Soul Stripper (17 page)

“Monica,” Julian said, “leave the judgment calls to Lucien and me.”

Damn. I forgot he could read my mind. That same tiny hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Well, I was glad to see my deductive reasoning was so amusing.

Lucien’s cell phone rang. He stopped pacing and answered it, stepping into the other room.

“What were you doing last night, George?” I tried to make my voice sound light and playful. As if I was just a friend asking another friend about his weekend.

George looked up at me, dropping the scarf from his hands. I saw his mouth tip into a frown, his bottom lip quivering just barely. “What do you mean?”

I shrugged, finally seeing the sadness in his face. Maybe that’s why he was covering it—he didn’t want to seem like the only emotional guy. Lucien was the angry one. Julian was thoughtful. And George was clearly distraught.

I shrugged my shoulder. “Just curious what you were up to last night.”

“I was . . . out. Clubbing.” His eyes shifted to Julian. “Met a guy. You know, the usual. Why?”

Julian’s eyes flashed with something.

I shook my head. “Nothing. I was just trying to make conversation—something not so depressing as me almost drowning.” I gave him a small smile, which he didn’t return. Guilt tugged at my center. George seemed genuinely distraught. I inwardly sighed. I was going to have no friends left if I kept going at this rate. “So, who was the guy? Hot?”

He smiled a little more, the concern still evident in the creases along his forehead. “You know I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Lucien entered the room again, his hands on hips. “That was Lexi.” His gaze met mine. “We had another succubus attack. She was in some sort of meeting with your boyfriend when she heard of the murder.”

I sat up straighter. “And?”

Lucien sighed. “The succubus drowned.” His eyes met Julian’s, his mouth pressed into such a tight line, all the blood was drained.

My eyes narrowed. “What else are you not telling me?”

Lucien’s eyes darted from Jules’s to mine and back again. Finally, he said, “She was missing a nipple.”

J
ulian stood, moving beside Lucien. “We should go to the crime scene.” The demon and angel held eye contact as if they could communicate without words. Hell, maybe they could.

Lucien sharply nodded, his shirt collar crinkling with the movement. “Kayce—George, stay here with Monica. No one leaves this apartment.”

We all sat there, stunned. He must have taken our silence as an agreement, because within seconds a
crack
sounded through the air and he and Jules disappeared.

I got up and went to my bedroom to dress, putting on a short-sleeved, light knit turtleneck to cover up the red marks forming along my neck. Kayce and George followed behind me. Though only April, it was still hot as fuck outside, and I looked like an idiot wearing a turtleneck.

“Where are you going?” George demanded, then seeing the shirt I picked, he crinkled his nose. “And what in Hell’s name are you putting on?”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s a turtleneck—do we really want evidence of my strangling displayed on my neck for all to see? Besides,” I mumbled, “I can’t just sit around here waiting all day. I’ll lose my mind.”

“Good,” Kayce said, her face lips curling into a smirk, “we’re not.” She pulled a file out of her bag and threw it on my bed. “I spent the latter part of the morning doing some research down at our little Vegas precinct. Made copies of the murders on file.”

George and I stared at Kayce—the force to be reckoned with. My gaze shifted to the file sitting on my bed. It called to be opened. I thought of Jules, how he wanted me to be more involved. I leaned toward the folder and George grabbed my wrist, stopping me. “Maybe you should leave the dangerous stuff up to the angel . . . and Lucien and Lexi. What are we going to do? Go walk around the crime scenes?”

Kayce smiled even larger. “I think that’s a great idea. What else is there to do this afternoon?”

George sighed and released my wrist. “Just—for the record, I think it might be a bad idea.”

 

I reviewed the file on the drive to the first crime scene. Her name was Savannah. Lifeless eyes peered at me from her last photos ever taken. Her red hair was caked with dried blood, and her body had cuts and gashes covering it. Her lifeless form was twisted on the floor, pools of blood surrounding her like a shadow. I quickly slid the pictures back underneath the notes.

“Detective Kane” apparently had been the first to arrive and had taken various notes on what was found at the crime scene. Blood splatters beginning in the bathroom, ending with the body in the bedroom. A broken hand mirror, shards of glass.

