The Darkest Kiss (11 page)

“Geez, is bossiness inbred in wolves or something?”

“Yes,” Cole and I said together, then shared a grin. I have to say, I was liking this relaxed version of Cole a whole lot more than the sourpuss I’d first been introduced to months ago. Although maybe he was opening up more because we
had
gotten to know each other a bit better through our on-the-job sparring.

I continued on into the back storerooms. There had to be a small kitchen in the back somewhere, because I could smell coffee. And it wasn’t top-shelf stuff, if that smell was anything to go by. Either that, or the percolator needed a good cleaning.

But underneath that almost burned aroma, other scents ran. Leather and man and, softer still, orange and jasmine.

And underneath them all, a scent that made my wolf soul twitch.

Cat.

It was faint, but it was there. Our murderess had definitely come this way, though the scent wasn’t strong enough to suggest she was still here.

I came across the cop first—a tall man with blond hair leaning casually on one of the shelves. He straightened when I approached. “Directorate?”

I nodded, looking past him as I showed him my badge. Rollins was huddled on a kitchen chair, pale hands wrapped around a coffee mug. “Has Mr. Rollins said anything?”

The cop shook his head. “I just gave him a coffee to calm his nerves.”

“Thanks.” I slipped past him and walked over to Rollins. He didn’t react, so I squatted down in front of him. “Mr. Rollins? I’m afraid I need to ask you some questions.”

He looked up, brown eyes haunted. “I saw her, you know.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You saw the woman who killed your boss?”

“Well, she was with him in the front window when I arrived, so yeah, I presume it was her that murdered Frank.”

“Did she see you?”

He snorted. “Hell, yes. She paused and waved at me. There was blood smeared all over her hands and skin.”

“She was naked, then?”

He nodded.

Not only a killer, but a brazen one, who seemingly
didn’t
have any fears about getting caught. “Where were you?”

“Sorta standing in the middle of the road, a little shocked. I mean, it’s not every day you see your boss and a babe making out in the window.”

No, I guess not. “Were you the only one watching?”

“There was a drunk.” He shrugged. “Most of the traffic kept zipping by. One of them almost ran me over. People in cars generally don’t take much notice of what’s going on around them.”

And if they
had
glimpsed the naked woman, would they actually have believed it? Or would they have thought it a mannequin? “What happened then?”

“She jumped out of the display area and I presume she walked to the back of the shop. There were no lights on in the store, so I couldn’t be sure, but she certainly didn’t come out the front.”

“Did you enter the shop?”

He shook his head. “I called the cops, and waited out the front. If she could kill Frank—and he wasn’t responding to me banging on the window, so I had to presume he was dead—I wasn’t taking the chance of confronting her alone. I mean, I’m half Frank’s size.”

Wise man. I waited while he took a sip of coffee, then asked, “Is there another exit besides the front door?”

He shook his head. “Only the window above us.”

I looked up. The window in question was maybe one foot square in diameter, and wouldn’t have been large enough for a woman or a cat the size of a tiger to get through. But the latch was undone and the woman had gone, so this
had
to be her exit point.

Which meant we had a shifter who could actually alter the size of her beast. Interesting.

“Did you see her well enough to give us a description of her?”

He nodded. “She was tall and willowy, with large breasts and a lush mouth. Blondish hair, long fingers.”

I raised my eyebrows again. “Long fingers?”

“I’m a pianist. I notice hands.” He hesitated. “I’m sure she lives around here somewhere. I’ve seen her on the street a few times.”

“But you don’t know her name?”

“No. Sorry.”

I squeezed his hand then rose. “There’ll be another Directorate officer in here in a moment or so to take a full statement and work up an image ID, then we’ll send you home.”

He nodded. “Thanks.”

I left him to his coffee and walked back into the main shop area. Cole looked up as I entered. “Anything useful?”

“He saw the killer, so we’ll need a full statement.”

“Does his description match that of the woman James was last seen with?”

“Only in that they both had blond hair.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “It’ll be interesting to see what the DNA comes up with then, because the MO is the same for both murders.”

“Except for the amount of bloodshed and the size of the scratches.” I walked over to the victim and squatted down, studying his neck. Like Gerard James, this man had three small scratches near the pulse point of his neck. But why—especially given that larger claws had been used on the rest of his body? I shifted a little, and saw the lipstick smear across his lips. It was the color of dried blood—not a very nice shade. “If it
is
the same woman, do you think we’re dealing with someone who can change the size of her animal?”

