When Forever Died (An Adelheid Story)
By Mia Darien
Copyright 2012 Mia Darien
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Previous Adelheid Stories
Cameron's Law - Available on Smashwords
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Note to the Reader: With the great wealth of lore and mythos about the vampire and werewolf, it can be hard to choose what you want to use and hard for a reader to follow along. For your convenience, a Guide to the Preternatural has been included at the end of this story so you know what lore I have chosen to use in the Adelheid Series. I hope that you will find it useful!
Look for Book Three in the Adelheid Series - Voracious - due out Summer 2012!
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Chapter One
The problem with most people is that they're liars.
We all harbor a beast inside and we all know it. Most people just won't admit it. That's why I like hunting animals. There's no duplicity. They are what they are.
The leafy trees of a New England forest in spring rushed past my feline ears as I raced after a NHF preternatural. NHF stands for Non-Human Form, which means I was chasing down an animal that had more speed, stamina and strength than any 'regular' animal that a person would generally encounter in their day to day lives. In this instance, it was something like a wolf and roughly the size of a small pony. It had been terrorizing several suburban communities just outside of Adelheid with its very presence and no one else wanted to tackle it, so they called me.
My name is Dakota. I hunt things. Not just any things, but preternatural things. Despite Cameron's Law making all us preternatural creatures legal citizens, there are still some that misbehave, so I hunt down the ones that everyone else is afraid to, or isn't able to. I'm better at it than anyone else, so I get called a lot. It was my third NHF that month.
He knew that I was right behind him. The scent of wolf, cougar and magic was thick on the air. He followed the trail he thought would lead to freedom while I followed him. My preferred cat form was strong and fast. I liked cougar the best. It had a power to it that many other forms, even bigger and brawnier animals, didn't have. It made me better at my job when I felt comfortable in the skin I was wearing.
Leaping over a fallen tree trunk, I landed in a pile of leaves that crunched under my paws and the breeze shifted. I stopped abruptly and swung my head around, trying to pick up the scent I had suddenly been lost. The forest was silent, even the birds and insects were terrified by the sight of our chase. I stood perfectly still and then I caught the sound of his crashing through the trees and took off once again.
I could tell that he was growing tired. His steps slowed and lost their rhythmic pace. He'd be looking for a place to hide now, but there weren't any. I knew these woods well and with the mind of the human. He didn't. Stumbling ahead of me, I caught sight of him and surged forward, leaping on his back and sending him sprawling in a snarl with all four feet slipping at different angles.
I rolled off and got back on my feet before he did. Already, I had shifted to my human form and was pulling the tranquilizer gun off my belt. He lurched to his feet and leaped at me. I braced myself on one knee and fired. The dart caught him right in the throat, just before he landed right out of bite range. His huge jaws snapped at me and I danced back, waiting the few moments before the magically-enhanced drugs flooded his system and he collapsed in a heap of black fur at my feet.
I gazed down at the massive sleeping beast and sighed as I put the tranq gun away. This bastard was going to be heavy, but there was nothing for it. I bent down and pulled the huge frame across my shoulders and lifted with my knees. He was fucking heavy, even with all my strength, but I carried him back through the woods, expertly following my tracks back to my car where I piled the beastie in the back of my SUV and shut the hatch.
From there, everything was pretty easy. I drove him down to the office laughingly called Animal Control. I say that because really it was just a place to house animals until they figured out what to do with them. They had no one qualified to catch them, except me, and were barely qualified to keep them. But there was no where else to go, so I dropped sleeping beauty off and got my signed receipt.
Then I went home.
Home was a studio apartment above a Chinese restaurant called the Golden Dragon. The apartment was owned by the same people who owned the restaurant and they gave me a good deal in exchange for helping with pest control, both human and animal. I could hunt mice or bounce drunks with equal skill.
I had been home all of an hour, resting and eating dinner, when my cell phone rang. I answered it, after a time. I'd decided to go with one of those new smart phones to help me conduct business better, but that didn't mean that I and my phone actually got along.
"Hello?" I asked.
"Dakota." Stanton sounded exasperated.
Sadie Stanton owned the agency I worked for, although I wouldn't go so far as to call her my boss. I was an independent contractor. But no matter what you called us, she was always exasperated when she called me. Then again, she had a permanent raspy edge to her voice that made her always sounded that way. But I could tell she was exasperated in this instance.
"What did I do this time?" I sighed and tried not to roll my eyes, already feeling like a teenager in trouble with their parents, which was funny when you considered that I was four times her age.
"Are you allergic to coming into the office and letting us know when you have a job finished?" she asked. "It came through us after all and Madison likes to keep the files organized, so we need to know what's opened and what's closed."
Maybe I was allergic. Maybe I could get a doctor's note. "It was just a NHF. I didn't think it was that important."
She sighed. "I know you didn't. You never do, even if the hunt has twenty human forms. I think you just like pissing me off."
Getting to my feet to carry paper dishes to the trash, I snorted. "You got me," I said. "I just live to annoy you."
The long pause told me she wasn't impressed. "When you finish a hunt, come by or call and let us know. It's really not that difficult."
