Soul Survivor (15 page)

“Yes, ma'am. Right away,” Damien said and hung up, looking over at me. “Get dressed. Another body was found.” He flung his legs over the side of his bed, thrusting both hands into his hair before standing and pulling a pair of black pants on.

I did the same, finding my dress pants on the floor and my red V-neck shirt. Sure, I could have shifted my clothes back on, but I didn't want to waste any of my powers—especially not now that I knew how friggin' jealous Damien could be, I thought remembering how he'd thrown me over his shoulder just a little while ago.

Within minutes, we each were dressed and slipping our shoes on. Damien threw the door open. “Hey,” he said.

“Is it George?” I called from the bed. When I stood to follow Damien, I froze, seeing Drew standing in the doorway, pajama pants loosely hanging off his hips. Behind him, in the hallway, was the Banshee, staring right at Drew with a hungry look in her milky white eyes.

“O
h fuck,” I whispered. “What are you doing here?”

Damien shot me a weird look over his shoulder and the Banshee floated, bobbing up and down behind Drew.

“Me?” Drew responded. “I could ask you the same question.”

“Huh?” My eyes were still locked on those of the Banshee, who floated over behind Drew and stared at the back of his head as though he were something to be devoured. She opened her mouth, unhinged her jaw to let out the deafening scream I'd been coming to know so well.

“No!” I shouted, holding out a hand. Drew jumped, and Damien gave me an odd look. Even the Banshee startled and she cocked her head slowly in that same curious way, staring at me as though I were a strange, unknown creature.

“What's going on? Do you see . . .” His voice trailed off as he glanced at Drew, and he cleared his throat.

I closed my eyes.
Not him. Not Drew. Please for the love of Hell.

I thought back to when I'd first heard her in Vegas. Walking home after having seen Drew at the coffee shop carving pumpkins. Then again on the plane after boarding with Drew and the gang. In the hotel room after our interaction in the airport bathroom. Fuck. Squeezing my eyes shut tighter, I shook my head. No. Those could all just be coincidences. All those times, they were right around when we found the victims, too.

Damien cleared his throat, snapping me back to the present. “How is Adrienne feeling?”

There was pain in Drew's eyes as he looked back and forth between Damien and myself. I knew the pain. I had gone through it earlier this evening and every day for the past six months watching him and Adrienne together.

My one-night stands were one thing—those never involved emotion. But this? Damien and me equaled long-term potential in Drew's eyes. Even if Damien and I knew there wasn't much hope for monogamy here, Drew didn't know that.

Damien took Drew by the shoulders. “Let's go see her. If she's able to come to work, we could really use her.” The two guys went into Drew's room, but the Banshee stayed in front of me.

“Don't touch me,” I whispered. “I can't pass out again.” She bobbed up and down, floating in front of me, wild red coils of hair bouncing with the gentle movement.

“Are you here to take Drew? Is that why you're coming to me?” Her eyebrows drew in together, eyes pinching as though the thought was painful. “I know what it's like to hate your job,” I said to her. “And it doesn't seem like you enjoy being the fairy of death.”

The Banshee's lips parted, a strangled noise escaping in a wheeze. I held a hand up to quiet her. “Shhh, don't try to speak. Nod. Like this . . . for yes.” I nodded my head up and down and she just stared at me quizzically. “Come on, Banshee. Nod for yes.” When she did nothing, I sighed, falling against the door frame. “Do you ever understand what I'm saying?” My head fell into my hands and I rubbed my palms over my eyes. When I looked up again, she was nodding. Her head slowly pulsing up and down, gray milky tears gliding down her cheeks. “You understand me?” She nodded again. “Had you ever seen yourself before I shifted to look like you?”

There was a pause and then she shook her head no. I wanted to laugh. And cry and hug her all at once.

“Not even in a mirror?” There was a
crack
sound and she was no longer in front of me. When I looked around, I saw her floating in Damien's room in front of the dresser mirror—no reflection stared back except for my own behind her. “Wow,” I whispered more to myself than to the Banshee. “Just like a vampire.”

“Well.” Damien's voice boomed from the hallway despite the early morning hour. “Adrienne's pretty much useless until she sobers up.” He paused, staring at me, frozen. “What the Hell, Monica? This is no time to be primping. These murders are happening faster than we can keep up with.”

When I looked to my right, the Banshee was gone.

“W
e need to gather George and go,” Damien said, gesturing to the hallway.

“Yeah, of course. No problem.” I shifted my hair into place slowly while walking. Stopping, just as I passed Damien, I lowered my voice and glanced at Drew's door. “It was the Banshee again. I think she has something to do with Drew.”

