I held her gaze steadily, letting her know I wasn"t afraid, that I was dominant. Or trying to be.
"Luna, you"re probably the most unpleasant woman I"ve ever been around." Shelby sighed. She came up with a wallet in the dead man"s back pocket and tossed it to me. "But we"re both good cops. You"re right, I am a b.i.t.c.h. Get used to it or quit and go pump out some kids yourself."
I realized I had been holding myself on the b.a.l.l.s of my feet, ready for Shelby to take a punch at me. A deserved punch. What I had said was unforgivably nasty. I relaxed and shrugged instead. "I can live with it if you can."
"Finally, something we agree on," Shelby said. There was a pounding on the bathroom door and she hollered, "It"s closed!"
"CSU!" the knocker responded. Shelby unbolted the door and let them in. I opened the black canvas wallet and pulled out the usual-credit cards, bus pa.s.s, receipts. No driver"s license, but there was an ID from the Liquor Control Board. The sharp-boned face hiding under black hair matched the rictus grin of the dead man at my feet. I read the name off.
"Oh c.r.a.p."
Shelby left CSU to photograph the body and scan it with a portable ultraviolet light and peered over my shoulder in the dim light. "What"s wrong?"
I handed her the liquor ID. "The dead guy is Vincent Blackburn."
Outside, Trevor"s music cut off abruptly and I saw patrol officers in their blues corralling the crowd. I turned my back on the chaos and tucked Vincent"s ID back into his wallet.
"This is so not good ..." Shelby muttered. She had a gift for understatement. If the O"Hallorans were the squeaky-clean face of caster witches, the Blackburns were the things that went b.u.mp in the night, blood witches whose incredible family fortune had been p.i.s.sed away after the death of their scion"s wife.
Nocturne University was built on the grounds of the old Blackburn estate. The family itself was scattered to the four winds. And now one of them was here, dead at my feet, and I was going to be responsible for finding out how it happened.
Freakin" fantastic.
"Detective, we have some marks here," said a CSU tech, lifting Vincent"s arm. Ugly black tracks marched in a row to his elbow, the most recent one still oozing blood droplets.
"That figures," said Shelby. "That just figures. Junkie freaks, living in filth. Every one of them is bad."
"Could we set aside personal and socioeconomic issues for one tiny minute here?" I asked her, crouching next to the tech. The bathroom"s lighting was weaker than a guttering candle, but I borrowed the tech"s flashlight and examined the tracks. They were stark under my light, deeply bruised from regular use. I flashed over his wrist, hands, the other arm. It was free of marks, but both wrists had circular stains of bruises on the inside.
"Luna, he obviously OD"d," said Shelby. "Maybe he got a shot of the same stuff as our other guy. Probably a new mix that some jacka.s.s dealer is making in his bathtub. I"ll check with my guy in Narcotics. Let"s bag him and get out of here."
I pulled Vincent"s shirt open and noticed similar oblong bruises on his clavicle, as well as nipple rings and diagonal red welts across his pectorals. The welts were healing, but the bruises were fresh and dark.
"Come on," said Shelby, who was standing as far away from Vincent"s body as she could get and still be in the room. "My shift is almost over. We can take another look at the morgue tomorrow."
"No," I said, seeing another rising bruise on Vincent"s jawline. "No, we"re waiting for the medical examiner."
"He"s here," said Kronen, coming through the door and positioning himself next to me. "What"s so important?"
I showed him the bruises, the tracks, and the welts. Imprints of violence are hard to erase. Vincent would be buried with his bruises. They would never fade. Over Shelby"s irritated sigh I said, "I think he was restrained."
Kronen swabbed blood from the fresh track in Vincent"s arm and nodded. "By a person. These marks were made by fingers, I believe."
Shelby blew out a puff of air behind me. "So he was in a fight. So what?"
I stripped off my gloves and stood. "So maybe the fight ended with him getting a hot dose shoved in his arm. That"s a murder. We"re homicide detectives."
Shelby flipped her hair over her shoulder, gathering it into a nervous ponytail and then letting it fall again. I looked into her eyes. Panic was rising from their depths and it got worse every time she looked at the body. "I don"t think this merits an investigation," she said desperately.
"Well, I do," I said. "And partners listen to each other. We"re working the case."
I touched Kronen lightly on the arm. "How soon can you have him bagged and autopsied?"
"For you, I"ll push him through in the express lane," said Kronen. "Ten gunshots or less."
"Hilarious," I a.s.sured him when he mistook my silence for disapproval. No matter how long I work in the department, I"ll never get used to morgue humor.
"Can we please please go file a report now?" Shelby demanded. On the other hand, cop humor was something I could use a little more of lately. go file a report now?" Shelby demanded. On the other hand, cop humor was something I could use a little more of lately.
