Angel: Private Eye Book One (10 page)

Cortez turned to me. “Go into the main room
and ask for Charles,” he said in a low even tone, as if he was just
asking me for a cup of coffee.

There was something about the tone that
soothed my mind. Something so normal about it, so every day, so not
a dead body on the bed.

I don’t know how, but I staggered forward,
made my way through the short corridor, and announced to the
detectives in the main room that Charles was needed.

Then I walked outside.

I couldn’t stop my jerking limbs. I didn’t
pause until I reached the beast.

It opened its door for me and I staggered
inside. Crumpling my arms over the steering wheel and burying my
head against the steering stack, I began to cry. Slow and then
hard. Slow and then hard.

My tears came in violent waves only to peter
out into dry sobs.

I’d just seen a dead body. And worse, I’d
found it.

…

Detective Enrico Cortez

“You told me to call if I saw anything,”
Cortez said before Benson had a chance to say hello.

There was a pause. “You’re talking about
Miss Luck, aren’t you?”

“I sure am,” Cortez kept his voice low as he
walked slowly down the corridor outside of the apartment. “She
found a dead body.”

Benson paused, a real long conspicuous
pause. Long enough and quiet enough that Cortez could hear the
rattling plumbing in this old dilapidated building, even the low
pressured hum of voices coming from the apartments that bordered
either side of Susan Smith’s.

“She seemed to know there was some kind of
wall spell on the room. Found it even though my best warlock had
gone over that room with a fine tooth spell comb.”

“I see,” Benson finally reacted. “Did you
sense any magic off her?”

Cortez stopped as he thought. The only thing
he sensed off Elizabeth Luck was sheer stupidity. She reminded him
exactly of a doe-eyed deer standing in the center of the road as a
car barreled down onto it. She had time to duck to the side, plenty
of time to get out of the way. But God knows she was too stupid to
try.

He shook his head. “Nothing. It was like she
just found it by accident.”

“That’s two serious accidents for Miss Luck
in one night. Keep an eye on her,” Benson said in a low, strict
tone.

Maybe Cortez should have reacted to the
exact note of authority in that tone. After all, Benson wasn’t his
boss.

But Cortez didn’t react. He knew full well
what was at stake. This city needed men like Benson. Without them,
the humans – the very people who thought they were in control –
would find out real quick what happened when you messed with the
otherworld.

“Keep me appraised of the details of your
case. As much as you legally can,” Benson added.

“I was going to call you about that, anyway.
From our preliminary investigation, it seems this murder was done
at the hands of a vampire. Or vampires.”

Benson paused again. It was almost an
electric pause.

Cortez wasn’t magical, but he’d been around
enough of their kind to have a sixth sense for it. If Benson had
been in the room right now, he would get that locked look he
sometimes got. That look that reminded you he was as old and just
as hard as a chiseled chunk of marble. “Are you sure it was
vampires?”

“We’re pretty sure. I thought you said you
were keeping your clan under control?” It wasn’t exactly Cortez’s
place to admonish Benson. But their relationship was good enough
that Cortez was sure he wouldn’t wake up to a horse’s head between
his sheets or a fatal case of sudden blood loss.

“While I speak for the majority of Hope
City’s vampires, I don’t speak for them all.” Benson’s tone dropped
and rang so low the cellphone receiver couldn’t pick it up, and it
crackled like a pig thrown on a fire. “Suffice to say, several new
clans have moved in of late, and I’m having a certain amount of
trouble pulling them into line.”

“Pulling them into line?” Cortez let his
tone remain flat and neutral. “I’ve got a dead body in the
apartment behind me, Benson. She’s not just been sucked dry –
there’s Aramaic text written on her back in three-dollar marker.
Don’t tell me that’s just a cheap alternative to a tattoo, and not
some warning from your vampires.”

There was a long pause. “Send me photos. I
want to know what that text says.”

Cortez could have taken umbrage at his tone,
but didn’t. He opened his mouth to say something more, but that was
when he saw her. Elizabeth Luck. She finally managed to drag
herself back into the building. Her skin was about as colorful as
powdered chalk, and she was loping along in an uncomfortable,
almost staggering walk, as if she’d been struck several times over
the head. And hey, in a way, she had. Your first magical crime
scene was never easy, especially when that crime scene was a
vampire murder.

