Harvest Hunting (44 page)

Chase led me straight to his office rather than to the morgue. A good sign, I thought. Straight to the morgue was
bad
. Straight to the morgue meant immediate danger, and right now, I wasn’t in the mood for trouble.

But as I took a seat opposite his desk, I happened to catch a glimpse of the photographs spilling out of a file on his desk. They didn’t look promising. In fact, they looked downright ghastly.

“That’s your trouble, I take it?” I nodded to the pictures.

“Yes, and one I wish you’d take as far away from me as you could.” He let out a sigh. “I don’t know what to make of it. If it looked like straight vampire killings, I’d at least know what I was dealing with. But there’s something else going on.” He motioned for me to scoot my chair closer, and laid out the photos in a line for me to look at.

There were four women pictured, each with obvious puncture wounds in her neck. Vampire activity, all right.

“Looks pretty straightforward to me,” I said.

“Yeah, you would think so, wouldn’t you? But look again at the women. Look closely. Notice anything odd?” He frowned and leaned back in his chair, crossing his left leg over his right and interlacing his fingers. “I really want your honest opinion because I want to make sure I’m not just barking up a tree that doesn’t exist.”

I studied the photographs. Women, all pretty, all somewhere in their thirties, looked to be. All . . . Wait a minute.
Pattern.
There was a pattern.

“They all have long brown hair, layered. They all have brown eyes, and they all seem to be around a hundred thirty pounds. How tall were they?”

“All between five-six and five-nine. So you see it, too?”

“Yeah. Was there any connection between them? Any similarity to their deaths?” A nasty thought was forming in my head, and I had the feeling Chase had already come to the same conclusion.

“Well, obviously they were all exsanguinated, and they were all killed at night. Puncture wounds on the throat, though there’s no way to prove for sure that they were killed by a vampire. All the women were murdered within a five-mile radius, and all four were hookers.” He frowned. “I’m thinking we have a vampire serial killer. If it wasn’t for the fact that all the girls look alike, I’d just chalk it up to vampire attack, but they look
so much alike
, they could be related.”

I stared at the pictures. Chase was right. They did look like sisters. And even though he couldn’t make the official call, I knew in my gut that it was a vampire—most likely singular—attacking the women.

“Do you have their bodies, still? I can probably verify vamp attack, seeing that I am one, but I’d need to look at their wounds.”

Damn, damn, damn. If it was a vampire serial killer, we had big trouble. Ever since Delilah decked him near Samhain, Andy Gambit—star reporter for the
Seattle Tattler
, a yellow tabloid that fed on the fears and titillation of Seattle residents—had been on a tear, doing his best to smear Fae and Supes of all kinds. He’d done such an effective smear job on Nerissa that she’d lost the race for city council, even though she’d started out with a decent margin and all signs pointed to victory. If word of a vampire serial killer got out, we’d be pouring gasoline on the fire.

Chase led me to the elevator. “So, are you guys ready for Yule yet?”

I grinned. “More or less. Delilah hasn’t tipped over the tree yet, but then, we anchored it to the ceiling first thing. Camille and Iris have the house looking like a winter wonderland. All we need is snow for it to feel like the holidays.”

“Does Otherworld get much snow?” he asked, holding the door open for me.

I swung in behind him. “Depends on where you’re at. Y’Elestrial—yes, we get quite a bit of snow there . . .” I fell silent, biting my lip. Our home city was now sacrosanct and off limits to Camille. And to us, too. “I miss it. The city is beautiful, but now I wonder if we’ll ever see it again.”

“Queen Tanaquar and your father still won’t relent?” He looked uncertain, like he thought he should pat me on the shoulder or something.

Shrugging, I shook my head. “When Delilah and I demanded they allow Camille to return to her full status, they told us we had two choices: abide by their decree or suffer the same fate ourselves. So we all went to work for Queen Asteria instead, and the OIA is history. At least for us. At least for now.”

“They aren’t talking to me, either,” he said. “Ever since your civil war, it’s like they’ve decided that we don’t need to be kept in the loop.”

“Join the club. Father tried to guilt trip us like crazy, but Delilah and I shut him out. He hasn’t been by our sides, up to his elbows in demon blood, wondering if Shadow Wing is coming through next. He doesn’t know how fucking hard Camille’s worked, nor the decisions she’s had to make. How could Delilah and I stand by and just watch them throw her away?”

Chase nodded. “I get it. I really do. And I admire the choice you made. You three—no matter what, no one will ever come between you guys.”

