Waking the Queen (2 page)

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, Hill.” This time his breath tickled my ear and I turned my head away to see Tommy Anderson watching us dance with a scowl on his face and he took my glance as an invitation to come over.

 “Dance with me, Brynn?”

 “She’s already dancing with me,” Grimes answered for me in a proprietary tone.

 I didn’t like that Grimes answered for me. I didn’t like that Anderson called me Brynn. He called everyone else by their last name. It’s like he thought I was some little girl to be coddled. Or that we shared some level of intimacy. He grabbed my ass once when I first joined the squad and I put him on
his
ass and had a boot on his throat before he knew what hit him. We’d settled into a sort of wary truce, but he obviously still felt he had to conquer me. It fucked with his worldview that he couldn’t. He set off alarms in my head and I knew one of these days, he’d be one of the hunted. He’d go too far and he’d like it. So he’d do it again and again and again. Until I stopped him.

 “Maybe the next one, Anderson.”

 Grimes maneuvered us away from him. “What about your present?”

 “You’re not going to give it to me if I dance with Anderson?”

 “Maybe not. Maybe I have to give it to you now or it will spoil.”

 “Maybe you’re just trying to whip your dick out and show Anderson yours is bigger?”

 A laughed echoed from low in his chest. “It is, but that’s beside the point. I’m an alpha male. I can’t help it.” I knew he’d be smirking, one corner of his mouth turned up in that way that most women find devastating. His last girlfriend said it was just like tequila, it made her clothes fall off. Instead, I was content to leave my cheek on his shoulder.

 “That would imply I’m your territory, Grimes. And I’ve already told you I’m like a female alligator. If I can take you down, I’m not interested. The male has to be stronger to prove his DNA is worthy,” I teased. Even if he were serious, we weren’t even the same species.

 But the idea we could be filled my imagination with a terrible joy and it occurred to me again how similar killing is to dancing, what it would be like—our bodies working together in that synchronicity, a ballet in blood. My mouth went dry.

 “What would you do if I did take you down, Hill?”

 “Die of shock.” Was he flirting with me, something outside of our usual banter?

 “So are you going to dance with Dudley Dipshit or do you want your gift?”

 “Gift,” I answered easily. He’d intrigued me.

 “It’s a two-parter. First of all, you’re going to want to go to bed early.”

 “Why is that?” The new quality to his voice made me remember the first time I had sex—the sticky, awkward fumbling on the roof of my apartment building and wondered if that’s what Grimes wanted from me. I didn’t think it would be at all like that with him, but I didn’t want to know. Because Jason Grimes was the white picket fence type. A wife, and a dog and a yard… I’d already learned the hard way those things weren’t for me and Jason would never settle for half of anything. Best to forget the sound of his voice, or the way his hands made me feel.

 “We got a tip on the Angel of Mercy killings. Said we could find Astrid Johanson doling out her comforts in a west bottoms warehouse at four tomorrow morning.”

 “That’s great news, but I knew it was her. We would have caught her anyway. So, it’s not a present.”

 “You don’t get the rest of it until tomorrow.”

 “You know I don’t like surprises.”

 “This one you’ll have to see to believe, Brynn.” His voice was a teasing promise, but he’d done little to change my opinions about surprises. I despised them.

 I finished our dance and then I danced with Anderson anyway. Grimes cheated on the gift, so I decided he had it coming. It had nothing to do with the fact that I needed some distance from him after our dance. Nothing at all.

 Although, after that dance, I left. As it was, it would be midnight before I got to sleep and that was my one vice. I didn’t like to do anything to excess except sleep. I liked to cocoon beneath the covers and stay until I absolutely had to get up. My father always said it was like my chrysalis, only I could take breaks when butterflies couldn’t.

~*~

 Four a.m. was just too fucking early.

 Even to catch the Angel of Mercy killer Astrid Johanson.

 If the bitch had been truly merciful, she would have elected to work at a more reasonable hour. But no, with Angel of Mercy killers, it was all about them. We’d liked her for the murders all along, but we didn’t have enough to put the steel bracelets on her—the evidence was all circumstantial.

 She worked as a nurse at the VA hospital in Leavenworth, but she volunteered for KCMO hospice services and all of the murdered vets had been her clients. When my partner and I had gone to her apartment to question her, I’d known she was a killer from the moment she’d opened the door. Even though she looked just like the illustrations of the noble Valkyries in all of my father’s books, her pretty blond hair and smooth Nordic features couldn’t hide her aberration from me.

 My partner hadn’t been so astute. He’d been wrapped up in her blatant femininity, the way her hips swayed, the extra button undone at the valley of her breasts, her little pink tongue darting out to moisten her lips as she talked. She’d asked him about himself, subtly turned the conversation toward him and his work. How
hard
it was to be a cop, how brave he must be. The truth was in her eyes if he’d bothered to look at them instead of her tits. They were blue like the sky, but there was something frozen inside them, something eternal that was more than human and less at the same time.

 Looking into the eyes of a serial killer is like staring into a mirror and suddenly realizing that what’s looking back is something else—something alien. If he were to gaze hard enough, he’d see the same thing in my eyes.

 She tried to turn that charisma on me while we were interviewing her, deflecting my questions, asking how difficult it must be for me as a woman to succeed in such a male-dominated field.

