Twice Dead (33 page)

I felt her shock vibrate in the air before she surprised the hell out of me.

“Done. You are a thorn in my side,” the Collector said, as if it were her idea in the first place.

The darkness retreated, leaving me staring at her cold brown eyes, but the compulsion remained. I could feel it twisting inside me. She’d commanded me to bring her a shifter, and I had to do it. I just had to. But the compulsion conflicted with Avin’s call. I couldn’t answer him while bringing the Collector her shifter, and the two compulsions warred inside me, both fighting for precedence. In the end, while the need to move held me, made my skin itch, the opposing urges balanced and created a type of stasis.

I schooled my face as I realized this. I wasn’t about to let the Collector know she’d done me a favor. Besides, if she realized what was happening, she might give me a time limit, and then the balance might shift.

“You are dismissed. Jomar, remove her from my presence,” she said, waving her hand.

A familiar grip closed around my bicep and I gritted my teeth. As Jomar steered me toward the door, Nathanial fell in step beside me.

The Collector cleared her throat. “Hermit, I have much to discuss with you yet.”

I kept walking. I needed to summon Gil.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Isn’t there a way to back out of the deal or retroactively add conditions?” I asked. The restaurant’s table shook with my tapping foot, but I couldn’t stay still.

Gil frowned at me. “I haven’t seen Avin in days, but if he called in his favor, just do what he asks. You agreed to the price.”

Yeah, last unnamed favor I’m ever agreeing to.
“Okay. Fine. Just—” I stopped and glanced at the table next to us where Steven sat devouring a stack of pancakes. The opposing compulsions were burning inside me, growing worse. I leaned closer to Gil and Bobby. “Don’t let me pick directions or wander. Okay?”

I hated admitting to the weakness. To the fact I couldn’t even trust my own actions. But if I wandered I might head straight for Avin, and if I chose the direction, I might inadvertently lead Bobby and Steven to the Collector. I couldn’t allow either to happen, so it was better if I just put it out on the table and let one of them decide where we needed to go. Though the idea of following made me want to grind my teeth.

Actually, wait, no. I really was grinding my teeth. That must have been from fighting the compulsion. I forced my jaw to loosen and squirmed in my seat, jerking at the skirt that took up my entire side of the booth.

We made quite a strange group with me way overdressed for a midnight dinner, Gil in her Easter-egg pink coat and big rain boots, and Steven in clothes that hung off his body and obviously belonged to someone twice his size. Bobby, the natural-born shifter who could only achieve fully human form because of the gift locked in his necklace, was the most normal-looking one among us. That had to amuse the hell out of him. At least he’d managed to clean Steven up so it didn’t look like we’d dragged in a starving urchin.

“So, did you find anything about Justin Morgan?” I asked, ignoring the stares our two tables gathered.

Gil’s scroll appeared in her hand. “Actually, yes. It’s strange. He was apparently—”

The diner door opened with the sound of clanging bells.

Steven jerked at the sound, dropping his orange juice into his pancakes.

“—beheaded. The investigators in Sabin—”

Steven stared at his ruined meal. A muscle bulged over his jaw. His eyes narrowed.

“—think that—”

Steven swiped the plate off the table, sending it and the orange juice soaked pancakes flying across the diner.

The plate smashed into a wall and Gil yelped, falling silent.

“Hey!” the waitress yelled.

Steven’s eyes snapped to her. His jaw clenched but his top lip curled up over his teeth. The waitress faltered.

Crap.

I struggled to free myself from the booth but the damn gown tangled around my legs. Bobby shot to his feet.

“Steven,” he said, his voice a low rumble of warning.

The city-shifter ignored him. Steven leaned forward so he could see the waitress around Bobby’s body. A growl tumbled from his throat, and his muscles bunched like he would bound out of his seat and after the waitress any moment.

“Quiet,” I snapped, finally fighting my way free of the booth.

