Angel: Private Eye Book One Read online

  Chapter 5

  I bit my lip and chewed industriously.

  So this was meant to be my room. Mr. Marvelous had been generous when he’d referred to it as a storage cupboard. It was barely 3m by 2m. You could stand in it, stretch your arms out, and spin in a circle, but that’s only if you wanted to ram into the furniture that cluttered every wall, not to mention the old archive boxes spewing their files over every centimeter of the floor.

  I made no attempt whatsoever to hide my disgust as Mr. Marvelous rolled up his sleeves for about the 10th time and nodded toward the window. “Beautiful view, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe, but I can’t exactly sleep on a view,” I said pointedly as I grimaced at what looked like a bed under a mound of newspaper clippings.

  “No problem,” Mr. Marvelous said cheerily as he walked over to the bed and reached a hand behind one of his suspenders. Again, there was a twang. If you listened carefully, the exact note wasn’t accounted for by the tension in his suspenders. It echoed too powerfully through the room and set the hair on the back of my neck standing on end.

  He pulled out a set of gloves the likes of which I’d never seen. They looked like black leather, yet at the same time, they had lines of magical light running from the fingers to a small box at the wrists.

  Mr. Marvelous crammed them on his hands and set to work cleaning up the newspaper clippings and stacking up the boxes.

  Just when I thought he intended to industriously clean the entire room, he gave a happy sigh and yanked the gloves off, tossing them to the floor. “You can do the rest,” he said.

  Just as I let out the tiniest frustrated harrumph, the gloves suddenly came to life. They continued to clean the room, essentially copying the exact moves Marvelous had taught them.

  He must’ve caught the stunned look in my eyes, because he chucked his head back and laughed. “Not too familiar with the otherworld, are you? That’s a simple set of cleaning gloves, Lizzie. You’ll find them available for a couple of hundred dollars from most good magical supply stores. They’re not perfect, and you tend to have to give them a very specific set of instructions or you’ll come back to find they’ve cleaned a hole in your wall, but they’ll get the job done quickly enough.”

  I suddenly jerked back as the gloves picked up a box of archive files and flew from the room. The move was so fast it flattened my fringe over my forehead.

  At times like this – when I saw something truly magical – I felt a familiar spark of fear in my heart. The same spark of fear I’d felt the day the world had woken up to find that magical creatures lived amongst us. Despite everything that had happened to me, I still thought of myself as normal. As just an ordinary human in a place where witches were real and vampires owned the biggest investment firms in town.

  Mr. Marvelous kept chuckling at me until his phone rang. He shoved a hand into his pocket and grabbed it out. He answered before he crammed it against his ear. “What have you got for me, Arnie?” he snarled.

  I swiveled my attention between Mr. Marvelous and the magical gloves. That was, until Mr. Marvelous took an uncharacteristic hiss of breath that rasped through his teeth like ragged metal over glass.

  I felt my chest tighten.

  Mr. Marvelous swore, hung up the phone, and jammed it behind one of his suspenders. Then he jerked his gaze toward me. “You ready for your first case, kid?”

  I blinked quickly. “Sorry? I mean isn’t this a little early? I’m just moving in.”

  “There’s no such thing as early. Like I said before, you signed a contract. I take my business very seriously. I spent a lot of hard years carving out a niche for myself in this city, and a reputation to match my hard work. People call on Mr. Marvelous Investigations when they have the kind of case no one else can break. I hired you because I saw something in you, kid. You’re lucky, and you’ve got drive. Speaking of which, can you drive?” he suddenly changed track so quickly I shook my head.

  “Sorry? What?”

  “Can you drive?” he said slowly and clearly as if I was hard of hearing.

  “Ah, yes.”

  “Fantastic. I lost my license speeding,” he said through a grin. “So you get to drive the beast.” He turned smoothly on his foot and strode out of the room making several specific gestures to the gloves. The gloves suddenly dropped an archive box on the ground, a whole cloud of dust shifting up from the cobweb-laced floorboards and shooting up my nose.

  I spluttered and waved at the dust madly.

  The gloves repeated every action Mr. Marvelous made, then went back to cleaning up the room.

  With nothing else to do, I reluctantly turned on my heel and followed Mr. Marvelous. He walked quickly, a lot quicker than his tubby form accounted for. Those arms and legs were scrawny, but he was clearly powerful, and right now, determined.

  Before I had a chance to catch my breath, we darted out the back of the shop into an alleyway.

  I frowned at the alleyway, immediately realizing it shouldn’t be here. Mr. Marvelous’ shop was pressed right up against a magical supply store on one side and a Vietnamese restaurant on the other.

  He saw me frowning as I looked confusedly from one brick wall to the other. “How is this alleyway here?”

  “It’s a magical car park,” Mr. Marvelous muttered offhand as he brought a set of keys from his pocket and clicked an immobilizer lock.

  Immediately, something appeared in front of me. It was so quick and unexpected that I jerked back, shrieking in surprise.

