ever tried to get your money?”

Naomi looked at her, and you could see the surprise on her face. “No, no.”

“Does he know you have it?” I asked.

“Yes, he knew, but he never let me pay for anything. He said he was old-fashioned that way. He didn't care about money at all. It was one of the things I liked about him at first.”

“So he's not after money,” I said.

“He's not interested in money,” Frances said.

I met those big blue eyes, and they didn't look scared now. She was still standing behind Naomi, still comforting her, and she seemed to gain strength from that. “What is he interested in?” I asked.

“Power,” she said.

I nodded. She was right. Abuse is always about power in one way or another. “When he said the untrained ones give it up so easily, I don't think he was talking about your sexual prowess.”

Naomi was holding on to Frances's hands, pressing them to her shoulders. “Then what did he mean?”

“You're untrained in the mystic arts.”

She frowned at me. “Then what was it that I gave up so easily, if it wasn't sex?”

Frances answered, “Power.”

“Yes, Mrs. Norton, power.”

Naomi frowned at all of us. “What do you mean, power? I don't have any power.”

“Your magic, Ms. Phelps. He's been taking your magic.”

She looked even more astonished, mouth open in a little “o” of surprise. “I don't know any magic. I get feelings sometimes about things, but that's not magic.”

And that, of course, was why he'd been able to do it. I wondered if all the women were untrained mystics? If they were untrained, then we were going to have trouble infiltrating his little world. But if all they had to be was part fey and magically talented . . . well, I'd done decoy work before.

Chapter 4

 

THREE DAYS LATER I WAS STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF JEREMY'S OFFICE
wearing nothing but a black lace push-up bra, matching panties, and black thigh-highs. A man I'd never met was fishing down the front of the bra. Normally, I have to be planning to sleep with a man before I let him fondle my breast, but it was nothing personal, just business. Maury Klein was a sound expert, and he was trying to fit a tiny wire with a tiny microphone under my right breast where the underwire of the bra would keep Alistair Norton from feeling it if he brushed his hand across my ribs, or breast. He'd been fiddling with the wire for about thirty minutes, fifteen of that trying to find the best place to hide the wire in my cleavage.

He was kneeling in front of me, the tip of his tongue bitten between his teeth, eyes behind the wire-frame glasses staring fixedly at his hands, one plunged almost out of sight inside the cup of the bra, the other holding the material of the bra away from my breast so he could work better. By pulling the bra out, he'd exposed my nipple and most of the rest of my right breast to the room.

If Maury hadn't been so obviously oblivious to both my charms and our audience, I'd have accused him of taking so long because he was enjoying himself, but he had that inner stare that said he wasn't really aware of what he was doing, except for the job part. I understood why he'd had complaints from female undercover people before. The complaints had been why he insisted on not doing all this in private. He wanted witnesses that he hadn't overstepped the bounds. Though frankly, if all the witnesses had been human, they might have been on my side anyway. He'd poked, lifted, and otherwise manhandled my chest as if it weren't attached to anyone. What he was doing was very intimate, but he didn't mean it to be. He was the proverbial nerd or maybe the absent-minded professor. He had only one love, and that was his hidden mikes, hidden cameras. In Los Angeles if you wanted the best, you went to Maury Klein. He put in security systems for Hollywood stars, but his true passion was undercover work. How to get the equipment even smaller, better concealed.

He'd actually at one point suggested that the wire might be best hidden inside my body. I'm not shy, but I vetoed that idea. Maury had shaken his head and muttered, “Don't know how the sound quality would hold up, but I wish someone would let me try it.” He did have an assistant, read “keeper,” and probably emergency diplomat.

Chris—if he had a last name, I'd never heard it—had cautioned Maury not to be so rough or so indelicate. He'd hovered until I assured him I was fine. Now he stayed near Maury like a surgical nurse ready to hand him whatever esoteric piece of equipment he needed.

Jeremy sat behind his desk watching the show, fingers steepled, an amused smile on his face. He'd shown polite heat in his eyes when I first took my dress off and stripped to the lingerie, but after that he'd just tried to keep from laughing at Maury Klein's total lack of heat. Jeremy had complimented me on the amazing contrast between the perfect white of my skin and the blackness of the lingerie. You're always supposed to say something nice the first time you see someone in a state of undress.

