The Darkest Kiss (17 page)

“He thinks it could be a bakeneko.”

“A
what?
”

Kade grinned. “My reaction, too.”

“So what is it?”

“Apparently, it’s a cat with supernatural abilities.”

“A cat? So we’re not dealing with a human shifter, but an actual cat who can take human shape?”

Which certainly went a long way to explain the arrogance the woman had shown by waving to the witness. Cats had a huge sense of their own superiority.

“Makes trying to catch this bitch a whole lot harder, doesn’t it? I mean, she really
isn’t
going to be thinking like a regular person.” He shook his head, then took a sip of his coffee. His expression crinkled up in much the same manner as mine had. “God, that’s awful.”

“Won’t stop either of us from drinking it, though.”

“Hell, no.” He raised his cup in salute, brown eyes twinkling. “I did an Internet search, and the only thing I could come up with was a couple of Japanese legends.”

“I’m guessing they didn’t say how to kill this thing.” Japanese myths rarely did, for some odd reason.

“No. But they did say that a bakeneko can change its shape into that of a human, and has been known to eat parts of its own mistress in order to shapeshift and take her place.”

“Well, some of that criteria certainly fits.”

“Yes. But why is it going after these men? Why would a cat—a real cat—want to destroy these people?”

“I don’t know, but something has obviously set her off. We just have to try and find out what.” I took a sip of coffee and studied the file for a moment. “I wonder if she actually belonged to any of the dead women?”

“Hard to say. She obviously knew the layout of that house pretty well—she ran straight to the open window when she was escaping us.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t see any cat trays or food bowls, which suggests she didn’t actually belong there.”

“You think she’s a stray the women picked up?”

I smiled. “From what Dia said, the only thing these women pick up is men.”

“So why the curiosity over who the cat belongs to?”

“I don’t know. It’s just a niggle.”

He studied me for a moment, then said, “You know, there were food bowls in Cherry Barnes’s kitchen.”

“Then it might be worth chasing up with the neighbors to see if she had a black cat. Cherry Barnes had good reason to hate her fellow Trollops, so if it’s her cat, maybe its seeking revenge on behalf of its dead mistress.”

“Yeah, but Cherry wasn’t killed by the cat, which means we have yet another murderer to deal with.”

“It keeps the day from getting boring,” I said lightly, and tossed the file back onto the desk. “Some of the Trollops are going to be at a fancy fund-raising shindig tonight. I’m going to head there and see what I can sniff out.”

“You want company?”

“At five hundred dollars a ticket, she can go alone,” Jack said, as he came into the room. His bald head positively gleamed under the light of the fluorescents. It looked for all the world like he’d been polishing it. “Besides, you’re going to help to round up the other Trollops.”

“I get all the fun jobs,” Kade muttered.

“Dia gave me a list of their names,” I said helpfully, and swallowed my smile as he gave me a dark look. I glanced at Jack and added, “And she assures me the fund-raiser is one of the cheaper ones, boss.”

“Dia runs a multimillion-dollar empire. We scratch by on government funds. How’s the shoulder?”

“Survivable.”

“Good.” He handed me a folder. “The report on Vinny Castillo. Thought you might like to see it.”

I didn’t, because I really wanted to have as little to do with her as possible. But that wasn’t an option in my job—I dealt with vampires on a daily basis, and I had a feeling Vinny was going to feature in my life for a while yet.

And God, how I hated those little “feelings” of mine. Especially when they refused to provide any further information.

“We keeping an eye on her?”

“Yep. She’s empire-building, no doubt about it.” He poured himself a coffee and took a sip. Unlike Kade or me, he made no face. Maybe he preferred the nasty-tasting stuff. “Watch yourself around her. She has a taste for women, and I’m not entirely sure your shields will work against her sort of magnetism.”

If our first meeting was anything to go by, he could be right. “Did you find any information on invisible vampires?”

“Not yet, but it’s a big database, and unfortunately, not all the early stuff has been transcribed to computer.”

“What about the police report on the BDSM murder?”

“I went one better. I sent a forensic crew over to examine the body. The slashes on his body matched those Ivan Lang received before his death.”

“Did they say what type of weapon was involved?”

“Something sharp, but not a knife. They didn’t think it was animal claws, either.”

“Nothing else?”

“Not yet.” He glanced at Kade. “What’s the status on the murders?”

As Kade updated him, I walked over to my desk and sat down. After the eye scan and signing in, I checked the results of the Aron Young search. Two were still listed as missing, which was interesting. The third one was married, had three kids, and had been working steadily as a chef for the last thirty years. Somehow, I doubted he was our guy, but I flagged his file anyway. Someone could go out and talk to him, just in case I was wrong. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time.

I tapped my fingers on the desk for a moment, then pulled up the birth certificates for the two others.

One Aron Young was in his seventies and still listed as human, which meant he probably
wasn’t
our man. The Young I’d chased certainly hadn’t looked that old, though vampires did tend to retain whatever age it was when they’d undertaken the ceremony. Both Quinn and Jack had obviously been fairly old—for their times—when they’d undertaken it.

The other Young was in his forties, which put him in the right age bracket. Given he was listed as missing, I did a search instead on his parents.

His father, Jonathon Young, had died a month ago. According to the death certificate, the cause was a heart attack, so nothing obviously sinister there. Though why I was expecting something sinister I couldn’t actually say.

His mother was still alive, however, and living in Yuroke, a community of small farms on the northern edges of Melbourne. I glanced at my watch and decided there was plenty of time to get out there and back before I had to get ready for the function tonight. I wrote down her address, then signed out of the computer and stood up.