Cole raised his eyebrows. “It’d be rare.”

“But there are wolves who can alter their human forms, so why couldn’t there be shifters who can alter their animal one?”

“I don’t know. I’ll do a search and see if I can come up with anything.”

“Good.” I rose. “I think she escaped through a back window. I’m going to go around the back and see if I can catch a scent to track.”

Cole nodded, obviously not paying a whole lot of attention as he picked up a hair and carefully placed it in a bag.

I walked out the front and looked around until I found Kade, then walked over. I could smell the drunk before I got anywhere near them, and his unwashed, sour puke aroma had me stopping several yards away. Kade glanced over his shoulder, wrinkled his nose and made a face, then continued his interview for another few minutes.

“Well,” he said, when he finally joined me. “That was interesting.”

“Interesting because he had lots of information, or because he smelled like something the cat chucked up?”

He smiled. “Both, actually. Our killer is apparently into spanking—and he swears that while she was human, one of her hands was that of a large cat.”

“Which would at least explain all the blood and claw marks.” I touched his arm, tried to ignore the urge to caress his warm, bay skin, and added, “She apparently escaped through the back window. I’m going to try and track the scent.”

His steps matched mine as we headed for the small lane at the end of the group of shops. “He also said that near the end of the session, she seemed to be doing this weird sucking thing to his mouth, and that he suddenly seemed in great pain.”

I raised an eyebrow, amusement twitching my mouth as I glanced up at him. “Maybe she bit his tongue.”

“He seemed to imply it was more ‘oh my God I’m going to die’–type pain, but then, he’s as drunk as a skunk, so who knows what he was really seeing.” He took a mouthful of coffee, then tossed the container into the trash. “There are Japanese legends about soul-stealers—you think we could be dealing with something like that?”

“It would certainly explain why there’s no souls hanging about afterward.” Shadows closed in around us as we moved into the laneway. “But in the Japanese legends, the soul-stealers are foxes, aren’t they?”

He shrugged. “There’s no reason why there can’t be soul-stealing cats, as well.”

“True.” It was certainly an idea worth chasing.

The ripe scent of rubbish left a little too long in the sun began to flavor the air, jostling for prominence with the sweet scent of the yellow roses climbing the fence that divided the lane from the house next door.

Kade stepped over a puddle, then asked, “You get anything useful from inside?”

“Cole thinks it’s the same woman and that she’s in heat, but the description our other witness gave us doesn’t really match the woman Gerard James was apparently last seen with.”

“Doesn’t mean anything. She could have been wearing a wig, colored contacts, or anything like that. My witness certainly didn’t get close enough to pick up those things.”

“Mine, neither.”

“Did he have small scratches on the side of his neck, like James did?”

I nodded and stepped over another brackish-looking puddle. “Same place, same size.”

“Then that’s our constant. For whatever reasons, she’s marking her victims.”

“But is she doing it before, or after? You know, for all the blood in this murder, there didn’t seem to be any blood related to those scratches. Yet they were open, un-healed wounds.”

“Maybe it’s some weird way of testing them before she kills them.” He shrugged. “We won’t know for sure until we catch the bitch.”

“Cats are queens. Only dogs are bitches.”

He snorted softly. “She takes female humanoid form, so therefore the bitch tag can apply. Trust me, I live with a household of them.”

I grinned. “And here was me having the image of you all being one big happy family.”

“Oh, we are. But where a group of females gather, bitching can be found. I’m sure it’s part of female DNA, just like the ability to sniff out chocolate wherever it may be hidden.”

“You could be right.” We reached the end of the shops and moved into the lane behind them. There were several cars crammed into the small space, leaving barely enough room between them and the brickwork to get through. None of the shops had rear entrances, which I would have thought would be against fire regulations. Even heritage-listed shops—which I didn’t think these were—had to have a fire exit. Maybe the owner was paying someone under the table to get away with not installing them.

I stopped at the shoe shop window and looked up. The sun hadn’t yet hit this wall, and the bricks were still damp from the early-morning dew. Small paw marks were visible, sliding through the wetness partway down the wall before disappearing.

“She definitely came this way,” Kade commented, then glanced at me. “You think you can track her?”

“We’ll soon see.” I stripped off my jacket and sweater, handing them to him before calling to the magic deep in my soul.