"Fine." I hung up without saying good-bye. Pleasantries were usually just a waste of time and air. I stuffed the phone back in my pocket. I had been working as the Hunter for the Stanton Agency for a few months now and I still wasn't getting the hang of this shit, but their secretaries handled a lot of the paperwork that I hated and they could sometimes be useful, so I was hanging in there anyways.
I and my aching muscles decided that I'd worked enough for one night and I threw myself onto my bed with my clothes on, asleep before I knew it.
The year is 1755.
I'm running through the forest. It's not the forests of America, but of Europe more than two centuries ago. I'm not a cougar but a wolf. There is a deer leaping ahead of me, trying to get away from me, but I haven't eaten in days and I need that deer. It's winter and food is sparse. I have no intention of surviving everything I have just to starve to death now.
It flits around, zig-zagging between trunks. I'm not at my best and my steps are erratic, but I'm still quick. I reach the deer and bite at the backs of its legs, getting it to slow down. It's bleeding and stumbles. I'm on top of it, tearing into its throat until blood spurts in my mouth and it stops twitching. I grab it in my jaws and drag it back through the sticks and rocks till I reach the cave.
Hannah comes out. She's in wolf form, too. She eyes the deer and I don't have to ask to know what she's thinking. She's had more trouble handling the raw, recently-living meals than I've had. I can't make it any easier on her, although I would if I could. She's my sister, after all, and I just want to take care of her. But I can't do everything, no matter how hard I try.
'Hexe, hexe...'
I hear a voice on the wind, but Hannah doesn't seem to notice. I must have heard nothing, so I shake it off. I close my eyes and say a quick prayer, trying to stop feeling everything that I'm feeling: the fear, the guilt... I try not to think, because now is not the time for thinking.
We both eventually tear into the animal's flesh, however, because we are starving and there's nothing else. We're new in this area and don't know what plants are safe to eat, and there aren't many plants left now anyways. We have no home and no family so no money and we are too terrified to try to go into human society. It's too soon.
Eventually, we have eaten everything that can be eaten. Hannah looks like she feels as stuffed as I am, but we don't know when we'll eat again so it's best to make the most of it now, and so we do. Then, we slink to the back of the cave and curl up together.
What else is there to do?
The next day started like any other when I wasn't on the hunt, which is to say rather boring.
I got up and ate and showered. I took care of some paperwork from last night's hunt and then I took care of some things around the house. By the time I was done, it was getting dark and I decided that I would be a good little soldier and go into the office. Generally speaking, I tried to avoid any place that held the name 'office' but sometimes, there was no hiding. I had to check in and make sure Stanton wasn't foaming at the mouth about last night.
In truth, I wasn't really giving the woman enough credit. Blood suckers weren't my favorite, but she was a capable and level-headed creature and she was a good boss, even if I wasn't exactly an employee. She was fair and considerate. In my more magnanimous moments, I thought she didn't really deserve all the shit I gave her, but those moments were thankfully rare.
Piling into my car, I wrinkled my nose at the lingering scent of dog that I could do nothing about and I pulled onto the road. It was a little less than ten minutes till I pulled into a parking spot at the Stanton Agency and sauntered in. Madison, who was the secretary through the night shift, looked like she was just getting set up. This place was its busiest over night, seeing as how the boss couldn't even get out of her daytime coma to come in until sunset and that was the case for many of our clients, too.
"Surprise, surprise," Madison said with the frighteningly sweet smile that said she really wanted to poke me with something sharp but was playing nice because that was her job. A passably pretty girl, werewolf, with blonde hair and big blue eyes, I always thought she looked like she should be on a box of Swiss Miss in pigtails rather than working in an office.
"Is Stanton in?" I didn't like to call people by their first names, unless I know them really well and I don't get to know people that well that often. Some people I can't help it with, though, like Madison.
Madison nodded. "She is," she said. I knew the two of them lived together, so maybe they drove in together too. "She also happens to be free at the moment and, as far as I know, isn't on the phone. So, if you feel like putting your head in the bear's mouth you can go on in."
I gave her a dry look. "I like bears," I muttered with fervor, walking past her desk and into the office behind her without knocking on the door.
"I'd be mad at you for not knocking if I wasn't just so bowled over that you actually decided to grace us with your presence," Stanton said before I even had both feet over the threshold. I paused, batting down a serious urge to turn around and walk right back out because she was a smart ass. "Shut the door."
"This must be what it's like for school kids that get called into the principal's office," I commented. This wasn't something I had first hand knowledge in, but I could guess it felt something like this. I shut the door and sat down. She hadn't invited me to sit, but I did it anyways. Contrary to what most people thought, I actually did know what was proper and in keeping with manners in most situations. I just chose to ignore it.
Stanton folded her hands on the edge of her desk and leaned forward. From inside her long dark hair, I could see the thin scar line around her neck from where she'd been nearly strangled by a silver wire a few months ago. Silver would always leave marks, when it was deep enough. It's where the rasp in her voice came from.
I knew that this was going to be an oh-so-fun speech from how long it was taking her to get the first words together.
"I know that our arrangement isn't exactly employer and employee," she began and I already knew this. I considered not listening but resisted the rebelliousness. "You work in a profession that has you working alone. I get that you're just contracted to work with us, but in doing so, you aren't an island."
