Under a Blood Moon: Death Witch, Supernatural Investigative Unit, page 16
“And you agreed.” I finished the story for him, stunned and repulsed at the same time. To give a man the means to avenge the destruction of his family was a good thing, right? But to make a monster that you knew would keep on killing was a horrible thing. Which did Jakob think he had done? “Did you know he would keep on killing?”
“I should have.” Jakob ran his hand roughly through his hair. “We found the two who were responsible easily. They weren’t enough for him. We kept hunting. I thought it was better for him to dine on a wolf than a person.”
I nodded. I could see his point. I didn’t like to think about it, but we all kill something to stay alive. Well, everyone except the vegans, and there were damn few vegan vampires out there. “I prefer cow.”
“Or chicken. Woldemar prefers wolf, every time. More specifically, he prefers wolf that dines on people. He’s a zealot. That’s why I trust him.”
“Huh?”
“He’s a zealot who hates werewolves who prey on humans. He’ll walk past a troll devouring an entire orphanage of children. He’ll calmly ignore a siren sending a fleet to a watery grave. But this thing, the thing that threatens our city, is what drives him. The situation couldn’t be more perfect.”
“Except that you spoke German to him.” I struggled not to whine.
“What?” Jakob looked at me completely confused.
“Until tonight, I was the only person you spoke German to. It was our private language. Now it belongs to him too, and I don’t like it.” God, it was the silliest, stupidest thing in the world. I should be upset that someone who was likely a murderer had stopped by for a visit or that Jakob had made another vampire.
I had every right to be angry that there were great big parts of his history I didn’t know and that one of them had showed up for a visit. I wasn’t, though. I was upset that he had spoken the language he whispered to me in our most intimate moments to someone else. Tears pricked at my eyes and I turned away to hide them.
“My love,” he said softly, burying his face in my hair, “does it help that I used different words?”
“A little,” I sniffed.
“I had no idea you cared so much about such a little thing.”
“But it’s the only thing I have that’s entirely ours. You’ve had other women. I’ve had other men. We work with other people. We eat with other people. Every day I’m forced to share you with the world, but this little thing, that was mine.” I was crying freely over it.
“I’m so very sorry, my love.” He kissed my neck softly. “What I can do?”
“Tell me you love me more.”
He grabbed me, pulling me to face him on the couch. He kissed me wildly, a happiness playing across his face. “I will always love you more, I swear it.” He kissed me again, crazy kisses on my eyebrows and nose until I started laughing, then kissing him back. “Let me prove how much I love you.”
Later, when we were both exhausted and sure of our love, he whispered something. I knew enough to catch a word or two, but mostly it was lost. A language changes a lot in six hundred years.
“What did you say?” I looked up from his chest, my voice sleepy.
“I love you, and no other will ever come before you.”
“I love you too. You’re incredibly romantic for a violent thug.”
“I try.”
We both laughed.
“You know there is something else I could give you, something that you would never have to share with anyone,” he said.
“What’s that?” I asked on the edge of sleep.
“My name.”
Something along the lines of a squeak escaped me. Marrying Jakob had never crossed my mind. I loved him, but marriage seemed too big, like more than I could handle. It also seemed right, exactly what we should do. I was torn between wanting to do it and being so scared I wanted to run from the room.
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” he told me with a laugh. “Sleep, we’ll talk about it some other time when it doesn’t make your heart beat so fast.”
I was grateful he understood. When I woke up for work a few hours later, the idea stayed on my mind. I showered, thinking about weddings and dresses, then firmly pushed the thoughts aside. It was a pretty thought, but living my life was more important than daydreaming about how it could be lived. Besides, it was strange enough getting up in the morning knowing there were two very old, very powerful vampires sleeping in the house, one of them intent on genocide. Mark would keep killing werewolves until one of them killed him.
The whole city was living in fear of the slaughter that came each night with the full moon. If he killed a hundred werewolves, they’d hand him a medal. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
16
I arrived in the squad room promptly at eight, despite my best efforts to delay. Danny and Ben were already talking about the case. With a quick nod, I bypassed them to follow the siren song of the coffee maker. But the break room pot was still bubbling away. Impatient, I moved the pot out of the way to fill my coffee cup straight from the maker. Sure, everyone else in the department would get slightly weaker coffee, but my night spent with a mysterious werewolf killer trumped any case of the Mondays. Ben offered me a cheerful good morning on his way out, making me think there hadn’t been any dead bodies. Danny confirmed it.
“No bodies from Saturday night and none from last night, so the wolves are either eating them whole or we haven’t found them yet. Either way, it gives us a nice break from the media blitz.” He gestured toward the department copy of the morning paper. A crime scene photo from the college had gotten out. Red-stained brick made me wish I had taken Jakob up on his offer to buy me the chocolate shop.
“It’s also possible that we had two isolated incidents, right?” I tried.