Alarm passed over Damien's face for a moment as he glanced from me to the door and back again. “We'll beef up security on him. Take turns watching out for him. He'll be safe for now with Adrienne. Even if she's trashed. That girl can kick some ass while shit-faced, let me tell you.”

“So, she'll join us tomorrow?”

Damien glanced at his watch. “I'm gonna let her sleep another hour or two, then Drew will wake her up. ‘Tomorrow.' ” He put air quotes around the word while snorting a bitter laugh. “It already is tomorrow, baby. Besides, I don't care if she comes to the crime scene hungover, so long as she's not shit-faced. Hell, in her human days, she'd come in hungover all the time. The plight of working Vice.”

“Okay, okay, I don't need to hear her life story. Let's just go get George.” I walked down the hallway, digging out my key—taking a moment to listen at the door just in case I was about to barge in on something. Silence on the other side. When I opened the door, George was watching television with a scowl on his face, arms crossed, and Rob was asleep in my bed. Fully clothed. Uh-oh.

“Oh, look who decided to join us,” George sneered.

I gestured for him to follow me to the hall. “Have you been waiting up for me this whole time?”

His scowl deepened and he made a dramatic moment out of joining me in the hallway.

“What do you want? I thought you'd still be having fun with your boy toy over there.”

“George, I'm sorry. We'll commence Operation Manhunt tomorrow night, I promise.”

“That is not the code term we use and you know it.” He crossed his arms and looked to the left, obviously avoiding my gaze.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at him and the stupid code name we had come up with decades ago for when one of us needed help closing a deal. “Fine,” I sighed. “We'll commence Operation Ex Caliber tomorrow. For now, though, we've all been called in to another scene.”

His scowl dropped, color draining from his face. “Another murder?”

I nodded. “So, go get dressed and tell Rob. He can stay in the room tonight—I'm fine with that.”

“Just what am I supposed to tell him? There aren't a whole lot of missionary emergencies at three in the morning.”

I shrugged. “Think of something—one of our converts fell off the wagon. Or . . . uh, we got called into a brothel. Leave him a note. Anything. C'mon, George.” I nudged him with a smirk. “You should be good at this lying stuff by now.”

A smile finally cracked through his anger. “Fine. I'll be out in a minute.” He shifted into a perfectly tailored outfit before slipping back into the room.

 

Thirty minutes later, Damien, George, and I arrived at a warehouse surrounded by flashing lights. “Do we know anything about the victim yet?” I whispered.

“Not a thing, succubus. Do I look like a mind reader?”

I blushed thinking back to our night and how he would anticipate my needs. I didn't answer and pressed my smirk into a straight line as best I could.

George tugged me back, whispering in my ear. “All right, just because you managed to get laid doesn't mean you have to rub it in my nose, baby girl.”

“Am I being that obvious?”

“You're blushing and smiling. Not all that typical of my darling succubus.”

Damien strode up to the yellow tape approaching an older man with graying hair and a widening belly. I recognized him from the news footage and press statements over the past week. “I'm Detective Kane of LVPD. I don't believe we met earlier.” He held out a hand as the older gentleman took it in his.

“I'm Chief Andowe here in SLC. Nice to meet you, Kane.” His voice was gruff but his eyes were kind.

“These are my consultants on the case, Monica Lamb and George er—” He shot a panicked glance to George. George had several fake last names he had chosen through the years.

“That's right,” he jumped in. “George Irving.” He took the chief's hand in a masculine handshake.

“Nice to meet you both. Come on in, I'll show you our victim. I tell you,” he said, holding the yellow tape up so we could all duck under, “these scenes are just getting stranger and stranger. We don't even have any damned Spanish moss in this area.”

The victim this time was a young man—perhaps early thirties. His hands and feet were bound with Spanish moss and vines. Dirt plugged his mouth—which was open mid-scream—eye sockets and nostrils. Stones and rocks lay at his feet and bruises marred his flesh. Celtic runes shimmered in the dawning light, still fresh from the potent magic. They twisted like ivy around each and every limb. On the victim's well-defined chest was another family crest, formed on his skin by dozens of tiny welts. There was something about the man—something very familiar. That strong, angled nose. His bronzed skin and cropped black hair. It looked somewhat like—

“The victim's name,” Chief Andowe said, “is Luis Nunez-Buckley.”

S
tars. I was seeing stars everywhere. It couldn't be. It couldn't be Luis from the other night. Buckley. What the Hell was going on here? My vision was darkening on the edges and my breath—my damn breath wasn't working. A hand was on my elbow.

“C'mon, babe. Breathe.” Damien's voice was in my ear. “Newbies,” he said to Andowe.

“She gonna yak on my crime scene?” Andowe's voice was rough and cutting. “Get her out of here.”

And with that I was moving, then sitting on something. A sidewalk? No . . . a car. I was sitting on someone's car.