"I'm never an island," I pointed out, "I don't have the mass for it."
Her mouth twitched. She wanted to laugh. I could tell. Her self restraint impressed me, however. "If you are going to work with us then there are some times that you are going to have to do just that: work with us and you'll have to do it whether you like it or not. Because sometimes, grown-ups have to do things we don't like, and I know that you're about twenty times older than the rest of us, so you should be better at it."
"Hey." I frowned. She knew how old I was. She was just goading me. I hated when she did that, because she was really fucking good at it sometimes. "I think my age grants me the right to not do anything I don't want to do."
"Doesn't work that way," she told me without missing a beat. "You're a damn good hunter and I don't want to lose you. Having you on the letterhead, so to speak, brings in a lot more business in the hunting game. I also sometimes even like you as a person, when you're not being a pain in the ass. That's not often, but sometimes. I'd like for you to continue working with us but you will have to do the team thing some of the time, which means keeping us in the loop better, for one."
I looked around, plotting my escape. "I can work on it." This definitely had to be what it felt like to get called into the principal's office. "Just don't nag me."
She shrugged, looking unimpressed. "I'll nag you when it needs doing, but if you work with us as needed and keep doing your job then I won't have to hound you."
"I suppose so," I said. I hated giving up ground just on principle, really, but I knew she was kind of right.
The fact of the matter was that I did sort of like working with the agency. Madison was very good at her job and her job saved me from a lot of things I loathed, like the paperwork but also customer service and appointment-making. I would rather be out on the road or in the woods, doing the actual tracking and hunting and catching.
"Are we done?" I asked.
"Yeah." She nodded. "Go see Madison. She has a job for you."
Chapter Two
Madison didn't seem to have much to say to me, which I supposed I couldn't blame her for. She told me that Rikki Myles was looking for me and that I ought to meet with her tonight because she wanted to hire me. There was a bad guy to catch and after turning in the Big Bad Wolf, my dance card was open.
Rikki Myles was the owner of Myles Bail-Bonds. Hers was one of those businesses that straddled the divide between the humans and the preternaturals, because she took on the job for either kind. The only difference to her was who she sent after them when they skipped. She sent humans after humans, and she sent me after most of the rest. The lightweight crimes didn't get my phone ringing, but a preternatural with a heavy indictment on them did. I got the violent offenders.
Her secretary, a short firecracker of a blonde named Sandra who I still didn't believe wasn't from New Jersey, showed me back to the office. I sat down and waited for Myles to tell me about the job. My eyes briefly wandered around the room, taking in the small shield and crossed short swords behind her desk that I found an interesting choice with the other various artistic renderings. The general theme seemed to be... strong women. I could appreciate that.
I turned back to her. She was reading something on the computer screen that made her frown and I briefly wondered what it was.
"Sorry about that," she said, turning and flashing me a smile. "Thanks for coming. If you were much later, I wouldn't have been here. My group is meeting tonight." She was an attractive woman in her late thirties with short dark hair and dark eyes, a psychic but of weak power and I didn't know what kind, just a couple of inches shorter than me. I chose to be six foot in this form. She got it naturally. Of course, the one thing that stood out was that she only had one breast and didn't bother to hide it. I knew she was a breast cancer survivor and had a rather special support group, but I didn't know much about her past that. "I've got a vampire on the run from manslaughter charges." She also didn't waste time, which was something I appreciated.
"What's the story?" I asked.
"She got into a fight and won," Myles replied. "That's really the basic story and about as much as I have on the matter." She pulled a folder from the top of a pile on her desk and handed it to me.
I opened it and felt my breath hitch in my throat when I saw the name. Swallowing hard, I forced myself to remain my usual charming self as I looked up. "Carrie Stone?" I asked. I wanted to make sure I had read this right; that this was the person she wanted me to hunt.
Myles nodded. She watched me carefully. "I believe that you're previously acquainted with Ms. Stone?" The look in her eye told me she already knew the answer. It was just social protocol that made her ask. I didn't appreciate that as much.
"Yes," I said, flatly. I wondered how she knew. Myles and I had worked together several times in the past, but I couldn't imagine I had ever mentioned Carrie. "We were romantically involved for a time." I wasn't going to tell her any more than that.
"Can you handle the hunt?" she asked.
"Yes."
She eyed me for a long moment and then nodded. "All right," she said. "It's yours, but if you have any trouble, please don't hesitate to talk to me about it, okay?"
I frowned. "Okay," I said. I wasn't used to people making that offer, or insisting on something like that, but okay. "I'll be in touch soon." I left.
I walked to my car but had to stop when I felt that twitchy feeling between the shoulder blades, like someone was watching me. I wasn't sure how I knew, but after a few centuries of always looking over my shoulder, I kind of had a sense of these things. I stood in front of my car door and looked around. There were people milling in front of stores across the street. I thought I saw someone, a man, staring at me, but then he was gone with a crowd. Maybe I hadn't seen anything.
So I got in the car and drove off.
I went back to my apartment. There was an office down at the Agency with my name on the door, but I didn't like using it.