“I’m off to interview the mom of one of our Aron Youngs, boss.”

He glanced at me. “Be careful. Until we know what we’re dealing with, we don’t know how to kill it.”

“I doubt the mom is any danger. She’s nearly ninety, for heaven’s sake.”

“Old biddies are mean
and
dangerous,” Kade piped up. “Just let me introduce you to Sable’s mom sometime. That woman could freeze the balls off Satan himself.”

“I do so love the level of conversation I get with you two around,” Jack said dryly.

I grinned and got out of there before said conversation deteriorated any further.

It took nearly an hour to get to Yuroke, and another ten minutes to find the right side street and house number.

Mrs. Young lived in a little weatherboard cottage that was barely visible amidst all the gum trees. I drove down the long drive, avoiding as many potholes as I could, my gaze sweeping the old house and the run-down barn that stood to the left of it. The barn actually looked in worse condition than the house, the tin roof rusted and lifting in several places, and the rear corner of the building was broken open to the elements.

The only signs of life were the several chickens that scratched out the front of the barn, and the mangy-looking dog chained to a kennel.

I stopped the car and climbed out. The wind meandered through the trees, making the leaves whisper, and the soft clucking of the chickens added a brighter note to this chorus. There was little noise coming from either the house or the shed. Even the dog was silent, watching me with disinterested eyes.

It looked for the world like this place—and the dog—had been abandoned. Yet there were clothes on the line, and a car parked just inside the lean-to garage on the right side of the house.

I swept my gaze around the buildings once more, then reached back inside my car and collected my gun. I might be dealing with an old woman, but she was an old woman with a crazy son, and just because I couldn’t smell him didn’t mean he wasn’t here. Yuroke wasn’t that far out of town, he could easily be using it as a safe house.

I slammed the door closed then walked toward the house. If the old bird happened to be inside and watching, she was doing so extremely quietly. But I didn’t think she was. I couldn’t smell anyone. Only rubbish and age.

The wooden steps creaked and dipped as I stood on them, and the windows to my left rattled. The whole house was in a state of decay, the window frames rotting and the weatherboards barely holding any paint. Even the door didn’t look capable of withstanding much bad weather—it was warped and hanging on a slight angle, so that it didn’t look properly shut.

I pressed the doorbell, but didn’t hear an accompanying ringing inside the house, so I knocked instead. Even though I didn’t use much force, the whole thing rattled.

There was no response. I knocked again, then stepped back and peered through the front window. It looked into a living room and, again, decay was evident. There were newspapers scattered all over the floor, their edges yellowed and curling, and a thick dust lined the top of the patterned sofas and the dark wood of the sideboards. Several cups and plates dotted the coffee table, one with cake that looked rather green. Either Mrs. Young wasn’t a very good housekeeper, or the room hadn’t seen human occupation for at least a couple of weeks.

“Mrs. Young?” I called out. “Riley Jenson from the Directorate. I need to talk to you.”

My voice echoed through the emptiness. No answer came. Not even from the dog.

I grabbed the door handle and twisted it open. The door opened several inches then stuck fast, forcing me to lift it up and over a warped floorboard. Inside, the house smelled as bad as it looked. The air was stale and perfumed with the hint of rubbish and rot.

The floorboards creaked as I stepped inside. “Mrs. Young?”

Still no answer. Nor could I smell any life. I walked down the hallway, checking rooms as I passed each doorway. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom at the front of the house, both a good deal tidier than the living room—although the dust that was so thick in the front room had invaded these rooms as well.

The hall led to a kitchen, and it was obviously here that the old woman spent most of her time. The kitchen was small but tidy, with clean plates and cups sitting in the drainer. The little dining area consisted of a table and a couple of chairs pushed up against the wall, allowing room for a large, well-used sofa chair. A TV stood in the corner of the room.

There was a pile of newspapers at the far end of the counter. I walked over and had a look at the date. The latest was a month old—around the same date as Mr. Young had died. Maybe his wife had moved out rather than be alone, but why would she leave the poor old dog and the chickens here? It didn’t make any sense.

I swung around and saw another door. It probably led into nothing more exciting than the laundry, but I walked over to take a look anyway. My skin began to tingle several feet from the door. I frowned and stopped. Usually I only got that reaction when I was near silver—but why in hell would there be silver in this old house, especially if it housed a family of shifters?

I stepped forward and pressed my fingers against the door. The tingle grew stronger, burning my fingertips. For whatever reason, there was a
whole
lot of silver in the room beyond.

And really, there could be only one reason for that—someone wanted to restrain a shifter.

With some trepidation—and some effort—I pushed open the door. What I discovered was basically a prison. The netting started just beyond the door, and was spiderweb fine. It was made in several layers, so that the overall strength of the net was tripled. Not many shifters would have gotten through it—not without seriously injuring themselves. And even if they had, there was then the silver-coated walls to deal with. That’s what I’d been feeling—the back of the door had obviously received the same treatment.

Someone had wanted to make damn sure something—or someone—couldn’t get out.

The room itself had been set up like a bedroom. It had a bed, a small bathroom area, and a TV. There was also a desk and laptop in the corner opposite the bed. Books and magazines lay scattered about the floor, but not covering the small, stained rug.

My gaze went back to the nets. Was this the explanation for Young’s parents suddenly up and leaving Beechworth? Had they discovered that their supposedly dead son was alive, but something of a monster?