“Possible, but unlikely, especially given what happened that the newspapers don’t know about.” He gave me a sober look before going on. “Actually, that sparks an idea, how do you feel about a trip to missing persons?”
“Missing persons?” I asked, completely confused.
“The department of missing persons. Sometimes I forget how new you are. Didn’t anyone ever give you a tour of the building?”
I shook my head. “I never had the pleasure.”
“Lucky you, missing persons, two floors down, they aren’t morning people. We can work on reports for a while before we head down.”
I didn’t smile as I dug into the stack of papers on my desk.
The missing persons department didn’t look a thing like our office. The floor had a soft blue carpet and there were actual live plants in the corners of the reception room. We didn’t even have a reception room. Then again, we didn’t get many weeping parents in Supernatural Investigations, so I guess that was fair. The large tray of breakfast pastries was not. A pretty admin with her ID hooked to her skirt greeted us.
“Detectives Gallagher and Mors, SIU,” Danny explained. Her smile dimmed a bit. I suspected it was meant for media. “We’d like to talk to someone about your unsolved cases.”
She passed us off to a decidedly less attractive detective who walked us back into a squad room that looked more familiar. They still had better carpet and newer desks, but the layout of partners’ desks with a lieutenant’s office at the end of the room was comforting.
“What kind of cases do you need? Got some fairy tale freak eating kiddies again?” The detective hadn’t bothered to give us his name.
“No, thank God. Just werewolves this time.” When Danny said ‘just werewolves’ my anger rose, then I realized that the case the detective had mentioned must have been pretty brutal.
“So the rumors are true. Nuts, I’ve got a brother-in-law that turns furry once a month, never causes a problem. Why does there always have to be one that ruins it for the rest of ’em?” Neither of us answered but he didn’t seem to notice. “What can MP do to help?”
“We’d like your records of missing adults for the last ten full moons.” Danny didn’t smile or say please.
“Got the dates? We don’t worry about lunar cycles down here.”
Danny already had the dates written down. We decided to wait while the printer spat out pages. The stack of paper was depressing. Too many people went missing in our town. Upstairs, we sorted through the pages. In the last full moon, six people had been reported missing. In the full moon before that, five. Before that, six again. Going back further, ten months ago, two people were missing, and nine months ago, only one.
“The WPL shows up in town seven months ago, and there just happens to be a spike in the number of people missing on the full moon. Isn’t that an amazing coincidence?” I said.
“Amazing,” Danny agreed.
“Can I ask why no one has noticed this little coincidence before?” I tried my best not to sound critical.
Danny sighed. “Over half a million adults go missing each year, it’s not like an extra five or six a month is going to make anyone notice. A kid goes missing, and we pull out all the stops. But with an adult, we wait and see. Unless there’s a family member raising hell, the system lets you down.”
I frowned, hating the things my job taught me. I missed the innocence I had back when I was a social worker.
“Mors, Gallagher, my office, now,” the lieutenant barked. I scrambled to get up, knocking over a pile of papers in the process. Danny grinned at my clumsiness, but redeemed himself by helping me pick everything up.
Lieutenant French was leaning back in his chair with his hands laced behind his shaved head when we got inside. “I swear to God, when I hired you, Mors, I did not expect you to work on cases this ugly.”
It almost sounded like an apology. I didn’t know what to say. I had assumed I got my fair share of the good and the bad that paraded through our office.
“I didn’t think you had, sir.”
“And yet, when things get really bad, like they did on Saturday, I’m extraordinarily glad we have you.” He leaned forward and began tapping a pen on his desk. I glanced at Danny. His look confirmed this was not normal behavior. “I just got a deeply disturbing phone call from the FBI.”
“They want the case?” Danny asked.
“Yes and no. They’re sending an expert to work with us. They want to share the case completely.” A smile wide enough to be seen beneath the lieutenant’s bushy mustache flashed across his face. “Before you get upset, I checked around on the expert. He’s good, but he can’t get along with anyone. No partners, no glowing recommendations, but if there’s a problem with a werewolf, he’s your man. The minute the problem is solved, he’s gone.”
Danny let out the breath he’d been holding. “Could be worse.”
“Could be a lot worse,” the lieutenant agreed. “The special agent has requested you assist him, Mors. I guess being a media darling pays off. The thing is, I’m not going to assign you full time to the FBI. We need you too much around here for that.”
“So what do we do?” I asked. I liked Danny. I liked the way we worked together. I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of following around a special agent.
“We get creative. Gallagher, you’ll work the same set schedule you always do.”
“I appreciate that.” Danny liked to be home with his family. It meant a lot to him to be there to put the girls to bed and take them to school in morning.
“Mors, you’re going to work whenever the FBI needs you. This guy likes to work nights, don’t force yourself in here if you’re out showing him the town until three a.m. We’ll call you when there’s a crime scene we need you at. Otherwise, come in when you can, the paperwork will be here. Does that work for you?”
“Yes, sir.” I had sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I wasn’t going to have much of a normal life until the end of the full moon. “When do we expect him, sir?”
