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Chapter One
The blade almost seemed to sing, flashing silvery-blue under the harshness of the street lamps. The crowd gathered around the two combatants took a few steps back as one body fell, tripping over his own feet, a nick spouting blood that dripped to the cement in quarter-sized globs.
“You pissy little cunt,” the man on the ground shouted. “You fucking stuck me.”
The girl was half his size, her sword almost longer than she was tall. She smirked, innocently bringing her hand to her mouth and looking at him with guiltless green eyes. “Oh, mister, I’m so sorry. Are you okay, mister? Maybe I should have just stood here and let you attack me?”
“Bitch!” the man said, rising bracing his sword against the pavement to help him up. He drew the tip around him in a semi circle, the blade causing sparks to shoot from the cement. “I’m going to kill you.”
Charisma Snow drew back a single step. She nodded at the blue and red colored lights headed rapidly in their direction. “You might want to change your mind about that.”
“When I tell Hood what you’ve done,” the man began, his tone threatening, “There’ll be nowhere for you to hide.”
Charisma opened her mouth and a few words of song fell from her lips. She glanced around the crowd as she continued to sing, noting the dazed looks growing upon the face of those she sang to. Stepping closer to the man who’d tried to take her, and would have if she hadn’t looked up at the right time, she hit a high note. His eyes fogged and a small drop of blood appeared from his nose. Going closer, she stood on tip-toe to reach his ear. “You’ll never tell anyone anything, fuck wad,” she sang straight into his ear.
She stood back, watching him fall, his eyes still open but growing blind with death’s arrival. Then she left, running down the alley and out the other side. She couldn’t afford another run in with the cops.
Sliding her sword inside the long black leather duster she wore, she climbed up the fire escape quickly and easily, taking it to the roof. These roofs were fantastic for getting away. The buildings had been built so closely together that only a small leap was needed to get from one to another. She should know, she’d been living and surviving in this section of the city since her parents were murdered, fifteen years before.
On a whim, she back tracked to the place where the fight had been, staring down at the cops who’d cordoned off the “crime scene” and were talking to witnesses. A smile touched her lips; each would give a different accounting of the assailant, from a seven-foot black male to a three-foot midget. No one would be able to describe her with any accuracy. The order to forget had been in her song.
* * *
“Why the fuck we got to go down when the cops are already there?” Marcus complained, rubbing his eyes like a tired child. Dating a vampire meant sleeping during the day and he hadn’t quite gotten used to the change in hours.
“Because,” Shadow began. “The cops have no clue what they are up against. So when Sergeant Bittle called to ask for our help, I couldn’t tell her no.”
“Bittle’s going to be there?” Marcus said, his eyes brightening.
“Oh I better not have heard the tone I thought I heard, Wings.” Angel barged into Shadow’s office, blue eyes glowing as she stared down at her winged God. “I’d hate to pluck you like a chicken and then…”
“I know, I know,” Marcus said with a grin, grabbing Angel around the hips and pulling her close despite her protests. “You’d boil me into soup for the homeless. You know no one can turn me on the way you do, baby.”
“I might get sick,” Callie said, following Angel in. She grinned over at Shadow, giving him a wink. “So what is this with Bittle?”
“We won’t know until we arrive. She’s getting us full access to the crime scene.” He rose, shooing Marcus and Angel ahead of him before dropping a quick kiss on Callie’s full lips. “I missed you this morning,” he growled in her ear.
“Couldn’t be helped,” she sighed, enjoying the way his hand ran over her body, even on top of the leather suit she wore for ASP, The Agency for Supernatural Police. It fit her body like a second skin. She groaned when he found her zipper, sliding it down just a bit to let him cup her breast. “Daddy is still upset about Dorian Amante and Aidan Kent.”
“And unhappy about you carousing with your boss as well, I’ll bet,” Shadow said, giving her nipple one final squeeze before zipping up her suit.
She turned, her hand sliding down the front of his pants to where a long, hard ridge showed his interest. “Great Aunt Sally’s granny panties aren’t going to do anything for this, my love.”
“Callie Anne Wolfe,” he growled, his eyes narrowed. “You are going to undermine my authority if I can’t stop getting hard-ons around you.”
“Aww, that was the sweetest thing you’ve said to me all day.” She let him go, turning and putting a defiant swish to her hips as she walked out of his office in front of him.
Shadow stood where he was for a second, thinking of the case, of Daniels, of anything beside Callie. In the end, he settled for gathering his coat around him and followed her out.
* * *
The scene was illuminated by the revolving lights of the cop cars spiraling around and around, flashing on faces and highlighting the lonesome alley. Shadow stepped out of the ASP SUV, his confidence and authority so apparent that the officer at the crime scene tape didn’t bother to ask for a badge, allowing the team through. He spotted Bittle, the tall, long-legged Sergeant dressed standing next to two plain clothes detectives.
“Homicide,” he said, nodding toward the two.
“Easy to spot,” Callie said. “They always act like they’re doing something important, even when standing with their thumbs up their asses.”
“Not nice, Cal
“Keep those covered,” Shadow growled. “We don’t need anyone knowing what we are, got me Marcus?”
“You got it.” Marcus gathered his own coat closer around him. His chest was bare under it, but his wings were covered and that’s all that mattered. Working with humans could be tricky, he thought.
Sergeant Bittle lifted her head, her intelligent brown eyes lighting up when she saw the four of them. She hurried over, pushing her hat down on her upswept sable-colored hair when a gust of cold wind threatened to tug it away.
“Am I glad to see you,” she said. “This is the third murder we’ve had like this in the last six months. We’ve got nothing. This killer comes out in plain sight and kills in front of a whole crowd of witnesses and no one can tell us anything.”
“Some kind of mass hypnosis?” Angel asked. “I mean, it would fit.”
“Do they remember the murder at all?”
“Oh yeah. They can give you everything about the vic, even his last words. But on the perp, we got nothing.” She turned and gestured to a sixty something year old man who was talking to one of her officers. “That guy said the killer was a ten-year old boy,” she gestured towards a woman just stepping off the curb and heading under the tape. “She said he was a three hundred pound transvestite wearing a strapless mini-dress. Makes you wonder where he hid his sword, doesn’t it?”
“Not really,” Shadow said, shaking off the thought before it could grow roots in his mind. “Why do you think sword?”
“Our Medical Examiner. He said the body definitely had a few slices cut out of it. Nothing fatal, but all pre-mortem.”
“Has he given cause of death yet?”
“Not officially, but he’s seen it before. He worked on the other two victims. Both were males, both in their mid-thirties to early forties, like this guy. Both had massive damage to their brains, as if someone reached in with a paint stirrer and gave it a good going at. He said their frontal lobes were little more than mush. That’s why I got the okay to bring you in on this.” Bittle handed Shadow two files. “This is what we have on the other two victims. My captain wants to bring in the FBI on this. I stalled him some, but he isn’t going to wait if we get another victim.”
Shadow handed the files to Callie who tucked them under her arm. “Do we have an ID on this one yet?”
“That’s the other strange thing. No identification, not a driver’s license, social security card, not even a single fucking credit card.” Bittle pulled up the lapels on her coat as a chill wind blew through the alley. “Fucking cold.”
Shadow felt Callie’s small hand against his arm. “What is it?”
“A strange scent,” the brunette werewolf whispered. “Not human, not were, not vampire. I can’t quite place it.”
“Do you know from where?” Shadow said, turning toward her.
He watched as Callie lifted her beautiful face to the wind, then his eyes hopped from person to person outside the crime scene tape. It was an almost inhumanly cold night in December. Most of these looky-loos were shivering. Not a single one of them gave him a pop; not even a ting.
Callie opened her eyes, catching the scent again. Above her, on the roof of the five-story building, she saw a girl. Her duster-style coat flapped in the wind, the huge moon at her back shadowing her face. She was small, dressed in black with bright red hair that flew around her head. That was all Callie caught before the girl stepped back and was gone, leaving nothing but that provocative scent.
