The Ryu Morgue (A Jane True Short Story) (Trueniverse Book 2) (7 page)

“That’s very insightful,” Maeve said, her mouth pursing as she studied him. For a split second, she felt like she was seeing him for the first time. But that was undoubtedly the wine talking.

Ryu held up his hands, warding off the compliment. “It was unfair to Jane, of course. She wanted someone who saw her as she was really was, who understood what she wanted out of life. I saw who we could be together, who I could be with her. I didn’t think about her. Not really. So, she left me.”

“Wow,” said Maeve, when Ryu had made it clear he’d said his piece on the subject. “That’s a lot to learn from one relationship.”

Ryu laughed, one of his short, sharp barks that held little humor. “Yes. Yes, it is. But I managed to not learn quite a bit for a very long time, so it was overdue.”

“Do you miss her?”

“I do,” he said. “Or at least, I did. For a while. Now that I sort of figured things out, I don’t miss
her
, really. But I do miss…
us
, I guess. I miss being in that sort of a relationship.”

Maeve’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “I didn’t expect you, of all people, to say something like that.”

“My reputation precedes me, I’m assuming.” He raised his glass to her in an ironic toast. “Yes, well, don’t tell anyone. What happens in Napa stays in Napa.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “You got it.” Her words ended on a shiver. The night had gotten cold. She pulled the thin material of her jacket tighter, wishing she’d brought a warmer coat. Ryu nodded at her bag.

“You still have the shawl, don’t you?”

“Yes, but I thought we were going to check it out more?”

“Hand the whole thing over.”

She did as he’d asked, handing him her oversized purse. He pulled the folded shawl out of it, his brow furrowing in concentration as he held the thing with both hands. After what felt like ages, and was probably a good five minutes, he shook his head.

“I can’t feel a trace of magic on it. And you’re obviously freezing.”

He handed her the black and white material, and she wrapped it around her neck and shoulders gratefully. It made all the difference, and she felt suddenly warm and safe.

Ryu started talking about tomorrow. About what they’d do, for the investigation.

She watched his lips moving. They suddenly seemed very red to her, in the dim light. Ruby red.

Like blood.

And his teeth glinted, so white in the sparkling light of the courtyard. But of course they gleamed. They were fangs.

The fangs of the thing that killed her mother.

He was a vampire.

Vampires had to die.

She knew she had weapons. Guns and knives and all sorts of things to maim and kill. But they weren’t with her, not tonight. Not when they were off duty, and going to a place where they’d be drinking.

Steak knife
. It had come with the plate of charcuterie, to help them cut the sausage. She picked it up, then looked at her enemy.

He sat, telling her how he planned to rape and then murder her, and then to murder everyone in the restaurant. Blood dripped from his wide red mouth, pouring onto the table. It filled the wine glasses, the blood of innocents he’d slaughtered and brought for his feast.

“Maeve,” she heard. “Are you all right?”

Maeve looked at the vampire. He had to die.

She lunged at his throat.

ELEVEN

Ryu shoved his chair over, sending it crashing it to the ground as he rolled out of it and onto his feet. Maeve, moving with preternatural speed, missed his throat by millimeters.

“Murderer!” she cried, shoving the entire wrought iron table so that it crashed against the stone wall. She raised the knife between them, snarling like an animal.

“About that shawl,” he drawled, affecting calm he didn’t feel.

“Murderer!” she repeated, darting toward him. He’d already automatically sent out a No Go glamour, repelling any human involvement, but he bolstered it when he realized Maeve was serious.

Or seriously magicked.

His mind racing, he jumped back again. As her arm holding the knife withdrew from her strike, he did his own lunging, trying to nab the shawl wrapped tightly around her neck. Too tightly, he noticed. It was hugging her, moving with her, rather than flopping around like a normal shawl.

How had he missed that much mojo?

She ducked away from him, one arm shielding the shawl protectively as she stabbed again with the knife. She was fast enough to nick his bicep, much faster than she should have been, if not fast enough to really be a match for him.

But that was where the danger lay, he realized. The magic made her dangerous enough that deadly force might be necessary to protect whomever she attacked.