Roane Finn was sitting on the corner of Jeremy's desk, feet kicking in the air in a soft unconscious movement, as he, too, enjoyed the show. He didn't have to compliment me. He'd seen me naked last night and many nights before that. His eyes are the first things you notice about him, huge, liquid brown orbs that dominate his face like the moon dominates the night sky. Then it's a toss-up whether you notice his dark auburn hair, and the way it clings to his face, rolls down the back of his collar, or his lips, which are a perfect red-tinged pouting bow. You'd think he used lipstick to get the color, but he doesn't. It's all natural. His skin looks white, but it isn't really, or not pure white. It's as if someone took my own pale complexion and added a drop of the red-brown of his hair. When he wears brown or other autumn colors, his skin seems to darken.

He was my height exactly, and it made him appear delicate at first glance, but the body that showed under the black clothing he'd donned for tonight looked firm and muscular. I knew for a fact that he wasn't just strong. He was limber. I also knew that there were burn scars along his back and shoulders, like white calluses on the smooth silk of his body. The scars had been caused when a fisherman burned his sealskin. Roane was a roane, one of the seal people. Once he'd been able to don his sealskin and become a seal, then slip the skin and be human, or rather human form. Then a fisherman had found his skin and burned it. The skin was not just a magical device for shape-shifting. It wasn't even just part of Roane. The skin was as much him as his eyes or his hair. Roane is the only seal person I've ever heard of that survived the destruction of his other self. He survived but he could never again change form. He was doomed to be forever land-bound, forever denied the other half of his world.

Sometimes at night I'd find the bed empty. If we were at my apartment, he'd be gazing out the window at nothing. If we were at his place, he'd be looking out at the ocean or vanishing into the waves as I watched from the balcony. He never woke me and asked me to join him. It was his private pain, not to be shared. I guess it was fair because in the two years we'd been lovers, I'd never dropped my glamour completely. He'd never seen the dueling scars. The injuries would have marked me as someone intimate with the sidhe. I might have been hopeless at offensive spells, but there were few better at personal glamour in all the courts than me. It helped me hide, but not much else. Roane couldn't breech my shields, but he knew they were there. He knew that even in that moment of release, I held back. If he'd been human, he would have asked why, but he wasn't human, and he didn't ask, just like I never questioned him about the call of the waves.

A human wouldn't have been able not to pry, but a human lover also wouldn't have been able to sit calmly while another man fiddled with my breasts. There was no jealousy in Roane. He knew this meant nothing to me, so it meant nothing to him.

The only other woman in the room was Detective Lucinda—call me Lucy—Tate. We'd worked with her on several cases where the perpetrator wasn't human, and their decoys were getting bewitched, bewildered, or killed. In fact, having Jeremy and the rest of us as temporary police had been the first time the Magical Dispensation Act had been stretched to include police work. But we'd all met the criteria of having magical abilities that made us ideal for the job, which meant they could waive all training that a nonmagic cop would have needed and just put us straight on the job. Sort of like emergency deputies. The Magical Dispensation Act is how I got to be a detective fresh off the bus, so to speak, with none of the hours and hours of training that you normally need to get your license in California.

Detective Tate leaned against the wall, shaking her head. “Jesus, Klein, no wonder you've got sexual harassment complaints against you.”

Maury blinked as if having to draw his attention back from a long way off. It was the way people looked at the end of a powerful spell, like they were just waking and the dream hadn't finished yet. You couldn't fault Maury's powers of concentration. He finally turned to the detective, hands still in my bra.

“I don't know what you mean, Detective Tate.”

I looked at her over Maury's kneeling head. “He really doesn't,” I said.

She smiled at me. “Sorry about the manhandling, Merry. If he wasn't the best at what he did, nobody would tolerate him.”

“We don't use sound equipment and hidden cameras much,” Jeremy said, “but when we do I like to pay for the best.”

Tate looked at him. “The department certainly couldn't afford him.”

Maury spoke without turning his attention from my chest. “I've done free work for the police in the past, Detective Tate.”