“She was up there,” Callie said, pointing furtively at the rooftops
“She? You can tell sex by scent?” Bittle asked, intrigued despite herself.
“Well yeah, but I just saw her up there.”
“Call your teams back, Bittle. Let us get her. Once we figure out what she is, we’ll know what to do with her.” Shadow motioned for Angel and Marcus, drawing them forward. “The roofs,” he said.
“You got it, boss,” Marcus said. He took off at a run, Angel keeping up with him easily. As soon as they disappeared into the alley, Shadow knew Marcus would ditch the coat and take to the air while Angel would almost seem to fly up the buildings. If any ASP team member could catch their fugitive, it would be those two.
“They’ll round her up. We’ll take her back to ASP.”
“What am I supposed to tell my Captain, Shadow? He wasn’t happy about me calling you in and now you’re just going to take our suspect? These are homicides.”
“Your victims’ prints weren’t in the system anywhere, were they? There’s a reason. These guys ain’t all human,” Callie snapped. “Take a good look at this guy. Look at his eyes. Do they look a little off to you? That’s because they have an extra set of lids. Your ME is slipping, Bittle.” Callie knelt down next to the figure that hadn’t been loaded into the van yet. Carefully running a finger around one ear, she pulled gently, exposing what looked like a gill. “Fuck, Brian, check this out.”
Shadow knelt beside her, his hand touching hers as he pulled the gill loose. He turned the fish man’s head and found another gill on the other side. “This is one of ours, Bittle. We’ve got to take him back with us.”
“Shit,” Bittle said. “Next time you want to fuck me, Shadow, kiss me first okay? My Captain is going to blow.”
“I can have Daniels call him if that would help,” Shadow said.
“He didn’t want me calling you anyway. Now you’re taking not only my suspect but my body as well? I might as well bend over to make it easier for him to ream me. Christ!”
“Shadow?”
Shadow lifted the communicator from the small pocket on the front of his suit. “Go Angel.”
“No sign of our suspect. Is Callie sure about what she saw?”
Brian glanced over at Callie, catching her nod. “Yeah, keep looking.”
“Tell butterfly up here to quit his bitching and I will.”
Marcus’s voice came over the communicator. “I’m not bitching. It’s just not all of us are as cold blooded as you.”
“You can say that again,” Callie hissed.
“They were easier to handle before they started…” he shut up realizing that Bittle was still there and looking at them. “Callie, go get a bag from the back of the SUV. We’ve got to get him bagged now, before the wind carries away any more evidence. I’ll call base and get the new doctor out here.”
Callie’s cheeks, reddened by the wind and the cold, grew even redder. “Yeah, thanks, dig that one in just a little deeper, okay?” she muttered. She turned to do as he bid, her eyes lighting upon a figure in a dark brown leather jacket passing the crowd by with only the quickest of looks at the cops and the body. He looked familiar, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think of who he could be. Shrugging it off, she opened the back of the SUV and dug into one of the boxes, pulling out a brand new body bag.
Carrying it back to the body, she knelt beside him, tipping his face to the side. Blood seeped from his ears and from his nose, leaving small puddles of blood on each side of his head. His eyes were blood shot. Mottled bruises showed on his face, which seemed sunken from its appearance minutes before. “Shadow?” she called.
Brian came, kneeling down beside her. “This is something different.”
“Yeah. Can I get a hand with this?”
They put down the bag, wrangling the body inside without difficulty. His body felt strange, almost like a bag of skin where the muscle and bones were liquefying. Callie had seen a lot, dealt with more--but the feel of that body almost made her gag. “I think we should put a rush on this one,” she whispered to Brian.
“Yeah,” he said, putting in the order at central.
* * *
Charisma watched the two chasing her as they raced past where she was hiding. The long-haired female was a vampire; she’d recognized her pretty easily. You had to do that when you lived on the streets. The other guy though, the one with the wings? She had no fucking clue what he was.
