Wolf Ties (A Rue Darrow Novel Book 2) (9 page)

Instead, I sat in Jackson Square doing my best to concentrate and allow the scents and sounds of the city to wash over me. Once I had used the method to hone in on my quarry, but tonight, it did nothing. The killer had disappeared into darkness. For a moment, I considered whether the murderer was a demon. I’d had dealings with them before and knew unless they had a human host, they couldn’t keep a physical appearance long. Then I dismissed this notion. All evidence pointed to a cat shifter, and Hyatt was looking for her, too.

My cell phone rang, breaking my concentration, and I fished it from my purse. The screen showed Zander calling, and I answered. “Zander, I’m having a bad night. If this—”

“I can make it better, Rue.” His attempt at sounding suave failed, especially with the interference of the snack he munched.

“Spare me.”

He coughed. “I really can. I have some information you might find useful. In fact, I know you’ll love it, but I’m only willing to share if you go on a date with me.”

“No.”

He whined.

“Zander, a big part of my problems have to do with a bad date, so if you think I’m going to do it all over again, you’re mistaken.”

More whining. I might need to drain him.

“Zander…”

A martyred sigh. “This is important. It could help you find out who killed Dalton.”

“Which is why you should just tell me. I could force it out of you.”

“You would never do that to me, Rue.”

I dropped my forehead against my knees while holding the phone to my ear. When did I seduce this man in order for him to behave this way? “You don’t know me, Zander. I’m vampire. We are selfish and cruel and we see humans as nothing more than our next meal.”

There. That should wake him up. He was silent for a while, but I knew he remained on the line from the heavy breathing.

“That’s your nature,” he said after a while, “but I believe it will be different with us.”

“From what evidence?”

“My heart. Please, will you come to my apartment? I promise, I’m not just trying to see you. Even though I want to. I do have information you can use.”

I grumbled but agreed. A short while later I arrived at Zander’s apartment, and when he opened the door, I assumed I was still allowed in. The instant I stepped across the threshold, it wasn’t a barrier that blocked me but a cloud of cologne. I gagged and pinched my nose.

“Zander,” I moaned, vision blurring, “too…much.”

He pouted, standing in front of me, hair parted on one side and slicked down all over his head. A turtleneck long-sleeved shirt, tan slacks, and a dinner jacket that looked like it would work better on a man three times his age, made up his ensemble.

“You don’t like it?” he asked. “I picked it up especially for you.”

I waved a hand before my nose. “My sense of smell is too strong, and I don’t always think to regulate it. I beg you, go shower that off.”

His face fell. “All right.”

“And it’s a hundred degrees outside, besides the fact that we’re not going anywhere. I’ve already said so.”

A sound caught my attention before he could move, and I zipped across the room to drag the nerd from behind the La-Z-Boy. His digital camera turned to dust in my palm, and I rained the bits on the carpet.

“My camera!” The young man, no more than twenty-one or two, dropped to his knees and sorted through the mess as if he could salvage it. He glanced up at me with tear-filled eyes. “You could have just deleted the pictures.”

“You were taking photos of me without my permission. I went easy on you.”

“Zander,” the man complained, “talk to your vampire.”

I folded my arms and looked at Zander. “When did I become yours, Zander?”

He blanched. “I uh…listen, Rue. Um…”

I ignored him and dragged the little one off the floor. He met my gaze without thinking about it. “Vampires don’t exist. Got it?”

He repeated my words dumbly.

“While I’m at it, neither do werewolves. Now, get out.”

After the man nearly severed an arm running out the door, I shut it and spun to face Zander. In seconds, I was on him, a hand over his mouth. The cologne made my head buzz, but I endured it.

“You gave up our secret, Zander.”

He shook his head vigorously, eyes wide with fear, and mumbled something against my palm. I didn’t try to understand it.

“For a people who are supposed to be hidden from humans, we sure do have a lot of them in on it. I
don’t
approve, Zander. What are you going to do about it?”