She looked right at him, and though she
appeared barely capable of sustaining the energy to walk, she
managed to scrunch her plain features into half a scowl.

Yeah, the feeling was mutual. She had
absolutely no place being here, and though there’d been a time when
Cortez had suffered fools, it wasn’t any more. You see, the cost of
innocence in this world was death. If Elizabeth was too stupid to
appreciate Benson was her only ticket to safety, there wasn’t a
goddamn tear Cortez was gonna cry for her when she wound up just
like Susan Smith.

Deciding it wasn’t a great idea to stay on
the line with Benson, Cortez reluctantly wrapped up the call. “Yes,
sir, of course. I’ll get this to you right away.” He cleared his
throat.

Benson appeared to get the picture. “If
there are any developments in the case, or with Miss Luck, inform
me.”

“I will do, sir.” With that, Cortez hung up
and slipped the phone into his pocket.

Then he ticked his head back and unashamedly
stared at her. “You’re better off back in your car. There’s nothing
you can do here.”

She gave him a muddled, confused, and
thoroughly sick look. In fact, her skin was so pale he feared she
would throw up again.

He pointed firmly back the way she’d come.
“You want a second helping, go outside and do it on the grass.”

She sneered at him.

He hadn’t known her long, but it seemed like
an uncharacteristic move. Lizzie Luck was like a lost and scared
mouse in every single way, but now that lost and scared mouse was
baring its teeth. “Tell me, Detective Cortez, are you like this to
all victims? Or only the victims of vampires?”

Goddamn, wasn’t that a left hook? He felt
himself bristling. “Excuse me?” he let his words push out in single
file, like warning shots across a ship’s bow.

She sniffed and still looked as sick as a
dog, but didn’t soften the hard angle to her jaw. “I thought the
police were meant to care for every citizen of Hope City,
regardless of what race they come from? I told you once, and I’m
not going to tell you again: I didn’t kill that vampire. He died
because he tried to kill me. Now I’m sorry I didn’t wind up as a
dead body in your morgue. Is that what you would have preferred,
Detective Cortez? Another single white female winds up dead in an
alleyway, sucked dry by a vampire. The vampire gets off with a slap
on the wrist and a ticket to go to rehab.”

“I wouldn’t talk about things you don’t
understand,” Cortez snapped.

“Who’s talking about things they don’t
understand?” somebody said.

“Mr Marvelous.” Cortez turned, every muscle
in his face stiffening as if he expected to be knocked out.

But Mr Marvelous never came right out and
punched you on the jaw. Marvelous was the equivalent of a plague of
locusts – he’d just descend on your otherwise neat and tidy case
and pick it apart until all you had left were pissed off witnesses
and an apoplectic chief.

Mr Marvelous walked past Cortez and stopped
by Elizabeth’s elbow. “Is Mr Cortez talking about things he doesn’t
understand again? Tsk tsk,” Marvelous said as he rolled his sleeves
up. It was a perpetual move for the man. You never saw the guy
without his pudgy fingers rolling back his overly large sleeves.
“But now, now – if Mr Cortez isn’t allowed to talk of things he
doesn’t understand, he won’t be allowed to talk at all.”

Cortez let out a frustrated chuckle and half
shook his head. Then he ensured an extremely stony expression
flattened his features. “You done with the crime scene,
Marvelous?”

“For now.” Marvelous nodded. “I’ll leave you
to write up the official report, and I’m sure you’ll tell the
relevant people that it was one of my employees who found the body,
won’t you, Cortez? Or have you already done that?”

It was obviously a leading question, and
Cortez couldn’t help but stiffen.

It caught Elizabeth’s attention, and
confusion crumpled her brow. “Ah, what does that mean?”

“Never mind, employee,” Marvelous said as he
stretched out a hand and tapped Elizabeth on the shoulder.

Though the move wasn’t meant to be hard, she
crumbled.

