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"No, because I can't stand men who beg. " The wind chose that moment to blast down the street. I hunched my shoulders against it and wondered if my legs were turning as blue as they felt.
Maybe coffee was a good idea.
No. He's bad for our health and we don't like him, remember?
Across the street, the pale-faced stranger grabbed the fly-away ends of his coat and wrapped them around his body, his hands so white they almost appeared skeletal.
Gloves, I thought, even as a chill ran down my spine. Had to be. No hands were that white, no matter how cold. Unless you were a vampire.
My psychic radar hadn't yet sensed anything out of the ordinary, but I'd learned long ago never to ignore the little niggles of wrongness - and that man across the street definitely felt wrong.
"Does he smell funny to you?" I asked Brodie softly.
There was a sharp intake of breath, and I had a vision of his nostrils flaring, sucking in the scents of the night and rolling them across his taste buds, sorting and categorizing them. I'd seen him do it a hundred times in the few months we'd been together, and I found it as sexy now as I had then. Which was odd, because until I'd met him, I'd never considered nostrils to be remotely alluring.
But then, the whole package connected to this man's nostrils was beyond fine.
"He reeks of booze and cigarettes. " Another intake of breath. "And he hasn't washed for a few days, either. "
"So he's not the scent you've caught at the last three crime scenes?"
"No. " He hesitated. "It's similar, though, meaning he could be related to our killer. "
"Being related doesn't mean he knows anything about the killings. "
"Doesn't mean he doesn't, either. "
The stranger lumbered sideways, crashing shoulder first into a wall. He muttered something I couldn't catch, then glanced over his shoulder.
Our gazes met, and my psychic senses roared to life. There was no life in that blue gaze, but there was unlife. And hatred, so much hatred, mixed with anger, and the need to shed blood and taste revenge.
But, deeper than that, there was evil. The sort of evil that likes to rip and tear and drain.
"He may not smell exactly like our quarry," I whispered. "But I'm sure he's connected to these murders somehow. "
The words were barely out of my mouth when the vampire snarled. I had a brief glimpse of shattered, broken canines, then he pushed away from the wall and started running. Brodie leapt out of the shadows, stripping off his clothes as he ran, his lean, powerful form shifting, changing, until what was running in front of me was wolf rather than human.
A shiver ran through my soul. I'd seen him do that a hundred times, too, and I still found it awe-inspiring.
"Wait for me!"
But of course he didn't. He was a werewolf, after all, and few of them bothered with rules, regulations, or half-shouted requests unless it really suited them.
I swore softly and threw the bell and collection box into the shadowed corner where he'd been standing, then grabbed the stakes and his clothes, and ran after him, the bells on my shoes ringing happily across the night with each step. I felt like a one-person Christmas band.
We bolted up the road and around a corner. The suspect was fast, his spindly arms and legs pumping like a runner in a race, his black coat flying out behind him, looking a little like black wings. But for every step he took, Brodie was taking two or three and he was gaining fast.
The vamp skidded left into a side road. Four seconds later, Brodie's sleek wolf form disappeared after him. I was six seconds behind them both, sliding around the corner in a jingle of bells, only to have to suddenly leap over the still-wolf form that was Brodie.
"Where is he?" I said, standing beside him and frowning into the dark and silent side street.
He shifted shape, then said, "I lost him. " He held up the stranger's black coat. "This is what I smelled. He was using it to cover his own scent. There's obviously some poor wino out there now freezing his nuts off. "
"If he hasn't been drained. " My gaze met his. The green eyes were flat and annoyed. "How could you lose him?"
"Because werewolves can't fly. "
My gaze went skyward. All I saw was darkness and wet white stuff. "Vampires can't, either. "