He was pretty though, if she’d been interested in a man. Curls of golden blonde clung to his finely shaped head and his eyes were even a brighter green then hers. He was made for sin, with a body that rippled with muscles. It would almost be worth a night in the jail to get a closer look. Almost…
Finding the door that led down into the deserted building, she closed it quietly behind her. Vampires had incredible hearing when they concentrated. They could hear the heartbeats of their prey from a very long distance. They could detect the tiniest difference in emotion, from fear to anger, just in the way a heart sounded. She wouldn’t give the pretty blonde a chance to rip hers out.
When did the cops start working with vampires and winged whatever? She couldn’t help but wonder about it as she jogged down the stairs. Pushing through a fire door, she closed it carefully after her and moved to where she’d hidden her worldly possessions. The mattress had been here already, a left over from a drug house. It held stains and spots that she didn’t even want to guess what they were. She sank down on it now, drawing the duster close as a shiver of cold, or fear, trembled through her body.
She had one blanket and one very thin pillow. Curling up, she drew the blanket over her, her head resting on the pillow. She was tired. It was exhausting to live on the streets. Now that Hood thought she’d double crossed him, it was even worse. Trying to find food had been bad enough before Hood’s goons started scaring away anyone who would help her.
A self pitying tear slipped down her cheek and she brushed it irritably away. It wasn’t her fault that Hood had a thing for redheads. If she could, she’d dye her hair black. She’d paint huge shadows under her eyes and make herself look like death. She’d do anything to get off Hood’s radar.
Maybe it was time, she thought, stifling a yawn behind a balled fist. Maybe she should leave, just pack up everything she owned and start walking. She could go somewhere that no one knew her. She could sing at bars for money. Of course, no one here believed she was over eighteen. It was a curse of her size. They thought she was some high school kid out looking for trouble and wouldn’t give her a chance.
High school. She’d never had a chance to go. Not that she missed it, she hurriedly reassured herself. Who needs high school? They force you to spend so many hours a day in a building, shoving their lessons down your throat and then give you bad grades to hide their bad teaching. Nope, it wasn’t for her.
Nope, never for her. It was her final thought before her eyes closed, the small added warmth of the blanket and the security of being home all she needed to let sleep take her away.
But it was a restless sleep, a light sleep. She was too used to the streets to be able to sleep deeply. That was asking for it. Nor did she dream anything but the dark dreams that haunted her by night or day.
She could see them now--her parents. Her mom was a tiny thing, like Charisma herself, with long, bright red hair that was pulled back and held tightly in a band. But not even those bonds could deny the life endowed in those corkscrew curls. They escaped and bounced about her mother’s face.
Charisma sat in the back seat. She was barely seven years old but she could hear them fighting--about her--again.
“We don’t have the money to send her to that special school.” her father, a big man with a big voice said. He glanced into the back seat and sent her a warm smile. “I know she’s gifted, Savina. But knowing doesn’t put money in the bank or food on the table.”
“I just want her to have the training, and the chances, my parents denied me,” Savina said, her hand on her husband’s shoulder. “All they ever wanted was for me to use what I have to make their lives better. When I wasn’t being useful, Mom just wanted me to stay away from her and pretended I didn’t exist.”
Even at seven, Charisma could hear the hurt and resentment in her mother’s tone. She didn’t understand it, but she could hear it.
Her father took one hand off the steering wheel, reaching over to pat his wife’s hand. His eyes were on her, not on the road. Charisma was the only one that saw the garbage truck and the man behind the wheel. His eyes had been crazed and he’d gunned his engine as he came barreling down the street toward their small used Neon.
“Daddy! The truck!” she’d screamed, but it had been too late. Her father couldn’t turn the wheel or avoid the truck. It had hit them head on, instantly killing her mom and dad. She’d been hurt, bumps and bruises and one really bad gash on her forehead. Even now she could smell he disinfectants used by the hospital she’d woken up in. She could feel the scratchy sheets against her small bare legs. The bustling sound of the hospital was loud in her ears. She was alone.