Steven’s eyes tore from the waitress to focus on me. He cringed, his shoulders hunching until they touched his ears. It would have been amusing to see a six-foot man, even an obviously undernourished one, cower in front of little ol’ me—except he wasn’t acting stable, and I had the unfortunate role of judge, jury, and executioner if he went rogue.

“See,” Gil hissed as Bobby hauled the cowering man out of the booth chair.

I frowned at her, and Bobby tossed some money on the table. He all but dragged Steven out of the diner as the cityshifter made pathetic, mewling sounds. I half expected someone to try to stop us, but the patrons—and definitely the staff—appeared happy to see him go.

“He’s a little drunk,” I whispered to the waitress as I passed her.

She snorted, shaking her head. “Clearly.”

Once out of the diner, I turned up the street. Then I stopped.
I’m just walking again.
I couldn’t let myself do that.

I ran into Avin every time I took off without a direction in mind. I turned to Gil.

“You said Morgan was beheaded?”

She nodded, and Steven stumbled.

His eyes went wide as he stared at me. “What are you talking about?”

I frowned at Steven. If Morgan was beheaded, his death had to be related to the other murders. And I’d bet my tail—if I still had one—that it was no coincidence I was the last person seen with him.

“It’s complicated,” I said, earning a confused look from the city-shifter.
Oh what the hell. He’s a temporary member of
my little makeshift clan until Bobby can get him to Firth. No
point keeping him in the dark.

“Gil, take us to the spot the body was found. I think I’m being framed for murder.”

* * * *

Police tape still marked the alley where Justin Morgan’s body had been found, but the crime scene investigators had long since come and gone. All that remained was the tape and a lot of dirty, churned snow.

I looked around. We weren’t far from the concert hall.
Was
Morgan still alive when I stumbled back up the steps in shock
or was he already dead by that point?
The paper hadn’t mentioned anything about a frantic 9-1-1 call, so he might have met the killer while I was still blacked out in the snow only a few alleys away.

But how? And why?

Akane hadn’t attended the symphony, hadn’t been with us.

But one of the limos was missing when we tried to leave.

It could have been a coincidence—but there were a lot of ‘could be a coincidences’ stacking up. I tilted my head and searched by scent for evidence of what had happened in the alley. I smelled people, lots of people, and city scents, and under that, old blood. I found nothing I could pinpoint as the killer’s scent, and not a clue that Akane had been in the alley.

Of course, a day had passed, and there had been a lot of foot traffic.
I could just be missing it.

I glanced at Bobby. His nostrils also flared as he sifted through the scents on the scene, but the way he paced the edge of the taped line was a good indication that he wasn’t finding anything.

Steven rubbed a hand over his nose. “It stinks here.”

“You’re probably picking up on the old blood,” I said, ducking under the crime tape. Steven hadn’t been born with a shifter’s nose. He probably still got overwhelmed with how much keener his senses were than when he was human.

He wrinkled his nose, following me under the tape. “I know what blood smells like. This is different. Sour. Musky.”

I stopped.
Sour musk?
That’s what the skinwalker smelled like to me. I tilted my head back again, rolled the scents in the alley through my senses.

No musk.

Frowning, I glanced at Bobby. He shook his head. Then neither of us could smell it. But Bobby and I were cats.

Steven was a wolf. His nose would be stronger.

I turned to Steven. “You’re sure?”

He cringed, stepping back like my attention hurt him, but he nodded. “I’ve never smelled anything like it.”

So Akane
had
been here.
Now how do I prove that?
It was one thing to prove I didn’t kill Justin and another to prove Akane had been a very treacherous serpent. I could take Steven to the Collector. Then it wouldn’t just be a ‘scent only I could smell’.
That could
—I stopped.

Crap.
How could I even consider taking Steven to the Collector?
When you can’t even trust yourself…?

“Bobby, see if you can help Steven track the scent, but be careful.”

Both shifters frowned at me.

Bobby crossed his arms over his chest and rolled his shoulders back. It was a stubborn stance, one ready to argue.

“Why does it sound like you’re going somewhere?” he asked.

