Edden winced. “Ye-e-e-es. Cincinnati has more people on the street at night than the day. We saw a drop last night except for gawkers, but even they became scarce when the vampires took over the streets.”
An officer at the edge sat up. “What if we just shut down the buses? We wouldn’t have a repeat of what happened out at the university.”
“What happened at the university?” I asked, then put a hand in the air. “Never mind. You could always put a cop on the buses going from the Hollows to Cincinnati. That would probably take care of most of it.”
Callahan made a bark of laughter. “And where do you expect to get the manpower, missy? We’re double shifting as it is.”
Missy? I was losing them. “That’s another thing. The I.S. can’t be completely down, just disorganized, and if there’s something the FIB is good at, it’s organization. Has anyone thought to ask the witches or Weres in the I.S.’s runner division to sit in with you in your cars or walk the streets with you? Mixed-species partners are encouraged in the I.S. for a reason. I’d think having someone next to you who can smell vampires a block away is worth looking into. Besides, if the I.S. is down as far as you say it is, the witches and Weres are probably ready to take things into their own hands. You give them a well-structured outlet, they’ll jump at it.”
Edden shifted from foot to foot behind me. My jaw tightened as they just stared at me. “Fine,” I said sarcastically. “Last night I watched a woman blow a hole in a vampire because she lost faith in the I.S.’s ability to protect her. If you don’t get a hold of this, and I mean now, you’re going to have an entire city of vigilantes out gunning for vampires, good or bad. Or you can swallow your pride and not only show the witches and Weres your stuff, but demonstrate to a frightened demographic that you can work with other species instead of killing them.”
“O-o-o-okay!” Edden said as he put a hand on my shoulder, and I jumped. “Thank you, Rachel. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and ideas with us this morning. Gentlemen? Ladies? Smart decisions.”
It was clearly his catchphrase to release them, and disgusted, I dropped back as the assembled officers began to collect themselves. Their expressions were a mix of distrust and disgust, ticking me off.
“If you’re interested in a joint effort of I.S. and FIB, tell Rose to put your name on a list,” Edden said loudly over the noise. “If your name is on the joint-effort list, it won’t be on the double-duty list. It’s as easy as that, people. Keep it safe!”
“That’s not fair, Captain . . .” someone complained, and Edden turned away. His expression was pained as he handed me my bag, Jenks still sleeping his honey drunk off inside.
“Think they’ll go for it?” I asked.
“Some will to get out of pulling double duty. A few more will because they’re curious.”
“Good,” I said as the room emptied and he began to take down his map. “I meant it when I said the witches and Weres will try to pull the I.S. together, but most of the top bosses there are the undead. They’ll lose a lot of time organizing unless they agree to work with the FIB.”
His expression was sour, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes as he rolled the map into a tube.
“Edden, you need their help,” I pleaded. “It’s not just an issue of manpower or officer safety. Right now the living vampires are skittish, but if their masters don’t wake up soon, we’re going to have more abductions and blood rapes than graffiti and trash parties at the university.”
Map in one hand, he gestured with the other for me to head to the hall. “I’m taking names and will make a call. The rest is up to them. Not everyone with a badge is an Inderland bigot.”
Edden’s eyes were pinched as I fell into step beside him. I knew he missed Glenn, and not just because the Inderlander Relations division that Glenn had been in charge of had tanked when he’d quit the FIB. “I read your report,” he said. “Why was Kalamack with you last night?”
Wow, word gets around fast. “His girls come back tomorrow. It was a thank-you dinner.”
Edden’s eyebrows rose knowingly. “At a bowling bar?”
I smiled as we made our way to the front of the building. “They have great burgers.”
“Yeah?” Edden tapped the rolled map on his chin. “And he stood back and let you work.”
“Yup,” I lied cheerfully. I’d thought Trent had been trying to stop me, but he’d only wanted to borrow my gun. Not that he was a slouch with the elven magic, but he didn’t have a license to throw charms around as I did. Magic could be traced back to its maker, even a ley line charm, and if the FIB thought I’d shot the vampires, then Trent’s name wouldn’t even make the papers. He had surprised me, and I liked being surprised.
