Twice Dead (22 page)

I took it, obediently inhaling the scent. I smelled oiled metal, which reminded me instantly of Tatius and was probably part of the base scent I’d temporarily adopted from him; a trace of lavender clung to the back of my tongue—which was likely part of whomever Tatius had fed from.

Another jumble of scents rolled through my senses, some of which were part of my own base scent. Over it all hung a sour, musky scent thick enough to swallow. The smell made my tongue curl in disgust, but Degan was right. The scents were similar, but there was something slightly different about the blood drying around the body. Something extra, something more bitter than the scent in my blood.

I related all of this, and Nathanial nodded before returning to his perusal of the body. After parting the man’s thighs and examining the insides of his legs, he flipped him. Nathanial was strong enough to roll the large man, but it was still an awkward amount of weight. One of the corpse’s hands flopped to the side, falling against the floor with a sick plop.

“What are you looking for?” I asked as Nathanial continued his search along the front of the man’s body.

“He has no marks on him. No fang punctures, no cuts, no indication he struggled with his attacker at all.” Nathanial waved at the man’s hands.

The corpse’s nails were long for a male, but they were all unbroken and clean—no skin or blood under them that I could see. We couldn’t be certain about the wounds to the head that had been delivered to the Collector, but we had the rest of the body. A body with absolutely no defensive wounds.

I stood and walked a small circle around the body. “So, what, he just stood there and let someone cut off his head?”

“His heart wasn’t beating when his head was removed,” Degan said, sidling closer.

“How do you know?”

“You’ve hunted wild game,” he said, crossing his thick arms over his chest. “What happens when you cut a major artery?”

I frowned. “It sprays blood.” I glanced at the blackened but low ceiling over us, then at the floor around the body.

There was no spray—just the pool around the body, which had clearly flowed out of the neck. The blood pool wasn’t large enough to have covered all evidence of arterial spray during a beheading.

Degan was right. The vamp’s heart hadn’t been beating.

“Could he have been sleeping at the time he was killed?” I asked, looking at Nathanial. Vampires fell into a type of stasis during the day. The saying ‘dead to the world’ was a pretty good one. No movement, no consciousness, and very little in the way of a pulse. If the vamp’s heart had slowed enough, there might not have been enough pressure to cause a spray.

Nathanial shook his head and pointed to the wall. “The windows are not boarded on this level. During the day, sunlight will stream inside.”

“He could have been brought here. In a coffin maybe? If he was brought before full dark but while he still slept?”

Again Nathanial shook his head. “I know of this vampire. He was a master soldier. He was old enough and powerful enough to have woken long before dusk.” He bent over the body again. “Look at this.”

I moved to his side, but didn’t see what had interested him. He pointed to a spot just below the corpse’s hip, and I leaned closer.

Nathanial pointed to a small hole, not much bigger than a large pore. But vampires don’t have pores. “A needle mark?”

Nathanial said nothing as he leaned closer to the wound. I pushed to my feet. “You searched this place, did you find anything?” I asked, looking at Degan.

He pointed to a spot in the corner. “His clothes.”

I walked over and stared at the small stack of clothing. A stack of
folded
clothing. Complete with a pair of size-eleven sneakers on the bottom.
What is the likelihood the killer
undressed him after beheading him, then proceeded to fold
the clothes and leave them in the corner?
I grabbed the teeshirt on the top of the stack and shook it out.

No blood. Not even a drop.

Well, if the vamp’s heart had stopped, there was a chance the killer had taken the time to undress him before lopping off his head. I glanced back at the vamp and picked up the sneakers. The sole was made up of a diamond pattern.
Just
like the prints downstairs, the ones that went straight to the
stairs.

I walked back to the dead vamp and glanced at the soles of his feet. Smudges of burnt wood and ash covered the pads.

He’d walked barefoot, and quite possibly undressed himself.

What the hell had he been doing here?
I thought back to the prints downstairs, of the mostly obscured, small, pointedshoe impressions.

Small enough to be a woman’s.

