Sin's Dark Caress Read online

  The old man nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Excellent, let me walk you to your car.”

  “Thank you, Oberon.” The old man’s eyes fell to her pendant again, then he smiled before turning away.

  “Creepy old man,” McManus said as soon as Oberon and the chancellor were out of earshot.

  Bianca turned and punched him in the arm. “What the fuck, McManus? You’re doing Neon Tears now?”

  3

  Once upon a Midnight Weary

  “I’m home,” Bianca called, throwing her keys on the hall table before kicking off her shoes.

  It’d been a hell of a night and she really needed a hug.

  “Vincent, sweetie?” she called again. “Mama’s home.”

  Bianca walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. She took a bottle of white wine from the door, pulled the cork, and grabbed a glass from the dish drainer beside the sink. As she began to pour, her hand paused. Maybe she was drinking too much lately. Maybe a coffee would be better at this time of the—

  She glanced at the clock. It was almost dawn.

  As she recorked the wine and put it back in the fridge, she thought of McManus. His drinking problem went as far back as she’d known him, but the drug use was new. Fluorescent-blue discharge was a telltale sign of a Neon Tears user. The most effective way into the system was through the multitude of tiny veins in the sclera or white of the eye. However, overuse could lead to permanent damage, even blindness. It was only one of the several new designer drugs hitting the street recently. No one knew where the narcotics came from, only the chaos they left in their wake.

  Movement blurred on the windowsill above the kitchen sink as Vincent finally appeared and began cleaning his ebony velvet coat.

  “There you are,” she said, picking up the huge black cat.

  He acknowledged her with a sharp meow, his yellow feline eyes shining.

  “Hello, baby. What’ve you been up too, hey?” She kissed him on top of his slightly misshapen head. She’d rescued him as a battered week-old kitten from a Dumpster a few years back. He was so tiny then, with only one ear intact and half his tail missing. She’d hand-raised him with a bottle, cleaning and caring for him like a baby until he was able to look after himself. The bond between them was still strong.

  He let out a drawn out, half purr, half mew—his way of saying, “I’m happy to see you too, now where’s the food?” While she’d never formed the familial bond with the orphaned cat, she’d learned to interpret his ways.

  His single intact ear pointed toward her, then he suddenly hissed and struggled out of her arms, landing on the countertop with his half tail burred. Her pendant warmed against her skin and she could’ve sworn she felt it move.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she asked, moving to pick him up again, but he came up on his toes with arched back and hissed even louder at her pendant.

  Bianca sighed and unhooked the clasp behind her neck. The necklace slid into her hand, and she took it into the living room. Vincent followed her, still looking spooked and puffed up; he eyed the pendant warily as she placed it on the table by the sofa.

  “There you go, you silly thing. Is that better?” She scooped him up and rubbed his soft tummy. “Let’s go find you something to eat.”

  “M’ow,” he replied, and craned around her arm, keeping both eyes on the pendant.

  Bianca woke on the sofa, dressed only in her robe. The television spewed the latest news into the room in brilliant high-def. The streaming headlines flowed across the bottom of the screen while a far-too-chirpy reporter chatted about the abysmal state of the economy. Her shoulder pinched from the awkward position she’d fallen asleep in. She wiped a sheen of sweat off the back of her neck.

  Why was it so hot in here?

  The imitation fire with glowing fake logs blazed in the fireplace. She hadn’t turned it on, at least not that she remembered. But then again, she’d been pretty wiped after a warm shower.

  Vincent purred madly in front the flames. She stretched to ease the tension in her aching muscles from sleeping on the sofa, dropping her hand to her chest.

  My pendant!

  It wasn’t on the table where she’d left it, and she dropped to her hands and knees to search the floor under the table and the sofa.

  It had to be here somewhere.

  But where? Vincent lifted his head and looked at her. His what-the-hell expression almost made her laugh, until she saw the gold chain protruding from under his left paw.