Now the trembling spread over his body, and his lips worked until I had no choice but to let him speak. To my relief, he didn’t rescind his invitation. “I’m sorry, Rue. He found out by accident, and then I couldn’t get him to keep his mouth shut without promising to let him take a picture of you for himself. I knew you would hear him and fix it.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and played with a lock of his hair. Too much pomade or whatever he used. A nail tapped on his forehead made him quiver all the more. Not sharpened, mind you, I didn’t want to pierce the man’s skull.

“Now let me get this straight, Zander.” I spoke slowly, enunciating to impart my displeasure. “Your friend found out by
accident
that vampires exist without any evidence. He knew about me and wanted my picture. Now why would he want my picture unless he had already seen me?”

Zander looked like a ghost.

I released him and pointed a finger in his face. “You will keep quiet and not say one word until I give you permission.”

His lips made a funny sound as if they had sealed themselves. I listened to be sure he kept breathing, and he did. Then I approached his command center, a spot in his living room that was all technology, central being the massive monitor attached to his computer. A quick search among the files with any reference to “Rue” brought up thirty pictures.
Thirty!

I was nervous to look but did so anyway and found they were all clean, all within his computer’s camera view. Zander had surreptitiously taken photos of me from the few times I had visited his apartment with Nathan. One in particular included my friend with perfect lighting and angle, and I paused to stare. Zander touched my shoulder. He pointed at the screen and then at me. I knew he meant he would give me a copy.

I hesitated because I had intended to delete every one of them. “Nathan doesn’t know you’ve taken these pictures anymore than I do, does he?”

He shook his head, but there was nothing to learn about Nathan from his photo. He appeared to be a regular, handsome man. Me on the other hand, I looked slightly less than human and a whole lot mysterious, but I wondered if the effect was in my vampire’s eyes alone.

“Speak to me,” I commanded. “Do I look human to you in this picture?”

Zander made a
pah
sound and scrubbed a hand over his forehead. He grinned and sat down. “No, you look beautiful, like an angel.”

“Spare me the fancy compliments, Zander.” I studied my face. “If we’re classifying, I would say I’m closer to the other direction. I’m cursed, born of darkness.”

“I don’t believe that,” he insisted. “Anyway, no you don’t look human. There’s this…” He gestured, wiggling his fingers around my head and frame. “Energy, I guess. It’s all around you, and well, yeah, kind of mixed with shadows. Pretty cool special effects.”

“Not when you see it rolling off Death,” I countered. “Do you have special abilities, latent ones, anyone in your family?”

“Nope. We’re all starkly human, so boring. Well except for that one guy, but you can hardly call him blood he’s so far removed. I can’t see that stuff around you except in the photographs. My friend saw it, too, and he asked about you. He said you don’t look human, and I sort of blurted it out. I’m sorry, Rue. I’ve kept you guys’ secret for years. I don’t know what happened.”

I did, a stupid crush. “Go shower.”

He did, and when he returned I commanded him not to ever tell any nonhuman about my existence or any other vampire or werewolf again. I don’t know what made me use my glamouring ability with such confidence this time around, but decided it must be self-preservation.

“So, you didn’t have any information for me?”

“Oh, no, I do.” He appeared proud of himself and raised his hands fanning his fingers wide. “Think shifters.”

I rolled my eyes. “I already am.”

He spun to face his computer and clicked a few keys. Arianna’s face came up on the screen, a woman I had met not long ago. She was a part of an effort to teach humans with abilities how to hone their skills. I had handed over two young humans to her and trusted her to protect them. At the time, I wondered if there wasn’t something about her, but she smelled mostly human. Sure, there was a uniqueness about her, but I had nothing to compare it to in order to identify it.

“Why do you have Arianna’s pic—oh, never mind. What does she have to do with shifters, Zander?”

“She’s a shifter.”

I gaped. “Really? What kind? Cat, werewolf? Some other animal?”

Zander chuckled. “You should talk to her directly.”

I considered making the pain in my backside tell me already, but decided against it. Not for his sake but for the fact that I wanted to see Arianna so I could ask her about how Inna, the girl I had left in her care, and the boy we called Shift were.

“Fine,” I agreed. “But let me warn you, Arianna won’t take it as kindly as I did if she finds out you have pictures of her on your computer.”

“She won’t find out.”

Ruling him hopeless, I headed for the door but paused. “You have my email address, don’t you Zander?”

He winked. “Yup.”

“Send me that one picture with Nathan, and keep your mouth shut about it.”

He giggled, making me want to clobber him. “You got it.”

Chapter Nine

“Rue, you’re back!”

Lily appeared from nothing beside me and floated a foot or so above the floor. “Yes, how are you, Lily?”

She blushed. “I’m doing great. This library is the best place ever. Did you know it crosses dimensions? I can’t cross because I could get lost, but just the thought of it is amazing.”

“What do you mean lost?”

Bill entered the room with a glass of blood for me. “Welcome, Rue. What can I do for you today? Our session is tomorrow at nine forty-five p.m.”

“I know, Bill, and I’m not sure about that timing.” I raised the glass to my mouth and found Lily staring with open curiosity. Bill passed between us, and the flighty ghost followed him with her gaze. Love at first sight, I supposed. Bill must not have confessed what he was as yet. “I’m running an investigation right now.”

“Trying to free your werewolf.”

“Yes.” I didn’t ask him how he kept abreast of everything. “Speaking of which, have you let Arianna Justiss through here or any of her people lately?”

“I can’t report on the movements of my clients, Rue. You know that.”

I had prepared myself on the way over there for this conversation with Bill. Talking to him was an exercise in frustration at worst and a riddle at best, if one liked riddles. I didn’t particularly care for them.

The last time Arianna had come to New Orleans, she had come through the library from somewhere else. I didn’t know the details, but I didn’t believe it was not from a different dimension.

I tried again. “Is there another way to get here from wherever her organization is?”

Bill waved a negligent hand. “The usual way.”

I waited.

“Bus, plane, car, etcetera.” While Bill’s tone wasn’t sarcastic, I felt him add a silent
duh
on the end of the list. I should have realized and felt stupid for asking. As I ordered my thoughts for the next question, I glanced in Lily’s direction. She stood before a pile of books and solidified, her feet coming down from the air to settle on the floor. I expected her to grab the entire load, but she carefully aimed for the top book, a thin volume, and carried it across to the nearest shelf.

I focused on Bill. “Will you please send a message to Arianna and tell her I want to meet with her?”

“It has nothing to do with library business.”

My ire grew. “But you used the library to do the exchange of the boy and Inna.”

He nodded. “The space was reserved. Temporary library cards were issued. That’s all in keeping with my duties. I must be impartial, Rue. I can’t favor one client over another.”

I whirled away to pace. “I feel like you’re working against me, Bill.”

“No, I’m not.”

An idea struck me. “You train me. That’s not part of your library duties, and you do it here on the grounds. Do you train anyone else?”

The ghost popped in front of Bill, beaming. “What kind of training do you offer?”

Bill’s expression softened when he looked at her. “Fighting.”

She clapped her hands. “I bet I could do it too. I’ve never been in a fight before.”

I rolled my eyes. Perhaps I was feeling a little jealous and a lot put out. Not that I had any interest in Bill, but I believed we were sort of friends. “You’d need a body for that.”

Bill patted the air above the wispy hand and answered my question. “No, I don’t train anyone else right now, but I can do what I want to do outside of library business.”

“Then you can ask Arianna to meet me outside of library business.”

“No, I can’t. She’s human. Humans don’t have access to the library.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. She’s not human. I have it on good authority that she’s a shape-shifter.”

He watched me in silence for a few moments, and I thought I had him. Both Lily and I almost leaned toward him in expectation of his answer.

