Dead Spots (6 page)

Beatrice gave me a brief, light embrace and ushered me through the house into the courtyard, her stiletto heels clicking smartly on the marble tiles. She wore a tight, pale-yellow dress that set off her olive skin and waterfall of dark hair. I suddenly wished I’d dressed better. Next to Beatrice...Well, to be fair, most people would look scrubby next to Beatrice. She has this exotic-grace thing going on, vampire or not.

Dashiell’s mansion is shaped like a circle, with a surprisingly large outdoor area in the center the size of a baseball infield. Beatrice had it neatly tiled, with walls that were covered in long, climbing flowers and subtle lighting that was augmented by the classiest-looking tiki torches I had ever seen. There was a
banquet-sized table in the center where Dash conducted most of his Old World business. I had a vague sense that Dash had plenty of legitimate business interests as well, but I didn’t really know anything about that. Nobody hires me for my business skills.

I paused by the courtyard door, looking at Dashiell for where to sit. He was parked in his usual spot at the head of the long oval table, down the courtyard to my left. When necessary, Dashiell will get close to me, but he prefers to keep his distance. I think it’s more about vulnerability than vanity—Dashiell is very old and very powerful, with plenty of enemies. I suspect that being reduced to human again makes him feel as if there’s a target on his back. Sure enough, Dash tilted his head to indicate that I was to sit down to my right, keeping him out of my range. I sat.

“Scarlett,” he called across the distance, “what is happening with the young policeman?”

I wondered, not for the first time, where Dashiell came from originally. His English is excellent, but the formal way he speaks reminds me of someone who started out with another language entirely. I always think he looks a little Italian, but
Dashiell
is French—of course, that could just be a name he picked. Someday, when he wasn’t irritated with me, I would ask.

Or not.

“He’s willing to cooperate,” I said in a normal voice. Vampire hearing is excellent, of course. Heightened strength and speed and all that. It had taken me a few tries to get used to this kind of conversation, but I mostly had it down. “He’s agreed to keep his mouth shut in exchange for me helping him with this case.”

“You?” Dashiell said with an indulgent little smile, as if I were a toddler who had just offered to drive his car. “What can you contribute to a police investigation?”

I spent a second wondering whether I’d just been insulted and decided that it didn’t really matter. “He thinks that there are supernatural elements at work here, and I can be sort of his...liaison,
I guess. I’m the only person he knows who is connected to the Old World.”

He went still, thinking this over. When vampires go still, it is scary, since they don’t need to actually breathe or blink. “Very well,” he decided, finally. “I did not get very close to the victims.” Something like embarrassment flickered across his face, and I realized for the first time that Dashiell hadn’t approached the scene because of all the blood. As I’ve said, vampires gain control with age, and Dash’s control is stellar. That much blood, though, would have tested even his strength. No wonder he was touchy about the whole situation. “But I would like to know more about this strange killing as well. And this way you can keep an eye on Officer Cruz. I do not love the idea of having you as a spy,” he continued, with an annoyed little emphasis on the word
you
, “but I suppose it cannot be helped. We will discuss the fate of the policeman further when your collaboration is finished.”

Fine. Message received. I was an idiot, and Cruz’s life would depend on how he handled himself during his investigation. But if that were the case, why had he let Cruz live in the first place? It wasn’t because he was a cop, because if vampires know how to do anything, it’s make a murder look like an accident. It couldn’t actually be because I’d asked him...could it?

Nah.

“Now, to other business,” he said and waved through the window at Beatrice, who was in the kitchen.

She nodded and left the room for a moment, and when she came through the patio door, Will was with her. I brightened a little. The werewolves, as a rule, like me a lot better than the vampires do, probably because I calm the sense of unrest that comes with being a shape-shifter. It also helps that I pose no immediate threat to them.