I closed the file just as we pulled into a parking space in front of a small, one-story house in a medium-income, blue collar neighborhood. I flipped a page over within the file, reviewing her assets. “So, she owned this place?”

Kayce nodded. “Yep. And no one has bothered to clean it up or clear it out since her death.”

I scrunched my nose. “She didn’t have any friends? Three weeks seems like a long time for this to go just sitting here.”

George did a one-shoulder shrug. “She was a prostitute, hun. LVPD tends to put their efforts into more high-profile cases.”

I knew he was correct, but that thought sent a hollow shiver to the pit of my stomach.

The entrance to the house had a screen door in front of the older, heavier wooden one. Yellow “Do Not Enter” ribbon was taped haphazardly to the doorframe. Kayce and George disappeared with a crack into the house, and moments later the front doors creaked open for me.

With a quick glance around the neighborhood to ensure that no spying eyes were watching, I took a step inside, careful not to disturb the tape.

We entered through a dark hallway, which opened into a kitchen on the left and a sitting area straight ahead. To the right was another hallway. I could smell the faint, lingering scent of blood, and I followed my nose to where the murder happened.

A light, feathery touch brushed against my arm. I shrieked, startled by the contact. Leaning against the wall, I caught my breath.

Kayce held her hands out in front of her. “Sorry, sorry,” and she touched my arm a second time in a more reassuring way. “I was just going to ask if you prefer that I go first.”

I gestured in front of me in a sweeping, grandiose way. “After you.”

I focused my eyes on the back of her head and could feel the death surrounding us. At first glance, it just looked like a bedroom. Nothing too unusual. Most of the gruesome details had already been documented and cleaned. “Hand me the folder again.” I stuck a hand out to Kayce, who passed the paperwork my way. I pulled out the crime scene photos, holding them up against the layout of the room.

The bed looked like it hadn’t been touched since the night of her death. If I looked closely enough, the rumpled bedsheets had little bits of dust settling between the creases. There was dried blood on the dresser across from the bed and between the cracks hardwood floors. Next to the dried blood droplets were burn marks—they almost looked like acid burns along the floor. Little yellow markers were scattered across the room, noting where the detectives had found bits of evidence. I held up the photo of Savannah’s lifeless body. I had seen her a few times at various underworld meetings, but I had never known the girl. I held out the picture and squinted one eye shut, imagining that her body was on the ground before me. Her body was so human-like. If a succubus goes long enough without sex—essentially starving herself—she will in essence die. But she dies a beautiful goddess. The life sucks out of her, but her body will still be compensating. Trying to attract a soul to feed on. And in the case that she runs across a necrophiliac . . . well, she would be brought back to life the second he came.

George bent down, his elbows rested on his knees. After running a finger across the hardwood floor as though he were checking for dust, he held it up to his nose. “Scales.”

I dropped my arm to my side. “What?”

“Look.” He stood and put his finger under my nose. “Scales.”

I grabbed his hand and looked closer. They were dry and brittle, but I’d be damned—he was right. Within the dust on the floor, there were scales. Motherfucking scales.

Kayce shrugged. “Maybe she had a pet snake?”

George brushed his hands on his pants. “Pretty giant snake, wouldn’t you say? This scale is bigger than a quarter.”

“Why didn’t they bag this as evidence?” I muttered a curse under my breath. LVPD. Useless as always.

“Maybe they didn’t see it as being evidence?” Kayce offered. “They only take what they see as being important to the case.”

A sudden sharp pain cut across my knee. I screamed, falling to the ground clutching my leg.

Kayce and George dropped to my side, and I grasped for their hands, squeezing. My pain subsided as quickly as it came, and I rushed to pull my pant leg up. Had I been bit by something? My tight jeans wouldn’t allow themselves to be pulled above my kneecap. George took the fabric between two hands and yanked until they ripped at the seam.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

At the back of my knee there was a scar that I had never seen before. I crawled over to the picture, rushing to get it back in my hands, and sure enough—there on Savannah’s body was a giant gash behind her knee. I looked from it to my scar and back again. “Fuck is right.”

“Does it hurt anymore?” Kayce’s eyes pinched with concern, and I shook my head no. She grabbed me under the arms and lifted me to my feet. “We’re getting you the fuck away from the crime scene. First you experience the drowning, now you’re developing scars that should be on the victim’s body—not yours.”