Sitting on the floor with a legal pad and a pen, I began writing down everything I could remember about Carrie. I tried to think of her as just another FTA (Failure to Appear) but I knew that wasn't going to work. She wasn't just another stranger I could think bad things about and hunt down. I already knew that I wouldn't get any satisfaction in catching and hauling her to the police station.
I wrote down what I knew.
* Carolyn Stone, also known as Carrie
* Born in autumn of 1779 as Marie-Jeanne Portefaix
* Parents died during French Revolution
* Orphan living on the streets of Paris until she was Turned to a vampire at the age of nineteen
* Name of her Sire is unknown. She never told me. Hinted he was old. Lived with him until she immigrated to the United States in the early 1900s
* Lived in several cities from New York to California and back to the East Coast in the late 1990s
I met her after she moved to Adelheid in 2008 and we started dating shortly after that. It lasted a little over a year. I remember how intense she was, and beautiful. Her face was shaped between a square and a heart, enough of the former to be unique but of the latter to be feminine, with eyes drifting up at the corners for a vague hint of the cat. I suppose that was what appealed to me the most at first.
Blue eyes, I stared a long time into those eyes, wondering what was behind their perpetual mischief. Inside of a year, I never figured it out and she left me so suddenly and so completely that I never had the chance to again.
Maybe I would get that chance now.
I opened the file folder and looked over reports. She was arrested in the apartment of a woman named Natalia Winters. Winters, a human, was dead. Both bodies and the living room looked like there had been a fight, which was what Carrie confirmed in her statement to the police afterwards. The two women had fought over money. That sounded ridiculous right away, because Carrie - like many vampires who had saved over their long lives with less personal expenses than humans - wasn't dependent from paycheck to paycheck like the rest of us.
Humans usually stand little chance against vampires, so Winters predictably lost but things went too far and she ended up dead. The police had been called on a noise complaint, so they arrived just at the end of things. Carrie was arrested and released on a high bail, which was done through Myles' company.
Now, she had vanished. Myles would be out a lot of money if I didn't bring her back.
"Carrie," I sighed. "What in the hell did you get yourself into?"
A strong, stabbing feeling pressed inside my chest. I knew what it was right away, but I didn't want to acknowledge it. The pain was too old. I didn't want to think about it, but had the idea I'd not have much say in the matter soon.
I tried to ignore the feeling and kept looking through her file. The basic information they had for her home address and place of work was the same as when we had broken up, which would make things a little simpler to start out. I didn't expect them to stay that way, because they never did when I was chasing anything with a human-like mind. Animals were simpler. Humans and anything like them were complicated, which made them annoying.
There was no time like the present to get started.
I drove to her apartment building on the other side of town. Seeing the building rising into the night sky brought a keen sense of longing and memories. The stabbing feeling returned. I felt betrayed, even though we had been broken up for a while and her crime had absolutely nothing to do with me, the fact that she had committed a crime and landed on my doorstep made me feel betrayed anyways.
There was nothing for it, so I got out of the car and walked up to the building. It was supposed to be one you had to be buzzed into, but I tried the door and found that the lock must have been broken. So I pulled open the lawsuit-waiting-to-happen and walked in, found her door and tried that handle. It was also unlocked. If this were a novel or movie, I would expect that this was way too easy and I was walking into some overly dramatized trap.
Seeing as how it was real life, I decided there wasn't a serial killer in a hockey mask inside and so in I went.
What struck me immediately was how much it had changed. Of course, I didn't have any reason to expect that everything would be kept exactly the same but this was completely changed and into something that I never, in a million years, would have expected Carrie to decorate. I saw floral patterns in shades of mauve and lilac everywhere. Carrie was a vampire's vampire down to the stereotyped décor, which meant dark and gothic. Not this.
I started poking around. I was supposed to be looking for a hint of where Carrie was now, but I found myself looking for any trace of where she had been in this apartment.
Behind me, the doorknob turned. I whirled around and tensed. Could I really be so lucky as to have Carrie deliver herself to my hands? I was ready to jump, but the door opened and a woman I had never seen before in my life stepped inside.
She looked up and saw me. We had that long what the fuck moment, staring at one another, before she started screaming. I didn't catch all of it, but the important parts were things like "help" and "there's someone in my house" and "who the hell are you" and various statements of that nature. My plan of attack changed abruptly to a plan of escape that led me right out the window, breaking glass on my way.
Hawk wings slowed my descent and I caught the breeze into a convenient nearby tree, where I found a branch and watched what followed.
It didn't take long for a black and white police cruiser to pull up. Lights went on and off through the broken window. I caught a glimpse of a uniformed officer and the woman I scared the hell out of. The report didn't take very long. I hadn't touched anything, so there wasn't much to make note of and no fingerprints. The woman would have seen my face, but only briefly. With the dim light and the fright, she probably wouldn't even remember.
I waited, ruffling my feathers because I could, until the police car left. Once they had, I flew down to the ground and retook human form to get into my car. Once behind the wheel, I just sat there for a while.
Two possibilities came to mind to explain it. Either Carrie had a new roommate who was a slave driver when it came to decorating and took it all over, or she didn't live there anymore. It was a fifty-fifty shot. The latter was a blow to the case, because it made it a little bit harder, but the former was a blow to the ego. It had been more than a year, but that didn't mean I liked the idea of her living with someone else.
