Midnight Ash (A Blushing Death Novel) (14 page)

I sat behind Patrick’s desk in the office above Damsel, sharpening my knife as I waited for Kurt to escort Derek up. Only a few of the lights below were turned on in the club. The werewolves standing on the outside of the dance floor would still be in shadow. They were giving up a lot to shift in front of Derek and I wanted to protect their anonymity as best as I could. I could give them that, at least.

Danny sat on the couch adjacent to the desk and watched me.

I slipped the knife back in the sheath strapped to my calf and laid my head down on the desk on top of my folded arms. I closed my eyes. Only a minute, I told myself. I wanted to close my eyes and sleep for only a minute.

I jumped as a hard knock at the door filled the silent office. I lifted my head and gave Danny a last questioning look.

“Are you sure you don’t want to keep yourself under wraps?” I asked.

Derek knew Danny. Derek was a cop and Danny an EMT. They worked together, knew each other, were friends. Danny being here would be confirmation of what he was.

“If we’re bringing him in then let’s give him a face to put with what he’s about to see.” Danny gave me a wide grin. He was having fun and I was exhausted. “Yeah, I’m sure,” he said in an authoritative voice that always startled me when he used it. That authority shouldn’t have to go with his lighthearted smile. He shouldn’t have to be that guy.

Kurt opened the door with Derek close on his heels, chomping at the bit for the answers I’d promised him. Kurt closed the door behind them and stayed, flanking the exit. Danny wanted him around in case Derek took it badly.

I glanced at Derek, still in his uniform with his side arm holstered at his side. I glared at Kurt with what I knew was fear in my eyes. Derek could shoot us. Danny and Kurt would live unless Derek carried silver-plated ammunition, which I doubted, but me . . . me, Derek would kill. Kurt shook his head as if he’d already tried to have Derek leave the weapon behind. SHIT!

Derek stopped dead in his tracks halfway across the office floor as he peered through the floor. He took a deep breath then raised his eyes to meet mine, steadying himself.

“There’s something you needed to tell me, remember?” he said, haughty, glaring around the room at the three of us. The picture we presented was ominous; Danny and Kurt flanking me as I sat behind Patrick’s desk. I felt like the Godfather, which I have to admit was kinda cool.

“What’s Danny doing here?”

“Just here to help, Dahl,” Danny said with a cocky smirk.

“Don’t call me that,” I snarled through clenched teeth. I hated that name and Danny knew it but he chuckled anyway. I turned my attention back to Derek. “I need to show you something. It will explain everything better than I ever could. But . . .” I said, glancing down at his side arm.

“But what?” he asked, still believing that he was in charge here.

“I’ll need you to give me your side arm, just for a moment,” I added with an apologetic shrug. He glanced down at the gun on his hip and then back at me. “Please, Derek, just lay it on the desk. That’s all I’m asking.”

He reached down, slow, as his eyes remained fixed on my gaze, and unsnapped the holster strap holding his gun in place. The echo of the snap reverberated off the Plexiglas in the tension-filled office and sent chills up my spine. He pulled the gun from the holster and placed it gently on the desk, two feet in front of him.

I breathed a heavy sigh of relief as his fingers left the cold metal of his gun. “Thank you.”

“Let’s get this shit over with,” he barked at me. Sweat beaded on his brow and his gaze darted to his gun too many times for him to be comfortable without it. I understood where he was coming from. My gun made me feel better too.

This was it. I pointed through the floor.

“There,” I said. Derek stared down through the Plexiglas as two men walked out to the center of the dance floor. They didn’t look up, keeping their faces in shadow as they moved.

“What’s going on here?” he asked, the first twinge of uncertainty making his voice quake.

“Just watch,” I said. I got up out of Patrick’s chair and circled around the desk. I wanted to be closer. Close enough to snatch the gun from the desk if things got hairy and Derek had to be subdued. The men on the dance floor undressed and as fun as I had thought it would be, it wasn’t. My nerves were twisting my stomach into gut wrenching knots. The two men took off their clothes, rushing through the motions, which helped take all the fun out of it for me.

“What the hell is . . .?” Derek started hotly but didn’t finish.

