Fireborn

CHAPTER 5

Thankfully, by the time I got to bed, I was too goddamn tired to dream about anything. My sleep was long and blissful, and I woke refreshed and filled with anticipation for the day ahead.

And not even Sam’s warning could dampen that.

Even the weather gods seemed to be on my side. After the rain and the cold of the past few days, they’d pulled something magical out of the bag, presenting Melbourne with clear blue skies and an almost springlike ambience.

Given I wasn’t exactly sure where Jackson was taking me—and to be honest, didn’t really care—I went with a swirly, flowery skirt and tight-fitting shirt and teamed them with gorgeous leather boots with heels just high enough to flatter my calves while still being comfortable enough to walk a fair distance. Rory still wasn’t home by the time I was ready to leave, so I left him a note, then happily made my way down to the foyer.

Jackson was waiting for me, looking decidedly sexy in faded jeans that emphasized the muscular length of his legs and a black, short-sleeved shirt that made the most of his shoulders and arms.

His gaze skimmed me as I walked toward him. “You,” he said, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me close, “look fucking amazing.”

And then he kissed me, not sweetly, not gently, but with a fierce hunger, as if he intended to make love to me here in the middle of the foyer.

To say we were both more than a little breathless when we finally parted was an understatement.

“If breakfast is anywhere near as good as that kiss,” I said, my breathing erratic and my voice little more than a husky whisper, “I’m going to be a mighty happy woman.”

He smiled, caught my hand, and led me out of the building. Just for a moment, awareness prickled my skin. It wasn’t sexual in any way, but rather the sensation of being watched. I glanced around casually, but couldn’t see anyone obvious. But then, I hadn’t last night, either.

Jackson’s mode of transport wasn’t exactly what I’d been expecting, but it did totally suit him. It was a big red pickup truck whose nose and tail had been decorated with flames, and it looked as powerful as its driver. I couldn’t help grinning. “And here I was thinking flame decorations were so last century.”

“Only for those not Fae.” He opened the door, ushered me into the passenger seat, then ran around to the driver’s side.

The engine came to life, loud and growly. As he reversed out of the parking spot, I said, “Where are we headed?”

“Seeing it’s such a lovely day, I thought we might picnic in the hills.”

“But not at a popular tourist spot, I gather.” My hopes of seduction would certainly take a tumble if that were the case. Although with the Fae, you could never be entirely sure. According to Rory, they had a tendency toward exhibitionism.

He grinned. “Oh, trust me, we’re headed where few tourists go.”

Again Sam’s warning nudged my consciousness, and again I stoutly ignored it. It wasn’t like I couldn’t protect myself—I just needed to keep aware. To not get so carried away by desire that I ignored any warning signs of trouble that might inadvertently be revealed.

“And am I allowed to know the whereabouts of this mysterious, empty spot?”

“I own some land that runs alongside the state forest not far from Woodend.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Why would you own land up there? It’s not like you could create any sort of fire up there, especially in summer. The Country Fire Authority would be all over it in a flash, given how dry the state usually is. I would have thought the drier, hotter areas up near Mildura to be more your style.”

“It is, and I do own land up there.” He glanced in the rearview mirror before adding, “But it’s also nice to own something within easy driving distance of the city. I might not be able to enjoy the pleasure of fire very often, but I can enjoy the wild peace of the place. I’m Fae first and foremost, remember.”

“So you’ve built a home up there?”

He shook his head. “That would defeat the purpose. And before you ask, there’s no toilet. But I do have plenty of trees. And loo paper.”

I snorted softly. Talk about roughing it. He was looking in the mirror again, and something in his manner had my skin prickling. “What’s wrong?”

“I think we might have someone following us.”

I relaxed. “We do. My boss was murdered last night, and the police are worried that whoever did it might come after me.”

“I noticed we were being followed last night. This isn’t him.”

He’d noticed? How? While I might have sensed the vampire named Adam when I’d walked to the bar, I’d certainly had no sense of him when we’d left. But then, the Fae’s senses were pretty keen. “Well, no, because it’s a different person doing the day shift.”

He gave me a wry smile. “Yeah, I guessed that. But I don’t think this is your official tail. He’s way too close, and that suggests inexperience.”

I flipped down the visor and looked behind us via the vanity mirror.

And what I saw was a red cloak.

