Biting Nixie (6 page)

A rumble came from Bo's throat. Low and menacing, almost inhuman. “This is
my
territory.”

“This
was
your territory.” The suit shrugged. “Not anymore.”

“You have no right to be here.”

“We have every right. Why should we pay for what we need—when we can just take it?” The man's eyes floated disconcertingly over me. I felt my heart beating hard in my throat. “In fact, maybe we should take it
now
.”

“That,” said a cultured voice, “would be particularly ill-considered.”

I whipped around. Julian Emerson strode from the darkness, his face a bland mask of urbanity. He wore his usual suit but at least he'd had the sense to throw a coat on over it. A very nice black cashmere coat. I followed him with my eyes as he took a stand next to Bo.

Oddly, the spokesman flinched. “You can't stop us.” He didn't sound nearly as confident. “There are five of us. Only two of you.”

My spine snapped straight. “Four of us.”

That dropped into the tension like a splatting bird-bomb. Bo frowned. Julian scowled. Even Elena looked a little shocked.

The gang leader
laughed
. I clenched my fists. How dare he? I was small, but trained. In the right place, my fists were as lethal as the next guy's. I stalked forward.

Only to run into Julian's arm barring my way. “Let us handle this.”

Wasn't that just typical? “Oh, yeah. Us
men
?” I spat.

Startled blue eyes met mine for an instant. “Not at all.” His gaze whipped back to the gang confronting us. “This has nothing to do with gender.”

Elena sidled up to me. “Do as he says,” she murmured. “There's more going on here than you know.”

“Numbers don't matter, Cutter,” Julian said to the gang's spokesman. “And you can tell that to your bosses.”

“Numbers
do
matter, when it's a hundred to one.” The man called Cutter bared his teeth at Julian and Bo. His canines were strangely pronounced. “Or a
thousand
to one.”

“Not when the
one
is very old. And very powerful.” Julian seemed to swell in front of me, growing taller and broader before my very eyes.

An optical illusion. It had to be. Because of the dim light. Six-foot-something of male could
not
grow half a foot.

But the men facing us fell back. Cutter steeled himself. “Even an Ancient would fall beneath a
thousand
.”

“An ancient what?” I asked, but no one answered me.

“Would you like to test that theory?” Julian asked. And he pumped up again, so big I knew it was no illusion.

Then, in front of my shocked eyes, his hands…his strong, square hands…grew. Lengthened. Sharpened.

Became something like claws.

Julian surged forward. He moved impossibly fast, was on the gang before I could blink. As Cutter quailed before him, Julian slashed violently downward with those claw-like hands. Blood sprayed.

I screamed. My voice stuck in my throat.

Cutter howled, flailed with both fists. Julian slid just out of reach. Almost casually, he reached into his cashmere coat, swept something out. Something that doubled in length with a
ka-chick
. Something that looked like a really big knife…or a sword. It glinted in the moonlight like it was very sharp.

Silver flashed. Cutter fell to the sidewalk with a sick
whump
. The rest of the gang cowered in the shadows of the broken streetlamp.

“Take this back to your keepers.” Flicking the blade shut, Julian bent elegantly. He scooped something up and held it out to them.

It looked like a head.

“Tell the Coterie that Meiers Corners is off limits. That it will
not
be annexed to Chicago, not in
any
way.
Ever
.” Julian lobbed the thing toward the gang. The other suit caught it, bobbled it like a hot potato.

Julian's cultured voice roughened. Almost growling, he said, “Now
go
.”

The gang ran.

“Showy.” Bo sauntered over to where Julian stood, fist clenching.

Julian's hands appeared normal now, and I wondered at the trick of the light that had made me see claws.

“I did not intend to be quite so…theatrical.” Julian's cultured voice was still rough.

“You can take the man out of the performer, Emerson, but—” Bo laughed. “Take the man out, get it?”

“You have a juvenile sense of humor, Strongwell. Get Elena and Nixie out of here. I'll clean up.” Julian jerked a hand toward where Elena and I stood.

I didn't want to go. I wanted to figure out what the hell had just happened. And find out if Julian had been hurt.

And comfort him if he had.