My phone rang. I don't know how long I'd been sitting, wrestling with myself, before it did but I didn't like it.
"Yeah," I answered it like a bored businessman.
"You'll never guess who I talked to tonight." Stanton didn't sound happy. "I got a call from the cops. It felt a little like a parent who gets called into the principal's office about an errant child."
Funny, I knew a little about how that felt... but what's more, I had a bad feeling about where this was headed. Damn, they worked fast.
"Are you listening?"
"Yes, mother, what can I do for you?" I drawled.
There was a long pause. And there was no breathing from the other side for the whole time because vampires are creepy fuckers. "The cops called me with a B and E report they took just this evening. One of the uniforms had the pleasure of meeting you in the past and thought he recognized the description. Since it's vague and there was nothing taken, they'll agree to not lock you away."
"I'll pay for the window," I muttered.
"Is that a confession?"
I thought that over. "A charitable gesture?"
"Anyone who knows you wouldn't fall for it, but we'll call it that to keep your ass out of jail." She paused. "Do I have to remind you that breaking and entering is kind of frowned on? I know that bounty hunters get a pretty big margin of error, but let's get serious here. The goodwill of the police will not stretch everywhere. I'm dating a cop and would still get locked up if I broke into someone's house."
"I'm not going to comment on your sex life, but obviously, you're not doing it right."
There was another breathless pause and I realized that I probably should have kept my mouth shut. "Do you really think now is the time to be a smartass?"
"I gave it a shot."
"Stop breaking into places. If I have to call you again and yell at you, we're going to make sure that it's really unpleasant."
"And I was having so much fun."
The call ended.
Maybe I shouldn't have been such a jackass, but it wasn't like I could change it so I'd just have to live with her disappointment. I had gotten pretty good at it over the past few months.
Regardless, I still had a job to do.
Sliding out of my car, I shifted to a new face. This body was shorter and more feminine, because I had found that was less intimidating. I made myself cute with blond hair and blue eyes, in a form that would make me sick if I had to live in it. Well, the blue eyes were my usual, but the rest was new.
I went back into the building, but this time looking for the manager. He was in his office on the first floor with the door open. He looked middle-aged and smelled like a human. I smiled and knocked on the door frame.
Startled, his head popped up but then his weathered face smiled and dark eyes glinted with surprise. Maybe there weren't a lot of cute girls dropping by his office to chat. That would work in my favor. "What can I do for you?"
"I'm trying to find an old friend of mine," I said with my best damsel-in-distress, please-sir-can-you-help-me smile. "We fell out of touch for a while and I tried calling her number, but I never get through. I know that she used to live here, though I can't for the life of me remember the apartment number. Carrie Stone, do you know her?"
He rubbed his two day's growth of beard. I knew he'd want to help me, if he could. "I seem to remember a woman by that name," he said thoughtfully. "I think she moved out, oh, going on a year back now. Someone else lives in that apartment."
I sighed dramatically, shoulders rising and falling in a pronounced gesture. "This is why you should never fall out of touch with your friends. A year gone by and I don't know where she's living now. Pity, pity." I shook my head.
"I can't give you a forwarding address, darling." He smiled apologetically. "Though, I'm not sure I even have one to give or not."
"Oh, that's all right," I said with a wave of my hand. "It's my own fault."
"Don't know if you'll have much luck finding her now," he added after a moment. "I recall some cops coming by a few months ago, asking about her. They didn't tell me what it was about, but maybe she's in some kind of trouble."
I frowned like this news surprised and disconcerted me. "Oh, I hope not. Well, I guess I'll just have to keep trying and see if I can dig anything up." I was tempted to see if I could get any information out of him about the apartment and the break-in, but I didn't want to draw too much attention to myself. "Thanks anyways." I tossed him a small smile and wave, leaving quickly.
I didn't bother putting my usual face back on as I drove from the apartment building to where Carrie had worked, last I knew. After learning she had moved out of her apartment without telling anyone or anyone seeming to know where she went, I had little hope of learning anything useful at the computer company where she worked as the over-night customer service person.
When I got there, I put on the same routine for the receptionist as I'd given the apartment building manager and I got the same reply. She had quit about a year ago. This time, I was re-directed to a man that she apparently had been friendly with.
"You're looking for Carrie?" he asked when I got to his cubicle. He looked like the quintessential IT guy who never got out in the sun and preferred glasses to contacts. His dark hair might have been brushed last week, but I doubt it had seen his comb since.
"That's right." I flashed my perfect smile. A good show of lips and teeth, tilted in the right direction, could keep a lot of people from being annoyed about curt word choices.
"Join the club." He pulled his headset off and set it on the desk. "No one has been able to reach her since she quit. I'd say it was a shame, but she changed in the couple of weeks before she just left. She was real friendly with people before, nice and all, but then she turned inward at the drop of a hat." He pulled his glasses off, idly cleaning them with the hem of his t-shirt. He was showing less reaction to my cute appearance as I would have expected from a presumably girl-starved human male. "And then there were some cops looking for her, but no one said what that was about."