My spirits dropped again a second later, however, when I saw the next person through the door. Wolf packs are usually led by a
mated pair, the
alphas
, who function like parents, and then there are a whole bunch of intermediate wolves who are like their kids. Ordinarily, the two alphas would go almost everywhere together, but Will hasn’t found a mate yet, so instead, his pack has a
beta
, a platonic second-in-command who accompanies him on “official” visits like this. Unfortunately, in Will’s pack, the beta happens to be Eli, who trailed Will onto the patio. His ice-blue eyes—the color of a husky puppy’s—met mine and flickered with the recognition you only get from people who’ve seen you naked. I tried not to squish down farther in my seat.

Along with his second-in-command, Will had brought his
sigma
. Even though the pack hierarchy is sort of vague in the middle, everyone does know who the weakest member of the pack is. In a healthy werewolf pack, the sigma is the absolute lowest member of the food chain—why they’re called sigmas and not omegas is beyond me, but they probably have their reasons. Unlike regular wolves or even dogs, though, werewolves value this person. The sigma is the member most in need of the pack’s protection, and he or she becomes like a favorite younger sibling. Kind of like the Tiny Tim of the wolf pack.

In Will’s pack, the sigma is Caroline Brooks, a petite, competent pixie who also happens to be Will’s personal secretary and office manager at the bar he owns. Bringing Caroline along meant two things: first, it indicated that Will was there on business, requiring her aid, and second, it was a quiet gesture that he was not afraid of Dashiell. Protecting the sigma is vital in werewolf packs, and bringing her along meant that Will didn’t see Dashiell as a threat. Or that Will was powerful enough to bring his weakest member into the heart of the vampire world and keep her safe. I wondered how Caroline felt about being used for symbolism.

The three of them gave Dash a casual, but respectful, greeting as they came through the door. Will came over and ruffled my hair, which I tolerated even though I’d have to redo it later. Except for
all the muscle, Will looks like the average suburban dad in any sitcom. He looks to be in his late thirties, but werewolves age more slowly than humans, so who knows. He treats me with fond detachment, like an entertaining but ultimately expendable younger cousin. Caroline bent to give me a hug, whispering, “It’ll be okay,” into my ear. Eli didn’t say anything, just looked at me with his sad puppy eyes.

Okay, fine. I probably should have left a note.

The wolves trooped down the courtyard to Dashiell, where Will took the seat to Dashiell’s right. Then Eli sat on his right, and Caroline took the chair beside him. I suddenly felt as if I were on trial.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” I said to Will.

He shrugged, raising his voice so I could hear. “It was a last-minute thing. But this affects all of us, so I thought I’d show in person.”

“What about Kirsten?” I asked, a little bluntly.

Dashiell and Will exchanged an amused look without answering me. They think that Kirsten is kind of a joke. They do business with her, but neither of them is all that impressed by witches. I personally think underestimating Kirsten is a mistake, but nobody asks me. I’m just the janitor.

I decided to take the initiative. “Okay, look, I know this is about last night. I know I screwed up. But I’m handling things with this cop.”

“We know,” Dashiell said. “But Will and I have discussed it, and we feel that the time has come for you to take on...help.”

Will’s voice was gentler. “She’s been dead for almost six months, Scarlett. And she wasn’t able to work for a long time before that.”

He was referring to my mentor, Olivia. She was the only other null I’d met, and had trained me on crime scene cleanup. Then she and I were partners for four years before cancer took her life. You can be completely bulletproof when it comes to spells and vampire bites, but not even nulls get a free pass from the big
C
.

Supernaturally insignificant or not, LA is at least a two-person area for cleanup, and every single person on the patio knew that I should have swallowed my feelings and found a replacement for Olivia the day I took over from her. At the time, though, I’d just been through a horrible shock. Besides, I was in no place to trust a new partner, after what I’d been through with the first one. Everything I’d had, really, was because of Olivia.

And everything I had lost, too.

I set my jaw stubbornly. I get crabby when I’m clearly in the wrong. “You can’t just put an ad for a null on Craigslist. There are, what, five or six of us in the world? We don’t exactly have an employment office.”

“We know,” Will said patiently. “But in all likelihood, there are more of you than that. It’s just hard for nulls to find out what they are.” This is true. Most likely, plenty of nulls live and die without discovering their ability. “Besides,” Will continued, “you don’t absolutely have to be a null to do the work that you do.”