And the kiss . . . A tingle raced through me. Slowly my smile faded. Ellasbeth didn’t know what she had.
The noise in the reception hall swelled as we entered, and Edden sighed at the angry people at the front desk, none of them listening to the officers trying to get them to take a form and go sit in the chairs to fill it out. I could understand why they were upset, seeing as all the chairs were occupied and the take-a-number dispenser they’d put up was only six numbers different from when I’d come through about an hour ago.
“Thanks for this, Rachel.” Edden halted before the glass doors. “You got your car?”
I carefully opened my shoulder bag, easily finding my keys by the light of a snoring pixy. “Thanks, Edden,” I said, shaking the pixy dust off them so they wouldn’t short out my ignition. “It was worth the early morning. Speaking of which, you need to go home.”
Hands in his pockets, he looked out uneasily at the sunny street, the lack of cars obvious. “Maybe next year.” He again scrubbed a hand over his face, dead tired, and I remembered that he didn’t really have anyone to go home to. “We might find something good in this mess.”
Smiling, I put a hand on his shoulder, leaning in to give him a professional kiss on the cheek and making him redden. I knew he was talking about Inderlanders and humans working together, and I hoped he was right. “Let me know if something changes.”
He nodded, pushing the door open for me, and my hair blew back in the draft. “You too.”
It was almost eleven, right about the time I usually got up, and feeling a faint sense of rejuvenation, I strode into the sun. “You want some coffee, Jenks?” I said loudly, knowing he wouldn’t be up for at least ten more minutes. Junior’s was only a couple of blocks away, and a grande, skinny double espresso, with a shot of raspberry, extra hot with no foam, would have a much-appreciated dose of fat and calories in it. “Yeah, me too,” I said, taking the stairs with an extra bounce to pull a tiny groan from my bag. My car could stay at impound a few minutes more.
But as I took to the sidewalk, my fast pace quickly faltered. The streets were more empty than usual, and the people who were out moved with a fast, furtive pace, very unlike the angry frustration inside the security of the FIB. Pamphlets skated down the gutters, and new graffiti was everywhere. Some of it I couldn’t match to a Were pack, making me wonder if it might be vampire, as odd as it would be. The scent of oil-based smoke was a haze between Cincinnati’s buildings, visible now that the sun was up, and I tugged my shoulder bag higher, uneasy.
No one was meeting my eyes, and the obnoxious men who usually refused to shift an inch out of their way so we could actually—I don’t know—share the sidewalk maybe, were quick to make room as if afraid I might touch them. It wasn’t just me, though. Everyone was getting the extra space. Tempers were short, and there were lots of quick accelerations when the lights turned green. Most telling, the usual sign-toting beggars were off the streets.
The wind lifted through my hair, sending the escaping strands of my braid to tickle my neck, and realizing I’d been out of touch for almost an hour, I turned my phone back on. “Oh,” I said, pace faltering as I saw all the missed numbers. David.
Wincing, I stopped, shifting myself up the steps at Fountain Square to get out of the foot traffic. Guilt swam up from the cracks of my busy life. I was not a good female alpha, too involved in my own life’s drama to include much of anyone else’s, but damn it, when I agreed to it, David had said it was only going to be him. That had been the entire point. He’d added to the pack since then, not that I could blame him. He was a fabulous alpha male, and I was beginning to feel as if I was holding him back.
Sighing, I hit send and tucked my increasingly dilapidated braid out of the way. He answered almost immediately.
“Rachel!” His pleasant voice sounded worried, and I could picture him, his clean-cut features and tidy suit he wore at his job as an insurance adjuster making his alpha status clear. “Where are you?”
Head down, I rested my rump on one of the huge planters, feeling about three inches tall. “Ah, downtown Cincy,” I said hesitantly. “I tried to call yesterday, and then that wave came through and—”
“Ivy said you were at the FIB. I need to talk to you. Do you have some time today?”
Talk to me about me being a lousy alpha, no doubt. “Sure. What’s good for you?”