  Weight lifted, she laughed with relief and crawled over on all fours. “What’re you doing with that?”

  The cat’s only ear flicked back and his eyes narrowed as his head dropped a little lower. The purring stopped.

  “Come on, puss,” she said, reaching for the chain. “Let me have it.”

  He growled and swiped at her hand with sheathed claws.

  “You’re a crazy cat. One minute you can’t stand to be near it, now you won’t give it back.”

  A strange low hum pulsated through the apartment, making it feel like every molecule in her body was vibrating. It came from everywhere and nowhere at once. The unsettled sensation she felt last night returned and unnerved her even more than before. She crawled to her feet and looked down at the stubborn cat.

  “Go on, then. Keep it while I get ready for work.” She walked over and switched off the fire and the thermostat.

  He’ll have lost interest by the time I finish dressing.

  Bianca went into her room and opened the closet door. At one end hung the gothic clothes her mother bought her before her bonding. Since she never bonded with a familiar, the cultural badge of her race stayed in her closet unworn, but for some reason she’d never been able to throw them away.

  She reached for a pair of navy pants and dressed quickly. She twisted her hair up and secured it with some pins before picking up her shoes. Vincent still lay where she’d left him, curled up and purring again. He still had the pendant.

  “Come on now,” she said, bending down. “Give it up.”

  This time the cat didn’t sheath his claws when he swiped. Three parallel crimson streaks stung the back of her hand. He’d never struck her before. Not in anger.

  Her phone rang.

  “Are you coming in tonight?” Oberon asked.

  “Sorry, I slept through my alarm.” She didn’t want to tell him she’d fallen asleep on the sofa. He’d worry.

  “I need you to go over that data from the crime scene. We’re getting some heat from above.”

  She glanced at the cat and sighed. The pendant wasn’t going anywhere for now. Though feeling a little naked without it, she pulled on her coat and gathered up her keys.

  “Be good,” she said to Vincent on her way out the door.

  Bianca had spent most to the night and half the day going over the thaumaturgic data she’d gathered from the crime scene. The photos were the worst, though. While she’d become more accustomed to the sight of dead bodies over the years, she knew it wasn’t something she would ever get used to. And if she did, well, that would be the time to change jobs.

  Now she just wanted to collapse in a heap.

  A blast of hot air greeted her as she opened the apartment door. The heating was cranked up to the max, and the fake fire blazed away again. It was a miracle the whole place hadn’t gone up in flames. A dirty paw print dusted the wall next to the thermostat.

  Vincent? Since when had he known how turn up the heat? And why?

  It wasn’t exactly the weather for it, given the typical late spring day with a balmy seventy-one degrees outside. She turned down the temperature and switched off the fire, but Vincent was nowhere to be seen.

  Her pendant lay where she’d left it that morning, only now it was in two pieces. How had the cat managed to break a solid piece of stone in two? />
  When she picked up the pieces, she found them to be hollow, like . . .

  An egg?

  She walked over to the kitchen counter, and Vincent suddenly appeared on the windowsill with a dead mouse dangling by its neck in his mouth.

  “You that hungry, baby?” she said, moving toward him.

  He ducked her hands, jumped and raced off into the living area before she could catch him. The cat dumped the mouse on floor, which wasn’t as dead as it first appeared. He placed a paw on its tail and started to mew strangely, almost as a mother cat would call her kittens.

  The mouse tried to crawl away, but the cat held it fast.

  “Let’s put this poor thing out its misery,” Bianca said, getting closer.

  But the cat crouched low over its prey, ears flat and a low growl rumbling in his throat. Bianca backed away and he began mewing again, then something flashed past her foot, hardly bigger than the captured mouse.

  She sat down heavily on the lounge, her brain trying to comprehend what she was actually seeing.

  A dragon. A tiny, perfectly formed, baby dragon.