Oh, fuck.

“Do you know who it is?” His sideways glance suggested he was very aware of the tension running through me.

Sam’s warning swirled through my thoughts. How the hell was I going to explain this without giving too much away? “I ran across a couple of our follower’s companions a few nights ago. Let’s just say they’re nasty pieces of work.”

“I take it from that your meeting with said companions went rather badly—for them.”

“Yes. I rather spoiled a party they had planned, and they didn’t take it well.” I studied the red cloak in the mirror for a moment. “I’m not sure why they’d be following me now, though.”

Although the fact that they were meant that while they might be infected by a vampirelike virus, they didn’t suffer the same restrictions when it came to sunlight. So why did UV lights affect them?

“What the hell is he?” Jackson asked. “Even in the rearview mirror he doesn’t really look human, and he sure as hell can’t be a vampire.”

I hesitated. “I’m not sure what they’re officially called, but I tend to call them red cloaks—”

“That’s a red cloak? He looks nothing like the description I got.”

Something in the pit of my stomach twisted. I closed my eyes for a moment, fighting the twin surges of disappointment and anger. Goddamn it, I didn’t want Sam to be right. Didn’t want to believe meeting Jackson was anything more than a coincidence.

“How do you know about the red cloaks?”

I said it softly, but there was an edge in my voice and he grimaced.

“Look, I haven’t exactly been truthful—”

Anger won the battle over disappointment. “No kidding—”

“Emberly, just listen,” he snapped, then took a deep breath, visibly getting himself under control. “I am Jackson Miller, but I’m a private investigator, not an engineer. Baltimore was someone of interest to my client.”

Which was why he’d been so interested in me. It was as much the need for information as attraction. Lady luck, it seemed, really had decided to abandon me this life span—at least when it came to men.

“After running into you that first time,” he continued, “I did some checking and discovered you worked for Baltimore.”

“And what better way is there to keep an eye on him than to seduce his assistant?” I couldn’t help the edge of bitterness in my voice.

“Yes.” He scraped a hand across his chin. It sounded like he was rubbing sandpaper. “And no. That was my initial intention when I arranged our second meeting, but I discovered Baltimore was dead shortly after that. Theoretically, your usefulness as an information source was over at that point.” His gaze briefly met mine. Those emerald depths showed little evidence of lying. “I didn’t have to meet you at the bar. I wanted to.”

I stared at him for several moments, then pulled my gaze away. I wasn’t ready to forgive him just yet, and if I kept staring into his eyes, I would. “Prove that you’re an investigator and you’re just not spinning another line.”

“My wallet is in my pants pocket.” He glanced at me, eyes suddenly twinkling with mischief. “Of course, that means you’ll have to reach in and get it. I dare not risk taking my hand off the wheel.”

I snorted softly, then reached across the car and dug a hand into his pocket. Felt the heat of his skin through the thin layer of cotton, and again the hunger rose within me. Later, later, I whispered internally. Maybe. I grabbed the wallet, tugged it free, then opened it up. His driver’s license was in a little window on one side and his private investigator’s license on the other. He was who he said he was. I closed it and shoved it back into his pocket.

“Happy?” he asked.

“Satisfied that you’re not actually lying about who you are anymore, yes. Happy, not so much.” I paused, then asked, “Why is your client interested in my boss? And how do you know about the red cloaks?”

He hesitated. “Client confidentiality—”

“Be damned,” I cut in. “In the last few days, I’ve been shot at, chased, my boss has been murdered, and, for a climax, I’ve been picked up by a Fae who’s decided seduction is the fastest method to information. If someone doesn’t start being honest with me, I’m going to get violent.”

He grinned suddenly. “You’re a bit of a firecracker, aren’t you?”

“You have no idea,” I muttered, and crossed my arms. “And to repeat my question, how much do you know about the red cloaks?”

“Not a lot more than the brief description of them I got from several people who’d witnessed them murder someone.”

“And who was that someone?”

He glanced in the rearview mirror again, then said, “How about we take out our tail, then have an information exchange?”

“There’s one fatal flaw in that suggestion.” Sam might have warned me against talking about these things, but I couldn’t not talk about them, either. Not when Jackson was planning to attack one of them. “Those things are infected with a deadly virus that may affect nonhumans as much as it does humans. You can’t let them scratch or bite you.”