Still, the story he told me of Carrie was a familiar one. It wasn't that I had heard it before. I had lived it.
"And no one had any idea what happened? Or about the cops?" I asked. The perplexed look I wore was not difficult to achieve sincerely. "I mean, she kind of just disappeared on me too so I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but still. I wonder what happened. I hope she's not in any kind of trouble.
He nodded, slipping his glasses back on. "So did all of us," he agreed. "If you ever find out, let me know, would you?"
I smiled sadly. "You bet."
I walked away from this new dead end. As I walked out, I was left with the big lingering question: what the hell happened a year ago?
Chapter Three
Checking home and work off my mental list, I went to the next place that I knew Carrie had spent a lot of time at: 5. It had been an 'underground' haven for vampires and the supernatural before legalization. Now it was just another vampire bar.
I found a parking spot towards the back and made my way in. It had started its life as a two story Victorian and still looked like it on the outside. The owner had converted the first floor into a bar and the upper level into his apartment. He was, of course, a vampire so he didn't need much by way of amenities. I didn't know him well, but had spoken with him on occasion.
"Haven't seen you in a while," Quintus greeted me as I came up to the bar. He sniffed the air dramatically. "Don't smell like you joined the blood sucking crowd either."
He was a giant of a man. I chose to be tall, but he lived at about 6'6" all the time and seemed nearly as wide as tall. His skin was so dark he almost blended into the barely-there light maintained in the bar. Vampires like the dark, after all. Even to my exceptional sight, sometimes all I could see were flashes of white teeth and the whites of his eyes. I always thought he did it on purpose. I think he liked freaking people out.
"The nose knows, eh?" I folded my arms along the bar top and leaned in. "I'm here looking for someone."
"Everyone is looking for someone." He poured a glass of the red stuff and slid it down the bar to the eternal 'lonely heart' that every place like this came equipped with. The metallic scent lingered even after the glass was gone. "Isn't that what I'm supposed to say? You know I'll help if I can, though you really should consider helping me out sometime."
I grimaced. I should have known he would bring this up. "I'm sorry, Quintus, but it just makes me feel very strange."
He shrugged massively. "It would be good money. I'll bet no vampire bar in the world would have your vintage in stock. I could charge a bundle for just a shot of it, and you know us dead boys and girls got the cash laying around for it."
The idea of his having a bottle of my blood on hand to sell to his patrons was still more than I could bear. I could imagine he was right, but it was still creepy. And coming from me that was saying a lot. "Try me again next time. I'm here working."
"Me too." His smile flashed big enough to see the long ones, too.
Few in the world were as good at talking me around in circles as this one was, but I knew that he was centuries older than I. That had something to do with it, I was sure.
"I used to come here with a woman, a little over a year ago," I charged ahead, because it was the only way I was going to get anywhere. "Her name is Carrie Stone and she was part of your crowd. Do you remember her?"
"Of course," he replied easily. His tree trunk arms folded over his chest. "She still came in here after you two stopped coming together. I saw her just a few weeks ago, before she fell off the radar. I heard she got in some kind of trouble with the law, which I figure is the reason for her vanishing."
The thought that she had been here more recently than a year was enough to give me some hope for a lead. I didn't let my minimal excitement show. "That's about the whole of it." I considered my next questions carefully. "Did she ever give any indication about where she was staying lately? She moved out of the apartment I knew a year ago."
His pause was long, leaving me to wait until he spoke again with nothing to take in but the occasional dull murmur of voices and the heady salty scent of blood. "Is this professional, or are you trying to track down an old girlfriend?"
"Which one is more likely to get my question answered?" I smiled by half.
He chuckled. It was a deep rumbling sound, like thunder in the distance. "I don't really know," he said. "I hate to be the one to give anyone up, but I also don't aim to be standing in the way of the law when shit's gone down. Either way, though, I can't tell you. She never told me where she was staying and she always paid in cash."
There went my little lead. I sighed. "Do you guys get Turned with instant knowledge of how to hide your asses from the rest of the world?"
"No, but we learn fast," he said. "I can tell you that there was a woman she spent a lot of time talking to. I know you and Carrie were pretty tight, so I don't want you going on some jealous rampage through my bar. Not that most of my patrons would mind if you left a few bloody body parts behind, but I would certainly care. I don't want to be the one who has to clean it up, after all."
I wasn't sure if I was offended by this or not, but I didn't have time to be offended. "I promise I will play nice." This was a promise I was making a lot these days, it seemed. I didn't know what to think about that, either. "Does this woman come in here often enough that I might have a chance to talk to her?"
"She's here now." He pointed to the 'lonely heart' at the end of the bar.
I looked at her and frowned, inhaling deeply. It was hard to cut through the blood scent, but eventually I did. I turned back to Quintus. "She's human. How is she not swamped by you guys in here?"
Even in the darkness, I could tell his expression was not amused. "We do have some self control. She never talked to anyone but Carrie. I'm not sure why she still comes here, now that Carrie doesn't any more."