I clasped my hand around hers. “Wait!” Under the dresser, there was something catching the light. I crawled under and stretched my arm out until I could feel it, hard and cool beneath my fingers. It was stuck between the cracks in the floorboards. Using my house key, I wedged it out and held it up in front of the group.

It was a tooth—a
fang,
to be more accurate.

Kayce and George’s faces crinkled. Kayce spoke first. “Demon tooth?”

George shook his head and took the fang from me. “No—a demon in his true form has small, sharp teeth. It looks more like it’s from a vampire.”

I exhaled—I had seen vampire fangs up close once. I knew they did not arch in the same way this one did. “No,” I whispered. “This is the fang from a reptile. A giant reptile.” I closed my eyes and knew. I could see it in a foggy sort of haze. “She fought back—shifted into a serpent with her last remaining powers.”

“How do you know?” George’s hand on my arm felt warm and reassuring.

I shrugged, staring vacantly in the mirror on top of her dresser. “I don’t know how I know it.... I just do. Maybe all the targets have some sort of connection.”

Kayce laced her arm through my elbow and let her cheek fall on my shoulder. “I think we’ve seen enough for one day—don’t you think?” She tugged me toward the door.

There was a rustling sound coming from the front room. I shushed everyone. We had all heard it and froze. A tiny pop came from either side of me, and when I looked, both my friends were gone. Invisible.

I rushed the window, lifting it as quickly as I could. I had one leg out when I looked up, staring straight into the barrel of a gun. “Freeze!”

I
t was a slightly chubby, out-of-breath police officer, and he shouted in such a stereotypical way, it took a lot of my energy to not laugh in his face. Perhaps I should have been a little more nervous—but man, humans could be funny. I could see this guy sitting at home, munching on salt and vinegar chips watching
Law & Order: SVU
reruns practicing the day he himself could be as big a badass as Stabler.

I put my hands in the air in a surrender sort of position. “Okay,” I said, “Don’t shoot.” The latter was tough to say with a straight face. “I’m going to crawl back into the house.” I assumed he wanted me with my feet firmly planted to answer questions and not straddling the window frame. “I’m unarmed,” I added as an afterthought, which was entirely untrue. But I was counting on Kayce and George being able to get me out of this mess before a strip search took place.

“Move slowly.” He kept his gun pointed at me.

I nodded, and as slowly as I could I swung my leg back over inside the house. As my back was turned, still bracing the window, I whispered in a voice that only my immortal friends could hear. “Okay, you assholes. What is the plan now?”

They were quiet for a few seconds before I heard Kayce’s voice. “We’ll distract him at the right time and you make a run for it.”

“Turn around so that you’re facing me. I want to see your eyes,” the cop stated in a cool voice.

“Ew,” George whispered, “this guy is creepy. He wants to stare lovingly into your eyes while shooting you.”

I gritted my teeth. “Now is not the time, George.”

Putting my hands back up in the air, I turned slowly to face the cop. We stayed there staring at each other for a moment. He made no movement to approach me. “You know,” I started, “my arms are getting a little tired. I’m not armed. I promise.”

He squinted, eyes not leaving mine. “What are you doing here? Did you not see the yellow tape? The signs that say
Do Not Enter: Crime Scene
?”

I took a deep breath.
Anytime now would be good, guys.
“I saw the signs. I was”—I paused—“a friend of the victim’s. I guess I just had a morbid desire to see her house one last time.” It seemed believable enough, and I could have sworn I saw his eyes soften. If I played up this friendship business, he might even let me go.

Just as he was beginning to show me empathy, the bed shook as though we were in the middle of an earthquake. The cop’s eyes darted around the room.

“What the hell . . . ?” He took a hesitant step closer to it. Kayce’s voice rang out in shrill cries.

The cop jumped back, his gun drawn again—pointed at absolutely nothing. I edged my way closer to the entrance of the bedroom, acting just as scared. He bumped into the dresser, and George picked up a ceramic thimble from the nightstand, the kind you get on vacation. It had Savannah’s name scrawled in cursive at the bottom. He carried it, allowing it to “float” over to the cop, stopping for a moment in front of his face, white with fear. George drew back and threw the thimble into the mirror behind him, causing the glass to shatter.