Because I was. I had to get away from Bobby and Steven before I slipped and followed the compulsion to take a shifter to the Collector. As long as I was with them, they were in danger.

“We’re splitting up.” It was the only way. I turned to Gil.

“Think you can get us into the morgue?”

* * * *

An hour later, I’d learned only one thing: Autopsied bodies suck for clues.

Any scents left by his attacker had been washed from the body, and I couldn’t tell from looking at the processed corpse if he’d bled out at the scene or been drained beforehand. The only thing seeing his body confirmed was that his head had been severed by a bladed object.

I had Gil drop me off back at our bathroom in the mansion.

Maybe Nathanial will have some ideas.

The room beyond was silent, which meant Nathanial was still downstairs, in conference with the Collector.
And stars
know how long that will last.
I slipped out of the bathroom quietly.

The smell hit me first.

Sour musk, cold and reptilian.

Then I saw the movement.

The large snake slithered out from under the bed like an unfolding shadow. It lifted its head, tongue flicking, tasting my scent. Then it lunged.

I’d never realized something without legs could move so fast.

I dove to the side, barely avoiding the strike. I rolled as I hit the ground and concentrated on my hands.
Come on.

Come on. I need claws.

No shift. No spasms.

Crap.

The snake lunged again. And I jumped.

“Back off, Akane.”

She didn’t.

The snake reared, preparing for another strike. As she lunged, I made a dash for the French doors.

They were locked.

Ronco leaned on the outside of the glass, his girth obstructing the seam and half of both doors. I pounded on the panels as Akane geared for another strike.

“Open the doors!”

Ronco turned. Slow, too slow. He glanced at me then at Akane.

Yes, you big oaf. Look at the big, mooncursed snake
attacking me.

He lifted a bushy eyebrow. Then he turned back around.

Leaned on the doors again.

Oh crap. They’re allies.

Akane struck and I dropped. Cold scales grazed my arm.

Too close.

I tried to jump to my feet, but the layers of tulle bunched around my legs so I was forced to roll, still tangled in the gown. I pushed up as the snake lunged. Fangs as long as my fingers filled my vision, and my hands shot out, wrapped around the snake’s body.

The impact knocked me to the ground, but I dug my fingers in, gripping the cold, scaled body. Holding on. The jaws snapped closed an inch from my nose.
I stopped her.

Well, I stopped her
head
.

Her clammy coils brushed my waist and circled my body.

Crap, I couldn’t let her wrap herself around me. She was one huge muscle. She’d crush me.

I also couldn’t release her, or I was good as dead.

I screamed, my frustration, anger, terror, everything bursting out of my throat as her body locked around my legs.

A tremor shot through my hands. Then another. My fingers spasmed, the skin over my fingertips split, and Akane wiggled forward in my grasp.

I pressed my head back against the carpet. Another transforming spasm shot through my hands.
Come on, I need
claws, no paws, like the last time.

The spasms settled into claws.

I dug into the snake’s thick hide. Blood dripped down my fingers.
There has to be a spine in here somewhere.

Akane hissed, and her coils loosened. She reared back, pulling away. The wash of blood made her neck slick, hard to hold. My grip slipped. My claws took a layer of scales with them as she shrank away.

I tried to roll to my feet, but again the tulle got in the way.

I fought my way up, but by the time my legs were under me, Akane was already across the room. She shoved a grate aside and slithered into the open vent. Disappeared.

Dammit.

I looked around. The room was empty. I was alone.

Covered in acrid snake blood, but I was unhurt. And I had a fistful of snake scales.
Let’s see the Collector doubt this.

I marched to the doors. Ronco still leaned against the outside, ignoring what I’m sure was meant to be my death.

Well, I have news for you buddy.

Wrapping a corner of my skirt around my hand, I shoved my fist through one of the large panels. The glass shattered.

Ronco leapt forward, whirling around. I smiled at him as I reached through the broken glass and unlocked the door from the outside.

“I need to see the Collector. Now.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven