Scorched

Chapter 7

October 1, 9:55 p.m. 101.5 FM

“Finally, Dr. Elterland, let’s move on to talking about vampires.”

“To be honest, Errata, I don’t make them part of my study.”

“Why not?”

“There’s nothing there left to learn.”

“I see. How many vampires have you actually met, Dr. Elterland?”

Alessandro Caravelli strode back to the graveyard where he’d parked his car. It was a long walk, but he didn’t mind.

He wanted time to unwind. Enforcing the peace among the supernatural population in Fairview was stressful, and he never took his work home with him if he could help it Holly was a special woman and a powerful witch—the perfect mate for a vampire warrior—but even she had her limits. Decapitation and dismemberment did not make for good pillow talk.

A fitful wind blew garbage along the gutters, making a forlorn rustle. Pedestrians walked in twos and threes toward the parking garages, the early shows at the movie theater over. With his dark-adapted sight, Alessandro could see the street predators waiting in their lairs—an alley, a doorway, a patch of unlit street.

He silently dared one of the lowlifes to jump him, but that would never happen to a vampire with a broadsword. Undeath had its privileges. In fact, the part of town where the supernatural citizens had set up their businesses— some newspaper had called it Spookytown, and the name stuck—was remarkably free of crime. The merchants just ate the troublemakers, and the police rarely complained.

The thought of police took Alessandro back to Macmillan. Mac, as he preferred to be called. They’d never been friends, but there had been mutual respect. The detective had been out of his depth working preternatural crimes, but then, so were all the humans. He’d done better than most, up until the part where Geneva infected him with her demon taint.

And it still eats at him. He struggles, and he will lose.

Yes, magic might have blasted away most of the demon inside Mac, but the infection was like a virulent mold. If there was the tiniest remnant, it would spread and take over, reducing its host to a soul-eating machine, a monster’s monster. It was just a matter of time.

Sad, but now he is a threat like any other. A task to be dealt with. Work.

He would have traded in his right fang for a better solution than a sword or a dungeon. Nevertheless, he couldn’t stand around wringing his hands while Macmillan went evil and ate half the city. That just wasn’t practical.

His cell phone rang, and he answered it.

“Hey,” said Holly. Even that one word sounded tired.

“Hello, love,” he replied, his outlook suddenly changing for the better, as if a projector had clicked to the next slide in the carousel. Do people use those anymore?

“Did you find Mac? Was the tip on the radio good?”

Alessandro sighed. “Yeah, I found him.”

“Crap,” she said softly. “Did you—”

“No. I put him in the Castle.”

“Oh.” Her tone was ambiguous. Holly had liked Mac. She had even dated him once.

There was a long silence. Alessandro kept walking, but his mind was with Holly, imagining her cradling the phone under her chin in that peculiar way. She was in the kitchen. He could hear the tick of the wall clock.

She finally spoke. “The Castle. Sweet Hecate, I don’t know which is worse. That place or ... death.” There was no criticism in her tone. It was an honest question.

“I don’t know, either. He’s still infected.”

“Goddess.” Another long pause while she digested that. “When’re you coming home?”

“Now.”

“Good. I need company.”

With no more warning than that, she hung up. The night was suddenly emptier. Alessandro quickened his pace. He never liked leaving Holly home by herself, even if she was a powerful witch. She meant too much to him not to worry.

There was a lot to worry about. For one thing, the hellhounds had to stop wandering away from their post at the Castle door. He was going to call Lore, their alpha, and have a word. Alessandro didn’t pay the Baskervilles to take kibble breaks whenever they felt like it.

Not with Holly home alone. Of course, all thoughts eventually led to her.

He finally reached the street beside the graveyard where his T-Bird was parked. The sight of her—the car was the other woman in his life—made his spirits rise. She was a sixties red two-door with custom chrome and smoked windows. He’d bought her new and kept her up himself. It was a point of pride that he never locked the doors. No one dared to mess with his car—except, of course, the occasional bird. Nature kept everyone humble, even vampires.

A cold wind whispered in the cedar trees as he threw the broadsword in the trunk and got behind the wheel. He wondered whether Holly had finished studying for the night, or if he’d have to coax her away from her books and over to the couch, where they could talk or watch television until other ideas pleasantly interfered. The ugliness of the night is done, and I’m going home to the girl I love, he thought, and he smiled. In all his long centuries of existence, this last year had been the first time he had been able to say that night after night.

He didn’t mind. Holly had been worth the wait.

As he sped into the driveway, the first thing he saw was a strange motorcycle at the curb. He parked and got out of the T-Bird, looking first at the house. Holly’s family home—where he lived now, too—was an 1880s painted lady with an ocean view. The usual lights were on in the kitchen and front room. He could see Kibs, the cat, staring out of the study window. Except for the motorcycle, everything looked normal.

But in the last few minutes, Holly had grown upset. He could feel it the way he could feel all of her strong emotions, as clearly as if she had spoken in his ear. Trouble had arrived.

He got the sword out of the trunk.

No doubt the trouble had ridden in on the bike. He turned and paused long enough to take in the red trellis design of a Ducati Monster. It was dirty, as if their visitor had ridden a long way.

Alessandro ran up the steps, mind scrambling for clues as to who this invader might be.

If this guy meant harm, he shouldn’t have made it over the threshold. The house should have kept him out. Witch houses were semi-sentient and self-repairing, sustained by the ambient magic that surrounded their families. They were also able to work basic protection spells, so why hadn’t it stopped this motorcycle-riding intruder?

The front door opened for Alessandro before he reached for the knob. He swept inside, noticing an unfamiliar red and white helmet on the front hall table. This guy had left it there like he owned the place. A sudden wave of territoriality made Alessandro clench his teeth.

He could sense Holly in the kitchen. She was always at the table these days, studying for her university midterms. The last thing she needed was an outsider disrupting her work. Alessandro went to confront the stranger, letting his boots fall ominously on the polished oak floors. A sharp, bitter smell hung in the air, as if Holly had forgotten to turn off the coffeemaker.

When he reached the kitchen, his eyes went first to her. His Holly was dark-haired and beautiful, but slowly surrendering to the wild-eyed, disheveled look of a full-time student. She sat surrounded by textbooks, dirty mugs, a laptop, pencils, and two complicated calculators, neither of which Alessandro could figure out.

“Hi,” he said. “What’s going on?”

As she turned around to greet him, he could see Holly’s huge green eyes were too wide, like she’d been shell-shocked. Frowning, he turned to the figure sitting in the chair next to Holly.

Then frowned some more. The motorcycle rider was not male.

The woman in riding gear was a bit taller than Holly, blonder, but had the same startling green eyes—which were riveted on him. She was grubby, her hair flat from the helmet and a hard set to her jaw. Alessandro knew the type—they swore hard, drank hard, and picked their teeth with a sharpened stake—just before they drove it through, some unfortunate vampire’s heart.

Which was just unhygienic.

No one said anything. The tap dripped in the kitchen sink. He held the scabbard of his broadsword casually, but doubted he was done with it for the night.

“Hey,” said Holly.

“What’s going on?” he repeated, looking pointedly at Kick-Ass Gal.

“This is my sister, Ashe.”

“The vampire slayer,” Ashe added in a voice like filthy snow.

Oh, great.

Holly’s expression was projecting a version of don’t-blame-me-I-didn’t-invite-her. He tried to smile but could feel it sagging into a grimace. He liked Holly’s grandmother. Holly’s parents were dead. That had been the sum total of his thoughts about his de facto in-laws.

Except, I know this is the in-law who tried out major magic, destroyed her own power, almost destroyed her sister’s power, accidentally killed both their parents, then ran away to live on the streets. Yeah, let’s have her come and stay for a few weeks.

Then he remembered Ashe owned half the house. He was technically the guest here.

This just gets better.

Alessandro sank into a chair across from Ashe, setting the sword down close at hand. Her expression made him wonder whether that and the three knives he was carrying were defense enough.

“So, you’re Alessandro Caravelli, the vampire queen’s renowned champion warrior.”

Ashe narrowed her eyes. He knew she was eight years older than Holly, which put her somewhere in her middle thirties. The hard lines in her face made her look older.

“I no longer work for the queen,” he replied stiffly. “I work alone.”

“I didn’t think vampires did that.”

“I’m hard to work with.” The truth was, he worked with and for the entire supernatural community in Fairview, keeping order much as he had when he served the queen. That wasn’t the point. “Why do you want to know?”

“You’re with my baby sister. You’re a vampire. What do you think?”

“I think you’re leaping to conclusions.”

“About what? The sex or the fangs?” She shoved one of the textbooks hard, sending it flying across the table toward a mug full of coffee.

With superhuman speed, he slammed his hand on the book, stopping it cold. With one simple act, she’d made him show his inhumanity. Show he was one of the Undead. Rough anger slid over him, scraping like coarse wool.

“Wait a damned minute,” said Holly, clutching at one of the pencils and stabbing the notebook in front of her. “How’d you find out about us?”

“Grandma’s letters finally caught up with me. I tried calling her from Calgary, but she’d already left for the family reunion in Waikiki. Maybe you should have taken lover boy there for some fun in the sun.”

Holly gave Ashe an unfriendly look. “You said you were here to see me. What you really meant was you came all this way from ... wherever to save me from Alessandro?”

“I was in Calgary,” Ashe replied. “Doing a job.”

“Killing vampires?” Alessandro asked, letting a little menace slide into his voice.

“Yep, and the guy paid me well. See the bike outside? That was just the bonus.”

Alessandro stifled a laugh. Well, the sister had guts, saying that to his face. He had to give her that much.

Holly’s face went white and she stopped staking her notes. “This is such BS. You walked out when I was a child. You never wrote, you never phoned. Why the hell do you care now?”

Ashe folded her arms. “I had other problems back then.”

Holly’s mouth trembled for a moment and she bit it. Alessandro was half out of the chair, ready to solve this sister problem, before Holly held up her hand. “Stop. Just stop.”

He stopped. He sat.

Ashe looked at her sister, her eyes narrowed. “Stop what?”

Holly’s voice was hoarse. “Don’t come in here and start threatening me and my partner.”

“She doesn’t frighten me,” Alessandro put in.

Ashe’s eyes focused on him like twin crossbows. “Consider it an intervention, Holly. For your own good.”

Holly leaned forward, her words pounding like a nail gun. “You don’t get to stake my boyfriend and don’t ever tell me how to live my life. You have no right.”

Alessandro forced himself not to grin. Ashe looked down at the table, her face like stone.

“Why a vampire slayer?” Holly asked. “What the hell are you trying to prove?”

Ashe answered without emotion. “I’m good at it. It’s something even a broken witch can do.”

“That’s it?”

“I had to support my kid. Roberto was a bullfighter, and that’s not steady work.”

“Bullfighter?” It slipped out before Alessandro could stop himself. “Your—husband, I assume—is a toreador?”

Ashe kept her eyes on the table, but her reply had an edge. “Was. Beefburger one, Roberto zero. So much for hot Latin romance.”

She looked up, but at Holly. Alessandro might have been invisible. “My kid’s in boarding school. It’s monster-proofed. Highest anti-magic tech money can buy. It’s the best way to be safe these days.”

Holly looked at her sister coldly. “For Goddessakes, Ashe.”

Alessandro shifted back in his chair, an uncomfortable prickle running up his spine. He felt the air in the house grow heavy, as if the place itself was roused by the growing tension in the room. But is it for me, or against me? I’m not one of the Carver family. Ashe is.

Ashe folded her arms, mirroring Holly. “I didn’t come here to look at home movies of our childhood. I’ve work to do here whether you like it or not. My concession to your relationship is that I’m giving fair warning. If fang-boy packs his bags, I’ll let him leave in peace.”

He’d had enough. Alessandro got up, reaching for the heaviest textbook to use as a blunt object. One whack with Introduction to Business Law would subdue most humans.

The moment he moved, Holly stood up, taking a step toward Ashe. “Alessandro, I’m sorry, but please go out for a while. My sister and I have to talk.”

Their eyes met. Hers were apologetic, but resolute. Alessandro set the book down, silent and seething. A foul, acidic taste lay heavy on his tongue and coiled, burning hot, all the way down to his gut.

“Give us an hour,” Holly said softly.

He was too angry to reply. Why would they need an hour? It had taken Ashe all of five minutes to get him out of the house.

He grabbed the sword, but the weight of it gave him no comfort.

Alessandro hated problems he couldn’t kill.

Mac dragged himself through the door of his condominium. He closed the door, locked it, and listened, his eyes searching the near-blackness of the front hall. Nothing. He was alone. No vampires with swords. He might even be safe. At least, safe from things outside himself.

Dark, gritty panic backed up like the current in a storm drain. He swore, but no words were equal to the sick feeling in his gut.

I demoned out.

Twice.

Once he’d made the choice to grab at his demon powers, they had come back as naturally as reaching for a bottle opener. That was bad. That wasn’t human. That had to make him less of a man and more of what he feared.

I’m backsliding.

Getting out of the Castle was important, but he’d done it by putting what was left of his humanity at risk. He’d tempted fate. What if choosing to do the dust thing had pushed me over the edge? Suddenly being a half-and-half freak in denial didn’t sound so bad.

Mac didn’t bother hitting the light switch. Time ticked by as he leaned against the door, too stunned to move. Something should happen—divine thunderbolts, perhaps—but nothing came. Just the queasiness of having made a wrong and irrevocable choice.

Hello, dark side. Where’s Yoda when you need him?