He backed away from her as she prepared for another strike, holding his hands up in supplication. “Maeve. This isn’t you. It’s the shawl. You have to fight it, Maeve.”

She stopped and blinked at her name, which he’d used on purpose. He had to get through whatever hold Pai’s knitting had on her. Maeve blinked a second time, shaking her head slightly.

“Murderer!” She lunged again, this time running at him like they were playing football.

He dodged her, trying again to reach her. “I’m not a murderer, Maeve.”
At least I haven’t been for a while
, he thought. “You’re not yourself.”

“Liar!” she shouted, her face contorted with rage as the shawl undulated around her throat. “You killed her! I saw you!”

This time, when she lunged, he struck out with his left arm, hitting her wrist with enough force to disarm her. The knife clattered to the ground even as her other hand clawed at his face, her nails raking viciously down his cheek and jaw. He ignored the pain, grabbing both hands and shoving her over onto her back.

She hit the ground hard, her head smacking against the paving stones with an audible thunk. He winced at the sound, but she appeared unaffected, fighting him like a banshee hopped up on meth. Standing over her, he made a desperate bid for the shawl. She used the hand he’d freed to punch him squarely in the Adam’s apple. Tears popped into his eyes as his breath faltered, pain blistering his senses. He jumped on top of her, pinning her with his weight for as long as it took him to grab both of her wrists. As he manhandled them into his left hand, he raised his chest off hers, just enough to make another attempt for the shawl.

This time, he was successful. His hand closed on the writhing fabric, but now he was wrestling both the shawl and the woman it possessed.

It wrapped around Maeve’s neck like a boa constrictor, even as her body bucked underneath him, threatening to throw him off. She bit at the hand holding her wrists, and he swore.

“Damn it, Maeve! Fight it!” Her eyes darted toward him, but her teeth found the soft flesh between his thumb and pointer finger, sinking deep.

He yanked that hand up, her head following with her jaw’s death grip. He used the opportunity to get a better hold on the back of the shawl. He pulled with all of his strength and the shawl finally began to give way, its freed ends reaching out toward Maeve in an eerie parody of a hug. Her teeth sank deeper into his hand as he finally separated her entirely from the shawl, throwing the fabric toward the other end of the patio.

“Maeve?” he asked, cradling her head in his free hand. She looked up at him from where she had her teeth still sunk in his flesh, her violent bucking slowing.

But not fast enough to keep him from reacting, like any male vampire would, to the pain/pleasure of her strong bite and the shift of her hips and soft belly against his groin.

She let go suddenly, gasping in a breath as tears abruptly formed in her eyes. “Oh my God, Ryu, what have I done?”

Freed from her teeth, he jerked himself back so that he sat sprawled at her feet. She sat up, tears streaming down her cheeks, her plump lips bloodied.

“Your face,” she said, reaching a trembling hand toward him. “Your hand...”

“I’m fine,” he said, the husky tone in his voice having nothing to do with anger, but she obviously took it that way.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, dropping her hand. “I don’t know what happened...”

“I do,” he said, trying to get a rein on his feelings. Especially the ones currently making a tent of his trousers, a tent he fervidly hoped Maeve wouldn’t notice. “And it’s not your fault. I told you the shawl was safe. Clearly, it wasn’t.”

“But why did you...”

“Because it wasn’t magic. At least, not the kind I was testing for.” Ryu struggled to his feet, surreptitiously adjusting himself while thinking of anything other than the memory of Maeve moving underneath him.

“What was it, then?” Maeve asked. She was still crying, but Ryu thought it was more of an aftereffect of the shawl’s influence than out of true emotion.

He held his uninjured hand out to her. She hesitated, then accepted, and he pulled her to her feet.

“God, look at us,” she said, and then she started brushing at his clothes, her hands batting at the dirt and leaves covering his formerly pristine slacks. And absolutely not helping his more embarrassing reactions to her attack. He grabbed both of her hands in his to stop her and she blanched at the wet squelch of his bloodied skin against hers.

“Sorry,” he said, pulling his hands away. “I’m all right.” He concentrated, invoking his magic to heal his cheeks and his hand.