“Arianna Justiss is a human with the ability to shape-shift, not unlike the two human children you sent to the Meris Organization with her.”

I was ready to snatch my hair out at that point. There was no winning with him. I can’t say I understood how Arianna could be human and still able to shape-shift, but comparing her ability to Inna’s and Shift’s, I almost grasped it. What put a person in one class rather than another, I had no clue.

Lily looked at me and then at Bill. She solidified her hands and ran them up and down his arm, smiling. Bill’s cheeks flamed, and his happiness level exploded. The sly little ghost laid her head on his shoulder. “Bill, won’t you help Rue? She’s our friend.”

“There’s another shape-shifter, a nonhuman,” Bill blurted. “He is the liaison between the Meris Organization and the library, and the only way they were able to receive temporary library cards. If you talk to him, you will be able to make contact with Arianna.”

Even Death could be seduced by a woman, dead or alive. In all my dealings with Bill, he had never once unbent to offer me information that I didn’t pull out of him by asking questions in the right sequence or knowing some secret code. Lily laid her head on his shoulder and rubbed his arm, and he was putty. Ah well, it worked for me. Bill wrote down the details on a slip of paper and handed it to me.

“Thank you, Bill and especially you, Lily.”

The ghost gave me a thumbs-up while she hooked her arm through Bill’s.

I hesitated before heading out. “You won’t get fired for this, will you, Bill? I’ve never seen anyone around like a supervisor or an inspector.”

“I probably won’t get fired.”

“Probably?”

“Yes, probably.”

“Which means it’s possible.”

“Anything is possible, Rue.”

I fiddled with the sheet he gave me. “Okay, well if they ask you about it later, tell them I glamoured you and made you do it.”

He grinned. “That’s not possible, Rue.”

“Hey, you just said
anything
is.”

He seemed to think it over. “All right.”

I wanted to ask “all right
what
?” but there was no point. Bill would start the merry-go-round all over again, and I would never get moving. I bid them both goodnight and headed out.

* * * *

A spa. Of all places, Arianna had insisted I meet her here. I stood in the lobby with its bar serving herbal teas and other healthy concoctions and an array of soft aromas to tantalize my nose. I opened my senses and knew I was the only nonhuman in the building.

Arianna had come with two men she called assistants, and just like last time when I met her, she told me their names weren’t important. In fact, she had dismissed the nonhuman that brought us together from the conversation when I tried to learn more about him. The woman was arrogant, strong-willed, and unmanageable. Something told me she knew it and had worked to give just such an impression.

“I’m surprised you agreed to meet me, and come here for that matter,” I said. “You must be busy with your organization.”

“Then why did you disturb my schedule, Rue?”

I frowned. “I wanted to know how the kids are doing and that they’re safe. I would have preferred to come to you.”

“And I told you nonhumans—least of all vampires—aren’t allowed to know where our headquarters are.” We were assigned to a private room, Arianna’s arrangements. When we were alone, she stepped out of her robe with zero self-consciousness and descended into the scented bath. This place must cost a fortune with such amenities. I had once received a gift certificate for a seventy-five dollar one hour massage, but this spa went far beyond a narrow table in a small room with gentle music playing.

Thank goodness another bath had been arranged for me in the same room. I was still the semi-prude from a small town and didn’t want to soak naked in a tub with another woman. I removed my robe as well, but I wore a wrap, which I had been told was just fine for wearing into the water. I did so now.

“Will you please tell me how they’re doing?” I asked as I watched her lean her head back and shut her eyes. She stiffened, sighed, and then glanced in my direction. As was often the case with those who knew what I was, Arianna didn’t look into my eyes.

“Inna is strong-willed. She fights me on everything, thwarts my orders every chance she gets, and steals…” Arianna pressed her lips together, but I saw both anger and affection in her gaze.

I snorted. “She steals your ability.”

Arianna’s brow furrowed. “So you know what I am.”

“A shape-shifter.”