  Cobalt blue to aqua scales shimmered along its body and a pair of metallic maroon and crimson tipped wings spread awkwardly from its back as it tried to keep balance on four tiny legs that ended in black-tipped talons. The minuscule beast greeted Vincent by rubbing its head against his cheek. The cat answered with a happy purr, then lifted his paw and let the mouse go.

  It scurried away, but Vincent pounced on it again before it could get too far. He flipped it in the air and caught it under his front paw before meowing at the miniature dragon. The creature scampered on unsteady legs as Vincent lifted his paw again, releasing the mouse’s tail. The hapless mouse ran, but the baby dragon fell upon it this time, instinct taking over as teeth and talons shredded the rodent. The creature ripped the mouse’s body apart and threw back its glistening blue reptilian head, jaws working to position meat so it could swallow it, the same way a lizard or alligator might. Yet, it was definitely neither.

  The tiny mythological creature devoured a dead mouse on her living room floor while her cat looked on like a proud parent. She sank onto the floor, crawling slowly and cautiously closer, afraid she might be hallucinating. The creature eyed her warily as she drew nearer but seemed more worried that she was after its meal than afraid of her.

  Bianca reached out a shaking hand.

  The second her fingers made contact with the little creature, a jolt ripped up her arm and through her body, the force throwing her backward into the sofa and snapping her head back.

  The blackness receded. Vincent licked the side of her face and purred in her ear, but there was another strange sound, an excited jitter.

  Bianca opened her eyes and blinked, turning her head to stare into a vertically slit, molten gold eye looking at her intently. It almost seemed to smile at her. She sat up so fast her head spun, then leaned forward on the sofa.

  The dragon tilted its head and looked at her through intelligent, liquid-gold eyes. And yet, every molecule in her body buzzed with a peculiar energy, unlike anything she’d felt before.

  “What happened?” she asked, her voice sounding strange and shaky.

  “We bonded.”

  “Bonded?” She rubbed the back of her smarting head, then froze. “You can speak?”

  The little creature crawled up into her lap, and she tentatively ran her finger over his tiny, jeweled body. He was warm, almost hot, yet soft like kid leather. “That’s part of the gift,” he said in a childlike voice.

  Bianca wasn’t as freaked as she knew she should be. She’d often dreamed of dragons and flying, especially when she was younger, but this was just weird. “I feel I know you.”

  “You do. I’m Kedrax.”

  The name surprised her. She used to have an invisible friend she called Kedrax. “You can’t be the same one.” As soon as she said it, she knew he was.

  It all started to make sense. The reason she couldn’t bond with another familiar was that she’d already mentally bonded with Kedrax as a child. She’d just learned to suppress it. Now that his physical form existed, the bond was complete.

  The question was, why now? And more importantly, did it have anything to do with the Dark Brethren?

  4

  Smoke and Mirrors

  McManus pushed himself away from the wall as a bald man in a dark maroon T-shirt crossed the lobby to meet him.

  The man held out his hand. “Detective McManus, Antonio Geraldi. Oberon sent me to meet you.”

  “Didn’t you work for VCU with DuPrie, Antonio?” McManus asked.

  “You have a good memory.” His handshake was firm. “And please, call me Tones.”

  McManus followed Tones to the elevators, and the doors opened immediately when he hit the down button. “Do you know why DuPrie ask me to come here?”

  “Sorry. You’ll have to ask the captain that yourself.”

  McManus glanced at him out of the corner of his eye as they entered. The T-shirt showed a pair of lush lips surrounding fangs and bore the slogan MEAT IS MURDER–BITE A VEGETARIAN. His jeans and the basketball shoes were of the expensive designer kind, but purposely made to look shabby. If he remembered correctly, this man was an Aeternus. He must be one of those weirdos from the humegitarians movement who only fed on vegetarian blood.

  Tones leaned over to swipe his ID card across the panel and punched the lowest floor button. He stood back and smiled the uncomfortable smile of someone who wasn’t sure what to say but feels he should say something anyway. McManus hoped he didn’t. He hated small talk, especially elevator small talk.

