Green-Eyed Envy (2 page)

They hissed at me in greeting, twining themselves around my arms much as they did in tattoo form. I gave each one a caress before kneeling next to Trinity. My nostrils flared as I took in a breath. This time, armed with the enhanced senses that came with the whole Fury schtick, I smelled what she had right away: a heavy, pungent odor that reminded me of a cross between freshly mown grass and skunk. Yum.

Then again, with the scents of refuse and rot around us, no big surprise I hadn’t smelled it in mortal form. Autumn in New England meant that allergies could be hell. Yeah, even immortal badasses have to deal with high mold and pollen counts.

I took another, larger sniff and made a face. “What
is
that?”

“Copycat,” Trin said. “I already asked that question.”

“Funny you mention felines.” The detective who held my empty coffee cup sidled closer, pitching the cardboard container in a Dumpster as he passed. Since he didn’t seem petrified of my serpentine ladies—and they weren’t spitting venom his way—I let him.

Suddenly, he said, “Catnip.”

Trinity snapped her fingers and nodded, while I just blinked. “Huh?”

“You know, kitty crack?
Some
body has a really warped sense of humor.” The newly promoted detective—the badge hanging from his leather belt identified him as Cass—squatted beside me and nodded toward the corpse. “May I?”

I arched a brow at Trinity, who just shrugged. Oh, what could it hurt? Maybe he’d pick up on something we hadn’t. “Go ahead.” He slipped on a latex glove, then leaned forward and took in a deep breath. His eyes seemed to flash with some inner light as he sniffed the air. My nostrils flared in sympathy. Better him than me, seeing as how my sense of smell was now enhanced.

Cass’s gloved hand whipped toward the Cat’s mouth and pried it open before I could stop him. The mown-grassand-skunk smell tripled in intensity. The rookie grimaced but didn’t back down from the grisly sight revealed: The Cat’s tongue had been ripped out and replaced with a thick wad of jagged-edged triangular leaves. Catnip.

I stared down at the Cat with morbid fascination. “Warped sense of humor, my ass. This killer gives a whole new meaning to the phrase
Cat got your tongue
.”

Trinity made a disgusted noise, then frowned at the catnip. “Wait, the other two vics didn’t have that shoved in their mouths. Did they?”

Good point. “ Nope. No way Sahana would have missed that. Neither had his tongue cut out, either.”

“Okay. So . . . Killer decides to start taking the tongues as a souvenir. But why the catnip?”

Cass looked up at her. “Calling card.”

“Huh?”

“Killer doesn’t think the police connected the first two murders together, so he decides to leave a calling card. Ripping the tongue out could show personal rage at this vic. The catnip . . . ” His voice trailed off, and he shot me a distinctly uneasy look.

Aw, c’mon, Cass. Don’t go chickenshit on me when I was just starting to warm up to you.
“Go ahead, you’re doing okay so far. What about the catnip?”

He cleared his throat as if needing the time to choose his words. “I studied arcanes a lot before I managed to land the assignment to this unit, Chief.” Chief? Oh hell, I might actually have to make this guy a full-fledged member of our newly formed Magical Crimes Unit. “Especially on the interracial relations of the arcanes with the largest populations in the Boston area. I know I don’t need to tell you about the race known as Cat Public Enemy Number One.”

Now
I
was starting to feel distinctly uneasy. Not hard to figure out why, since I was sleeping with Scott Murphy, a member of the race known as Cat Public Enemy Number One. “Let me get this straight. You’re hypothesizing that our perp is a Hound based on, what, the fact that Cats and Hounds are archenemies? Cass, have you ever heard of a little thing called a racial-profiling lawsuit?”

Trinity let out a snicker at that.

Cass tightened his lips at the derision in my voice, but again, he didn’t back down. “No, Chief. I may be new to detective work, but I served as a patrolman for five years. I’m not a
complete
schmuck, you know.”

Damn, either I was getting bad at guessing mortal ages, or he had a real baby face. I wouldn’t have put him much past twenty-two or so—the same age as Scott’s baby brother. And
there
was someone I didn’t want to think about at that particular moment.