“Special Agent Zollern should get in touch with us sometime today. Apparently, he drove here from his last assignment. One of his quirks, I guess.”
Danny and I thanked him and went back to the stack of missing people. I tried to concentrate on the lost and forgotten victims but couldn’t.
“Do you know any FBI agents?”
“Just the ones on TV.” Trust Danny to be a smart ass.
“Seriously, I’m wondering what this guy will be like. I’m not too happy about having to assist someone.”
“Hopefully he’s good, we could use the help.” Danny pointed at the stack of pictures. “This has been happening for months, we’re late to the party, and we have no clue what’s going on.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Let’s hope it helps them.” Danny pointed to the stack again. We spent the better part of the morning up to our elbows in missing people. We read and reread case reports that were spotty at times and indifferent at others. Many times, there wasn’t anything to go on, someone moved to the city, took a job, and then didn’t show up to work one day. After a few weeks, a landlord would call or a relative from out of town would show up. By then, any trail was cold, any information lost.
We plotted out where the missing had last been seen each month on a big map. The earlier cases were next to the WPL offices. After that, they didn’t follow any rhyme or reason. We looked at heights, weights, hair colors, and a thousand other little details that might link any of the thirty-five people who had the misfortune to go out on a full moon night and never come home. We didn’t find anything.
We took a break for lunch. Danny had one of Katie’s low-calorie lunches. I tormented him by getting a steak and cheese sub from the deli downstairs. I felt a little bit sorry for him and everyone else in the world who couldn’t flex a supernatural muscle and burn off an extra two thousand calories. Of course, Danny had or was a supernatural something. He just hadn’t told me what. Whatever it was, he was jealous of my witch’s diet as I unpacked the brown bag. I wasn’t sure if it was the French fries or the brownie, but he insisted I hurry up so we could get back to work.
After lunch, we plotted religion, schooling, and race. We came up with nothing on each count. I was beginning to think that these were truly random killings and said as much.
“What about jobs?” Danny asked. We spent a while crawling through individual files, pulling job information. Danny started reading the jobs to me so I could make a list. When we were finally done, he asked me what we had.
“We’ve got an accountant, some lawyers, a school teacher, a doctor, and the list goes on. It’s like career day at an elementary school.” I threw my notepad down in disgust. We were wasting time.
“Like someone is trying to get one of everything.” Danny tapped his pen on his desk for a minute “Any cops in there?”
“One detective, not SIU, obviously. Let’s see what else.” I scanned it up and down a few times looking for other jobs. “No butcher, baker, or candle stick maker. There isn’t even a nurse.”
“The nurse was taken when they killed Madame Marie,” Danny pointed out.
“Fine, but what does it all mean?” Danny didn’t bother to reply to my question. Any minute now the high and mighty FBI agent was going to take all my time. I wanted to find something before that happened. “What do you say we head back to the WPL? Maybe they have something to say about the odd spike in missing persons.”
“We can’t trust anything they tell us.” Danny leaned back in his chair, staring at the map. Thirty-five dots and no way to connect them. I forced myself to focus, to see what I was missing.
“Mors, my office, now.” It was the lieutenant, startling me out of my chair.
This morning I had been assigned to be the FBI’s lackey. I didn’t think there was anything in that office that could shock me. I was wrong. Sitting across from the lieutenant’s desk was a man with short brown hair. It took me a minute to recognize him. When I did, my mind threw me back into my memories.
The apartment had been a single room, and it looked like it had been swept by a tornado. All of the furniture, knickknacks, paper, all of the debris of life was piled up against the back wall. On the floor was four pointed summoning star; the man stood in the middle, blood dripping from each wrist. He’d drawn the star with salt for protection. When my toe brushed the edge of it, energy crackled over my skin. His eyes were opaque opal white, no pupils, no irises. He warned me to leave, because death was coming, without knowing I was the death he’d called. I wondered if he realized it now.
“Sit down, Mors.”
I didn’t think I’d been staring, but his command made it obvious I had.
“What can I do for you, lieutenant?” I tried to sound polite and disinterested. The man sitting next to me was a spirit witch, a powerful one. I had been ready to give him the death he wanted when he broke that circle, ending the magic. It was the first time I’d been okay with my power and the closest I’d ever come to killing someone.
“This is Simon Edwards. I think you recognize him,” the lieutenant said. My mind supplied a line from a report I barely remembered writing: twenty-five-year-old spirit witch, attempted suicide, expected to make a full recovery.
Simon gave a soft, “Hi.”
I nodded, stifling the urge to ask him how his wrists were doing. A year ago I’d been a social worker; I knew all about privacy laws. What I didn’t know was what was going on. I stared at the lieutenant, willing him to make sense of it all.
“What happened between you and Simon is not going to be the talk of the office.”
Curiosity got the better of me. “Danny worked that case too. Why isn’t he in here?”
“From what I understand, he didn’t have as intimate a knowledge of things.”