"Yeah, yeah, we"re going," I a.s.sured her. Behind her, Trevor pushed through the crowd to the uniforms guarding the door.
"Luna!"
I went over to him, taking his hand and guiding him away from the scene. He stopped me, gripping my shoulders. "What happened in there? Why did you run out on me?"
I bit my lip. "Someone died, Trevor."
He sagged, and then gathered me into his arms, which turned me into a human-sized wooden board. I forced myself to relax and return his embrace.
"Are you okay?"
"I"m fine," I muttered against his shoulder. "It"s not my first dead guy in a bathroom."
He let me go and peered at the barricade. "Who was it?"
"I can"t discuss the details of an open case," I repeated perfunctorily, and then it hit me that Trevor and Blackburn might have run in the same circles. Vincent certainly dressed the part. "It"s Vincent Blackburn. Looks like he might have had an accident." If the accident was being held down and injected with poison, that is.
"Hex me." Trevor pa.s.sed a hand over his face. "That sucks, man. That"s really messed up."
I took his hands in mine. "Do you know anything anything about Vincent? Could you help me?" about Vincent? Could you help me?"
"He bartended at some fringe place downtown . . . one of those s.h.i.tty bas.e.m.e.nt venues, whips and chains, you know."
"Fetish club?" I wasn"t surprised. The Blackburn family had a reputation for being into anything that involved blood and pain, preferably a willing victim"s.
"Luna," said Trevor suddenly. "Did you like my song?"
Shelby came out of the bathroom and motioned toward the door. I waved her ahead and faced Trevor.
"I have to know," he said. "I put my heart into it." And dammitall, he meant it. His eyes searched my face and I forced myself to soften. He was a good guy. He thought he loved me. The song was something totally normal. Sweet, even. I would not think about how it could never, ever close the hole in my heart. Would not, would not, would not.
"It was a very sweet thing, Trevor," I said, kissing him on the cheek. "You"re sweet."
"Don"t talk like that." He grinned. "You"ll ruin my reputation." He kissed me on the lips, for a lot longer than I"d planned on, and then released me. "Go to work, babe. I"ll call you soon."
CHAPTER 7.
Shelby was leaning against a sporty white Nissan in the parking lot, tapping one stiletto-heeled foot. I made her footwear as brand-new Jimmy Choos and had a brief flash of envy before I said, "Blackburn was a fetish club bartender, but my boy-source-didn"t know which place."
"Well, if you"re determined to work this to death, it shouldn"t be too hard to figure out which one," said Shelby. "They"re a specialized industry, very insular. We could pay his employers a visit."
"And here I was just thinking I hadn"t seen enough middle-aged men being spanked recently," I said, unlocking the Fairlane.
"That"s only the surface," Shelby told me with what I"m almost certain was glee. "Good fetish bars have dom/sub, flogging, footplay ... and a lot of other options."
"Great," I said. "Can"t wait to get my toes licked by some guy in a collar and a leather bikini."
"You were the one who wanted to pursue this," said Shelby. "Meet you back at the house to file our report?"
I bit my lip. "We need to notify Vincent"s family. The sooner, the better." With two notifications in as many days, I was not on the winning square at the cosmic roulette table. But the Blackburns were a clannish bunch, and I had a feeling they wouldn"t be too specific about where their fury landed if they found out Vincent was dead from someone other than the cops.
"If he even has a family; the Blackburns are strictly underground," said Shelby. "n.o.body knows where they live."
I got in the Fairlane and opened the pa.s.senger door. "I do."
Ghosttown is the creeping rot on the underside of Nocturne City, a place where no one goes unless they"re desperate and where plain humans disappear faster than the ash on the end of a burned-down cigarette.
Shelby grabbed my arm as I pulled off the expressway at Exit 43. "You cannot be serious."
I glared at her hand until she moved it. "Do I look like I think this is at all amusing, Shelby?"
The Fairlane ground over desiccated pavement and broken gla.s.s, and I pointed it down the wide boulevard that had once been the heart of the federal housing project burned in the Hex Riots of 1969.
"I thought no one lived here," Shelby murmured, face pasted to the gla.s.s as we pa.s.sed blackened cement boxes that had once been homes and shops. My headlights picked up a few skinny, hunched figures on the edges of the road, and my hands tightened on the wheel.
"Don"t let the name fool you. There"s a lot more than ghosts here." Including most of the blood witches in Nocturne City. My cousin Sunny, a caster witch herself, had told me all the juicy rumors of the Blackburn compound, guarded by blood wardings and full of depravity beyond imagination. Probably an orgy or two to round it out. Then again, Sunny was p.r.o.ne to exaggeration. The one concrete fact I"d gathered was that the Blackburn manse was somewhere near the center of the projects.