All right, probably a bad idea. But the body—the possibly headless body—of the gang leader looked big and fierce on the ground. Julian was a
lawyer
. A desk jockey. For whatever insane reason, I had to know if he was okay. “Emerson?” I reached out to touch him. “Julian?”

Julian turned so I couldn't see his face. “Go with Strongwell, Nixie. You'll be safe with him.”

“But what about you?”

“
Go
.” His voice was strange, hollow. And though I don't follow
anyone's
orders, I found my feet moving.

I had gone half a block before I realized what I was doing. “The fuck!” I dug in my heels and spun.

Julian and the body were gone.

Chapter Five

“So all I have to do is pick some pretty women and have them to dress up in bikinis?” Detective Dirk Ruffles's muddy eyes brightened. “And pick some judges? That sounds easy. Not nearly as hard as being a detective. I know who I'll ask to judge. I bet my uncle'd do it. He likes pretty women, almost as much as I do. I bet he'd say yes. My uncle, and maybe Captain Titus. Or maybe not Captain Titus since Elena found out he's a pimp, which means he's manager to a group of prostitutes—”

“Dirk! Heel!” Elena snapped her fingers in front of her partner's face, stopping the inexhaustible flow.

For about two seconds. Or maybe Dirk was just taking a breath before launching back in. “I was just saying, Detective Ma'am. My uncle the Chief of Police would be good as a judge.”

I stepped in. “Your uncle would be great, Dirk. And the women are already expecting the swimsuit competition. All you need to do is, er, well—” All he needed to do was
nothing
. But I didn't want to come out and say it.

“But I get to pick some pretty women, right?”

“Um, no. Actually, all the pre-competition stuff is taken care of.” By my good, efficient friend Twyla Tafel. “You don't have to pick the women. They're already signed up.”

“But Nixie, I've got an idea!”

Uh-oh. Dirk with an idea was as dangerous as a monkey with a gun.

Now that I thought about it, Dirk sort of looked like a monkey, too. Skinny, with a potbelly. Like an orangutan—well, maybe not an orangutan, because they were apes, not monkeys. Like a chimpanzee…no, wait, those were apes, too. Like a macaque! Yes, those were monkeys. Except, no…no, he really didn't look like a macaque.

No, Dirk Ruffles looked like Tarzan's chimp, Cheetah, in a bright yellow fedora. On anyone else the hat would have looked all Humphrey Bogart. It made Dirk look like a duck.

Actually, when he spoke, Dirklet reminded me of Huey, Dewey, and Louie, too.

Elena flashed me a sympathetic look. “What's your idea, Dirk?”

“That you'd be a perfect contestant, Detective Ma'am!” Dirk grinned like an idiot. “You'd look great in a bikini, Detective Ma'am! Like a Bond girl. In a bikini with a gun belt strapped across your hips!”

Bo, leaning against the wall, straightened suddenly.
Growled
.

Dirk was either deaf or just plain
baka
. Despite the obvious imminent danger, he continued blithely on. “What a great draw! My uncle would love it!”

Elena put a hand on Dirk's shoulder, keeping a wary eye on her husband. “Maybe that's not such a good idea, Dirk. Um, think of how it would reflect on the department. Captain Titus probably wouldn't like it.” She kept her tone mild and reasonable, like speaking to a child. Elena once told me crowd control of a thousand drug-freaked groupies at a rock concert was easier than keeping Dirk in line.

I sympathized. I'd gone to school with the Dirkenator. He'd been clueless then, and maturity hadn't been any kinder to his brain cells.

Under it all, Bo continued to growl.

“You know who else would be good?” Dirk continued happily on. “The Widow Schrimpf. The one you said looked like Lady Godiva? I don't know what chocolate has to do with it, but the Widow Schrimpf sure looks good in a bikini. I think a lot of guys would like looking at her. Even though she's gay. But the guys wouldn't know. And it's just looking. Not like fondling or anything.”

“Just looking,” Elena repeated soothingly to Bo.

“Not like fondling,” I added helpfully.

The growling deepened.

Dirk ignored it. “But you, Detective Ma'am. In a bikini with guns…yum, yum.”

Elena shot an alarmed look at her husband. Bo was normally the most placid of men. But at the
yum yum
he bared his teeth. And his eyes had gone that peculiar shade of bright violet that meant he was extremely pissed.