Energy swept around me, through me, changing me into the form that had found me at puberty. The form that was a part of me in ways the seagull shape—no matter how comfortable I ended up being with it—never would be.

To my wolf nose, the world came alive with a myriad of scents and sounds. I trotted forward, loving the feel of cold dampness under my paws and the play of sunlight across my fur. The texture of the air was thick and rich, and after sorting through all the different and delicious aromas, I found the one I wanted.

Cat.

But it was mixed with the scents of orange, jasmine, and humanity. She’d fled in human form, not cat. Which was odd, because her feline form would have been less noticeable.

But it made her trail easier to follow.

Nose to the ground and tail held high, I followed, padding between the cars and out into the main lane. With Kade’s shadow looming over me and his thick, rich scent teasing my senses, I ran back down the lane, leaping the puddle before moving out onto the main street.

The scent swirled, as if my quarry had waited and watched proceedings for a while before moving on. I ran down the street, following the trail over a road, past several more houses, then left into another street. The scent finally led into one of the houses.

I stopped at the gate and waited for Kade to catch up. The house was a small, brick affair that probably cost a fortune despite the fact it didn’t look wide enough to hold anything more than a small bedroom and a hallway. The front yard was almost nonexistent, but nicely kept, filled with sweet-smelling roses and abundant lavender bushes.

I looked around as Kade approached, then hit the gate with my paw. He opened it without comment, and together we headed up the steps to the front door. The scent of cat became stronger, but mingled with it was the metallic tang of blood and new death.

Not again,
I thought, and shifted back to human form. Without saying anything, I motioned Kade around to the side of the house, then held up two fingers. He nodded and leapt the side fence, disappearing quickly and quietly. I glanced at my watch, waited the two minutes, then slammed a shoulder against the front door. It might have had locks, but they didn’t stand a chance against a determined werewolf. The door crashed back against the wall, denting plaster and sending dust flying.

“Directorate,” I yelled, “come out with your hands up.”

Chapter 5

N
o one bothered coming out, but the scramble of tiny claws against polished floors suggested our quarry had most definitely heard me. I ran down the hallway, following the sound of fleeing steps, trying to ignore the growing scent of death to concentrate on the smell of cat.

Hoping all the while she ran straight out the back door and into Kade’s waiting arms.

The hallway ran the length of the long house, and finished in an open-plan kitchen-living area. Windows lined the rear wall, letting the sunlight stream in and lending the white room a warmth it wouldn’t have had otherwise. I couldn’t see Kade in the garden beyond those windows, but I knew he’d be near, waiting and ready.

I scanned the room, looking for the cat, and saw the flick of a black tail just before it disappeared through another doorway. I ran after it, heard a creaking noise and a soft thump, and got there in time to see the small window in the laundry room closing. A second later I barreled into the washing machine, leaving a huge dent in the pristine metal front. It didn’t do my knees a whole lot of good, either.

I cursed, but scrambled—well, limped—to the back door and flung it open.

Kade was little more than a warm red and black blur as he leapt the fence into the neighbor’s yard. I shifted shape again and followed, my belly barely clearing the top of the wooden palings.

Kade was nowhere in sight. I sniffed the air, finding both his scent and the cat’s, and ran after them—across an overgrown back lawn and over another fence. Kade was standing in the middle of the next yard, his hands on his hips and his expression one of frustration.

A second later I understood why. The scent of cat had multiplied and the scent we were chasing wasn’t strong enough to stand out amongst the other half-dozen cat scents now staining the air and the ground. I swore internally and nosed around, hoping against hope to catch the trail again. Instead, I found a white cat and a tabby, neither of whom were pleased to see me—a fact demonstrated by the way they hunkered down and hissed their little hearts out. I kept out of the way of their sharp claws and continued on, searching through the small garden bed and behind the old shed, but couldn’t find anything.

I shifted back to human form. “Fuck, we’ve lost her.”

“So it appears.” Kade ran a hand through his sweaty dark hair. “I didn’t even see her well enough to stop her kinetically.”

I frowned. “She must have been moving fast if you couldn’t freeze her. You can generally freeze vamps when they’re blurring, can’t you?”

“Yeah, but the trail of their emotions usually gives them away. I was getting nothing from her.” He glanced at me. “Did you catch a glimpse of her?”