 It was all smoke up our asses. Astrid Johanson never answered any of our questions satisfactorily. It had taken a bottle of single malt and three hours to point this out to my partner. He wasn’t stupid, but he was one of
them
. One of the masses of humanity who didn’t see how my kind had been marked as something apart from them—we were the predators. We moved among them like chameleons, pantomiming their customs and wearing masks, emotions that were not real, but made them comfortable with us.

 My partner, Jason Grimes, he was a good man. A strong man. Working with him was part of what helped me believe that humanity was worthy of my protection, of all I’d sacrificed to blend in with them and keep them safe. Not that I had a choice—it was hardwired inside of me the same as whatever drove my father was hardwired inside of him.

  Although at four o’clock in the goddamn morning, part of me considered shooting Astrid Johanson just for getting me up this early—Angel of Mercy killer or no.

 The warehouse the caller identified had been abandoned for some time and was scheduled for demolition. It was a great hulk of a building, a gutted carcass of brick and metal. The glass from the windows had been gone for years, leaving only black spaces like empty eye sockets.

 I told Grimes to wait for me, but while I could see his car, there was no sign of him. He’d probably gone in already like some goddamn lone gunman. Whatever it was inside of him that made him a hero also made him a dumbass.

 I drew my .40 Ruger and pulled the slide back as I approached the rusted door that hung open, the darkness inside gaping like a wound. Instinct told me there was something there that would change me irrevocably and it was to be feared.

 My heartbeat thundered in my ears and I was torn between detaching myself from the emotion and reveling in it. I hadn’t been afraid of anything since I was four and my father had shown me he was more terrifying than anything that dared to lurk under my bed.

 Turning sideways to squeeze through the door without jostling the hinges, I slipped inside. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the dark and I expected it to stink of mildew and rot. Instead, it smelled unnaturally homey. Like a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie version of Christmas: pine needles, a slow baking ham and gingerbread with a splash of vanilla. Perhaps even notes of a warm, mulled apple wine. Good bait to lure the homeless and starving—the promise of home and hearth, a warm meal.  

 The faint sounds of men’s voices drew me forward until I found myself at an open doorway. Warm light spilled from the room out into the dingy hall, gleaming and golden. I debated calling for backup, but one woman couldn’t be that hard to take down. Bullets were the universal equalizer.

 I didn’t know what I was walking into, and by all rights I should have gone in with my weapon drawn, but something told me to holster it. If these men were still alive and they believed Astrid was helping them, they would probably defend her to the death. I didn’t want to kill men who didn’t deserve to die. Taking those who weren’t mine was anathema to me.

 With the gun back in my holster, I peered into the room and tried to take in the game and the players before I laid my cards down and revealed myself. Fires blazed from several strategically placed trash cans, painting the room in gold and orange. A long table was in the middle and it was laden with things like steins of dark beer and platters of turkey legs, ham and roast.

 Astrid Johanson stood at the head of the table, her palms braced on the scarred wood. She was waiting for something—her eyes constantly scanning the room. She was also batshit crazy. Had to be. Unless she really was a Valkyrie. Then that would change the game considerably. I’d never seen any of the things my father had told me about—though I trusted they were true.  Astrid was wearing a short Grecian style dress that barely glanced the tops of her shapely thighs. Over that she wore a silver armored bodice, with matching braces on her forearms and shins. There was a giant sword on the table in front of her. I couldn’t tell if she was going to a Renaissance Fair or a World of Warcraft Convention.

 I had to admit the armor was lovely, it appealed to me, so bright and perfect. There wasn’t even the dull smudge of a fingerprint on the mirrored surfaces of the armor. I noticed strange whorls and raised marks on it then as the firelight flickered and shadows merged and shifted. They were runes and the shape of them roused something cold in my memory.

 But I couldn’t worry about that at the moment. I had a missing partner, murders to solve and a crazy bitch playing dress up with sharp blades. I had to think about the dead men even if those runes made me think of home and safety. I couldn’t let her get in my head just because I was having Daddy issues. I’d do that shit on my own time.

 The previous murders had looked like heart failure: there’d been no slicing and dicing involved. Perhaps whatever Astrid’s delusions were had escalated? But I didn’t see any evidence of murder; the sword was as bright as her armor. No obvious evidence of blood or that the homeless men she’d killed had ever been here in the warehouse. Though, I
had
just heard men’s voices echoing into the corridor from this room. My partner was still nowhere to be seen either. If Astrid had hurt him, I’d hang her with her own intestines and use her bones for a wind chime.

 “Come in, Brynn,” Astrid spoke.

 I knew she couldn’t see me. Bitch was almost as creepy as I was. I didn’t see any point in denying my presence, so I stepped inside the room and into the light.

 “Officer Hill,” I corrected her. We weren’t friends; we didn’t function on a first name basis. I didn’t need her to identify with me and I didn’t
want
to identify with her. As soon as I had any hard evidence, I’d slap cuffs on her and then she’d cease to be my problem and I could move on to the next scumbag. Of course, it would be easier to get said hard evidence if she trusted me, but I didn’t have the patience for that shit today. I still wanted an excuse to shoot her for getting me up this early.

 “As you say,” she agreed cheerfully.