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“I would adore being of service,” he said, redirecting his attention to the crime scene. “Once we have discovered the perpetrators of this crime, of course.”
He heard two of his NYPD rookies in the back launch into an animated discussion. Evidently one had made a return from the gutter and decided to brave the scene again.
“Not technically a crime.”
“Someone broke and entered into the church, no?”
“Churches are always open. Worst you could really pin on anyone for this is a littering charge.”
There was a snort of disrespectful amusement.
This was what the ancestral and near immortal powers of Bertram and Ernest had amounted to, a moment of curiosity for disrespectful young humans who had no concept of the forces of time, life, or death. These two vampires had been thoroughly humiliated. Mad caught sight of several of the officers taking pictures and videos with their cellphones. Another breach of discipline and decorum. The final images of Bertram and Ernest would be spread far and wide, immortalized on the human internet.
“Do we take them to the morgue?” Candy silenced the rookies with her iron stare as they tried to come closer with morbid curiosity.
“If you touch them, they will crumble to dust. This is their last embrace for eternity. They have perhaps a few moments left before their remaining molecules desert them.”
“I want them moved,” Chauvelin interjected. “There could be evidence relevant to the FBI investigations.”
“Be my guest. Attempt to move them. Take them to a city morgue, where humans who have no idea vampires exist will be all too thrilled to examine what is left of them, I am sure.”
“We have dedicated black sites for vampire crimes. You know that, Mr Maddox. And these two… they were important. They deserve to be dealt with carefully.”
Immediately betraying his words, Chauvelin reached out to touch one of the twins. Could have been Bertram, could have been Ernest. It was impossible to tell at that point. The moment his grasping fingers made contact, the pair of them crumbled into ash. It was not a poetic floating away on the breeze. It was more like a heavy fall of dust hitting the ground in puffs of carbon.
Maddox resisted the urge to palm his face, instead turning to Candy with new instructions.
“Get a broom.”
9 WELCOME HOME
“Long night?”
Lorien met Maddox at the door with the kind of charming smile that could absolutely in no way be trusted. Maddox did not dignify the question with a verbal reply. Instead, he answered it with a raised brow. Lorien was not usually first to meet him. Lorien usually swanned about doing whatever it was he was doing and ignoring the rest of creation. The only reason he’d be at the door now is if he were attempting some form of damage control.
“Now I don’t want you to be angry, but…”
“What have you done, Lorien?”
“It’s not… I haven’t done anything.”
“Where is Will?”
“Good news is he’s still here, and he’s fine. I mean he’s as healthy now as he was when you left.”
Maddox’s brow went higher still.
“He’s in the kitchen,” Lorien trailed off, somewhat guilty. He was very fortunate Maddox was in a spectacularly good mood.
Will was in the kitchen, Mads discovered. He was gagged and tangled in a ball of chains on the kitchen floor, to be precise. To Mad’s surprise there weren’t really many signs of a struggle. Will was tangled up in the chains on the kitchen floor. He had also been gagged. He was fast asleep with his head against the oven, apparently unconcerned about his unorthodox incarceration — or, more likely, having given up at finding himself in the predicament for an extended period of time.
“I didn’t want to let him go, as he was making threats,” Lorien explained from what he might have imagined was a safe distance. No distance would have been safe if Maddox had decided to discipline him for this act of rank bullying.
“I can imagine he was.” Maddox shot Lorien a dire look that promised a future reckoning as he stooped down, picked Will’s sleeping form up and carried him back upstairs. The chains were as easy to snap as cotton to him. He opted to do that rather than attempt to undo the tangle of links which held his pup captive.
Will stirred as he was settled into bed. “Lorien tied me up,” he said through half-closed eyes.
“I know.”