  “So . . .” the Aeternus said at last. “You work for Homicide.”

  McManus groaned inwardly and kept his eyes front. “Yup.”

  “And you’ve worked quite a bit with Bianca?”

  McManus blinked slowly and let go a weary breath. “Yup.”

  “Hmm, a man of many words I see,” Tones said. “I can see why you and Oberon get on like a house on fire.”

  Smartass.

  The elevator chimed and opened, saving McManus from any more inane comments. He followed Tones through the only door in the short stark white corridor into the security guard’s coffee lounge. A couple of guys in uniform sat in animated discussion over some game, and three more played cards while watching TV. Another guard had his feet up on the desk. He gave them a cursory glance and went back to reading his paper.

  “Please wait here,” Tones said, and disappeared through the door marked CHIEF OF SECURITY.

  A few minutes later a buzzer sounded on the desk and McManus heard DuPrie growl, “Send him in.”

  The guard behind the desk dropped his feet, sat forward and indicated the hand-shaped panel on the wall. “First, place your right hand on the reader.”

  After a human U.S. senator was almost assassinated by a facimorph masquerading as one of his aides, the facimorphic test had become standard in most major organizations and government departments. McManus hated the fucking things.

  The office was small and dingy, not exactly what he expected. Oberon DuPrie’s massive bulk sat behind the desk shuffling through papers while Tones was nowhere to be seen. There was only one other door to the right. Without looking up from what he was doing, DuPrie indicated the empty chair opposite him with a wave of his hand. McManus waited for him to finish. And waited. And waited. He glanced at his watch and realized it had been nearly ten minutes since he’d entered the room. Much more than was polite without acknowledgment.

  DuPrie used the tactic McManus himself used to put people on the back foot. Make them wait.

  If that bloody bear thinks he can intimidate me, he has another thing coming.

  McManus rose from his chair and headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” DuPrie asked, still not looking up.

 
“You asked me here.” The doorknob was cool against the palm of his hand. “I came as a favor to Bianca. But I’m not into playing these games.”

  “Really?” DuPrie said. “I could’ve sworn you were, given that you’re playing us. You’ve been dodging my calls.”

  McManus turned. “What’re you talking about? What calls?”

  “Every time I called your office, I got the brushoff,” DuPrie said. “And you never sent me those reports either. I assumed you were getting territorial. Then Bianca tells me that you’ll be happy to see me.”

  “I never received any calls, or even any word that you received those copies I emailed yesterday to the address you gave me.”

  The ex-VCU captain put down the document and leaned back with a raised eyebrow. “Sit.”

  McManus held his ground. He’d dealt with tougher nuts than Oberon DuPrie before.

  The large male relaxed his posture and indicated the chair opposite. “Please.”

  He relented and walked back to the chair.

  DuPrie stared at him several seconds longer then hit a button on the intercom. “Tones—Plan B—see if you can get me those reports.”

  “No need.” McManus pulled a crumpled buff folder out of the inside pocket in the front of his coat. “I made a copy.”

  DuPrie arched an eyebrow and took the file, tilting his head. “Why’d you bring me this?”

  “I didn’t, I was taking it home to go over myself.” DuPrie reached for the file, but McManus kept a firm hold on it. “I want this back.”

  The large male leaned forward, his eyes narrowed for a moment before he agreed with a nod. McManus let the folder go.

  DuPrie opened it and picked up a crime scene photo. “Someone’s stonewalling us on this case. Any ideas who?”

  The newspapers had taken to referring to the killer as the Womb Raider. Good to see DuPrie wasn’t. “How about VCU?”

  DuPrie shrugged his shoulders. “Could be. But last I heard, they’re all but disbanded. Too many mistakes have made it hard for the higher-ups to ignore them. The best and brightest have moved on. The rest . . . well.” With a sigh as large as the man himself, he met McManus’s eyes. “No, this is something else. To hack into either our email system or yours and stop this report smacks of someone with much more competence than the VCU I know.”