“She also told me what happened at the bridge yesterday. Why don’t you tell me these things?” he said, adding to my guilt. “Okay, that’s funny. Look up.”
I took my fingers from my forehead, head lifting.
“No, across the street. See?”
It was David, standing at the corner beside a newspaper box and waving at me. He was in his long duster, heavy boots, and wide-brimmed hat, which made him look like a thirtysomething Van Helsing. It suited him more than his usual suit and tie, and being an insurance adjuster wasn’t the cushy, pencil-pushing job it sounded like. He had teeth, and he used them to get the real dirt on some of the more interesting Inderlander accidents. That’s how we had met, actually.
“H-how . . .” I stammered, and he smiled across the street at me.
“I was trying to get to the FIB before you left,” he said, his lips out of sync with his voice. “I’ve got coffee. Grande, skinny double espresso, shot of raspberry, extra hot, and no foam okay?” he said, taking up a coffee carrier currently sitting on the newspaper box.
“God, yes,” I said, and he waved me to stay where I was. Smiling, I ended the call. Not only did he know I liked my coffee, but he knew how I liked my coffee.
Motion easy, the medium-build man loped across the street against traffic, one hand holding the tray with the coffees, the other raised against the cars. Every single one of them slowed to let him pass with nary a horn or shouted curse, such was his assurance. David was the apex of confidence, and very little of it was from the curse I’d innocently given him, accidentally making him the holder of the focus and able to demand the obedience of any alpha, and hence their pack members in turn. He wore the responsibility very well—unlike me.
“Rachel,” he said as he reached the sidewalk and took the shallow steps two at a time. “You look beat!”
“I am,” I said, giving him a hug and breathing in the complicated mix of bane, wood smoke, and paper. His black shoulder-length hair pulled back in a tie smelled clean, and I lingered, recognizing the strength in him in both body and mind. When I’d met him, he’d been a loner, and though he had firmly established himself as a pack leader now, he’d retained the individual confidence a loner was known for.
“Thanks for the coffee,” I said, carefully wedging it out of the carrier as he extended it. “You can hunt me down any day if you bring me coffee.”
Chuckling, he shook his head, his dark eyes flicking down from the huge vid screen over the square, currently tuned to the day’s national news. Cincy was in it again, and not in a good way. “I didn’t want to talk to you over the phone, and I’ve got the day off. You got a minute?”
My guilt rushed back, my first sip going bland on my tongue. “I’m sorry, David. I’m a lousy alpha.” I slumped, the coffee he’d brought me—the perfect coffee he knew was my favorite—hanging in my grip. It was never supposed to have been anything other than the two of us. The larger pack just sort of happened.
Blinking, he fixed his full attention on me, making me wince. “You are not,” he admonished, coffee in hand and leaning against the planter, looking like an ad for Weres’ Wares magazine. “And that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. Have you heard of a group called the Free Vampires?”
Surprised, I relaxed my hunched shoulders. “One of the vamps last night thought I was one, but no. Not really.”
His eyes shifted to the people around us, the motion furtive enough to pull a ribbon of worry through me. It was busy at the square, knots of people clustered around their laptops and tablets, but none nearby. Leaning closer, he dropped his head to prevent anyone from reading his lips. “They’re also known as Free Curse Vampires or Vampires Without Masters,” he said, sending a chill through me. “They’ve been around since before the Turn. That’s their mark there, up on the vid screen.”
My eyes followed his twisting head, only now noticing that the huge monitor overlooking Fountain Square did indeed have a gang symbol spray-painted on it, the huge symbol looking as if a V and a F had been typeset over each other, the leg of the F merging seamlessly with the left side of the V to look elegantly aggressive. It also looked impossible to have gotten it up there.
“Huh,” I said, now remembering seeing it on some of the buses this morning. And in the intersection outside of the FIB. Light poles. Corner mailboxes . . . Concerned, I leaned to pick up one of those flyers, finding it read like wartime propaganda. “How can they survive without a master? I’d think they wouldn’t last a year.”