When I looked at the woman again, I tried to imagine why Carrie had been talking to her so much, enough to be noticed. She wasn't any great beauty, but then neither was I. All I could tell was average height and weight but in good shape. Everything looked dark in this light, so I couldn't be sure of her race or what color her hair was. All I knew was that she wasn't as dark as Quintus, because I could see her facial features, mostly.
I tried to keep any emotional reaction suitably locked away as I turned back to him. "Do you know her name?"
"No," he said. "Like I said, she doesn't talk to anyone except to order."
"You gave her a glass of blood, but she's human." This connection had taken me a moment to put together.
He shrugged. With shoulders that size, I suppose shrugging a lot was a given. "I don't ask questions like that. She can do as she wants, as long as she pays me for it."
That sounded a lot like my business policy, so I could hardly fault him. It didn't help me much, but this was the most information that I had gotten during my entire evening's worth of work, so I had to go with it. For some reason, I was glad I was wearing my usual form now, although I had no idea why I should be.
"Thanks," I tossed to Quintus as I pushed away from the bar and walked the few seats down to the human. I sat beside her. "Hey."
She turned her head and looked at me. It was a look that took a long time to perfect and had I just been looking for a hook-up, I would have taken it as the instant rebuff that it was and gone on my way. Since my motives were quite different, however, I didn't leave. She stared at me a moment longer, like she was waiting for me to do just that.
When it was clear that I wasn't going anywhere, she turned away without another word and looked into the still full glass between her hands.
"I'm looking for a woman named Carrie Stone." I decided to try a more direct approach.
It caught her attention enough that she looked at me again with less reserve, but snapped her head away immediately. I could see the tension in her shoulders and now her staring into the glass was more focused, trying to shut me out specifically instead of just shutting out everything in general. I had seen this look before.
Resting an elbow on the edge of the counter, I leaned into it like I didn't care about the look she gave me. And it was the truth. I could beat anybody's bad attitude. Or just beat them.
"I can sit here until Hell freezes over," I said plainly. "I know that you've talked to her on more than one occasion, so you might as well tell me what you know."
"I didn't talk to the cops when they found me, so why would I talk to you?" She still wasn't looking at me. I found myself a little surprised that the cops had already talked to her, but then I chastised myself for that. This bar was listed as a known location in her file, after all, and I was sure that Quintus would have told them what he'd told me. He didn't want trouble.
"I'm not a cop." I stated the obvious. "I need to find her."
She shrugged, but her shoulders were less impressive. "I don't care. I don't have anything to say to you." Her shoulders curved inward like a shield against me.
I considered continuing to throw myself at the brick wall sitting beside me, but decided it probably wouldn't be in my best interest. I might be able to find her again later if I had to, or I might not. I didn't think she would tell me her name if I asked, so I didn't bother trying.
With a nod at Quintus, I made my way out.
From there, I went home.
I wasn't really sure what I was feeling, because there were too many things going on at once. It was far too early to be frustrated with a job, but I was. I think that had more to do with the target than the results of the evening thus far. Maybe it wasn't until I was driving home that it hit me, the weight of who I was chasing.
Had Carolyn Stone been the great love of my life? I don't know, but I know that I was pretty head over heels for her when I had never felt that way before, and then it had all ended so abruptly. That kind of sudden end after dramatic emotion leaves quite the wound. And in a life as long as mine, wounds last a long time. And can tear open very easily.
Reaching the top of my stairs, I was finding my house key when I caught a strange scent lingering before my door like someone had been standing there for a long time. Each nerve end stood up and I froze, inhaling deeply. There was something vaguely familiar about the scent, but I couldn't place it. It wasn't a vampire, so it wasn't Carrie or Stanton. The smell was similar to an animal, but no animal I recognized quickly. It wasn't a werewolf.
I turned my head to the door and examined the knob, the lock and the edges with great care but I didn't see any evidence of a break-in. I had wards drawn by fae on the inside to prevent someone from using magic to get inside and I didn't feel their warning, so I felt confident that no one had broken in. That was almost worse, though, because it meant that someone came to my door and stood there. Doing what, I had to wonder.
It wasn't like there was such a thing as door to door salesmen anymore and the last Jehovah's Witness had to have told everyone to never stop at my door again, after what I did to the last one. He lived to tell the tale, but I made certain he'd been scared out of his wits.
Unlocking my door, I cautiously entered. The familiar scent didn't follow inside, but I thoroughly examined every corner of my place anyways. I had little of value, but everything remained where it should be. Nothing was missing, and nothing was disturbed. Except me, of course, but that began to ease and I started to settle in.
It didn't last long. My phone rang. It was Myles.
"Calling to check up on me so soon? I'd be offended if I cared."
"You're always a pleasure to talk to, Dakota." Myles was unperturbed by my attitude, as usual. "I'm actually calling to relay a bit of information."
That got my attention. "A tip about Carrie?" What else could it be?
"Yep. She was spotted just a couple of weeks ago, after she got out on bail, in a bar downtown called Phoenix."
Another bar? Jesus. All vampires had a tendency to be lushes, but it seemed like the only places she had been in a year were bars. "I'll check it out." I didn't want to tell Myles too much just yet. It wasn't a matter of trust so much as, well, it was a matter of trust, but I didn't trust anyone, so it wasn't personal.