  It was a car. After flickering lines of magic had settled, it revealed a sleek black vehicle that looked exactly like something a 14-year-old kid would dream up. It wasn’t exactly the Batmobile, but it was close. Slung low, with bright shiny rims that had actual blue streaks of lightning painted across them, it was exactly not the kind of car I had ever driven before.

  I tended to stick with hatchbacks and small sedans easy to park in cramped streets.

  “Ah, what the hell is this?” I asked in a shaking voice.

  “Hell? You think this comes from hell? You’ve seen the kind of sports car trash those vampires and demons drive. This,” Mr. Marvelous leaned over and fondly patted a hand down the front of the car, his fingers gliding off the well-polished metal. “This is a work of art. It took me 15 years to scrounge enough spells to create this masterpiece.” He swung his arms wide and gestured like an excited politician promising the brightest future the city had ever seen.

  “You mean you’re a mechanic?”

  Mr. Marvelous rolled his eyes and chuckled. “You really know nothing about this world, do you? This isn’t a standard vehicle.” He patted the door lovingly as he opened it. “It’s magically enhanced. At the beginning of my career, I faced a little… ah, competition.” Mr. Marvelous was usually as direct as a shot between the eyes, but here he was being coy.

  “What do you mean?”

  He ignored me as he kept fondly patting the door. He opened it and practically sighed as if he was slipping into a warm bath. “Doesn’t matter. Point is, I found myself needing a car that could get me out of any situation. And that type of thing costs. I scrounged every cent I could, spending it on the most ludicrous magical enchantments you could imagine, until I’d built this.” He brought his hands up wide again and gestured like an extremely keen host on one of those game shows that can’t even make it to the prime-time slot.

  “But you don’t have a license,” I said as I brought a hand up and scratched my suddenly itchy neck. “Why didn’t you sell it?”

  Mr. Marvelous slowly turned to face me. His expression had grown just as dark and shadowy and unwelcome as a crypt in the middle of the night. “Because it’s my baby,” he said flatly. “Why would I sell it? You can drive. Now get in the front seat.” He motioned toward it and pointed with a stiff hand. “You want to be careful on the clutch. And also, the accelerator can respond a bit heavy.” He chuckled. “Growls like a tiger poked with a stick of lightning,”

  Growls like a tiger poked wit
h lightning…? I was careful not to roll my eyes at that.

  Reluctantly I walked around the side of the car, making a grimace that I hid expertly behind my hair.

  Carefully, as if I was about to plunge my hand into a pit of snakes, I opened the door. Though I wasn’t exactly a witch, I could feel the magic as the door swung next to my leg. It buffeted off me as if I’d washed in a magical solution.

  Shivering as unwelcome tingles danced over my spine and my hair stood on end, I sat down in the driver’s seat.

  Mr. Marvelous reverently handed me the keys.

  I took them and placed them carefully in the ignition.

  I felt exactly like someone tasked with disarming a bomb. Someone with absolutely no training and an extremely shaky hand.

  What exactly had I gotten myself into here? If I’d been smart and stayed at home last night, I would never have met that vampire, and I wouldn’t be in this situation now.

  “Start her up,” Mr. Marvelous said as he leaned forward and slapped a hand on the dash. Discovering a mark I couldn’t even see, he carefully wiped it off with his finger.

  Grimacing as if I was about to be struck in the gut, I started the ignition, and the car growled. No, that was an understatement. It suddenly sounded like a choir of lions and tigers and bears jumped up around the engine and sang at the top of their lungs.

  “Jesus,” I spluttered, turning the ignition off in a snapped, desperate move.

  Mr. Marvelous laughed. “It’s a beautiful sound, isn’t it? Now start the ignition and back her up. Lizzie, we’ve got a case to get to.” Suddenly, his demeanor changed completely. The smile that spread across his lips at the sound of his car roaring like a dragon was replaced by a thin lipped-grimace.

  It distracted me enough to start the car and ease it into first. Though the car kicked and bucked like a wild horse, I didn’t shift my attention off Mr. Marvelous. As we drove out of the alleyway, there was a pop around me as the mysterious laneway disappeared and I suddenly found myself on the pavement. “Oh, shit,” I spat as I jerked off it and join the street, swerving in front of two vampires on bikes.

  Mr. Marvelous slapped his legs with his open palms. “That’s it. I like the way you drive, kid.” He chuckled as the two vampires swore and flipped us off.

  I cringed, immediately slowing down to a respectable speed.

  When we paused at the first set of lights, I shifted my full attention back to Mr. Marvelous. “Where exactly are we going?”

  That look passed over his face again. I suddenly realized something. I swallowed. Uncomfortably. “What crimes do you deal with? I mean, you’re a PI – does that mean you just investigate people who are cheating on each other or something?”

  He shifted in his seat, bringing up a hand and scratching his chin distractedly. “We are heading to a murder.”

  I stopped. If the car hadn’t already been paused at a set of lights, I would have slammed the brakes on. “Sorry?” I said through a shuddering breath.