Fair enough. It had been one hell of a long
night for her. A night that would never end. For now she worked for
Mr Marvelous, her life was going to be anything but marvelous.

Cortez didn’t care, nor did he bother to nod
at either of them as he turned hard on his foot. “I shouldn’t need
to remind you,” he began as he walked away from them, “That this
goes both ways. As soon as either of you find any evidence, you
share it with me. No matter how small, no matter how irrelevant.
You got that?” He locked a hand on the wall and turned over his
shoulder, staring, not at Mr Marvelous, but right at Elizabeth.

At first she looked flustered, like a gold
fish plucked out of its tiny bowl and thrown in the Atlantic. Then
she hardened her jaw, flicked out her hair, and turned.

Maybe she thought she looked defiant, but
maybe she couldn’t see the exact sickly hue her cheeks had turned,
how dark the circles were under her eyes, how lost she looked.

He couldn’t resist tipping his head towards
her. “Good night, Miss Luck, and good luck.”

She snorted. He smiled.

…

William Benson III

This news was unsettling. When the Petrova
clan had moved into Hope City, William had no idea they’d bring
trouble like this. He hadn’t expected another soul murder.

As Benson sat there in his seat, he brought
up the metal pen from his pocket and placed it against his lips. He
brought it forward and tapped it back in a rhythmic pulse as if he
was striking a drum.

His office was on the penthouse floor of his
largest tower in town. It had an unrivalled view. One that swept
over the city towards the bay beyond.

The city was just waking up, a mellow,
gloomy dawn paring back the night.

He could use his extended senses to see the
pedestrians walking through the winding city streets and the cars
rushing from stop to stop.

Tracking his gaze up, he locked it on the
dark grey, overcast sky.

He let those menacing clouds steal his
attention away for several seconds until he turned back to his
desk.

He placed his pen carefully down on the
polished wood. He pulled forward a manila folder full of notes.
Rather than use the pen beside him, he stretched over and plucked
one from the polished malachite inkwell to his left. He only used
the pen from his pocket for two things: signing contracts and
breaking them.

It had a compulsion spell inside, woven
through every bond of the gold and platinum atoms. The ink itself
had been sourced from an Egyptian tomb reputed to be over 3000
years old. It gave anything signed with the pen inescapable import
that could not be ignored. It was the kind of pen used to sign away
your life or sign for it.

With that image, his thoughts naturally
returned to Miss Elizabeth Luck. In many ways, she was nothing more
than a curious distraction. There were, after all, many races whose
blood could kill a vampire, but not as thoroughly and not as
completely as hers had. Most vampires would be able to smell an
incompatible host. It was the same as mosquitoes – if you had blood
that was not to their liking, they wouldn’t bother biting you.

So that left two options. The vampire who’d
bitten Elizabeth had been too whacked out on drugs to be
discerning, or Elizabeth Luck was something curious.

Benson liked curiosities. He’d been alive
for countless centuries now, and curiosities, in many ways, were
the only things that kept him alive. He’d seen almost everything
else before – from wars, to the fall of great countries, to the
ordinary tragedies of everyday man.

Taking a cursory glance through the file
before him, he soon grew bored, closed it, and pushed it aside.
Then he reached down and opened the last drawer on his massive
cherry wood desk. The desk itself belonged to one of the founding
fathers and was over 250 years old. It too had import. It was the
kind of desk that had held many secrets. And a desk that had held
many secrets knew how to keep holding them.

He plucked up a yellow lined pad of legal
paper and began to write.

Killed a vampire, found a dead body.

At the top, he wrote Elizabeth Mary Luck.
Then he underlined her name, ticked his head to the side, and
smiled.

Bringing the pen up, he began to tap his
lips once more.

I’d officially moved in to Mr Marvelous’
shop in more ways than one.

I still couldn’t believe that barely a few
hours ago I’d attended my first magical homicide, and I’d been the
one to find the body.

Mr Marvelous had waxed lyrical to me about
it on the way home. He’d been so proud that I’d been able to see
through that wall spell.

Wall spell? I didn’t know what a wall spell
was. I’d just felt compelled – strangely, awfully compelled to
touch that wall.