“Okay,” I said, looking between the dead vamp and the stack of clothes in the corner. “So this vamp and likely a woman came here. One of them knew how to find the stairs. They came up to the second floor and he, at the very least, undressed. Was this a romantic encounter gone wrong?” I frowned at the neat stack of clothing. “But he took time to fold his clothes? Not a lot of heat in that. I mean, Nathanial you and—” I cut off, heat rushing to my face.
You and I
nearly shredded each other’s clothing earlier,
was what I nearly said, and the knowing look Nathanial gave me made my blush burn hotter.

As the silence made it clear I wasn’t going to continue, Degan said, “So, then we need to know if the woman is the killer or if she’s another victim.”

None of us had an answer for that. I turned to Nathanial.

“Now what?”

“Now I get you home before dawn.” He strolled across the crisp boards and wrapped his arms around my waist.

Degan frowned at us. “I suppose that leaves me to get rid of the body.”

“Leave it,” Nathanial said as our feet left the scorched boards. “Dawn will destroy the remains.”

* * * *

“What do we do now?” I asked as I trudged into the living room of Nathanial’s secret house.

“I need to consider our options,” he said, which pretty much meant he wasn’t sure if he would take the information we’d found to Tatius or not. Or maybe it meant we hadn’t learned enough.

I sank onto the large green couch. As far as I was concerned, the presence of snake venom in the victim’s blood was a damning fact, but vampires couldn’t smell it, which complicated things. My chin touched my chest and my eyelids fluttered as I fought dawn and sleep.

Nathanial’s scent filled my world as he scooped me off the couch. “Best not to sleep in a room with windows,” he whispered, his lips pressing against my hair. Even this close to dawn, the sensation sent a tingle of electricity across my skin.

“Will it be safe to go to Tatius?” I asked, struggling to keep my eyes open. “What if he acts first and asks questions later?”

“I do not think Tatius will hurt me.”

I frowned. My brain was turning sluggish, but he made it sound like Tatius wouldn’t hurt him, in particular. “Why? Because you are on the council now?” That hadn’t seemed like much protection when Tatius had tried to pin him to a door.

“No,” Nathanial whispered as my eyes drifted closed. His lips trailed down my forehead, over the tip of my nose until his breath brushed my mouth. “No. He will listen because I am his brother.”

Chapter Seventeen

I woke to the sensation of tongues of fire crawling under my skin. Jumping from the bed, I flung myself to the floor, swatting at my arms.

There was no fire. The room was quiet, empty.

I looked down. My arms were both whole, healed and unharmed. The creepy sensation didn’t dissipate. In fact, it grew worse, as if something too warm for comfort had slithered into my body.

What the hell?
I stripped off Nathanial’s shirt and rubbed my hands over my bare arms, thighs, stomach. The feeling of flames licking my flesh only increased. It was more of an irritation than a pain, a prickle of
wrongness.

The poison?
I hadn’t felt this way when I fell asleep.

All but running to the bathroom, I turned the shower on full blast and stepped under the jets of water. It didn’t help. I couldn’t stand still long enough to wash my hair.

I climbed out of the shower without turning off the water and left a wet trail behind as I stalked back to the bedroom. I raided Nathanial’s dresser and stole another undershirt. Then I grabbed the coat I’d worn the night before and tugged it over the thin shirt. The coat’s hem clung to my ankles as I left the light-safe portion of the house.

I searched each room I came across, but Nathanial wasn’t in any of them.
Did he decide to see Tatius? Without me?
I paced around the living room couch, rubbing my arms through the thick coat. The tiny tongues of fire creeping under my skin sped up, prickling, pinching.

I paced faster. Moving helped.

I have to get out of here.

The thought barely had time to register before I found myself springing down the front steps, the door slamming behind me. I walked barefoot in the darkness, through the snow, across the yard, through the gate, and onto the icy sidewalk. I didn’t pause to consider which direction to walk.

The moving mattered, not the destination.

As I walked, the burning dulled, and then faded until it was only a minor annoyance. I turned down another street and stopped.