One of the two men below started to shake and convulse, falling to the ground in a thud of hard muscle and flesh. He screamed as claws burst from his fingertips and the outline of a giant snout protruded from his face where his nose had been. The other man shook and collapsed alongside the first. The second man’s shift was slow and I knew more painful.

The first man was covered in fur and howling as he stretched all four limbs, tipping his hips in the air. His transformation was complete, revealing the canine beneath. The other was just a fraction behind him.

Derek had an unrecognizable expression on his face. Somewhere between terror and excitement, as if Derek had been told he could fly but still had to jump off the building to prove it.

“Derek?” I asked, my voice calm. “Are you all right?”

“Did I just see that?” he asked in a hoarse voice that I almost didn’t recognize. He didn’t remove his eyes from the men, now giant wolves, down on the dance floor. He also didn’t reach for his gun. He stood frozen, gawking. “I mean, really see it? I’m not dreaming, am I?”

“Sure did,” Danny said with a grin.

“What’s going on?” Derek whimpered.

“There are beings out there that are dangerous. These and others,” I answered, pointing down into the dance floor, “the police can’t fight, can’t lock up, can’t arrest, or send to prison. We believe that one of these beings killed Mrs. Corning.”

“So what does that mean?” he snapped at me. “You think we can’t handle ourselves?”

“I think that unless you carry silver bullets, you can’t hurt them. I think that unless your jail cells are made with silver bars, you can’t hold them. There are were-animals, vampires, ghosts, zombies, ghouls, and so many other things out there that the police are not prepared to deal with. You can’t treat them like your everyday human perps,” I said.

He backed away from me but he also backed away from the gun. He glared at down at me with anger making his eyes shine.

“Dahlia, what’re you doing here?” he asked after taking a long steadying breath. I’d give it to him, he was trying. But he was scared and struggling not to show it.

“I need the information from the scene tonight,” I said, leaning back on the desk’s edge and folding my arms under my chest.

“Why?” he asked.

Patrick was on his way up. I felt the warmth of his emotion fill me as the chill of his power grazed my skin in a familiar caress that touched me in places that only his fingers and tongue had touched. I felt my lips turn upward at the idea of using his power to touch me again.

“What are you smiling at?” Derek asked with an uncomfortable hiss.

“The bloodsucker’s on his way up,” Danny mumbled, and I didn’t miss the accusation in his tone.

Derek’s eyes shot over to him with a question in his expression. He didn’t understand the animosity and I wasn’t in the mood to explain it to Derek, so I ignored Danny. It was easier.

“Danny?”

“Oh, no. I’m no bloodsucker,” he said with a shiver. “I’m a werewolf like the guys downstairs,” Danny said, stalking over to me and leaning on the desk. He crossed his arms over his well-defined chest and smiled proudly at Derek.

“I’m the bloodsucker,” Patrick answered in a haughty reply. He moved across the office without a sound. He moved up along the other side of me and wrapped his arm around my waist. “This is going well,” he whispered in my ear. His cool breath traced along my neck, making me shiver.

“Danny?” Derek asked softly with a lost look of betrayal raising his eyebrow.

“I was attacked as a teenager and been a werewolf ever since.”

“Jade?” Derek asked, his eyes wide and his face flush with his sudden panic.

“She knows everything that you now do,” I said.

“I don’t know what to say,” Derek uttered as he ran his hands through his thick chestnut hair, pushing strands back from his forehead. He had a widow’s peak and a receding hairline that I hadn’t noticed before. Kurt came up behind him and offered him one of the cushioned chairs that lined the walls as he handed his gun back to Derek. I’d have to talk to Kurt later about handing a potential adversary a loaded weapon, no matter how much he liked him.

Derek plopped down with a heavy breath before sliding the gun in its holster at his side and snapping the guard shut. Danny strolled over to him and Derek didn’t flinch, which gave him a few bonus points in my book.

“Derek, Dahlia helps people, a lot like you help people. When humans get out of line, you make them answer for it. When we get out of line, Dahl makes us answer for it,” he said. “The only difference is Dahlia just kills us,” he finished with a grin and a soft punch to Derek’s shoulder. Derek glared at me with a horrified expression lighting his eyes. It wasn’t wise to tell the police I was killing people, and doing it unchecked.