  He kept scratching his chin. “It’s a murder. We’re going in to help the family, do our own investigation.”

  “I’m sorry? Aren’t the police meant to do that?” my voice was shaking so badly it sounded like ticker tape in a hurricane.

  “The police, ha? Of course they’re going to investigate it. But we can investigate it, too.”

  “I’m pretty sure you can’t do that. Private investigators don’t investigate crime.”

  Mr. Marvelous sighed. “Could you keep up? I know you don’t know much about the otherworld, but even you have to know that us otherworlders have the right to hire coinvestigators.”

  “Coinvestigators?”

  “The police will do their investigation, and we’ll do ours.”

  “Why would you hire two people to do the same thing?”

  He switched his attention to me, looking at me from underneath his eyebrows, making his gaze as dark and shadowy as a gravestone cast into gloom. “Because we’ll get them the answers they really want.”

  I balked at that, switching my gaze back to the road as a massive unmarked van beeped at me wildly. I shifted off and promptly stalled. Swearing, I started the car again and inched forward.

  “You’ll have to drive faster than that. Come on, show me it wasn’t a complete mistake hiring you.”

  “You hired me to find out what Mr. Benson wants and to piss him off,” I said. It was exactly the kind of comment I would always keep to myself. Blame it on the fact I just found out I’d become a homicide detective, but my tongue was a heck of a lot looser and freer than it should be.

  Mr. Marvelous grunted. “Not as stupid as you look, are you? But those aren’t the only reasons I hired you. Believe it or not, I see something in you, kid. Something I can mold and shape until you’re exactly like me.” He grinned.

  I didn’t. I tried to sink my attention back into driving this beast in the hopes it would distract me from what would come next.

  It didn’t. Nothing could.

  Sooner rather than later, Mr. Marvelous pointed to the side of the street and told me to stop.

  I pulled up to the curb, body already a shaking, sweaty mess. My gaze jerked to the side and locked on a small apartment block. It was cordoned off with police tape, and the fell wind that had been chasing through the city streets since this morning batted it like an invisible army.

  Several strands had come completely loose and whipped through the air in a manic dance.

  By the time I scrounged the courage to open the door and pour my shaking form out onto the pavement, the wind was so wild it sounded like 1000 wolves howling into a PA system.

  Though I wanted to say Mr. Marvelous walked confidently toward the apartment block, that would be denying the exact ashen quality of his skin. His face had lost all its color, and he instantly looked at least 20 years older.

  He strode right through a section a police tape, but his body didn’t break it. It shifted through the tape as it suddenly became lines of magical light that hissed and sizzled along his pot belly.

  Me, I stopped right outside of the tape, stomach suddenly a knot of nerves and bubbling, gagging, churning fear.

  My head jerked up toward the apartment block as if someone had attached a string around the top of my neck. Beyond the tape, I could hear several hushed murmured whispers. I assumed they were police officers, but as I tipped my head from left to right, I couldn’t see anyone.

  “Who’s muttering?” I asked as I finally gathered the courage to throw myself through the tape.

  It was a truly nasty feeling to have the tape turning to magical lines of light that flickered and groped around the exposed skin of my wrists and fingers.

  Immediately, I brought my hands up and rubbed them together as I ran to catch up to Mr. Marvelous.

  “No one is muttering, kid. Now get your mind on the game. You stay right behind me, and you don’t touch anything. You don’t say anything. And if you feel the need to throw up, you hold on and you do it outside. You understand?” He flashed me a look as he threw himself up the front steps and barreled through the door. He was like a boulder gathering speed to ensure it had the momentum to roll all the way down the hill.

  I had no momentum. I was flat, and there was absolutely no chance whatsoever that I was going to get through this without throwing up and crying.

  “Hurry up,” Mr. Marvelous grumbled from inside the apartment door, his voice echoing out like a clap of thunder.

  I had no choice but to follow.

  Some humans fancied they had extrasensory abilities – a dash of clairvoyance, a touch of the ability to channel.

  Me, I’d never been one of those people. I’ve never been able to read the future, and God knows I haven’t been able to feel a spirit in some haunted house.

  So as I walked through the low archway of the apartment door, I told myself the cold shiver that instantly raced down my back and sunk deep into the base of my spine was nothing more than a reaction to the cold wind.

&nb
sp; It was not me suddenly tapping into the evil magical vibe that wound around this place like rope.

  For some reason, my teeth were chattering, jumping about in my skull and sending pulses of intense sharp pain snaking down into my neck.

  I followed Mr. Marvelous, several steps behind him. Somehow he appeared to grow the further behind I got. Hey, maybe I was shrinking, pulling into myself as I realized just how much I didn’t want to see what was inside that apartment.

  We finally reached it. The right door. It wasn’t just cordoned off with magical police tape, but there was a magical circle made of hastily scattered baking soda mixed with chalk specifically from the Isle of Wight and a handful of watercolor pigment from some cheap craft store.

  The pigment was bright and red, there to make sure nobody accidentally scuffed the edge of the magical circle with their boot.