“Yeah. Her animal form is black, but she can obviously shift the size of her cat, because what we were chasing is not what killed that man in the shop window. Cole reckons her hands were at least tiger-size.”

Kade frowned. “I didn’t think it was possible for shifters or weres to alter the size of their beast, let alone partially shift.”

“Well, up until recently, I didn’t think there was a wolf pack who could alter their human form, either, so who knows what else is out there?” I shrugged and adjusted my bra. Luckily, I’d gone for one that was Lycra rather than lace this morning, and as a result it had come through the shapeshifts in wearable condition. Which meant I’d definitely have to buy more for work situations. Running around with a bra on was infinitely better than running around without. “We better get back and check what—or who—is dead in that house.”

“Our shifter is obviously killing these women to assume their identities, which means she probably looks a lot like them to begin with.”

“Not necessarily. Maybe she can alter her human shape as well as her animal. After all, her cat is black, and yet the witnesses said she was blonde.” I shrugged and clambered back over the fence. “Or maybe she’s not even a shifter to begin with. Maybe she’s something else entirely.”

“But what else is there that can shift?”

“Who knows?” But if the spirit of an ancient god of death could be called into this time to create havoc once again, there was no saying what else was out there.

Or what else could be called into being.

A chill ran across my skin and I rubbed my arms. Kade must have caught the movement, because he retrieved my sweater and tossed it to me. I pulled it on gratefully, then caught my coat. Wearing it didn’t seem to ease the chill, though.

Our footsteps echoed through the silent house as we made our way back up the corridor. The death scent was coming from the first room, and my steps slowed as we approached. I’d seen a lot of bloodshed and killing over the last year—had even done my fair share of it—but it never seemed to get any easier to confront.

I hoped it never did.

I hoped the part of me that mourned the wanton destruction of innocent lives haunted my days—and nights—for as long as I remained in this job. Because it meant that I wasn’t becoming my brother, wasn’t becoming the unthinking killing machine that he could sometimes be, and that Jack wanted
me
to be.

We stepped into the room. A large bed dominated the small space. Like the rest of the house, everything was white—only here, the brightness was alleviated by dark red patches that adorned the walls, the bedspread, and the carpet near the bed.

Like the woman I’d found yesterday, this woman was lying half-undressed, slumped across the bed. Her lacy bra dangled from the stump of her shoulder, and her torso was crisscrossed with bloody gashes. Gashes made with claws bigger than your average black house cat.

“Christ,” Kade said. “The press are going to love this. First James, then his lover, and now another member of Toorak’s finest.”

“The press won’t get anywhere near the story if Jack has anything to do with it. He’ll keep them focused on James.”

“Press have a nose for these things.”

“And Jack’s had plenty of experience restraining them.”

He grunted, but whether that was agreement or not was anyone’s guess.

“She hasn’t been dead all that long.” He stopped near the body and looked down at her. “Why would the cat come back to this house when she’d already used the woman’s face and knew she’d been seen?”

I shrugged. “Given that we’re probably not dealing with a rational mind here, maybe she simply didn’t think we’d trace her so easily.”

I stopped beside him. Unlike her body, the woman’s face was untouched, but the terror of her ordeal seemed frozen on her features. My gaze fell to her mouth, and I frowned.

“Is that lipstick?” I leaned closer to have a look. The odor of death and new decay overrode the metallic scent of blood, but the scent of cat and that vague, orange and jasmine aroma was present as well.

“Where?” Kade said.

I pointed a finger to the smear of red across the woman’s top lip. “It looks like someone wearing lipstick has been kissing her. The shoe guy had the same color on his lips.”

“So she kissed this woman before she killed her, then stole her identity and killed the shoe guy. Maybe we
are
dealing with a soul-sucker of some kind.” He studied her mouth for a second longer, then stepped back and looked around. “There’s an awful lot of fear lingering in this room. Fear and anger.”

“Anger?” I raised an eyebrow. “Same source, or different?”

“The anger is older. Deeper.” He frowned. “When I sensed it in James’s office, it felt ancient and powerful. Now it feels even more so.”

I’m glad
he
was feeling something, because I wasn’t. And really, that was beginning to bug me. Four murders, and not one soul left hanging about afterward? Granted, the woman I’d found yesterday had been dead for so long her soul was unlikely to be still here, but with the other three, I should have sensed
something
. Hell, I might have wished more than once to go to a murder scene and not sense the dead, but the reality of its happening was prickling my radar. Something was
very
off-kilter.