“Danny!” I snipped, chastising him. He grinned at me, his hazel eyes twinkling.

Derek stared at me with a newfound respect. He didn’t think Danny was joking.

Fanfuckingtastic!

“You do, don’t you?” he asked. His voice didn’t hold the revulsion that I had anticipated, that I knew would confirm how big a monster I was. Instead, there was an edge of awe in his tone. It was unnerving.

I nodded without a word. There was no point denying it now, he wouldn’t believe me anyway.

“I always knew there was something vicious about you,” he whispered, not realizing that the entire room could hear him.

“That’s one of your best qualities,” Patrick cooed in my ear.

Derek reached into the messenger bag he had slung over his shoulder and pulled out two manila file folders. He handed the first one to me without ceremony.

“These are the pictures and police reports from the scene,” he said. He glanced at Patrick every few seconds like he didn’t want to look like he was staring at the vampire.

I flipped through them, examining the teeth impressions, puncture marks, and the gaping hole where Mrs. Corning’s heart had been.

Nova came into the room, sliding between the door and the jamb without making a sound. He flanked the door with Kurt presenting an odd picture. Kurt was stalky and solid with bulk that was more than imposing. Nova was tall, lean, and a beautiful specimen to the eye.

Derek handed me the second file folder and I gave him a questioning glance. “These are from about an hour and a half ago,” he said, gawking at me with cold eyes that gave nothing of what he felt away.

I took the folder from his grasp and pealed back the cover. This woman was young, a few years younger than me. She had platinum blond hair and skin as delicate as porcelain. The soft luminescence of her flesh had dulled and marred with bloody fingerprints. It was too similar a scene to Mrs. Corning’s. All of the markers were the same with the exception of the blood. Mrs. Corning had been clean, too clean. This body was covered in scarlet fingerprints and smears of deep crimson across her face. She had the same puncture wounds and the same hole in her chest where her heart used to be. I was sure, however, that the bloody glob of gore lying on the ground a few feet away was the heart missing from the woman’s chest. If I looked through the carnage, the blue glitter on her body, and the blood on her face hard enough, she’d been pretty.

I read the police report as I passed the pictures on to Patrick. Nova stepped forward to get a glimpse over Patrick’s shoulder.

“She was here before we closed for the night and cleared it out,” he said. His voice was steady and matter of fact. I glanced back down at the police report, scanning for quick information. She’d been found only a block down the street from the club and three blocks away from Police headquarters in the other direction. The pictures revealed a more gruesome scene than Mrs. Corning’s. This woman had been ripped apart. Not only had her heart been removed, but the top of her head was lying on the sidewalk and the brain had been shredded. There was blood all over the sidewalk in a splash of ruby as if Midnight Ash’s patience had run out.

“Until forensics ran her prints, I thought it could’ve been you.” Derek sighed. He looked shaken like he wouldn’t be able to wipe the image from his mind.

Patrick snapped the picture from my hands and examined it. His eyes transfixed on the photo and the gore captured forever on film.

“She does look very similar,” Patrick said as he finally raised his eyes to meet Derek’s, “but . . . this woman isn’t as strong as Dahlia. You can see it in her build, even without seeing her face.” Patrick passed the photo to Danny who snatched it from Patrick’s hand without a word. He turned his flashing eyes to Derek, glaring at him with an intensity that would’ve made many a small animal run.

“If you thought it was Dahlia, why didn’t you call me?” Danny growled, the sound vibrating each word through his chest in a dangerous rumble. He shoved his anger through the room like a wall of heat, burning everything it touched. The flare of his power filled his eyes with warm amber as he stared Derek down.

“I wanted to be sure before I made that call,” Derek answered, sitting back from the anger radiating from Danny.

“You did the right thing,” Patrick added.

I focused on the photos before me. Somehow, the blood and gore was more palatable to me than the pitiful concern shining in Patrick’s eyes.

I counted the puncture marks. One less than had been on Mrs. Corning. I pulled out a picture from Mrs. Corning’s crime scene folder to verify my suspicions. I placed both pictures on the desk, side-by-side and stared at them hard. There was something wrong with the second scene.

“What do ya see?” Danny asked, turning to evaluate the pictures with me.