  The chalk from the Isle of Wight was a warning sign to ghosts and other magical creatures. The baking soda was apparently to lift bloodstains.

  “Oh god, oh god, oh god,” I started to mutter to myself under my breath, so quiet it sounded like nothing more than several hasty breaths.

  The uniformed officer on duty outside the door nodded and stepped away.

  We pushed our way into the room.

  I saw several detectives hard at work. They all looked up as one, like a band of meerkats who’d just seen a distraction prance across the prairie.

  Okay, that didn’t sum up their expressions at all. As soon as they saw Mr. Marvelous, their faces hardened as if someone smeared starch over their cheeks and baked them dry.

  Though I could have melted under the combined intensity of their unwelcome stares, I found my neck tugging to the left. Before I knew what my eyes were doing, they locked on a door through a short hallway into what looked like someone’s bedroom.

  Instantly a wave of nausea struck me. I heard footfall, and soon a man walked out of the bedroom.

  Not just any man. Detective Cortez. He flicked his gaze from Mr. Marvelous to me. “Isn’t it a little early for her first case?” he asked directly as he shoved a hand into his pocket and pulled out a latex glove. He crammed it on his hand in a smooth, practiced move. The latex glove snapped with an elastic twang. Which was about the same move his lips made as he gave me what could only be termed a sour and suspicious smile.

  He still thought I’d murdered that vampire in cold blood, didn’t he? And he hadn’t exactly hidden his displeasure when I’d rejected Mr. Benson’s offer.

  Clearly, I was a monumental disappointment to Detective Cortez.

  Before I knew what I was doing, I found myself trying to hide behind Mr. Marvelous’ shadow, which was kind of hard considering we were the exact same height.

  “Never too early to begin, especially with a case like this. I take it you don’t need me to show my papers?” Mr. Marvelous challenged.

  Cortez shifted his jaw from left to right, his tongue darting forward and sliding over his teeth. “No, but you can still show me your papers,” Cortez demanded.

  Mr. Marvelous wasted no time in twanging open one of his suspenders, pushing a hand past it, and grabbing something out of whatever ethereal realm existed past that high tension spandex. It was a piece of parchment rolled up like it was some kind of scroll.

  Instantly, it caught my attention, because I saw several charges of an odd white, blue magic spark over it and discharge into the air.

  Cortez brought both feet up and planted them firmly on the floor, which was covered in deep scratches as if some wild animal had tried to dig through the wood.

  Cortez made a show of sucking in a deep breath and grounding himself, almost as if he was getting ready for a judo throw.

  Finally, he nodded at Mr. Marvelous. At the same time, Cortez gently parted open his lips and curled his tongue up to the roof of his mouth.

  What the heck was he doing?

  I got my answer as Mr. Marvelous handed over the contract and magic discharged down Cortez’s arm, over his leg, and into the floor where it harmlessly danced between the grooves and scratch marks in the wood before disappearing completely.

  Once all the magic had dissipated off the contract, Cortez dropped his tongue from the roof of his mouth and gave a shudder, stamping his feet. “Goddamn unpleasant, that. Feels like ants under your skin.”

  “I don’t really care what it feels like,” Mr. Marvelous said as he crossed his arms and locked Cortez in an unmistakably unfriendly look. “That’s a bona fides contract from Miss Susan Smith’s family. It confirms mine and my employee’s right to investigate this case alongside the police. You will hand on any evidence as you find it, not as you see fit.”

  Cortez finished scanning the contract, rolled it up carefully, and handed it back to Mr. Marvelous. “This isn’t my first rodeo, unlike some.” He flashed his gaze toward me and made no attempt to hide the dismissive judgmental look in his gaze as he looked me down from head to foot. “You ever seen a murder, Miss Luck?”

  I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Didn’t want to. Because what he just said had made this real.

  For a few seconds, I’d been distracted by Cortez and Mr. Marvelous’ interaction. I’d forgotten about the fact there was a dead body in the other room.

  There was a goddamn dead body in the other room.

  I crumpled my arms around my middle, feeling the sudden and violent urge to throw up.

  “No you don’t, not yet.” Mr. Marvelous suddenly darted beside me and locked a hand on my shoulder. “Hold it together. All we have to do is go in and go out.”

  “Why do I have to?” I began.

  Mr. Marvelous tugged me around and shoved me down the short hallway toward the room.

  The door was open a crack, a strange red glow emanating from it. I hoped like hell that wasn’t blood splashed over the lightbulb.

  Oh god, oh god, oh god. I started to shake, stumbling with every step.

  Just as we reached the door and my fear hit a crescendo, Cortez darted forward, grabbed the door, and closed it. He looked right into my face. “You don’t want to go in there, Miss Luck.”

  “She’s my employee, detective. You don’t get to dictate our access to evidence. Or do I need to remind you of the rules governing otherworldly crimes?”