What the hell am I doing? Trying to get caught?
I turned, starting back the way I’d come. The licks of flames along my skin rushed back with a vengeance. More than irritation. More than pain. It struck with agony.

I gasped and dropped to my knees.

“Stars above, what the hell is it?” I whispered, blinking at the snow under my nose.

Pushing to my feet, I hobbled forward, my vision red with pain. I didn’t pay attention to where I walked. I didn’t care. I shouldered through a wooden gate, and the pain fell away.

I almost collapsed from the sudden relief.
But where am I?

I looked around. Under the blanket of snow I could just make out the enormous shape of a slide.

A playground?

My footprints left a lonely trail through the snow as I walked toward a play fort shaped like a miniature pirate ship.

A set of snow covered swings hung beside the monkey-bars; apparently the kids didn’t play here during the winter. The first swing hung loose on one chain, but I knocked the snow off the other and sat.

Something slammed into my back, catapulting me out of the swing.
What the—
I landed on my feet and twisted, my hands balling into fists. A bundled figure stood just behind the swing, his arms still extended from where he’d shoved me. I dropped my weight onto my back leg, lifting my fists as the figure knocked the swing aside.

“Hey, babe, don’t get all defensive. I didn’t mean to send you into the snow. Just thought you needed a push.”

I recognized that voice. “Avin?”

“In the flesh.”

“What are you doing here?” Of all places and people, why would I run into a necromancer in a playground?

“Waiting on you, babe. You sure took your sweet time answering my call.”

Call?
When I blinked at him, he held up a gloved hand.

Opening it, he showed me a marble sized globe floating above his palm. A small crimson dot hung suspended in the globe’s core. I might not have known much about magic, but I knew blood when I saw it. I reached forward, and Avin snapped his fist shut.

“I’ve come to collect my favor.”

“Already?”

“Well, I had planned to hold out for something special, but I had a bad day.” He pushed back his hood.

I could only stare.

His red hair was gone, and without it, his head looked misshapen. Actually, maybe it
was
misshapen. If he’d told me someone had given him a makeover with a hammer, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Cuts decorated his face, several gaping wide enough to reveal bone. His lopsided jaw hung slack. He shot me a feeble smile. Most of his teeth were missing.

“A regular monsterpiece, aren’t I?” He chuckled and lifted a hand to his face. “Compliments of some street thugs. I tell you, babe, this world got a lot more dangerous since the last time I was awake.”

It took effort to wrench my gaze from his mutilated features. I stared at a spot over his left shoulder. “Can…” I cleared my throat. “Can you heal that?”

“Nah, this body’s dead. I can possess it and preserve it, but I can’t heal it. That’s where the favor you owe me comes in.”

I cringed, already not liking the direction of this conversation. Avin didn’t notice.

“I need a new body. You’re going to get me one.”

He has to be kidding.
The destroyed features betrayed no jest.
Mooncursed. That’s what I am. Totally mooncursed.

I sank into the swing and shook my head. “So what, you want me to dig up a corpse for you? Sneak into a morgue?”

“I just came from a morgue and have no intention of visiting one again anytime soon. I swear, a guy can’t even rest in this world without people assuming he’s a murder victim. I’m sure I livened up the crime lab’s life though. They couldn’t figure out how I died, but were even more puzzled as to why someone did this,” he pointed to his face, “postmortem. I’m sure they must be losing their minds now that my ‘corpse’ is missing.” He shot me a disturbing, toothless smile again. “But I’m way off topic. I want a
fresh
corpse to
quicken
. No one dead long enough to make it to the morgue. Would
you
want to live in a body that’s already started decaying? Also, embalming is a disgusting habit, knocks out half my senses.”

“Okay, so I have to snatch a dead body before it makes it to the embalming table.”

He wrinkled his crooked nose. “Bodies begin decaying fast, and the ritual needed to jump from one host body to another is long. It can’t be so random as snatching a chance body. I need to be ready and waiting as they die.”

“No.” He was suggesting I kill someone for him. I wasn’t doing it. “We agreed on nothing life-threatening.”