It worked, but he was going to have to feed soon to top up his power. He’d used up more than he intended with the wine experiment.

“Wow,” Maeve said, marveling. “That’s pretty neat. But you’re still all bloody.”

He didn’t have the heart to tell her that she was too. A smear of blood decorated her full, already red lips, her lipstick smeared with the blood in a way directly reminiscent of vampire sex.

Good vampire sex.

He cursed his overactive imagination, reaching for a fallen napkin and plunging it into his water glass. Then he drew her toward him, wiping the blood and lipstick away before it completely distracted him. When he was finished, he realized how close he’d brought her, and how her gray eyes were staring up into his with a shock that only partially attributable to the shawl’s magic.

He let her go, busying himself with wetting the other side of the napkin to scrub at his own face and hand.

“I am sorry,” she said. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining. “That wasn’t...it wasn’t me.”

He eyed the shawl huddled on the gray stone floor. “You needn’t apologize. I told you the shawl was safe. As for that not being you...It wasn’t, and it was.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice sharp.

“It wasn’t like you to attack me, no. But like the people we examined at the morgue, the hatred for supernaturals was part of you.”

She ducked her head, refusing to answer his implied question.

“You don’t have to tell me what happened to you,” Ryu said, reaching to touch the wrist he’d hit. She winced, hurt, as he’d expected. He used a little more of his dwindling magic to heal her.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, but he knew that this time it wasn’t about the attack.

“And once more you don’t have to be sorry. You feel what you feel,” he told her, placing a finger under chin to make her meet his eyes. “You don’t have to tell me your secrets.

“That said, you need to get over it. You work with us now. And you’re working with me,
right
now. I can’t have a partner that secretly wants me dead.”

“I don’t want you dead,” she began, but interrupted her.

“Maybe not consciously. But what happened with the shawl says otherwise about what’s going on in your unconscious. You’ve got to face your demons.”

Tears were again rolling down her face. He noticed with a pang that she was an ugly crier, making her all the more vulnerable, invoking that masculine need to protect shared by humans and supernaturals alike.

“I do,” she whispered. “I really do.”

“Good,” he said. “Because even though we’re not literally facing a demon this time, we’re facing something even worse.”

Maeve looked at him, curiosity transcending the clusterfuck of emotions showing on her puffy, pale face.

“Oh?” she asked. “What is it?”

“Only the biggest pain in the ass possible. A god.”

TWELVE

Maeve fidgeted in her seat, picking at the lid of her empty coffee cup and wondering whether she ought to get another. She normally didn’t drink coffee after three pm, but today wasn’t normal in any way. Not least because she’d slept until two, despite being someone who woke at six in the morning no matter what had occurred the night before.

Ryu had warned her she’d crash after the shawl’s possession, and crash she had. By the time they’d gotten back to the hotel and Ryu had secured the shawl and run a few diagnostics on her to make sure she wouldn’t try to kill him in his sleep, it had been midnight and she’d barely been able to keep her eyes open. She’d fallen asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow and hadn’t woken up until noon the next day. After realizing Ryu wasn’t in the room, she’d gotten up with every intention of getting ready, only to use the bathroom and then go back to bed for another two hours. She’d only barely managed to drag herself out of bed and into clothes, then to the hotel lobby in search of coffee.

Stifling a yawn, Maeve wondered where her erstwhile partner had gone off to.

Probably to solve the case alone
, she thought, frowning at her coffee. And it would serve her right, for attacking him like that. Shawl or no, she apparently couldn’t be trusted.

“There you are.” Ryu’s smooth tenor sounded from behind her and she started, knocking over the empty cardboard cup. “Easy, it’s just me,” he said, taking the chair across from her.

His amber eyes raked over her. “You look like hell. No offense.” He grinned, taking the edge off his words. “But I don’t sense any magic in you. Any desire to kill me this morning?”

She groaned, feeling her face heat up. “No. And I can’t apologize enough. I feel horrible about last night...”

“Don’t. Seriously. You busted the case wide open. We never would have figured out what happened without your having put on that shawl. Now we know, and I was able to send for what we need.”