He looked wistful, and I wondered if he missed Delilah. He was actually at our house more often now that they’d broken up, and he seemed far more relaxed and happy. So did Delilah, even though she was still finding her way with Shade, the half-dragon, half-Stradolan. A part of the Autumn Lord’s world, Shade had walked into her life and they were slowly building what looked like it could be the love match of the century. I’d never seen Delilah’s heart so free and easy.

“You okay, Johnson?” I tapped him on the arm.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “And just in case you’re wondering, no—I’m not pining over Delilah.
I’m
the one who decided I couldn’t handle a relationship. And frankly, it’s a good thing. My moods are swinging like crazy now that my powers are opening up. I’m happy one moment, pissed the next. Not good boyfriend material. Sharah’s found someone in town who’s going to help me learn how to channel the energy.”

“Good, because unbridled psychic energy is dangerous for all concerned.” I stopped him as we stepped out of the elevator. “Truth time.”

“What?” His dark eyes glistened and I resisted the impulse to reach up and brush back an unruly cowlick—it was so out of place on his perfectly coiffed head that it distracted me.

“Are you sure you’re okay with my sister seeing someone else? Because if you have any thoughts of a reunion later, you’d better say something now. She’s falling, Chase. She’s falling for Shade like I’ve never seen her fall before.” I had no intention of letting him put her on the spot later, forcing her to make a choice she thought she’d already made.

He gazed at me, his eyes limpid, his expression torn. Then, slowly, he asked, “She really loves this guy?”

“I think he’s
the one
, Chase.”

“Then I’ll remain her blood brother, and I won’t interfere. Because I honestly don’t know what the hell’s going to happen in my life.” He paused. “Can I ask
you
something now?”

So relieved by his reply that I would have granted almost any favor, I nodded. “Ask away.”

“Do you think someone like Sharah might ever see me in anything but an official capacity?” He sounded hesitant, almost embarrassed to be asking.

I knew full well that Sharah was in love with the detective, but that was her place to answer, not mine. I gave Chase a soft smile. “Listen, you’re a catch. You’ve had your share of screw-ups but, Johnson, you’re okay, and I think you’re going to make somebody happy someday. Could someone like Sharah could be interested in you? I don’t see why not.”

He thought for a moment, then nodded and led the way to the morgue. “We’ve kept the bodies. The families—of the two bodies we’ve been able to identify—know they’ve been murdered, but we’ve been vague on the hows and whys. I’ve got to tell them something soon, though, and release the bodies to them.”

I stared at the brilliant white walls of the morgue, the shimmering stainless steel of the sinks and tables. This was my domain—the domain of the dead. Had Dredge not brought me back to life, I’d have walked the hallowed halls, crossing over to the Land of the Silver Falls.

Every time I came face-to-face with mortality, I remembered my own immortality and once again had to face the fact that I was a predator. A creature who belonged in the shadows. Never again would I walk under the sun, not until the day I was ready to give it all up and go home to my ancestors. Until then, there was only the moon for me.

Four bodies were laid out on tables, covered with white sheets. Spotless sheets, like freshly fallen snow against a barren background.

“I take it you’ve watched them for any signs of rising?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Nothing. I think they’re truly dead.”

I approached the first one and pulled back the sheet. She was unearthly in her silence, in her stillness. Like a statue, or a figure frozen in ice, she lay there, pale from the lack of blood. I leaned down and examined the puncture wounds on her neck.
Vampire.
I could feel him.
Smell
him. The vamp who killed this woman was male and fairly young. That much I could tell. Quickly, I checked the other bodies, startled by the similarity of their looks. They could have been sisters.

In a way they are,
I thought.
Sisters in death.
They were killed by the same vampire. I could smell him on them, his breath, his scent, his . . .

Oh crap.
I jumped back, trembling. Very little set me off but this—this did. It was too familiar, still too stark in a memory that I’d never, ever shake.

“Did you check to see if they were raped?”

Chase looked at me, his expression slipping from neutral to pained. “Yeah, we did. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to tell you. I know what that does to you.”

“They were, right? You wouldn’t find semen, but they were torn and bruised. I can smell it. I can smell the bloodlust . . . not just around the puncture marks.” Feeling the room spin, my fangs came down and I began to panic. I had to get out of there. “Chase, I have to get up to the surface. Now.”

“Come on.” He guided me out but wisely didn’t touch me.

When we came to the elevator, I held out my hand. “You’d better not ride up with me. I’ll meet you out front.”

He didn’t question, just stood back, letting me board the car without him. I punched the button for the main floor and counted the seconds as they ticked by. The elevator wasn’t slow, but by the time it reached the main floor and I managed to haul ass outside, it felt like it had been a thousand years.

A thousand years of memories, a thousand years of wanting freedom, a thousand years of wondering if we had another Dredge on our hands.