“Oh,” he said. “Lovely.”

He drove on without saying anything for a while, and I realized we were out of the city and on the Tullamarine Freeway, heading toward the Calder.

“Okay,” he said eventually. “We’ll let him follow us until we get to the exit. Once we hit the forest, we’ll immobilize the bastard, then question him.”

“Um, maybe you didn’t hear me, but those things are deadly—”

“I heard.” His gaze, when it met mine, was filled with a very inhuman hunger and excitement. Fae might be sensualists, but they obviously weren’t averse to the excitement that came with danger—and that it could be deadly only made the chase all that much sweeter, it seemed.

I shook my head. “You’re crazy.” And so was I for even considering going along with his scheme.

“That’s been said before,” he agreed. “I am, however, still alive.”

Silence fell. We continued up the Calder Freeway for a while, then swung left onto Lawson Road and up into the forest.

“Can you use a gun?” he asked, as he suddenly turned onto a dirt side road.

“I can, though I prefer not to. Why?”

“It’s interesting that you appear neither shocked nor horrified by the thought I might be carrying weapons in the truck.”

“Probably because my capacity to be shocked by anything has been erased by recent events. What are you planning?”

“Are you good enough to take out the tire of a car speeding past?”

“I think so.” I’d certainly done it a few times in my past life as a cop, but that had been a while ago now, and not only were my skills rusty, but the guns were very different.

“God, where have you been all my life, woman?”

“I’ve been avoiding men like you,” I said dryly. “Where’s the gun?”

“Locked box under the backseat. Key code 3754.”

I undid my seat belt and twisted around. Once I found the locked box, I typed in the code. A drawer popped out, revealing several guns cradled in foam. I chose the Glock semiautomatic simply because I’d used earlier versions. After checking that the internal locking system was engaged, I shoved in a single-stack, ten-round magazine.

“There’s a blind corner just up ahead,” he said. “I’ll let you out just after it. Hide in the trees and shoot out the rear tires. I’ll take care of the rest.”

I nodded, throat suddenly dry and heart going a million miles an hour. Excitement, not fear.

He slid around the corner, raising a thick cloud of dust that hid his sudden stop. I opened the door, scrambled out, then ran for the trees as he took off again.

The red cloak wasn’t far behind him. He came around the corner too fast and skidded sideways on the dusty road. I released the internal locking system, sighted on the nearest rear tire, and fired. The first two shots missed. The next two didn’t.

The tire exploded, and the car—still going too fast and not under complete control after the semi-slide around the corner—reacted violently. The tire exploded, came off the rim, and fired thick bits of rubber in all directions as the car pulled savagely to the left. The driver’s reaction was instant and totally wrong—he slammed on the brakes. This succeeded only in accentuating the car’s reaction, and he spun completely around and then slammed into several trees along the side of the road.

Jackson’s truck reappeared through the choking cloud of dirt and reversed straight into the undamaged side of the car, buckling both doors inward. For all intents and purposes, the red cloak was trapped.

I lowered the weapon but didn’t slip the ILS back on. The red cloak might be trapped, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still dangerous.

Jackson climbed out of the truck, a wide grin splitting his features and his enjoyment so strong it burned the air. “Shall we see how our captive fairs?”

I nodded and gave him the gun. He was legal to carry. I wasn’t, and we did have a more official follower somewhere behind us.

He approached the broken car from the front and with caution, the gun held at the ready. The engine was screaming, the sound high-pitched and grating, and steam billowed out of the grille. The smell of gas stung the air, a potentially dangerous situation if there were any sparks or if the leaking vapor hit the hot exhaust or catalytic converter.

There was no movement inside the car. The air bags had all gone off, but were even now deflating, beginning to hang like loose white sacks from their moorings. The windshield had shattered, the bits of glass glittering like diamonds all over the crumpled front end. The red cloak inside wasn’t moving. There was blood in his dark hair and he slumped half-sideways, as if the seat belt was the only thing holding him upright.

Jackson stepped closer, his nostrils flaring. Distaste spread across his face. “God, these things smell rancid.”

“Well, they are diseased.” I stayed where I was and rubbed my arms. I’d been close to these things once before, and that was more than enough.

“This one is also human.” He hesitated. “Or maybe that should be was human.”