“I guess it’s not a big secret. Word gets around.” Still, she didn’t like it from her tone.

“I’m told you’re human.”

“What else would I be?”

“Why do you hate nonhumans?”

“I don’t hate—”

“You’re lying.”

She began raining water over her shoulders, but I sensed her agitation. “I don’t hate anyone,” she reiterated. “I don’t like your kind or
any
nonhuman because I believe it’s in your nature to try to crush humans beneath you.”

“I would never do that. I’m sworn to protect humans.”

“Today,” she countered. “What about when your vow is broken?”

She had a point, a serious one. If Ian had never commanded me as my sire to protect humans and to never harm them, would I crush them as Arianna said? Would it not faze me to have wiped Zander’s mind completely? I suspected, no I knew, what I felt now wouldn’t be the same in a year or ten. I had already changed so much and cared for so little.

“I don’t blame you,” I said. “However, let’s deal in the here and now. It sounds like Inna is doing fine, just acting like a typical teenager who’s trying her wings. What about Shift? Is he adjusting to his new life? Does he like it there?”

Arianna eyed me. “He’s been given a new name, and he’s adjusting as kids do at his age. It helps that he has Inna, and he follows her around like an adoring puppy.”

I nodded, amused. Poor Shift, at twelve years old, had a terrible crush on eighteen-year-old Inna. She was dismissive of him, which probably fueled his worship.

Arianna took on a faraway look. “Both of them are very powerful, and we need to be careful that they don’t harm themselves or others. Already, Inna can take just about anyone’s powers and use them as her own, but Shift is still developing.”

I agreed. “He was able to send me several hours into the future. Very disconcerting, let me tell you.”

“Yes, now imagine him doing the same over years?”

I sank lower into the water. “Do you think he’ll get to that point?”

“I’m certain of it.”

For a few silent moments, I considered all Arianna had shared. If Inna and Shift were an example of the level of humans that were a part of the Meris Organization, who else was there, and what was their focus? Arianna believed nonhumans would try to suppress humans. Was she raising an army to thwart any possibility of such a thing, or was I overthinking it? I didn’t doubt she would use her people to fight my kind if it ever came to it. The question was, who would win?

I dismissed thoughts of the Meris Corporation’s motives and turned to the most crucial matter at hand. “Arianna, I believe a shape-shifter is responsible for the recent murder of a werewolf.”

The woman stopped dousing herself with water and faced me. Hers eyebrows crept up her forehead, and she took on that expression I was beginning to recognize, the one where she looked down her nose at me. “Are you insinuating I had something to do with it?”

“Not unless you’re the only shape-shifter in existence, you and your contact, I mean.”

She frowned. “While he isn’t human, I’ve worked with him for years. For the most part, he has a gentle spirit. He probably didn’t kill anyone.”

I snorted. “Probably, huh? Well, you can set your mind at ease. Your liaison didn’t smell like the person I’m looking for. You’re different. Are there others like you, others at your organization?”

Arianna climbed out of the pool and dried her skin then slipped a robe on. “I’m not going to compromise the safety of my people by telling you anything about them.”

“I told you. Someone has been murdered!”

“A werewolf,” she snapped. “Besides, what does it have to do with you?”

Beneath the water’s surface, I clenched my hands into fists. “My friend is in trouble, and yes, he’s also a werewolf. I’m sure that means nothing to you.
He
means a lot to
me
, and I want to see him free.”

She scowled. “Werewolves are notorious for their tempers and their violence. I don’t doubt your friend is guilty. They probably had a falling out. You should be happy your friend won the fight and leave it at that.”

I left the water, heedless of my lack of clothes when the wrap fell off. “What if it was one of your precious humans accused of something they didn’t do? Wouldn’t you do everything in your power to save them?”

“Of course. But it’s not one of them. You’re trying to get me to care about a werewolf’s death. I refuse. You called me here to try to get me to help you set another one free. If he’s locked away, that’s better for all humans.”