"Unbelievable," Shelby murmured. "It"s like Wonderland."
"Like h.e.l.l, you mean." Being in this strange shadow-world made me break out in a nervous sweat, because weres lived in Ghosttown too. Were packs, all of whom defended their territory jealously. And here I was, an Insoli were, strolling in just as c.o.c.ky as you please. Insoli are cast out by their pack after receiving the bite. Or, in my case, they run away as fast as their legs will carry them. The lowest of the low, untouchable. That"s me.
Most days, I was fine with being Insoli. I had never had a pack and didn"t want one. Someone, or thing, jumped in front of the Fairlane, hooting. I jammed on the brakes and the scent of dirty were invaded the car. A ragged teenage boy beat his fists on my hood once and then took off across the boulevard.
Today was not one of those days.
"Do you know where you"re going?" Shelby asked, watching the retreating were. I was just hoping that his fifteen testosterone-fueled buddies weren"t right behind him, looking to mate. Ford Fairlanes weren"t built to keep out h.o.r.n.y were men.
"Not really," I said, "but I have a feeling we"ll know it when we see it." I drove forward again, keeping an eye out for sigils and ward marks, or anyone who looked vaguely anemic.
I had hoped never to come back to Ghosttown, but I always did, like a sailor to a siren call. A few miles away, in the section of the projects. .h.i.t worst by the Riots, I had killed Alistair Duncan. Not in time to stop him from sacrificing Dmitri"s sister Olya to his working, but he was dead all the same. Murdered by my were.
"Stop it," I muttered out loud.
"Stop what?" Shelby asked, and I waved her off. If I had shot Alistair Duncan in the head, I wouldn"t have this tempest of guilt and blood inside me. He needed to be killed. I had done the job. Whether by a bullet in the brain or teeth to the throat, I had done what was right and demanded of me.
And I had let the phase take me willingly, and once again someone had ended up dead because of it.
I was actually happy to see a brick apartment house marked with a blood sigil on the door. You know things are bad when you"re looking forward to meeting the head of a black-magic-using, human-sacrificing clan more than to being alone with your own thoughts.
"This is so not the place I want to be," Shelby said. She got out of the car and adjusted her shirt so her gun showed.
"You and me both," I told her, locking the Fairlane, not that it would do any good.
"Do you have any idea of the stories I"ve heard about these people?" Shelby demanded as I advanced on the door and knocked. The sigil was real blood- old and dried to crackling, but real, human blood.
"I can probably guess," I muttered, brushing my hands on my jeans. "Look, just try to not be ... yourself, and we"ll keep it short and sweet."
"Sure." Shelby snorted. "And after this, we"ll all go ice-skating at the rink in the ninth circle of h.e.l.l."
The door swung open and a hollow-cheeked face peered through the crack. "What?"
I presented my shield and a smile, which produced no discernable result.
"Cops aren"t welcome at this address," the face said. "p.i.s.s off."
My foot kept the door from slamming shut, and I vowed if he"d hurt my boots I"d kick him. "We"re not here to hara.s.s you. I need to see whoever"s in charge."
"Blackburn doesn"t traffic with plain humans," said the doorman. He cast a look of contempt at Shelby and then focused back on me. "Get a warrant if your panties are in a bunch. Otherwise leave us alone."
"Hey, genius," I said, reaching through the crack and grabbing him by the front of his mesh shirt. "If I really wanted to come in, do you think your pasty a.s.s would stop me? I"m being polite, and you"ve got about five more seconds of that before I kick the door down and walk over you."
"She"ll do it," Shelby confirmed. The doorman"s mouth crimped in disgust.
"Give the meat puppets a little power and they breed a world of fascists," he sniffed.
"Whatever," I said, shoving the door open wide. "Go be a good little houseboy and tell Blackburn we need to see him."
In full view he was tall and painfully skinny, shocking pale skin against black clothes. "And what may I tell him this is regarding?" he asked, sniffing down his nose at us.
I said, "Tell him it"s about Vincent."
After disappearing and reappearing with a summons, the doorman led us up a flight of narrow stairs with questionable integrity, and down a hallway lined with small efficiency apartments, most missing their doors. The dour decor was mid-century industrial, dingy gray carpet under my feet and acoustical tiles leaking black mold above us. My nose rebelled and I coughed discreetly, covering the lower half of my face.
"How many people are in here?" Shelby asked quietly as we pa.s.sed an apartment where a woman holding a baby was cooking.
"Enough to make our lives unpleasant if we misbehave, I"d guess," I whispered back.