“Most vampires were human at one point in their lives,” I reminded him. “That in itself is not an oddity.”

“Yeah, but regular vamps smell like vamps. These things still have a human overtone. It’s as if they’re not quite turned.”

Which would explain why they could waltz around in daylight when regular vampires could not.

As he took another step closer, flames began to lick the bottom of the car. “Jackson—”

“I can feel the fire,” he cut in. “It’s no danger, trust me.”

“Meaning you’re putting it out?”

He flashed me a grin over his shoulder. “What, and waste all that lovely heat?”

“That lovely heat,” I said tartly, “will crisp our suspect, which is not such a good thing if you want to question him. Not that I think that’s a good idea.”

In the shadows crowding the rear seat, something moved. Tension and fear suddenly crawled across my skin. “I think there might be—”

Before I could get the rest of the sentence out, a seething, screaming mass that seemed more animal than human exploded from the car. Jackson swore and raised the gun, but it was flames, not bullets, that shot out at the red cloak. They encased the creature, but didn’t stop him. It cannoned into Jackson, sending him sprawling, and came straight at me.

I swore and threw myself sideways, hitting the dirt hard enough to hurt but rolling back to my feet in one smooth motion. Fire erupted from my flesh, burning around me—through me—until I wasn’t flesh, just a seething mass of flame. The creature lunged for me, his body afire and his red eyes glowing with both the reflection of my fire and his own madness. I retreated, trying to keep out of his way, but he was too fast and too close. His wickedly curved nails sliced through my flames, but there was no flesh left to rend and tear and possibly infect.

I loosed a long stream of fire at him. It lassoed his torso and snapped tight. My flames, stronger and more deadly than Jackson’s, raced across the red cloak’s flesh, but he didn’t seem to care. He just kept coming at me even as his flesh blackened and began to peel away.

Two shots rang out, the sound barely cutting across the roar of my fire. The red cloak’s head exploded, spraying blood and bone and brain matter everywhere.

I shuddered, suddenly glad I wasn’t wearing skin. The last thing I needed or wanted was to be covered in red cloak goo.

The rest of the body continued to burn, the combination of Jackson’s flames and my own quickly rendering flesh, muscle, and bone down to little more than ashes that the wind picked up and scattered through the forest.

I took a deep breath, then doused my fire and regained human form.

Jackson stared at me.

“I’d guessed what you were, but it’s a totally different fucking thing to see it.” His voice held a touch of awe. “I had no idea a phoenix could become nothing but flame.”

“And I didn’t know you could draw fire into your body and use it as a weapon. I thought fire Fae could only shape and control it.” My gaze scanned him. He didn’t seem to be hurt or bleeding, but I nevertheless added, “Did he scratch you at all?”

“No. He was too busy trying to get at you.” He cocked his head to the side, listening intently. After a moment, he added, “Get in the car.”

“What?”

“Our second follower is coming.” He made the Glock safe and then strode toward his truck. “Get in the car, Emberly.”

“But—”

“Do you want to be stuck all day in a police station being interrogated about this mess?” he snapped. “Because I certainly don’t.”

I stared at him doubtfully, knowing it was stupid to run, knowing that Sam would be madder than hell when he eventually caught up with us, and unable to deny the attraction of either.

“They’ll just find us again, so what’s the point?”

“The point,” he said, opening the driver’s side door, “is that you and I can at least talk beforehand.”

I snorted softly. “What, and synchronize our stories?”

“You can say what you want. I certainly will.”

“Then why run? It’s not like we can’t talk afterward.”

“Yeah, but after this, their noose around you will be tighter, and I might not get close enough to ask my questions.” His gaze met mine, grim but determined. “However much I desire you, Emberly, I still want information.”

At least that was the complete and honest truth. Unsure whether to be happy or not, I climbed into the car, then stared out the side window as he took off.

We got back onto the main road and he hit the gas, steering the car through the twists and turns with ease. After a few more miles, he turned off again, then slowed down to cut the dust cloud. The trees closed in until it seemed we were driving along little more than a goat track.

“Where the hell is this place of yours?” I asked eventually.

He grinned. “You’re in it. Have been for the last mile.”

“You own a large chunk of forest?”

He nodded. “As I said, I need to be able to commune with nature on a regular basis.”

