Deadly Desire

I walked back to the end of the hallway and checked the remaining bedroom. Nothing and no one else was there. I moved back into the bathroom and stood on the edge of the bath, shoving the hatchway cover to one side. "Joe, are you up there?"

No answer came, but that didn't surprise me. Any kid with half a brain wouldn't come out of hiding on first hearing a familiar voice. Especially after what he'd just witnessed.

"Joe, it really is me." I grabbed my badge and held it up into the hole. "Here's my ID."

There was no response for several seconds, then came a shuffle of movement, and suddenly the scent of man and fear wafted down through the hatchway. It was Joe, all right.

"Are those things dead?" he asked.

"Yes." Although technically they probably weren't. Not until the magi came in and removed whatever spell the sorceress had used to raise them.

"They killed Jacques."

"I know. You coming down?"

A pale face appeared briefly in the hatchway, and the tension lining his bright eyes eased a little when he saw that it really was me. His feet replaced his face, and he slithered through the hole and dropped to the floor.

"I couldn't help him," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I just couldn't."

He wasn't meeting my eyes and his expression was a mix of defiance and guilt.

"Jacques was here to protect you, not the other way around. He died in that duty. It's not your fault or your responsibility. Besides, if you hadn't hidden, you might be dead right alongside him."

He shivered and rubbed his arms. "Are those the things that killed Kaz?"

"The same sort of creatures, yes." I touched his back and guided him out the door. He hesitated the moment he saw the zombie, then squared his shoulders and continued on, stepping over the creature like it was something he saw every day.

From downstairs came the sound of soft steps. I touched Joe on the shoulder to stop him, then slipped past him to the small landing halfway down.

I needn't have worried. It was Cole and his team.

"What have we got this time?" He'd stopped in the hallway, his gaze on the living room rather than on me.

"Jacques and one zombie are in the living room, and there's a decapitated zombie upstairs. Both creatures will probably need Marg's magic touch before they can be put back into the ground. We also have more dust-and I discovered what it does."

"Oh? Do tell."

"It freezes vampires."

"That makes events at the crime scenes more logical." He looked beyond me. "Who's that?"

"Joe, the kid we're protecting. I'm about to take him back to the Directorate."

"Really?" Joe said, his voice containing an edge of excitement as his face appeared over the railing.

"It's not that interesting," Cole said dryly.

"It is when I'm there," I said with a grin.

He snorted and glanced at his team. "We'd better get moving, boys. The bullshit meter is starting to run a little high in this hallway."

Cole and Dobbs walked into the living room. Dusty remained near the door and began setting up a crime-scene monitor. I glanced up at Joe. "Let's go."

"This is going to be cool," he said, bouncing down the stairs.

"Yeah," I said, and hoped like hell Jack thought so.

Jack didn't. Neither did Sal, who ended up with the task of keeping the teenager in line and safe. Although if the kid wasn't safe in a building filled with guardians, then he wasn't going to be safe anywhere.

"You know I don't like civilians down here," Jack said, tossing something my way as he walked back into the day shift's office area.

"I didn't have much other choice, boss." I caught the item with my free hand. It turned out to be a bracelet of twined rope and what looked like dried leaves of some variety. My fingers tingled at contact with it, but it was a cleaner, safer-feeling magic than whatever the sorceress was using. "This from Marg and her team?"

"Yep. The kid will be given one, too. If there's any residual tracking magic left on you, this should stop it."

I slipped it over my left wrist, then handed him the sweater I'd been wearing. "You might want to give them this. The zombie threw some sort of dust at me when he first appeared, and I suspect it was designed to immobilize vampires. I think my werewolf half saved me from the full effects of it."

He took the bundled-up sweater carefully. "If that's true, then it explains why no one has fought back."

"Certainly does." I walked across to my desk and sat down. "Did Marg say anything about how these people are getting in and out of these places?"

"She suspects the killer is using some form of transport magic to get in, but there hasn't been enough of it remaining at any of the sites for her to track down the type of spell being used."

"Bummer."

"Yeah." He glanced at his watch. "It's full moon for you tonight, isn't it?"

"Certainly is." And Rhoan, Liander, and I all pla

Jack grunted. "It's useless trying to get much more out of you today, then. Finish up here, then go home." He half turned away, then stopped. "What are your dancing skills like?"

"I'm a werewolf," I said dryly. "Dancing is my life."

"Not that sort of dancing. Regular dancing, no sex involved."

"Where's the fun in that?" I gri

"Good enough to be employed at a men's club?"

I hesitated. Having never been inside a men's club, I didn't actually know what sort of dancing went on in there. "I know someone who can give me a few pointers."

"Good. Arrange it. You might have to go undercover at the club if Kade doesn't sniff out anything tonight." He turned and left the room.

I signed into my computer and checked the results of the two searches. It turned out that neither of the women who owned Meinhardt's had either a police or a Directorate record, but interestingly enough, there were at least a dozen unsolved vampire murders in each state over the time they'd owned their business.

Another coincidence?

Given that these murders had happened in five other states already, I'd have to say coincidence was very unlikely. I copied the results through to Jack, then rang Ben to ask if one of his girls could give me a lesson in the finer art of strip-club dancing. I jotted down her name and address, then finished my coffee in several gulps and headed out the door.

Liander and Rhoan were both waiting for me when I got home. Rhoan's hair had been shaved for his undercover job, and his baldness was something of a shock. Oddly enough, it did actually suit him-he had a good-shaped head for being bald.

We headed up to Macedon, getting there just as the sun was setting. We stripped as the darkness swept in, bringing with it the heat of the full moon that hadn't yet risen. It tingled across my body-a power that would not be denied and would not be controlled on this one night. It swept us from human form to wolf in one surge, and with a howl in our throats and the earth between our paws, we ran. Embracing the night, embracing what we were, enjoying the freedom and the fun of ru

With dawn came exhaustion and our human forms, so we snuggled up beside each other and slept.

A ringing cell phone woke me some hours later. Liander made a groaning noise of acknowledgment but didn't seem inclined to answer it, and Rhoan was still snoring.

I rolled onto my back, shivering a little as the coldness of the morning hit newly exposed skin, then climbed to my feet and stumbled across to the pile of clothes, sorting through them until I found my jeans and the phone within them.