  “You don’t need to remind me of any rules,” Cortez said through a clenched jaw, “But do I need to remind you that Miss Luck here was attacked by a vampire approximately seven hours ago and joined your fine establishment in the wee hours of this morning? Don’t you think this is all a little soon?” Cortez finally flashed his gaze away from me and stared Mr. Marvelous down.

  I wasn’t entirely sure if Cortez was being kind. He was probably worried that I’d turn to putty in the bedroom and throw up all over the crime scene.

  To be honest, I didn’t care. I wanted to go home. Not to Mr. Marvelous’ shop – to my flat.

  God, I wanted all of this to go away.

  I brought a hand up and crumpled it over my lips, crushing them between my fingers as I gagged into my palm.

  “Not here,” Cortez growled as he locked a hand on my shoulder and pushed me through a door to my side.

  Just as my mind began to spin and my gut spun faster, I saw a sink.

  I threw myself at it and then I promptly threw up. I wasn’t quick enough to hook all my hair behind my ears and grimaced as several strands splashed in front of my face.

  When I was done emptying the contents of my stomach, I clamped the back of my hand over my lips as if I was trying to cork my own gullet.

  I squeezed my eyes shut.

  It took me a heck of a long time to open them.

  I washed my mouth. With a shaky palm full of water, I scrubbed my fringe.

  When I turned around, Cortez was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, back pressed against the wall.

  He had exactly the kind of stony, unreadable expression you wouldn’t have if you’d just seen somebody throw up violently into a sink.

  His nose wasn’t even
creased at the smell.

  When I finally dropped the back of my hand from my mouth and tried to stand up straight, he shook his head. “You can leave anytime.”

  “I wish I could,” I admitted in a moment of weakness, “But Mr. Marvelous wants me to go through this. But I really don’t want to go into that room,” I kept spilling my heart out to Cortez, even though he was exactly the kind of judgmental asshole who would take your heart and chuck it in the trash.

  “That’s not what I mean. You can end this anytime. Go to Benson and accept his deal.”

  I actually took a bodily step back. “Aren’t you with the police?”

  Cortez gave a low, barely amused chuckle. He gestured to himself and then pointed a thumb behind him down the bustling hallway. “Yes, I’m with the police. What’s your point?”

  “That you shouldn’t be pressuring random citizens into signing away their souls to vampire kings.”

  Cortez now openly chuckled, his large shoulders pressing back and forth against his tight white shirt. “Vampire king? Benson is no king.”

  “You know what I mean.” This conversation, and how wrong it was, was the only thing that could make me forget that I’d just thrown up in front of this guy.

  “Sure, Benson is powerful, but you need powerful right now. I don’t know if you remember, but you killed a vampire last night. There’s only one reason the other vampires in the city aren’t going after you in retribution. And that’s Benson. Mr. Marvelous may be able to offer you $11 an hour and a dingy room in his dingy shop, but that isn’t going to be able to keep you safe forever.”

  “Listen to yourself,” I spat in exasperation, “You’re meant to be an officer of the law. And I did not murder a man last night. He attacked me. He was going to kill me.”

  “Self-defense is still a kind of murder, just watered down,” Cortez shot right back. “If you hadn’t been so lazy and negligent, and you’d tried to find out what race you belong to earlier, that guy wouldn’t have had to die.”

  I staggered back, hip bumping the sink as I stared at Cortez in disbelief. “I had no idea my blood would do that to the vampire. You know what, Mr. Cortez?” I pressed my teeth together and spat my words through them, “That doesn’t make this manslaughter. It makes it an accident.”

  Cortez snorted again. He hadn’t moved from the doorway, and he crossed his arms around his middle, his forearms bulging over his rolled up sleeves. “You a lawyer now as well as incompetent, green-eared private eye?”

  “No, I’m not a lawyer. And you know what? Neither are you. You’re a bully. You know full well I didn’t kill that man. Mr. Marvelous is right, isn’t he? You are Benson’s lapdog.”

  Cortez bristled. He also unhooked his arms from around his middle, one suddenly clenched fist banging hard into the door frame. “I wouldn’t talk about stuff you don’t understand. This world that doesn’t abide ignorance and innocence. If I were you, I’d walk right out that door,” he punched a stiff finger in the direction of the front of the apartment, “And drive yourself to Benson before it’s too late.”

  “And if I were you,” I said through clenched teeth, “I’d get the hell out of my way.” I stalked past him.

  He barely shifted from the doorway, and our arms brushed up against one another.

  I didn’t feel a prickle of warmth or even a tight scattering of nerves twisting through my gut at being so close to such a handsome man.

  I felt nothing, because he was a creep. How dare he judge me. How dare he pretend I knowingly killed that vampire. And how dare he try to push me into the arms of Benson.

  That – the anger curling through my gut – was the only thing that allowed me to walk the short distance toward the bedroom.

  With only the slightest moment of indecision, I pushed out a hand, spread my fingers over the wood, and shoved the door out of the way.

  I walked into a murder scene.

  … And I didn’t see a dead body.