We came out of the forest abruptly. The clearing was lush and green and sloped gently down toward a stream that was rock-lined and dotted with winter flowers.

He stopped and got out, then grabbed a basket from the back of the truck and motioned me to follow him. We walked down to the stream, where he set up a picnic on a grass verge near the cheerfully bubbling water.

“So,” he said, flipping the basket open to reveal sandwiches, cakes, a bottle of wine, and a thermos. “Tell me about phoenixes. Are you creatures of flame or flesh?”

“Technically, neither. We’re spirits who have three forms available to us—flesh, fire, and bird.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Bird?”

I half shrugged. “A firebird. It’s a form that’s really only practical at sunset, because it’s the only time our rather exotic red, orange, and yellow plumage doesn’t stand out.”

“Huh.” He opened the wine and poured two glasses. “Is it true that a phoenix rises from the ashes of its death?”

I nodded. “We have a life span of one hundred years.”

“Meaning you have to relive those shitty teenage years over and over?” He shook his head in mock sorrow. “That has to be the pits.”

I grinned. “We only have to do it once. We’re reborn into adulthood after that.”

He handed me a glass, then raised his own. “To never having to face teenage years more than once. And the hope that this sharing of information doesn’t end here.”

I snorted softly, but nevertheless clicked my glass against his. The wine was cool and fruity without being too sweet. “Speaking of information sharing, how about you start?”

He opened one of the foil-wrapped packages, revealing chicken and avocado on rye. “Have you ever heard of a Professor James Wilson?”

I picked up one of the sandwiches and shook my head as I bit into it. It tasted incredible, but I was always horribly famished after a flame up, and I demolished it rather than savoring it like it deserved.

“Ah,” he said, eating the other half at a more leisurely pace. “He worked in the research division of Rosen Pharmaceuticals.”

Who just happened to be one of our major competitors and was, coincidently, owned and run by Lady Harriet’s ex. To say the two did not get along was like saying rain was wet.

“Wilson was murdered while on his way home two weeks ago,” he continued. “According to witnesses, the killer had a scythelike tattoo on his right cheek and wore a red-hooded cloak.”

What was the likelihood of Baltimore and Wilson—both of whom worked for privately funded research labs—being murdered within a matter of weeks of each other and the murders not being connected somehow? Realistically, slender to none. We might have no witnesses for Mark’s murder, and he might have been tortured rather than torn apart by a red cloak, but it still seemed too much of a coincidence. At least to my radar, anyway.

And yet something Jackson had said earlier niggled. I frowned. “Why did you seem so surprised to see our dead red cloak, given the description you were given matched the ones that chased us?”

“Because they really don’t match. All the witnesses were close enough to note a marking on his cheek and yet made no mention of the way he smelled, his gauntness, or the red eyes. That seems rather odd to me.”

“Witnesses to hideous crimes are often unreliable when it comes to providing solid information.”

He grimaced. “I know, but it still strikes me as odd.”

I wondered if Sam thought it was odd, too. Not that he’d ever tell me one way or another. “What happened to the red cloak? Did anyone try to stop him?”

“No, and you can’t blame anyone for that, given Wilson was apparently sliced up pretty badly. The red cloak disappeared down a nearby sewer drain, and no one has seen him since.”

And weren’t likely to, I suspected, unless they were game enough to head into Brooklyn. Was that the real reason Sam had been there the night I’d saved his life? Had he been trying to find Wilson’s murderer? It seemed logical—and it would also explain why the red cloaks had been so determined to get rid of him. Maybe he’d been close to uncovering their location.

“So was Wilson simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, or do you think there’s something more behind his murder?”

“Personally, I think it’s very likely the sindicati are behind it.”

The sindicati were basically the vampire version of the mafia—only a hell of a lot more dangerous. I frowned. “Why would you think that?”

“Because the sindicati have a finger in every nasty pie in this city, so why couldn’t they be involved in the murder of a scientist working on a top-secret project?”

“They’re more likely to attempt to kidnap him and gain his secrets than kill him,” I said. “He’s no good to anyone dead. Besides, I can’t imagine them working with the likes of the red cloaks.”

“They’d work with whoever—or whatever—was best suited to the job they wanted done.” Jackson’s voice was grim, making me suspect he’d had dealings—or, at the very least, crossed paths—with the sindicati in the past. He added, “However, I haven’t been hired to find Wilson’s murderer. My employer is more interested in retrieving his research.”