Charisma had known the moment she woke that her parents were dead. It wasn’t so much her memory of the crash. It was a lack of feeling their presence, the presence of the only people in this world that loved and cared about her. Even now, that knowledge could send huge tears streaking down her cheeks. Not of pity, no, but of loss – the loss of something more special than she had ever known since.
Something woke her. She lay there, not changing her breathing or opening her eyes. What had alerted her? She heard someone walking around her small area, bending and touching her things, breaching her small bubble of privacy until she wanted to scream.
“I know you’re awake,” the stranger said. “You might as well open your eyes and talk to me.”
Charisma sat up on the mattress. She glared at the stranger. He was one of the prettiest men she’d ever seen, even prettier than the winged hunter earlier. “Who are you? If you’re here to take me to Hood, think again. I won’t come easily.”
The man paced the floor around her. “I don’t know any Hood. I sensed you earlier. What are you?”
“What do you mean, you sensed me?” Charisma didn’t give an inch... She stood straight as he drew closer, not wanting him to have the advantage. He had it anyway. He towered over her, dwarfing her petite frame. His eyes were a gem-like green, his body fit and taut, with rippled muscles that strained the tee shirt he wore under the dark brown leather bomber jacket.
“I don’t know. I only knew I had to come into this building. You’re in trouble.” It was a statement, not a question.
“So, what if I am? I’m not asking for anybodies help. I only want to be left alone.” Charisma started to shrink away from him, though he hadn’t touched her yet. She had a terrible feeling that if he did touch her, she’d never be the same again. “Go away,” she ordered, a tremor in her voice ruining the effectiveness of the words.
“I can’t,” the stranger said simply, staring down at her. “I won’t walk away from you.”
She saw his hand coming toward her, and held her breath, her eyes closing as his palm touched her cheek. That single touch sent a firestorm of sensations through her, sensations she didn’t understand. “Don’t do this,” she whispered. “Please, don’t do this to me.”
His breathing seemed as rough as hers, his fingers trembling against her skin. He brushed her mouth with his thumb, that single touch rousing a fire in her she’d never felt before. The scent of her arousal filled the air.
“I…I can’t seem to stop,” he hissed, closing his eyes.
His head bent, his mouth softly finding hers. The taste of him was spicy hot, his tongue pressing against her lips until she opened them. Then he was in her mouth, his tongue rubbing with erotic magic against hers. A groan was ripped from her, her hands sliding up that taut tee shirt and into his hair as she tipped her head, changing the direction of the kiss.
“Did you hear that?”
Charisma went rigid under him, her hands frantically pulling at him. He lifted his head, staring down at her from only inches away. When he opened his mouth to speak, she shook her head, a plea in her eyes.
“I didn’t hear nothing but my stomach growling. Ain’t you hungry Stretch?”
“Yeah but I got you, snack on the hoof,” Angel said, a very un-Angel like giggle coming from her mouth.
“So, let’s call this one a wash, tell Shadow and head back to the house. I’ll get some chow and you can chow on me down in the crypts.”
“Damn, thinking with the little head again, aren’t you? Do you know what Shadow will do to us if we don’t bring her back?”
“I’m immortal, babe. Shadow don’t scare me much.”
“How does a stint of guard duty down in the tombs sound to you?” Angel laughed, the melodic sound carrying in the quiet of the building.
“Eww,” Marcus groaned. “Do you know what it’s like down there?”
“My poor little wimp boy,” Angel sympathized.
“There’s no one in here,” Marcus said. “Let’s at least try another building.”
“I just want to make a cursory sweep,” Angel said, the click of her heels on the bare floors sounding louder as she moved closer to the small corner Charisma called home.
“Stay here,” the man on top of her whispered. “I’ll come back later.” He rose easily, brushing down the front of his shirt and fixing his hair before yanking on the leather jacket. Then he turned and walked toward the two forms he could just see in the darkened building.
“Stop!” Angel’s voice cried out. She drew her taser, pointing it at the man who’d stepped out of the shadows. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
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