And, at least with these cat killings, it really did suggest that we were dealing with some sort of soul-sucker.

Goose bumps fled across my skin. I resisted the urge to rub my arms and said, “So our murderer is somehow gaining power every time she kills?”

“That would be my guess, yes.” His gaze met mine. “Which means we have to catch her soon, before she grows too powerful.”

“If we can bring down a god of death, we can bring down this thing. Whatever she is.” But I wished I sounded a little more confident. “What I don’t get is why she’s marking her victims first. I mean, why bother with three tiny slashes if she’s going to cut them up so badly or rip off an arm? And why would she do that to this woman and the shoe guy, and not to James and the first female victim?”

“Maybe it was some sort of test that developed into something more violent.” His gaze raked the woman’s body, and distaste flicked through his warm eyes. “And she didn’t only claw here. She’s nibbled.”

My stomach did an odd sort of flip-flop. “What?”

“Here.” He pointed to a small area near the woman’s left breast. The skin had been torn open, and globules of fat and flesh were evident. “Those aren’t claw marks around the wound. That’s teeth.”

“Why on earth would she be eating the flesh now when she didn’t before?”

“What better way to induce fear than to actually eat bits of your victim?” He shrugged. “She seems to be getting more violent with each murder, so perhaps this is all part of the escalation.”

I shuddered at the thought. I didn’t want to think about the mess her victims would be in if we didn’t stop her soon. “If that
is
a bite wound, then she was wearing a smaller form. And no one—not even a human—is going to stand around and let a cat nibble on their flesh. Besides, the woman was in the process of dressing—it would have been hard for the cat to sneak in a bite before the woman reacted.”

“We don’t know what other skills she has, besides her ability to shift her shape and size.”

That was true. I glanced at my watch and swore softly. I was late for my coffee appointment with Ben. “Look, I have to go chat to a man about another murdering psycho. You want to call in a cleanup team on this one?”

He nodded. “I’ll go talk to James’s secretary after that, see if he was the connection to the two women.”

“Even if he was, how would they all be connected to the shoe guy?” It was easy enough imagining the women buying shoes there, but I highly doubt James was the type to be running around in high heels.

“With politicians you never really know.” He reached across and flicked my nose lightly. “It’s nice working with you, even if we can’t have sex.”

I grinned. “Ditto. Just be careful that cat doesn’t come back and decide to make a meal out of you, too.”

His warm brown eyes twinkled with sudden mischief. “Wouldn’t be the first time a woman has decided to eat me.”

“Yeah, but this one is taking more than a pound of flesh with her. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that.”

“No, and neither would my mares.”

“I don’t know,” I said, trying for a reflective tone rather than amused, but missing horribly. “I bet Sable is so far into her pregnancy she’s now cursing your pound or two of flesh and hoping it’ll disappear for quite a while.”

“No doubt about it,” he said with a smile. “But when she comes into heat again, it’ll be a different story.”

“She’s not a baby machine, you know.”

“She’s a mare. That’s what they do.”

So much for the enlightened world of horse-shifters. I shook my head and left.

Thanks to morning traffic, it took me close to thirty minutes to get to Lygon Street. Parking was as difficult to find as ever, so by the time I entered Chiquita’s, I was a good fifteen minutes late. The café was cozy rather than flashy in design, full of intimate tables and seating that wrapped around you and lent a feeling of privacy. Down at the far end of the room was one of those fire-places that looked like logs but was actually gas, and the air was warm enough to almost instantly snatch the chill from my skin.

I didn’t see Ben straightaway, but a moment later he stood and waved. I couldn’t help the smile that touched my lips. Damn he looked
good.

He’d dressed in blue jeans that molded around his strong legs and highlighted the sharp definition of muscles. The sleeves of his red shirt had been casually rolled to his elbows, and emphasized not only the width of his shoulders but the rich blackness of his skin.

He smiled when our gazes met, his white teeth flashing brightly in the gloom. My hormones did several excited skips. I might have been off the casual bandwagon for several months now, but this man had me reconsidering my options.

Or maybe I was simply ready to get back into the hunt again. I might not be over the hurt of watching Kellen walk away, but the break had at least given my bruised heart time to mend a little.

Maybe I was ready to play again, even if I had no intention of taking it further than that for a while.