Crap. There went my best excuse.

“It just helps. And it’s safer.”

“So here is what we’ll do,” Dashiell said. “I have put out some feelers, trying to track down another null. If that proves too difficult, we will perhaps try one of the witches.” Vampires can’t really do my job, since a) they get distracted by blood, and b) they’re dead during the day. I do get the occasional daytime crime scene. “In the meantime, though, Will has graciously offered one of his wolves to help you. You will begin training him immediately.”

“One of the wolves? That’s not a good...” I started, but then swallowed it.
These two are my bosses
, I reminded myself. I didn’t really have a choice here, and protesting would just make me look whiny and unprofessional.
Olivia wouldn’t have liked that
, I thought sourly. I looked over at Will. “Who is it?” I felt a fleeting hope that he had nominated Caroline.

But Will and Caroline both glanced over to Eli. Oh, no.
Shit, shit, shit
. My one-night stand—well, okay, three-night stand—could not be my apprentice. “I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” I said carefully, without looking at Eli. Nobody needed to know that we’d slept together. I was not about to turn this into a supernatural telenovela.

“Is there a problem with Eli that we should know about?” Will asked pleasantly.

“No—”

“Then I think he’s the perfect candidate. Obviously his schedule can be flexible.” Since, you know, Will is his boss.

“But will he be all right around dead bodies?” I asked, trying not to sound desperate. “He’ll be working by himself eventually, and I’m told the smell can be very distracting.”

“Eli used to be a paramedic,” Will replied easily. This was news to me, though I’d never really considered Eli’s life before he changed. “He says he’ll be fine.”

Was this Eli’s suggestion? Did Will already know about Eli and me? Maybe. Will didn’t miss much. But he might have just not cared, or maybe he was playing a deeper game here, trying to get me to actively participate in the search for nulls. Crafty Will. He looks like a church deacon, but I’ve long suspected he could be ruthless if he needed to. I was definitely going to have to get to the bottom of who had put Eli’s hat in the ring, but that could wait. For now I just had to suck it up.

“Sounds good,” I managed, and the mood in the courtyard relaxed just a little.

The meeting broke up, and everybody started to leave. I was about to head back to the van and Cruz, who I’d almost forgotten about, but I had an idea. I pulled Will aside—not that it mattered, because everyone on the property who was ten feet away could hear like a bat, with the exception of Cruz and me—and asked him if he had any pictures of the wolves in human form.

“Pictures?” he asked blankly, tilting his head to one side. “Maybe we do. Why do you ask?”

I told him about the bodies, the wolf in the clearing, and the cop. I didn’t mention that he was out in my van at the moment, because Will might feel obligated to inform Dashiell. “I never saw the guy properly, but I think Cruz did. If I could show him some pictures, we could figure out who it was, see if he saw or smelled anything there.”

I could see Will’s metaphorical hackles going up. “Are you suggesting that one of my wolves may be responsible for this?”

I shook my head. “No. Definitely not. Or at least, not this wolf. If one of the wolves did kill those people, he’d have no reason to leave and then come back to the scene. I honestly think that this wolf was just running in the park, smelled the bodies, and came to see what it was. I just want to ask if there’s anything else he noticed.”

“But you’re also pretty much asking to out this wolf to a police officer,” Will objected. “And me along with him.”

“Will, you didn’t see what happened. It was...It was awful. And a lot of things depend on finding out who did it.”

He sighed, relenting. “I think I have some pictures at the bar from the Fourth of July picnic. You can bring your cop by to look at them.”

“Can we do it tonight? Now?”

Will checked his watch and gave me a weary, indulgent smile. “Fine. I’ll meet you over there.”

I thanked him and tried to head out, but just as I closed the front door behind me, it opened again and Eli stepped out. It felt strange to have people keep popping in and out of my radius, but I’d grown used to it.

“What happened to you?” he asked bluntly. I knew what he meant.

I hugged my arms around me. The September heat wave had broken sometime that day, and the fall night had grown chilly. “I got a call. I had to work.”

“You couldn’t have woken me up? Left a note?” His face was hard, and he was fidgeting.