“Dirk!” I rushed between Bo and the clueless wonder. “I've been thinking. Elena is right. Your Captain Tight-ass…um, Titus, wouldn't want the department to call attention to itself in such a, well, commercial way.”

Dirk, mouth still moving, blinked. “Oh. Maybe.”

“No maybe about it.” I saw Bo start to relax out of the corner of my eye. “So instead of you, I think Bo should run the beauty contest.”

Bo snapped upright. “What?!”

“No way.” Elena gave me
such
a look.

Dirk clapped his hands. “Mr. Strongwell, you'd be perfect. You know all the pretty ladies in town. Elena, Diana Prince, Drusilla—”

Now Elena started growling.

The fact that the Dirkenator endorsed the idea should have warned me. But considering the alternative, I really had no choice. “It's easy, Bo. Contestant applications are already at local stores. Twyla Tafel is keeping track. All you have to do is pick judges. Almost a figurehead, really.” I heard my voice drop into pleading.

“You've got to be kidding.” Bo gave me a long, dark look. I thought his eyes were going to drill out the back of my head.

I whimpered. “But Elena can help you.”

“And it's for a good cause,” Dirk chimed in.

Bo's frown slewed to his wife and turned thoughtful. “Maybe…maybe it wouldn't be so bad.”

“Not so bad?” Elena shrieked. “Not so
bad
?” She stared at Bo like his brains had dribbled out his ears. “
Not so bad
?” She couldn't seem to think of anything else to say.

“Well, that's settled then.” I used my brightest third-grade-teacher voice. “Bo will run the beauty pageant. And Elena will help.”

Elena turned her stare on me. She didn't
say
a thing, but was obviously
thinking
words too blistering to speak. Either way, now was the time to get out. While I still could.

Dirk's muddy rasp stopped me. “But what can I chair, Nixie?”

Bo blinked at Ruffles, then sliced me a grouchy look. “Yes, oh great Fearless Leader. What do you have for Detective Ruffles to do?” Just a touch maliciously he added, “Maybe he should help
you
with planning.”

“No!” I shouted. Dirk looked hurt. “I mean…Detective Ruffles can be far more helpful running…the Sheepshead Tournament.” Which practically ran itself. Hopefully.

“I don't know,” Dirk said. “Gambling. Captain Titus wouldn't like that either. Even though he's a pimp.”

“And Buddy at Nieman's Bar is already in charge of the sheepshead competition,” Elena said, perversely helpful.

“Yeah,
thanks
. I forgot about that.” I thought furiously hard. What could the Dirkenator do? The opening VIP reception? No, he'd bore any potential donors to death. What, then? Not the beer tent. Not the corn 'n wienie roast. Definitely not the kiddie games—that was just a lawsuit waiting to happen. I couldn't think of a damned thing.

I felt frustrated. Not only because I couldn't think of anything that would keep Ruffles happy, yet out of the way.

I was also frustrated because of Elena's and Bo's crabby faces. Because I didn't like how I was behaving. I didn't like cornering friends into running stupid contests. It would serve the mayor right if I just quit. Just because he'd known me since diapers…just because he'd offered my band the break of a lifetime…I didn't
ask
to run this foozley extravaganza. I especially did not ask to corner friends to run an extravaganza to pay for an overpriced, overrated, snooty
lawyer
.

As if the thought brought him, the office door clicked open. Julian Emerson strode in, all graceful power and authority. His cool eyes flicked over the room. Disdain curled in that arrogant gaze. The mighty big-city attorney looking down on our tiny cop shop. Stupid Boston blue-blood. The fact that Julian exuded waves of barely contained sex appeal only made it worse.

All my frustration and self-disgust channeled itself instantly at Julian. It burst through my system as a big, bad mad. “WTF are you doing here, Emerson?”

“I'm here to walk you home.” So cool. So confident. So fucking sensual.

My jaw kicked up. “You going to carry my books, too? And I'm
not
going
home
.”

He kept coming. Didn't stop until he was standing practically on top of me. He was so close I could have put my nose between his impressively huge pecs. Wickedly, I thought about the smudge of makeup I'd leave on his old school tie.