“Head between your legs,” Damien instructed me. “Deep breaths.”

I did as I was told.

“What's the matter?” George asked.

“Luis,” I whispered through my deep breaths.

“I know,” Damien said, stroking the back of my head.

“Monica, are you okay? Who's Luis?” George demanded in his usual attitude.

“He was at the strip club the other night.” I sat up, holding a hand to signal that I was okay when Damien began objecting. “And his name—Buckley. I-I just needed a moment.” I looked back to George, who, despite his attitude-riddled voice, had concern twisting in his features. “He wanted a lap dance—from me. Just the other night. There was sort of an argument between . . .” I glanced at Damien, whose features were like stone.

“Oh, shit,” George murmured.

“Yeah,” I countered, then looked to Damien for guidance. “So, what the Hell do we do? Do we tell them of our connection to the victim?”

“That's a damn good question. Their own investigation might eventually lead them to your strip club, where they will easily discover the name Monica Lamb.”

“But I strip under a different stage name. . . .”

“Doesn't matter,” Damien mumbled. “They'll get a warrant for the girls' real names if they have to.”

“Surely Lucien could fake that somehow.”

Damien chewed that over for a moment. “That's true. For now, we won't say anything. We'll see what Adrienne has to say when she gets he—”

The air crackled around us. Another immortal was in the vicinity. “Something's here,” Damien said through clenched teeth. “Wait here with Monica,” he said and ran off, pulling a gun loaded with holy water bullets from inside his leather jacket. It's the only gun any of us use anymore.

George bristled, taking a moment to read the aura. “Vampire. It's definitely a vampire that's here.”

Dejan.
“Oh, shit.” I hopped up from the car, feeling a momentary head rush with the sudden movement. “George c'mon! We can't let him hurt Dejan . . . or fuck . . . we can't let Dejan hurt him.”

I took off running after Damien, George's footsteps pounding right behind mine. I closed my eyes, listening—a door slamming shut. The warehouse—they'd gone into the warehouse. George caught up, almost running right into me as I stood frozen.

“Damn, girl,” George said, breathless. “You can run fast—”

I didn't even let him finish his sentence, but took off again for the warehouse. It was dark and looked like some sort of arts and crafts store supplier. Shelves and shelves of craft supplies lined the walls. Yarn, scrapbooks, acrylic paints, frames. George was right behind me. “Dejan?” I called out. “It's Monica. . . . We need to talk to you. Damien, if you're in here, don't shoot. Dejan is a . . .” Shit. I didn't know what to call him. He certainly wasn't a friend. “. . . an ally in this case.”

“Monica.” Dejan's heavily accented voice came from somewhere in the left corner. I searched the wall for a light and flipped the switch. Everyone cringed with the sudden blinking fluorescent.

Damien strolled over to me. Annoyed didn't even begin to describe his look. “You can't even follow the simplest of instructions, can you?”

“Not when you're about to make a mistake,” I said, equally harsh. “Dejan, it's okay. Come on out.”

His dress shoes clacked against the cement flooring before we even saw him. He stood across the warehouse on the other side with his black leather bomber jacket and tenuous glare. His black hair shined in cascading waves down to just below his chin. His eyes glistened black. He stopped about twenty feet in front of us, hands clasped casually in front of him and his head cocked to the side in a way that reminded me of the Banshee.

“Dejan—you've been working on investigating this case longer than us. What do you know?”

He clicked his tongue, tutting at me as a teacher would her student. “Now, now Monica. What's the fun in revealing
that
?”

“This is
fun
to you? You sick, demented piece of shit,” Damien spat.

I put a hand to his shoulder to quiet him. This was Dejan's game.

Dejan lowered his chin, the overhead lights casting ominous shadows over his finely chiseled features. “Now, now, is that any way to treat a guest? Particularly one who is so much better at your job than you?”

“He's right, Damien,” I whispered, treading very carefully. This could end in some serious bloodshed if not handled correctly. “We could really use his help.”

“As much as I'd love to sit down in this”—Dejan glanced around the cold warehouse—“charming little area, this is neither the time nor the place.”

“You say where,” I said. “We'll be there.”

“Very well. Tonight at nightfall. Richard's Pub.”

“Nightfall? That's not even an actual
time
!” Damien spat.

“Dejan, please,” I said, rolling my eyes. Though I wasn't even sure which one of the two I was rolling them at.

Dejan's smirk was barely noticeable. “Very well. Seven. At Richard's Pub.”

“I didn't even know they
had
pubs in this awful city,” George joked.

“Kane!” a voice shouted from outside. We all swiveled. The chief was peeking into the warehouse. When we glanced back, Dejan was gone. I expected nothing less.