He pointed to the Cat’s partially open mouth. “In ancient times, Cats used to rip the tongues out of their enemies. Sorta like certain Native Americans collecting enemy scalps.” Trin and I both winced in sympathy. “The practice is called
counting coup
in honor of another Native American practice that allowed warriors to gain honor for striking enemies without getting injured. Since the race Cats warred with the most, especially in ancient Egypt, were the Hounds, they started reciprocating in kind except, of course, they took it one better.”

I screwed up my nose. “Let me guess. They shoved catnip in their mouths to replace the tongues.”

“Exactly. And historically, that was the gravest insult you could give a Cat. It was like saying they were lower than domesticated animals. And Cats who survived having that done to them in ancient days were killed by their own people. They were viewed as mercy killings.”

Nemesis and Nike slipped to my upper arms, radiating soothing emotions my way. I shifted uncomfortably, having no trouble picturing the upcoming battle with Scott. For Warhounds, family meant just about everything. Even if that family
had
disowned his mother and her half-mortal mutts. “Wait, that doesn’t mean the killer
has
to be a Hound. Anybody who knows their arcane history could have done this. I mean, if you read that in some mortal book, it
has
to be fairly common knowledge.”

Cass stared down at his suddenly clenched fists. A muscle worked in his jaw, and Trinity and I shared a questioning glance. Had our baby-faced detective left some crucial detail off of his résumé?

“Okay, so I stretched the truth a little. I didn’t read the stuff about Cats and Hounds in any book.” He inhaled and exhaled deeply. “And I didn’t get lucky guessing that the catnip was in the vic’s mouth—I smelled it.”

Wait. Pretty much the only beings who could outsmell Furies magically speaking were . . . Nah. Couldn’t be.

“I’m not exactly a hundred percent mortal.” He lowered his voice, no doubt to make sure only Trinity and I could hear. “My great-grandfather was a Hound. Full-blooded.” Oh, that only made me like him more. Mr. Innocent
had
lied on his résumé. I couldn’t blame him one little bit, with all the anti-arcane sentiment I’d come across during my years on the force.

Still, Cass could get in
big
trouble if anyone besides Trinity or me found out. Ever since the Peace Accord that ended the Great War between mortals and arcanes—which mortals referred to as the “Time of Troubles”—all those who had more than one-sixteenth arcane blood running through their veins were subject to disclosure laws that were supposedly meant to benefit us—just like the so-called “one-drop” rule was supposed to benefit Native and African Americans way back when.

And that
totally
explained the flash of amber light I had seen in his eyes when he sniffed out the catnip. While half-blooded arcanes took after their arcane parents, if their descendents married individuals with primarily mortal blood, those arcane abilities became more diluted with each generation. I was willing to bet that the enhanced sense of smell was the only thing Cass had inherited from his Warhound ancestor. That and his oh-so-youthful glow. No wonder he’d been able to pass for so long.

“Ooookay, don’t take this the wrong way, but Trin and I didn’t just hear that.” His white pallor warmed up several notches, and he released his clenched fists. “But hypothetically speaking, explain how what you didn’t just say relates to our case.”

“The counting coup habits of both Cats and Hounds have been pretty much edited out of history, as far as outsiders are concerned. Especially for those who intermingle with mortal society. They have to act civilized, at least on the face of it, though there are still bloodthirsty members of both races who engage in the old ways from time to time.” His expression grew inscrutable as he glanced down at the Cat’s corpse again. “Great-Grandfather made sure that all of us with any drop of his abilities were raised knowing everything about Hound history, just in case we’d ever need it.”

I met his gaze unflinchingly. “So what you’re trying to say is you don’t think any other arcane races besides Cats or Hounds would have known about the tongue and catnip thing.”

He shook his head. “And I highly doubt that a Cat would have done this to another of his kind.”

Trinity arched a brow. “Are you so sure about that?”

“I have to agree with him, Trin.” Much as I didn’t want to. “Based on what I know about Cats, and what Cass just told us about the whole counting coup and catnip thing . . . Odds are we’re looking for a Hound as the perp.”

And with my luck, tracking him down was going to lead to a second
off-again
phase with my own not-so-cuddly Warhound. Oh well, there was always my backup lover, Jack Daniels.