  I don’t know what I was expecting. A scene like out of those grisly TV shows you get so much these days. A body on the bed, surrounded by bloodied sheets. Maybe something written across the wall. Maybe a knife buried in the floorboards.

  But there was nothing. At least nothing ordinary.

  The second I entered the room was the second my jaw locked together. It was as if somebody reached into my skull, clutched hold of the bone, and soldered it in place.

  My skin started to crawl, the sensation so exquisitely acute, it felt like my dermis had come to life and was wriggling and writhing about like a snake trying to escape its own skin.

  Mr. Marvelous was over by the window, frowning at something etched into the chipped wood.

  There was another detective knee deep in a pile of messy clothes by the open walk-in wardrobe.

  And Cortez was right behind me.

  Yet somehow… somehow I felt like I was completely alone.

  In that moment, it was as if the floor gave way, the ceiling, too, and the walls… the walls pressed in. I felt like I was falling through some enormous tunnel on a direct path down to Hell.

  I saw it first. Right out of the corner of my vision. A spark like someone hitting a flint in the deepest cave.

  I jerked my head to the side just as the strangest sensation roared through my stomach and charged hard into my heart.

  Before I knew what I was doing, I staggered over to the wall. The plain white wall.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” Cortez said right from my side as he reached up a hand and locked it on my shoulder.

  Before he could jerk me back, I pushed a hand forward, expecting to feel the rough plaster of the wall.

  Except I didn’t.

  My fingers pushed right through it. The wall suddenly became liquid. The white, chipped plaster rippling around my fingernails and oozing up the creases in my skin.

  I screamed at the horrid sensation and staggered back.

  “What the hell?” Cortez snapped. “It’s a fake wall! Christ, how did we miss that?” Cortez and the other detective rudely shoved me out of the way, and Mr. Marvelous was hot on their heels.

  As all three men faced the wall and inspected it, Cortez jerked his head to the side and snarled through the open door. “Get Charles in here.”

  “No time for your on-call warlock,” Mr. Marvelous snapped as he shoved a hand past his suspenders and drew something out.

  I was in such a daze, but I knew what it was. A sacred dagger with a triple insulated sheath. It was used to break magical spells.

  Wiping his thumb over his top lip to dislodge the sweat, Mr. Marvelous shoved forward, gripped the dagger hard in his right hand, and stabbed the wall.

  Instantly the shining silver runes carved along the tip of the blade sank through the rippling plaster. Sparks started to charge out in every direction, and I yelped as several struck my hand and burnt my skin.

  I staggered back, knees catching the side of the bed. I fell on it before I knew what was happening.

  Then… then the wall crumbled. It was like it suddenly aged on fast forward, becoming dust in seconds.

  As it did, the room changed. The pile of crumpled clothes the other detective had been searching through by the wardrobe turned into lengths of hair. And the paint Mr. Marvelous had been looking at by the windowsill turned out to be dried flecks of blood.

  And the bed – the bed—

  I tipped my head to the side and saw a pale gray hand right beside me.

  I shrieked, screaming so loudly I could have taken down the ceiling.

  I jerked up, scrabbling so wildly, I tripped.

  Cortez lurched forward and caught me, swinging me to the side as he took a bodily step away from the bed.

  I saw it out of the corner of my eye. The dead woman amongst the sheets.

  There was no blood. Nothing smeared across the bed. Just a body. A dead body.

  Cortez held onto me for a little longer than was necessary, but then straightened up, locked an arm around my shoulders, and bo
dily walked me toward the door.

  Cortez turned to me. “Go into the main room and ask for Charles,” he said in a low even tone as if he was just asking me for a cup of coffee.

  There was something about the tone that soothed my mind. Something so normal about it, so every day, so not a dead body on the bed.

  I don’t know how, but I staggered forward, made my way through the short corridor, and announced to the detectives in the main room that Charles was needed.

  Then I walked outside.

  I couldn’t stop my jerking limbs. I didn’t pause until I reached the beast.

  It opened its door for me, and I staggered inside. Crumpling my arms over the steering wheel and burying my head against the steering stack, I began to cry. Slow and then hard. Slow and then hard.

  My tears came in violent waves only to peter out into dry sobs.

  I’d just seen a dead body. And worse, I’d found it.

  …

  Detective Enrico Cortez

  “You told me to call if I saw anything,” Cortez said before Benson had a chance to say hello.

  There was a pause. “You’re talking about Miss Luck, aren’t you?”

  “I sure am,” Cortez kept his voice low as he walked slowly down the corridor outside of the apartment. “She found a dead body.”

  Benson paused, a real long conspicuous pause. Long enough and quiet enough that Cortez could hear the rattling plumbing in this old dilapidated building, even the low pressured hum of voices coming from the apartments that bordered either side of Susan Smith’s.

  “She seemed to know there was some kind of wall spell on the room. Found it even though my best warlock had gone over that room with a fine tooth spell comb.”

  “I see,” Benson finally reacted. “Did you sense any magic off her?”

