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Ethan chimed in from the front. “Nicky really doesn’t look anything like your family.”
Kaazim asked, “Are you all hearing her in your head as normal?”
Nicky and Ethan said “Yes” together.
Kaazim turned in the seat so he could look at Nicky and me, and then I realized he was looking at me. He wasn’t a vampire, and werejackals didn’t have any special gaze abilities that I was aware of, but there was weight to his eyes in that moment. They looked as blackas I’d ever seen them as the SUV drove through the night. When a streetlight spilled across us, his eyes glittered in the light in a way that human eyes never did. It made me wonder if he was one of a handful of shapeshifters that kept some of their animal form no matter how human they looked.
“According to my master, that should make any stray holy water on you react.”
“You didn’t see the holy water catch on fire from the human servant using vampire powers?” I asked.
“No, it happened years before she found me.” He always said it like that: notmet me, butfound me, like he’d been lost, except something about his interaction with Queenie made it seem less benign than being found and restored to home. The vampires of the Harlequin seemed divided into two camps. The first was like Echo and Fortune, if not couples then at least friends and companions; the second was more servant and master and sometimes involved the vampire master abusing the shapeshifter. We’d stopped the domestic abuse, or thought we had until it flared up again. Domestic violence is always a hard cycle to break, but these cycles had lasted hundreds to thousands of years. It wasn’t going to be fixed overnight. Kaazim and Queenie were not friends.
My phone rang and it was the theme toHawaii Five-O, which meant it was some police officer that I knew well enough to have the special ringtone. I had to fish for it, since I made sure my gun and badge were more easily accessible than my phone; priorities and all.
I answered without checking the number. “Marshal Blake here.”
“Anita, thanks for picking up, I know you weren’t officially on call tonight.” It was fellow preternatural marshal Arlen Brice. I could picture him on the other end: five-nine, in shape, with short brown hair and traditional good looks that had made all the single ladies on the police force try to date him, or at least hook up with him. Too bad for them, because he was gay, not bisexual, no middle ground,he was just not attracted to women. Nothing wrong with that, except that he was still in the closet and didn’t want to come out, which meant he’d actually dated some of the women. They thought he was a perfect gentleman, so romantic, and none of them wanted to admit that they hadn’t had sex with him, so when one lady lied, the others started to lie, too. Which meant that Brice had a reputation as a ladies’ man without having done a damn thing to earn it. It was kind of hilarious and the best cover ever for him trying to hide that he was homosexual. It did mean that he wasn’t able to date any men; the straight guys weren’t interested in anything but dating tips or juicy stories of conquest, which he was too much a gentleman to give, and the not-so-straight guys thought he had no interest in them. Since I had come out of the closet as dating both men and women, I encouraged him to join me as at least bisexual to ease the rest of the cops into his true sexual identity, but so far he had kept his secret, and it was his to keep until he was ready.
“You’re welcome, but it better be good, because I’m on the way to the hospital.”
“Jesus, did introducing your family to Jean-Claude go that badly?” He sounded serious, but then when coming out to your family could end in them attacking you I guess he might worry that introducing family to a vampire lover might go the same way.
“No, it wasn’t that, we got attacked by another vampire.”
“What kind of idiot would try to go after you and Jean-Claude, let alone your security people?”
I explained briefly.
“The Wicked Truth, I…don’t know what to say.” In private he would have said something about how hunky they were, or how the fact that they had no interest in men was a heartbreaker for him, but there were other cops around to hear so he couldn’t say anything he actually wanted to say. It was a hard way to live, but it was his choice and I had to respect it until he was ready.
“Yeah, there’s a lot more to say, but I’ll tell you why I feel guilty and responsible about it later. You called for a reason.”
“I do want to hear the whole story,” he said.
“I know, but you have until we get to the hospital to take advantage of my expertise, I’m assuming that’s why you called.”
“Yes, I’m still the newest marshal in town, even Kirkland knows more about this stuff than I do.”
“Larry is only four years behind me, and you’ve been on the Preternatural side less than that. Give yourself a break, Brice. Now what’s up?” I asked, settling back in the circle of Nicky’s arm; might as well get some touch reassurance before we got to the hospital.
“We found footprints at the crime scene, but they’re not like anything I’ve ever seen.”
“Can you text me the images?” I asked.
“I’d feel better if you come and see them in person. You might see more clues to whatever the hell this thing is if you come to the crime scene.”
“Zerbrowski is there, right?”
“He is.”
“Then you’re in good hands and so is the crime scene.”
“Let me text you the footprints, then tell me that we don’t need you here,” he said.
“Fine, send them.”
Kaazim said, “Anita, you do not have time to do this, we must get you to the Wicked Truth.”