I took off running, full speed, slamming my shoulder into the cop as I passed him. He fell to his ass, courtesy of my 120-pound frame. Okay, maybe 125 now thanks to a few days of eating like a human. I ran out of the bedroom down the dark hallway toward the front door. Even if the cop caught me, I could just claim I was terrified by the display. When I looked behind me, the cop was following at my heels. Whether he was running to catch me or simply get the fuck out of the house, I wasn’t sure.

I should have been paying more attention to the direction in which I was running. Because I was looking behind me, I ran flush into a wall of muscle. Two strong pectorals stood in front of me, and when I looked up, I stared into Damien’s gray eyes. A bemused smirk spread across his face and his eyes stared at me with authority. He had his hands on my bicep, holding me at arm’s length. A wave of lust—carnal desire—swept over me and my knees quivered.

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. A rough hand grabbed my arm and spun me around, slamming me into the wall. I could smell the cop from before as he cuffed my hands. “What kind of an evil trick was that, huh?” He slammed my body into the wall again, harder. My cheek was pressed against the ugly floral wallpaper, and my eyes shifted to look at Damien again.

He approached the two of us and put a hand on the cop’s shoulder. “What’s going on here, Doug?”

“This bitch tricked me—made me think the damn place was haunted. Then took off.” I could feel the waiver in his voice. As though he wasn’t sure whether to believe his own story.

“Is that so? And how exactly did she do that. Some kind of ‘magic’?” There was an amusement in Damien’s cadence that simply infuriated me, and I humphed to make it known.

Through the corner of my eyes, I saw his mouth tip ever so slightly into a smile. “Doug, why don’t you leave the young lady to me. I’ll question her and figure out what’s going on at our crime scene.”

Our
crime scene?

“Go back to your route, Doug. I’ve got this covered.” His voice was so reassuring—so business like.

I could hear the handcuffs clicking behind my back and the release of the metal against my skin. I sighed, thankful that I might just get out of this situation without Lucien being the wiser. An arrest was no sweat—we can get out of those easy enough with all the demons tucked into the ranks of the police force. But there was no escaping Lucien’s punishment for interfering in the investigation.

Doug was gone—out of the “possessed” house in a flash. I glanced back over at Damien, that amused little half smile still splayed across his face. I wanted to smack it off. He was even better looking than that first day I saw him, a fact that pissed me off to no end. He wore black dress pants and a charcoal gray silk button-down shirt that glimmered like his eyes.

“Well?”

“Well, what?” I snapped back.

“Well—what are you doing here?”

“It’s like I told Doug. Savannah was my friend. I came to see her house one last time.”

“She was your friend, huh? Why didn’t I see you at her funeral?”

I crossed my arms over my chest and didn’t answer. Mostly because I didn’t
have
an answer.

He grabbed my wrist, pulling me back into the bedroom. “C’mon.”

I wasn’t sure if Kayce and George were still in here. His hand around my wrist softened and his fingers were gentle on my skin.

His head dropped when he saw the bedroom. Dust bunnies were flying in the air from when Kayce stirred up the settled dust on the bed. Broken glass was covering the floor, and some of the other furniture was turned upside down. He rubbed a hand across his forehead. And looked back at me. “You did this?”

“No—” I was pretty sure he was adept at seeing through bullshit, but I tried, anyway. “It was, um, haunted. Or something.”

He exhaled loudly. “Haunted. Right.” He put a hand to the wall, closed his eyes, and there was a buzzing sound all around me. After another minute, he opened his eyes and pushed off the wall. “Okay—where are they?”

I shifted my weight. “Who?”

He rolled his eyes and stalked around the room. “Your friends. The succubus and the incubus.”

“Wha—how? How do you know about
them?
”

“I know they’re still here. I can sense them.”

“What
are
you?”

Kayce and George turned visible, looking rather defeated. Their faces hung slack-jawed, staring at Damien.

He sighed. “What the fuck did you do to my crime scene?”

“
Your
crime scene?”

“Yes,” he snapped, “mine. I’m the lead detective on the case.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “And here I thought you were just a sleazy boozehound wrapped up in some adultery.”

His mouth twitched. “Can’t I be both?”

“You’re an elemental,” Kayce said from over near the bed.

George’s eyes grew wide and he looked as though he wanted to drop to his knees and bow to the man.