My eyebrows rose. “When was his research stolen?”

“The day after his murder. Whoever did it hacked into Wilson’s computers at the research foundation and completely erased every note Wilson had made.”

“They didn’t have backups?”

“They did. Someone broke into the foundation the same night and did a hatchet job on the backup system.”

All of which was a chilling echo of what had happened after Baltimore’s murder. “Have they tried to retrieve the erased information?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t successful.”

Meaning whoever was responsible knew a thing or two about computers, because it wasn’t easy to so completely erase information from a hard drive. “So who’s your employer? And what does this have to do with Professor Baltimore’s murder?”

He unwrapped another package, this time revealing thick slabs of corned beef on sourdough with a lavish helping of mustard pickle. Not my favorite, but given how much my belly was still rumbling, I wasn’t about to be picky.

“Denny Rosen—the company president, not the gadabout son—employed me after getting little satisfaction from the team the investigation was handed over to.”

Three guesses as to who that was, I thought, amusement running through me. “I don’t suppose you know the name of the detective currently in charge?”

“Sam Turner.” He paused, eyeing me. “You know him?”

“Used to.” I shrugged and tried to ignore that tiny, insane fraction that wished I still did. “Good luck getting information about the case out of him. He’s always been a clam when it comes to discussing any aspect of his work.”

“I actually make a point of not talking to the cops. They tend to get antsy about private investigators snooping around their patch during an ongoing investigation.”

“That’s probably a good move.” I licked the sweet pickle mustard off my fingers and said, “So why did Rosen point you in Baltimore’s direction? I’m gathering he’s not just doing it to piss off his ex.”

“He’s not.” He picked up his wine. “Although I suspect there is an element of that. They sure do seem to hate each other.”

Well, given the rumors suggesting infidelity and theft of research on both their parts, I could understand why. At least they had good reasons for the hate, unlike a certain cop I knew.

“Rosen wasn’t very forthcoming about what, exactly, Wilson was working on, but I gather it’s something to do with finding a cure for some new kind of virus.” Jackson picked up the wine and filled my glass. “He inferred Baltimore might be working on a similar project and therefore could be behind the theft.”

“What’s the bet Wilson’s project has something to do with the virus the red cloaks are infected with?” I said heavily. It had to be. It was too much of a coincidence to be anything else.

“Rosen simply called it the NSV01 virus—”

“And Baltimore’s virus was NSV01A. I doubt it was a coincidence.”

“Highly unlikely,” Jackson said. “Rosen didn’t say what it was or who’d employed him to work on it. I suspect, given how clammy he got, that it was a deep-level government initiative.”

I frowned. “The government has its own labs—”

“Yeah, but it’s not always easy to keep research a secret inside those labs. Too much red tape, too many management fingers in the pie. It’s far easier to have a black slush fund and get it done privately.”

“It doesn’t explain why they’d be coming after me, though. If they were the ones who beat Baltimore to death, they must know I can’t tell them anything more.”

“What if it wasn’t the red cloaks who beat him up? What if it was someone else entirely?”

I frowned. “Mark was the most harmless guy in the world. I can’t imagine someone having a reason to kill him other than wanting his research. And as I said, I don’t think he was onto anything monumental before he died.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Let me get something.” He rose in one fluid movement and walked up the hill to his truck. His strides were long and easy but nevertheless filled with a sense of heated energy. Much like the man himself, really.

He came back with a manila folder. This time, he sat down beside me, his shoulders pressed against mine and the heat of him flowing across my senses, a siren call to the fires deep within. I took a shuddery breath, trying to concentrate as he flipped open the folder, rifled through some paperwork, then picked out a photo. “You ever seen this man before?” he asked, handing it to me.

The photo was grainy and speckled, as if it had been blown up from a much smaller picture. The man in it had half turned from the camera, but he was obviously a big man, bald, with heavy brows and a beaklike nose that seemed to jut out over thin, humorless lips.

He wasn’t anyone I’d seen before, and I said as much before adding, “Who is he?”

“Sherman Jones, a thug for hire and petty thief.”

I handed him back the photo and then picked up my wine. It didn’t do a whole lot to quench the awareness surging through me. “You think he beat up Mark?”