We hung up. Some belated voice within suggested that I should have thanked her, but I ignored it and went about my business.
I would check out Phoenix tomorrow night. First, I was going to see if I could wrestle information out of any of Carrie's last known friends. Almost all of them were vampires, so I knew they'd be awake at this hour. I had a list of about four people and all of the names were familiar to me.
Unfortunately, every conversation went about the same.
"Hi, it's Dakota. Do you remember me? I was a friend of Carrie's."
"Yes, I remember you."
"I'm trying to get in touch with Carrie. Have you seen her lately?"
"No, can't say that I have. She sort of just fell off the face of the planet about a year ago, I think. And I think she got arrested recently, didn't she? Don't know what happened there."
"Yeah, me neither."
I threw the phone at the other end of the couch. What was Carrie playing at? One of the things I had liked about her was that she didn't play the games many vampires her age did, but this felt like one to me. She had to be living somewhere. Perhaps she had enough savings to not work, but she had to have a roof to keep her body out of the sun during the day. Could she really be doing nothing else but spending time in bars? I was as much a fan of bars as anyone, but it sounded ridiculous.
There seemed to be little else to do, so I went to bed.
The year is 1883.
I'm standing in the shadows of an alley. From around the edge of a stone building, I can see her in the street. She looks very nice in her human clothes, which are a big improvement over the rags we had been accustomed to wearing, that I was still wearing. I blend in effortlessly with the other vagabonds of a London street, only I'm not looking for food or coin or shelter.
I'm looking for her.
Hannah has changed her appearance a little. She looks older than she did when she left me. Her blond hair is swept up in the fashion of the other ladies that I see walking the streets, and her dress is as well. I wonder if she formed herself with those clothes or found some employment to buy them. The former takes a lot of effort, but the latter can be tricky too, I know.
Then again, we had been living in the wild for so long. How did I know anything at all, if I even knew it in the first place?
She is laughing. She is shopping. I watch her as she browses a vendor's cart, picking up items I can't make out the details of, examining each one and then putting it away before moving onto the next. How does she blend in so seamlessly? How did she become a part of the human world with so little apparent effort?
How could she leave me? She didn't know. I had never been able to confess to her my sins...
There is a man standing beside her. At first, I think he is just there. Perhaps he is with someone else, or is just taking a moment's pause. Then I realize that she is looking at him and the smiles and laughs are for him. I desperately want to know who he is. I want to know who she has fallen in with so quickly, but I can't make out his face. He never turns in my direction, so all I ever see is the back of his head and the reactions he gets out of her.
I don't understand. It breaks my heart, but all I can do is watch until I shift into a rat and scurry away, back to the safety of the woodlands.
Chapter Four
My damn phone was ringing. Alarm clocks are terrible enough, but waking to a ringing phone seems even more obnoxious. Perhaps it is the lack of control. A ringing phone is someone else deciding you have slept enough rather than making your own decision when setting a clock. Whatever it was, my phone was ringing and I was unhappily awake.
I groped around the nightstand for the chirping technological monstrosity. "Yeah?"
"This is Detective Marlowe with the Adelheid Police."
I first thought they were calling about the break-in at Carrie's apartment, but I thought that had been settled. Either way, she had my interest. I sat up and scrubbed my free hand over my face. "What can I do for you, Detective?" It was about as much civility as I could manage without being awake longer. That was a lie. It was about as much civility as I cared to manage any time.
"Would you come down to the station at your earliest convenience?" Nykk Marlowe was perhaps the only person in the world who could achieve less emotion in her voice than me, at least of anyone I ever met.
If this was about the apartment building, I doubt they would be so polite. Even so, I couldn't guess why they would be calling otherwise. "What's this about?"
She dodged my question artfully. "We'd prefer to discuss that when you arrive. Can you come down today?"
"I suppose so. I'll be there in," I checked the time, "an hour."
"We'll see you then." She hung up.
I tossed my phone back on the night stand. Using up my hour, I showered, dressed and had breakfast. I got to the police station with a few minutes to spare and was met at the front desk by Marlowe. Her expression and the red scarring on her face made her as dour a greeter as every time I'd seen her in the past. "Follow me," she said simply, so I did.
We walked through the squad room. Nothing had changed since the last time I was here, though I tried to keep those visits limited. However, after a few moments, I did spot one face that I hadn't seen before sitting at a desk in the back.
"New detective?" I asked Marlowe. It was one of those rare occasions when my curiosity got the better of me. It was kind of hard not to. The woman was gorgeous, but not in any of the typical ways, with a long face and nose that may have been broken a time or two. There was something exotic about a heritage I couldn't easily pin down and the long curve of her neck into her jacket.
Marlowe followed my line of sight. "That's Samantha Moore. She's from Hartford and is here borrowing a desk while working on a case that led here." That was as much as I was going to get out of her, apparently, because she turned and kept walking.
I followed, but my gaze drifted a few more times back to the detective. At one point before I was led into the Captain's office, she lifted her eyes and met mine. The door shut and ended that moment, and that's when I realized just what room I was in. Naturally, I didn't let my surprise show, but inwardly I couldn't imagine what was going on. The question was enough to drive the beautiful woman outside quite from my thoughts.