Damien nodded and scowled at Kayce. “Ding, ding, ding. What have you won, succubus?”

“Don’t call her that,” I said, eyes narrowed.

“Don’t call her what? Succubus?” His hand gestured toward her. “It’s what she is, isn’t it?”

“He’s got a point, Mon. We are succubi.”

I shot my glare over toward Kayce. “It’s
how
he’s saying it. Like it’s an insult.”

His hands clenched on his hips. “The elements can speak to me—stone, air, water. I just have to tap into them.”

“It is one of the rarest and invaluable forms of ancient magic we have.” George’s voice was deep. Almost unrecognizable, as though he were speaking in an ancient tongue.

“Um, okay,” I snapped at George, “and it’s fucking creepy.”

“Creepier than killing a man by fucking him?” Damien retorted, still standing so close to me that I could feel the buzz of his energy between us.

I shot him a look that I hoped showed my hatred. “So you just
spoke
to this house? And it told you what we were doing here today?”

He shrugged, bringing a shoulder to his ear noncommittally.

Kayce stepped closer to Damien. “Elementals’ identities are kept very quiet. Their services are invaluable, and most of the time they go their entire lives without fully utilizing their abilities.” I stared at her in wonder, and she shrugged in return. “I worked with one once.”

“Brava,” he said sarcastically, glaring at Kayce. His eyes narrowed, and he pointed a finger in her direction. “Hey—don’t I know you? You once did a job for my chief . . .”

“Nope,” Kayce said curtly. “You do not know me.” She spoke in short, sharp staccato. And I felt the same seething anger I always did when she had to hide her career.

“My mistake.
Succubus
.”

I clenched my fists to stop myself from punching him. “Don’t be a dick to her.”

“Are you kidding me? She fucked up my crime scene!”

“Oh, calm down. We’ll clean it up. It’s not like you’ve made much progress here, anyway.”

We held eye contact before he squared his shoulders, facing me straight on and closing in on what little space remained between our bodies. What was left of the air between us sizzled with static—something intoxicating and electric. “And you thought you could do better waltzing in here with no training whatsoever?”

“Tell me something,” I continued, raising up on my toes so I could be closer to eye level, “if the walls can talk, why haven’t they given you some sort of description on the perp? How come you don’t have a character sketch?”

“If you must know, there was some sort of enchantment placed on the house before the murder. Either it can’t or won’t talk to me about those events.”

“So what
do
you know?”

He slumped onto the dresser, leaning against it looking suddenly exhausted. “I know that the attack first started in the bathroom. From the pattern of blood spatter, she fought back—she wasn’t the only one bleeding. She ran out here, stopping in front of this dresser, like this, where she was killed.”

“What was the exact cause of death?” My eyes settled on the acid burns on the hardwood floor.

“Well, considering her throat was slit through past her jaw, I’d say that’s probably the best bet.”

“What are these?” I pointed to the burns.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. This is the sloppiest crime scene of all of them yet. They get cleaner with each kill.”

I nodded. “So he was still perfecting it.”

Kayce handed Damien the fang we found under the dresser. “Here. We found this—maybe it will help.”

Damien looked at it closely, holding in front of the window light.

“I think she turned into a serpent of some sort with her last ounce of energy.”

He nodded. “Well, that would explain the scales. We also found a little bit of venom at the corner of her mouth. Had the coroner completely baffled.” His eyebrows acted as a dark hood over his eyes, casting a deep shadow. “I couldn’t exactly explain my theory to most people on the force.”

“Well.” I raised my chin haughtily. “Aren’t you glad we came along, then?”

He rolled his eyes and pulled out a cell phone. “Yeah. Thrilled.” He dialed a number, then spoke into the phone, “Yeah, Kane here. I’m at crime scene SV713 and I need a cleanup crew.” He paused. “No, I’m not exactly sure what happened, but it looks like maybe some kids broke in and trashed the place.” He covered the mouthpiece and whispered to us, “You better get out of here.”

I nodded and looked at Kayce and George briefly before turning to leave. “Thanks,” I mumbled.

“Oh, and Monica.” His eyes met mine. “If you want to see the other crime scenes, all you gotta do is say
please.
” He handed me a business card, a smug grin on his face. I slipped it into my purse before scurrying home.