It was all Selina could do not to fire off a stunning spell, but there could be Normals watching, and she couldn’t risk the exposure. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Holding out her free hand, she flicked off a tiny spark of magic that brought down a pile of trash cans in front of their suspect. He tripped and stumbled over them.
Jack rounded the corner, coming from the opposite direction, and she knew they had him trapped. A fierce smile curved her lips and she kicked in a little more speed, closing the space between them. Alex bounded past her, caught the man easily, and grabbed him by the front of the shirt. Lifting him with one hand, he slammed him against a fence. The look on the kid’s face could chill the blood.
Selina and Jack closed in, tucking their weapons away. Jack pulled out his cuffs from the holster on his belt. “Put him down, Alex.”
The suspect kicked and wriggled, but there was no way a Normal could overpower a werewolf. Alex thunked the man on the ground, holding him while Jack slapped the cuffs on. “Subtle, Nemov.”
Alex had the good grace to look sheepish. “Yeah, you’re right. Don’t tell Merek and Chloe. Or Aunt Millie. It’s not my best day today.”
“I didn’t do nothin’!” the Normal man whined, struggling against Jack, who easily controlled the movements, pushing him until his back was against a fence and they had him surrounded.
Alex snorted and gave the man a hard look. “Yeah, then why do you have Jason’s coat on?”
The suspect’s jaw jutted pugnaciously, dirt so ingrained in his skin that the rain wasn’t having much effect. His filthy hair dripped more dirt. Homeless, probably. Boozer, for sure. “He ain’t gonna need it no more. He’s dead.”
Selina got in his face, wishing she hadn’t when she got a whiff of him, but she refused to back down. She narrowed her eyes to dangerous slits. “How’d you know he was dead if you didn’t do anything?”
The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “No crime against lookin’.”
“Stealing is a crime.” She fingered the coat, glad she was wearing gloves. “Resisting arrest is a crime. Obstructing justice is a crime. Withholding evidence in a police investigation is a crime. Start talking.”
His jaw worked. “You’ll think I’m crazy. Or drunk.”
“Try me.” She straightened back into cleaner air. The man hadn’t bathed in at least a month. “I’ve heard a lot of crazy things from drunk people over the years. Doesn’t mean they’re lying.”
He swallowed. “I saw a man.”
“Yeah, what kind of man?” She folded her arms. “What did he look like?”
“He was a tall, white guy with red hair.” He went to lift his cuffed hand, but twisted oddly as his other hand came along for the ride. “Really red.”
“And? When do we get to the drunk-crazy part?” She put a subtle truth spell behind the question, a demand for answers that most humans wouldn’t be able to avoid or ignore. It would compel all but the most stubborn of minds.
The Normal’s eyes glazed for a moment as the spell hit him. “He had ... fangs. I know it sounds nuts, but I ain’t had a drink all day.” He shook his head. “Maybe they were caps or something, because they looked like real teeth and not some Halloween costume. But the dead guy had holes in his neck like he’d been sucked—bitten—whatever.”
“Yeah, probably caps, but that’s helpful. Some vampire wannabe.” She glanced at Jack, who was already on the phone, calling for a telepath to come clean up the guy’s memories. “All right, we’re going to have one of our agents get you some food and whatever you need. Thanks so much for your help.”
“I’m not crazy.” There was a sad note of pleading in the homeless man’s voice.
“I believe you. This will help with our investigation.” She gave him a nod. “You did good.”
She took a couple of steps away, close enough the guy wouldn’t be able to escape if he tried anything, but far enough that he wouldn’t be able to overhear.
“Gregor.” Selina and Alex said it at the same time. The bright red hair, vampire, penchant for killing people. There was only one person who met that description. Gregor—a jack-of-all-trades mercenary, bodyguard, and assassin. Deadly, enigmatic, and expert at slipping through law enforcement’s fingers. Everyone on the force in Seattle had taken a swipe at him at least once. If she’d known Bess’s killer all this time, she thought she might be sick.
“I knew I’d sensed that vampire male before.” Alex’s expression was carefully blank, his face pale under his tan. “He was there. When they put a silver bullet in me. And when my father was killed. Now he killed Jason, too?”
She closed her eyes and let her chin drop to her chest. Everything about this case was determined to slam daggers into her soul, reminding her that if she’d caught this guy thirty years ago, she’d have saved so many lives. “Let’s bring Gregor in and ask him what he was doing here. If we can even catch him.”
8
The days were starting to blur together for Jack. Too little sleep and too much time spent twisting every piece of information to try to make them all make sense somehow. They had another victim and were still spinning their wheels. It was maddening.
Peyton was working on tracking down the elusive Gregor. They were still waiting for the New Orleans files. As Jack had suspected, Hurricane Katrina had messed with where they stored the old boxes of cold cases, and they’d been piled in some warehouse since, never reorganized. Luca had finally sent a junior field agent to work with the Magickals down there to sift through and find what they needed. What a snafu.
Grit burned Jack’s eyes as he poured two mugs of liquid caffeine from the espresso machine in the office lounge—one cup for him and one for Selina. She’d be in soon, and anticipation quickened his blood, despite the fact that he’d seen her only hours before, when he’d slipped out of her bed to head home and get ready for the day. He wouldn’t have minded showering at her place and driving in together, but she’d been more than a little resistant to the idea since they started this affair. She liked her boundaries.
He didn’t get why that irked him so much. Most of the time, he was a keep-it-light kind of guy when it came to women. Sure, they were friends, lovers, co-workers, but his wife had pretty much taken any chance of him committing to a real relationship with her when she died. What he had going with Selina should be perfect. He liked being with her, the sex was amazing, and she’d been clear from the start that this was a temporary affair. It would probably end when this case did and she went back to the Seattle PD. So why the hell did he want to push her for more than that? He knew he would never do it, but the temptation was there. He couldn’t even begin to explain it, didn’t even want to try to, so he put it from his mind. Something to think about later.
“Mornin’, Jack.”
“Delta.” He smiled at a blond agent who’d transferred to the Seattle office a couple of months before. Gorgeous vampire, short, but stacked like a brick house.
He wasn’t interested. A few weeks ago, he’d considered asking her out, but now he didn’t have even a smidgeon of desire for that kind of pursuit.
Catching sight of a slender elf walking past the windowed walls of the break room, her stride purposeful, as if she were on a mission, he dismissed the pretty blonde from his mind and followed Selina.
“Grayson,” he called, and she spun around to face him.
She didn’t bother with pleasantries, just dove into speech. “You know, thirty years is a long time for a psycho to go straight.”