  Cortez stopped as he thought. The only thing he sensed off Elizabeth Luck was sheer stupidity. She reminded him exactly of a doe-eyed deer standing in the center of the road as a car barreled down onto it. She had time to duck to the side, plenty of time to get out of the way. But God knows she was too stupid to try.

  He shook his head. “Nothing. It was like she just found it by accident.”

  “That’s two serious accidents for Miss Luck in one night. Keep an eye on her,” Benson said in a low, strict tone.

  Maybe Cortez should have reacted to the exact note of authority in that tone. After all, Benson wasn’t his boss.

  But Cortez didn’t react. He knew full well what was at stake. This city needed men like Benson. Without them, the humans – the very people who thought they were in control – would find out real quick what happened when you messed with the otherworld.

  “Keep me appraised of the details of your case. As much as you legally can,” Benson added.

  “I was going to call you about that, anyway. From our preliminary investigation, it seems this murder was done at the hands of a vampire. Or vampires.”

  Benson paused again. It was almost an electric pause.

  Cortez wasn’t magical, but he’d been around enough of their kind to have a sixth sense for it. If Benson had been in the room right now, he would get that locked look he sometimes got. That look that reminded you he was as old and just as hard as a chiseled chunk of marble. “Are you sure it was vampires?”

  “We’re pretty sure. I thought you said you were keeping your clan under control?” It wasn’t exactly Cortez’s place to admonish Benson. But their relationship was good enough that Cortez was sure he wouldn’t wake up to a horse’s head between his sheets or a fatal case of sudden blood loss.

  “While I speak for the majority of Hope City’s vampires, I don’t speak for them all.” Benson’s tone dropped and rang so low the cellphone receiver couldn’t pick it up, and it crackled like a pig thrown on a fire. “Suffice to say, several new clans have moved in of late, and I’m having a certain amount of trouble pulling them into line.”

  “Pulling them into line?” Cortez let his tone remain flat and neutral. “I’ve got a dead body in the apartment behind me, Benson. She’s not just been sucked dry – there’s Aramaic text written on her back in three-dollar marker. Don’t tell me that’s just a cheap alternative to a tattoo and not some warning from your vampires.”

  There was a long pause. “Send me photos. I want to know what that text says.”

  Cortez could have taken umbrage at his tone, but didn’t. He opened his mouth to say something more, but that was when he saw her. Elizabeth Luck. She finally managed to drag herself back into the building. Her skin was about as colorful as powdered chalk, and she was loping along in an uncomfortable, almost staggering walk, as if she’d been struck several times over the head. And hey, in a way, she had. Your first magical crime scene was never easy, especially when that crime scene was a vampire murder.

  She looked right at him, and though she appeared barely capable of sustaining the energy to walk, she managed to scrunch her plain features into half a scowl.

  Yeah, the feeling was mutual. She had absolutely no place being here, and though there’d been a time when Cortez had suffered fools, it wasn’t anymore. You see, the cost of innocence in this world was death. If Elizabeth was too stupid to appreciate Benson was her only ticket to safety, there wasn’t a goddamn tear Cortez was gonna cry for her when she wound up just like Susan Smith.

  Deciding it wasn’t a great idea to stay on the line with Benson, Cortez reluctantly wrapped up the call. “Yes, sir, of course. I’ll get this to you right away.” He cleared his throat.

  Benson appeared to get the picture. “If there are any developments in the case, or with Miss Luck, inform me.”

  “I will do, sir.” With that, Cortez hung up and slipped the phone into his pocket.

  Then he ticked his head back and unashamedly stared at her. “You’re better off back in your car. There’s nothing you can do here.”

  She gave him a muddled, confused, and thoroughly sick look. In fact, her skin was so pale he feared she would throw up again.

  He pointed firmly back the way she’d come. “You want a second helping, go outside and do it on the grass.”

  She sneered at him.

  He hadn’t known her long, but it seemed like an uncharacteristic move. Lizzie Luck was like a lost and scared mouse in every single way, but now that lost and scared mouse was baring its teeth. “Tell me, Detective Cortez, are you like this to all victims? Or only the victims of vampires?”

  Goddamn, wasn’t that a left hook? He felt himself bristling. “Excuse me?” he let his words push out in single file, like warning shots across a ship’s bow.

  She sniffed and still looked as sick as a dog, but didn’t soften the hard angle to her jaw. “I thought the police were meant to care for every citizen of Hope City, regardless of what race they come from? I told you once, and I’m not going to tell you again: I didn’t kill that vampire. He died because he tried to kill me. Now I’m sorry I didn’t wind up as a dead body in your morgue. Is that what you would have preferred, Detective Cortez? Another single white female winds up dead in an alleyway sucked dry by a vampire. The vampire gets off with a slap on the wrist and a ticket to go to rehab.”

  “I wouldn’t talk about things you don’t understand,” Cortez snapped.

  “Who’s talking about things they don’t understand?” somebody said.

  “Mr. Marvelous.” Cortez turned, every muscle in his face stiffening as if he expected to be knocked out.