“And we really appreciate that, Mr. Klein.” The look on her face didn't quite match the words—a more mischievous twinkle in the eye and cynicism in the face. Cynicism seemed to be an occupational hazard. The mischievous twinkle was pure Lucy Tate. She always seemed to be laughing softly at everything. I was pretty sure it was a defense mechanism to keep the real her hidden, but I still hadn't figured out what she was hiding from. None of my business, but I will admit to a certain amount of very unfeylike curiosity about Detective Lucy Tate. It was the very perfection of her camouflage, the fact that you never saw beyond that faintly amused shield, that made me want to breech it. I could see Roane's pain, so I could leave it alone. But I could see nothing in Lucy, and neither could Teresa, which meant, of course, that Detective Tate was a psychic of considerable power. But something had happened at an early age that made her hide her powers so far under that even she didn't know she had them. None of us had explained this to her. Detective Tate's life seemed to work well. She seemed happy. If she tore the scar open that had forced her powers underground, that could all change. It might be something traumatic enough that she'd never rebuild from it. So we left her alone, but we wondered about her, and sometimes it was harder than it should have been not to poke at her with magic or psychic feints, just to see what would happen.

Maury leaned back, hands to himself at last. “There, I think that'll do. I'll put just a touch of tape to make sure it doesn't shift, and you're set.” Chris handed him some small bits of tape on his hand all ready to go, anticipating the need. Maury took the tape without comment. “You've seen what I had to do to put the mike in. Well, this guy will have to do the same thing to find it.” He actually had me hold the bra out so he could tape with both hands. It was the kindest thing he'd done in the last forty-five minutes.

He stood and moved back. “Fix the bra the way you'd normally wear it.”

I frowned at him. “This is the way I normally wear it.”

He made a small motion with his hands at about chest level. “You know, fluff that one, so it matches the other one.”

“Fluff,” I said, but I smiled because I finally understood what he meant.

He sighed and moved forward. “I'll show you.”

I held a hand out. “I don't need help.” I bent over and shook my right breast into the cup of the bra, having to use my hand to get everything into place. The bra was push-up enough that my already nice chest looked positively obscene, but when I ran my hand over the area where I should have felt the mike, all I could feel was the underwire and material.

“It's perfect,” Maury said. “You can strip down to this, just keep your bra on, he'll never know.” He cocked his head to one side, as if he'd just thought of something. “I've taped the mike to the bra so if you have to you can take it off, just leave it within a five-foot radius. Closer is better. If I make the mike more sensitive, we'd start picking up your heartbeat and the cloth moving. I can filter it out, but it's easier to do after the tape's made than before. I'm assuming you want to be able to hear tonight, in case your bad guy gets out of hand.”

“Yes,” Jeremy said, “it'd be nice to know if Merry needs help.” The sarcasm was too mild for Maury.

“We might have been able to tape the mike to the elastic top of the hose, but I couldn't swear that the hose wouldn't roll down and flash the mike. If you take the bra off, make sure and roll the cloth so the mike doesn't show.”

“I don't plan on taking it off.”

Maury shrugged. “Just wanting to give you all the options I can.”

“I appreciate that, Maury,” I said.

Maury nodded. Chris was already picking up the bits and pieces that had gotten scattered on the floor.

Roane jumped down from the desk, lifting my folded dress from the top of it. He held the square of black cloth out to me. I'd had to buy a black dress on the advice that it was easier to hide things in black than in lighter colors. I never wore unrelieved black if I could help it, even though it was a color that looked good on me. It was the color favored by the Unseelie Court because it was their queen's favorite color to wear.

Roane let the silk dress unfold from his hands, holding it by the shoulders, then he began very slowly, very deliberately to roll the dress up in his hands, watching my face the entire time he did it. When the dress was just a thin black fringe hanging from his small strong hands, he knelt in front of me, holding the dress open so I could step into it.

I placed my hand on his shoulder for balance and stepped into the circle of cloth. Roane began to let the dress slide from his hands, raising his hands at the same time so the dress fell around me like a theater curtain coming down. When his arms were raised as far as they'd go kneeling, the dress was to my waist. He stood, hands resting lightly on my hips. The movement put him kissably close. His eyes were exactly at the same level as mine. There was an intimacy to the eye contact that I'd never had with anyone else. I'd never been with anyone as short as I was before. It made missionary position unbelievably intimate.