“This was snapped by one of the street security cameras just up the road from Baltimore’s apartment.” His voice seemed suddenly deeper, edged with a huskiness that spoke of desire. “According to one of the waitresses in the café across the road, he’d been hanging around the nearby bus stop most of the day.”

I frowned. “But if you know about this Jones person, the cops surely would, and they’d have interviewed him already.”

“They would have, if they could find him. He disappeared not long after this picture was taken.”

“Before or after Mark’s murder?”

“After.”

I finished my wine and held it out for a refill. Too much more and I’d get tipsy, but after the events of the last few days, that might not be a bad thing.

“And no body has been found, I take it?”

“No. However, Jones wasn’t the type to completely freelance. I have it from a good source that he had several regular employers, including this man.”

He held out another photo. This man had a thin, pockmarked face, small, beady eyes, and dark, greasy hair. He reminded me of a rat. “Who is he?”

“Marcus Radcliffe the third. He owns a chain of secondhand stores that are little more than a front for a roaring trade in black-market goods and information.”

“You’ve talked to him?”

“Not yet. He tends to be surrounded by some rather large goons, has high-level lawyers on call, and he can smell a cop—or a PI—a mile away.”

“Meaning you’ve hit a wall information-wise?”

“Not exactly. I’ve now got you.”

“Maybe.”

He grinned. It was sexy as all get-out, but also very confident. “Your turn, my dear.”

I told him the little I knew, all the while trying to ignore the hunger in his eyes, the feel of heat barely restrained that flowed over my senses every time he moved.

When I finished, he said, “Given the research of both men has been taken, it suggests they might have had some sort of breakthrough.”

“Yeah, but the question is, how would the people behind the murders have known?”

He shrugged. “Rosen told me Wilson presented weekly reports; it’s possible someone, somewhere, talked.”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t explain what happened to Baltimore. Trust me. No one would risk Lady Harriet’s ire by indiscreetly talking.” I pursed my lips, my thoughts going a mile a minute. “Could the labs be bugged?”

Jackson shook his head. His auburn hair, I noticed idly, gleamed like fire in the sunlight. “Rosen apparently doesn’t trust his ex as far as he could throw her. He has a team of specialists who sweep the labs weekly.”

Well, at least Lady Harriet wasn’t that paranoid. She had them swept only every other week. I downed more wine, then said, “So basically, we’re as stuck for ideas as the cops.”

His sudden smile was blinding in its intensity. “We’re stuck? Does this mean you’ve forgiven my initial lie and are now intending to help me on my quest?”

Did it?

I hadn’t meant it that way, but now that I’d said it, it was tempting. Very tempting. And it wasn’t as if Sam was going to give me any answers.

“I don’t know,” I said, honestly enough. “I’m not sure it would be wise for either of us to tangle with the things that are carrying the virus.”

“Can the virus affect nonhumans? Rosen gave me the impression it was human only.”

I hesitated, but it wasn’t like I hadn’t already told him enough to get us both into trouble. In for a penny, in for a pound, as the saying went. Besides, he needed to know what he might be dealing with. “From the little I’ve been told, it very definitely affects humans and vampires. Some shifters seemed able to escape the virus as long as they shift immediately after being infected, but it’s too new for anyone to be certain. Until we know for sure, I don’t think you should be taking any unnecessary risks.”

“Oh, I don’t plan to when it comes to those things.” He frowned. “What about phoenixes?”

I shrugged. “I’m spirit, not flesh, so any virus or drug that does get into my system will be burned away when I resume my true form.”

“Handy trick.”

“And one that doesn’t stop me from getting hurt or dying before my time,” I said, voice dry. “A phoenix making it through a full hundred years of life is something of a rarity.”

“So how many lifetimes have—” He paused, listening intently for several seconds; then his gaze hit mine, sharp and intent. “Do you want to be found right now?”

Confusion swirled. “What?”

“There’s a helicopter on the way. It’s a fair bet that, given we’ve eluded your police tail, it’s someone looking for you. So, make your decision. Come with me and not be found until you wish to be, or stay here and return to the safety of your police followers.”

I stared at him, tossing between the insane need to know what was going on and the desire to stay safe.

“Decide, Emberly. We’re running out of time.”

What the hell? I thought, and fell on the side of insanity.