I WAS SNUGGLED UP WITH JACK D THAT EVENING watching my favorite sitcom when a key turned in the front door. My pulse picked up speed because only one person had the key to my Cambridge townhouse. Scott. My currently on-again lover. The empty snifter clinked when I set it down on the mahogany coffee table and smoothed my hair. Honey blond, since I was in mortal form, the perfect contrast to the hot pink nightie I hoped would get Scott in an insanely good mood
before
I broached the topic of serial-killing Hounds.

My assumption was confirmed when the masculine scent of Scott’s cologne wafted into the living room seconds after the front door slammed shut. I closed my eyes to enjoy the fragrance he knew drove me crazy, and he struck, crossing the room in record time and straddling my legs on the leather sofa. My eyes snapped open and caught sight of a mind-blowing hunk with burnished bronze skin, chiseled muscles, shoulder-length auburn hair, and glowing yellow eyes. Those unearthly eyes burned with inner fire as he leaned forward and nuzzled my neck.

“Well, good evening, sugar,” I purred in an imitation of a smooth-as-molasses Southern drawl. “Wasn’t sure you’d make it by tonight.”

He gave me a knowing smirk and nipped my lips with his own. “After that picture you texted of you on your couch? Fat chance of that.”

Which I’d very well known—and he very well knew I had.

Instead of ’fessing up, I wrapped my arms around his body and nudged him next to me on the couch. His amber eyes darkened when I drew him in for a long kiss. Which led to a make-out session I would have given an 8.0 on the Richter scale. Scott had magic hands, hands that raised white-hot lines of heat wherever they touched bare skin. When his fingers snaked down to tug on my satin panties, however, I forced myself to scoot back a few inches. I was not above smooching him into a better mood; but I needed to get business out of the way before we moved on to pleasure. More’s the pity, as my screaming hormones raged at me.

Scott’s nostrils flared, no doubt scenting the change in my pheromones, or however that Hound crap worked. “Something wrong, baby?”

“No, no. Not between us. But you remember those two Cat vics I was telling you about the other day?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Bizarre as hell, with how damned hard they are to kill. Well, permanently kill.”

My turn to nod. “Exactly. We found victim
numero tres
earlier today.”

His eyes widened. “No shit?”

“No shit. And there’s no doubt that all three are related.”

“Meaning . . . ”

“Meaning that Boston has its first arcane serial killer prowling the streets. Or alleys, I should say, since that’s where we keep finding the bodies.”

He frowned. “Harp’s gonna have a fit when she hears this.”

A few months ago, hearing him mention his former lover (okay, so a one-night stand didn’t really warrant the term
lover
) would have had me spitting with jealousy, but he’d spent the past weeks illustrating just how platonic their relationship had turned out to be—while ours was anything but. Even weirder, though, I’d actually started to
like
the hot-blooded Latina shape-shifting Cat. And before anyone can accuse me of stereotyping Latin Americans, the hot-blooded part comes mostly from the whole Cat thing. That gutsy, take-no-prisoners personality along with her sharp instincts, wicked intelligence, and drive to succeed had recently propelled her to join me in the record books: I was the first official arcane member of the Boston PD (of
any
PD), she the first arcane Special Agent in the FBI. Her part in bringing down my bitch-of-a-mentor’s plot to re-fan the flames of war between arcanes and mortals had not gone unrewarded. Although, if you asked me, losing the higher pay rate and lower stress level of an hourly consultant wasn’t
really
a reward.

Okay, so maybe I
hadn’t
shaken off every ounce of feminine jealousy. Sue me.

I cleared my throat before launching into the segue I’d rehearsed while nursing the whiskey. “You know that mortal saying
Cat got your tongue
? ”

His eyes narrowed slightly, just enough that I could tell he suspected where this might be going. “Yeah. One of my da’s favorites.” His mortal father, Morgan—100 percent Irish born and bred—had immigrated to Boston with his older brothers after their parents left their nest egg as an untimely inheritance. He’d served on the mortal side during the start of the Great War decades earlier—ironic, since Scott’s mother, Liana, had fought on the arcane side.

“Seems the killer flipped that saying around on the vic. Had his tongue ripped out and replaced with . . . ” I let my voice trail off and watched for Scott’s reaction.