  But Mr. Marvelous never came right out and punched you on the jaw. Marvelous was the equivalent of a plague of locusts – he’d just descend on your otherwise neat and tidy case and pick it apart until all you had left were pissed off witnesses and an apoplectic chief.

  Mr. Marvelous walked past Cortez and stopped by Elizabeth’s elbow. “Is Mr. Cortez talking about things he doesn’t understand again? Tsk tsk,” Marvelous said as he rolled his sleeves up. It was a perpetual move for the man. You never saw the guy without his pudgy fingers rolling back his overly large sleeves.
“But now, now – if Mr. Cortez isn’t allowed to talk about things he doesn’t understand, he won’t be allowed to talk at all.”

  Cortez let out a frustrated chuckle, and half shook his head. Then he ensured an extremely stony expression flattened his features. “You done with the crime scene, Marvelous?”

  “For now.” Marvelous nodded. “I’ll leave you to write up the official report, and I’m sure you’ll tell the relevant people that it was one of my employees who found the body, won’t you, Cortez? Or have you already done that?”

  It was obviously a leading question, and Cortez couldn’t help but stiffen.

  It caught Elizabeth’s attention, and confusion crumpled her brow. “Ah, what does that mean?”

  “Never mind, employee,” Marvelous said as he stretched out a hand and tapped Elizabeth on the shoulder.

  Though the move wasn’t meant to be hard, she crumbled.

  Fair enough. It had been one hell of a long night for her. A night that would never end. For now, she worked for Mr. Marvelous, her life was going to be anything but marvelous.

  Cortez didn’t care, nor did he bother to nod at either of them as he turned hard on his foot. “I shouldn’t need to remind you,” he began as he walked away from them, “That this goes both ways. As soon as either of you finds any evidence, you share it with me. No matter how small, no matter how irrelevant. You got that?” He locked a hand on the wall and turned over his shoulder, staring, not at Mr. Marvelous, but right at Elizabeth.

  At first, she looked flustered, like a goldfish plucked out of its tiny bowl and thrown in the Atlantic. Then she hardened her jaw, flicked out her hair, and turned.

  Maybe she thought she looked defiant, but maybe she couldn’t see the exact sickly hue her cheeks had turned, how dark the circles were under her eyes, how lost she looked.

  He couldn’t resist tipping his head toward her. “Good night, Miss Luck, and good luck.”

  She snorted. He smiled.

  …

  William Benson III

  This news was unsettling. When the Petrova clan had moved into Hope City, William had no idea they’d bring trouble like this. He hadn’t expected another soul murder.

  As Benson sat there in his seat, he brought up the metal pen from his pocket and placed it against his lips. He brought it forward and tapped it back in a rhythmic pulse as if he was striking a drum.

  His office was on the penthouse floor of his largest tower in town. It had an unrivaled view. One that swept over the city toward the bay beyond.

  The city was just waking up, a mellow, gloomy dawn paring back the night.

  He could use his extended senses to see the pedestrians walking through the winding city streets and the cars rushing from stop to stop.

  Tracking his gaze up, he locked it on the dark gray, overcast sky.

  He let those menacing clouds steal his attention away for several seconds until he turned back to his desk.

  He placed his pen carefully down on the polished wood. He pulled forward a manila folder full of notes. Rather than use the pen beside him, he stretched over and plucked one from the polished malachite inkwell to his left. He only used the pen from his pocket for two things: signing contracts and breaking them.

  It had a compulsion spell inside, woven through every bond of the gold and platinum atoms. The ink itself had been sourced from an Egyptian tomb reputed to be over 3000 years old. It gave anything signed with the pen inescapable import that could not be ignored. It was the kind of pen used to sign away your life or sign for it.

  With that image, his thoughts naturally returned to Miss Elizabeth Luck. In many ways, she was nothing more than a curious distraction. There were, after all, many races whose blood could kill a vampire, but not as thoroughly and not as completely as hers had. Most vampires would be able to smell an incompatible host. It was the same as mosquitoes – if you had blood that was not to their liking, they wouldn’t bother biting you.

  So that left two options. The vampire who’d bitten Elizabeth had been too whacked out on drugs to be discerning, or Elizabeth Luck was something curious.

  Benson liked curiosities. He’d been alive for countless centuries now, and curiosities, in many ways, were the only things that kept him alive. He’d seen almost everything else before – from wars, to the fall of great countries, to the ordinary tragedies of everyday man.

  Taking a cursory glance through the file before him, he soon grew bored, closed it, and pushed it aside. Then he reached down and opened the last drawer on his massive cherry wood desk. The desk itself belonged to one of the founding fathers and was over 250 years old. It too had import. It was the kind of desk that had held many secrets. And a desk that had held many secrets knew how to keep holding them.

  He plucked up a yellow lined pad of legal paper and began to write.

  Killed a vampire, found a dead body.

  At the top, he wrote Elizabeth Mary Luck. Then he underlined her name, ticked his head to the side, and smiled.

  Bringing the pen up, he began to tap his lips once more.