He was still holding the sword. Slowly, he set it in the umbrella stand by the door and made his way to the living room. His condo was a corner suite, with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the harbor. Light from nearby buildings reflected from the white walls, washing everything in pale hues.

Like everything else, his condo—an inheritance from his investment-savvy mother—was in jeopardy. He’d been away for a year. Automatic withdrawals for utilities and all the other day-to-day expenses of keeping a residence had drained Mac’s bank account. Now that he was unemployed, it would be a challenge to make ends meet.

Losing the place would be the last straw, the final break with his human life. I can’t let that happen. I’m not that guy who couldn’t keep it together and ended up living out of a cardboard box.

Suddenly conscious of his messy housekeeping, he picked up a newspaper that he had tossed on the floor earlier, then threw it onto the coffee table. It slid off again. Damn. Mac gave up and fell onto the couch, stretching out and draping his arm over his eyes. His jaw ached from clenching his teeth, but the pain kept him centered. How do I pull the plug on this nightmare?

Mac moved his arm and opened his eyes to the dark room. The low haze of the city lights brushed the edges of wall and chair, shelf and lamp. The room was silent but for the distant rush of water through the building’s pipes. There was nothing to distract him from the one fact he didn’t want to face.

Holly’s magic turned me back—almost—into a human. Now it’s wearing off.

The evidence was in front of him, bagged and tagged. No other entity but one of the demon species could poof into dust. Cold fear seemed to seep out of the couch cushions, chilling him through. Mac sat up and stared out the tall windows at the winking lights of the harbor, too shaken to absorb the sight.

All this because a demon kissed me once. It’s worse than herpes.

Unbidden, the memory of Geneva’s naked body rose like Venus from the sea of his memories. The ride to perdition had almost been worth it. The souls she had fed him from her lips had been intoxicating. She had been terrifying. Insane. Cataclysmic. Sex, murder, power, and hunger had drowned his humanity in one murderous brew. The thought of it made him grow hard. Made his hunger rise, yearning for the taste of souls.

He yanked his mind away. Fantasizing about his demon mistress was like hankering for a shot glass of pure poison. Unfortunately, she’d set the erotic bar to Olympic heights.

He hadn’t touched another woman until today.

Constance had been similar and yet different. She had looked so innocent, like the maiden from some fairy tale waiting for rescue. His inner caveman had approved. Still did. Caveman was not a great thinker.

Oh, yeah, Constance had roused every red-blooded yearning he had, and then some. His mouth would never forget the angle, the texture, the resisting, melting feel of hers. Deadly fruit was always the sweetest.

Remember the fangs. Unfortunately, they were kind of erotic, too.

God, I’m perverse. What is it with me and bad girls?

He wanted Constance even more than he’d ever wanted Geneva. Not good. Constance was far more dangerous because, once safe from her teeth, he wanted to know why she was alone, why she hadn’t bitten anyone before, and why she’d picked him as her first. Curiosity meant getting involved.

Oh, right, as if I have time to get emotionally invested in a hungry vampire.

At moments, she’d seemed so heartbreakingly sad. And then there was that smile. That melancholy smile could slide under any guy’s tough, manly man shell and go straight for the marshmallow center. Once he was vulnerable, he’d lose the edge of cool logic that made him a good detective. Then he’d make mistakes. Like getting his soul sucked out.

Forget it. The job came first. Dead bodies and paperwork...

But that wouldn’t fly as an excuse this time.

I’m not a cop anymore.

The realization hit him afresh.

They’d fired him because he was a freak. Because he’d made that thinking-with-his-dick mistake once already.

Mac buried his face in his hands, an unruly mix of emotions digging a hot ache in his chest. Shame. Despair. Anger. Regret. Disgust. Demons destroy. I used to be the guy with the badge who saved people.

As his emotions raced, he could feel a restless throb of power growing inside him, pounding with every beat of his pulse. He lifted his head, instinctively bracing his hands on the edge of the couch. Heat swept through his body, a sudden, scorching fever. Sweat stung the cuts and scrapes Bran had left on his flesh.

Strong emotion made the demon infection flare up, as if it fed off the extra energy. He lifted one hand and examined it in the dim light. He was solid, not crumbling to demon dust. That was a good sign. It sucked when that happened at random moments, like standing in a supermarket checkout line.

Mac closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, fighting for calm. The throb spread through his blood, following the nerves like a tide. Not painful, not nauseous like it had been during his first infection. Now it was a flush of excitement, as if someone were running through the hallways of his body, flicking on all the lights as they went. As if all his cells were standing at attention.

Why is there no pain?

Last year, when Geneva had Turned him, every organ had hurt like hell. This felt completely different. Mac didn’t know if that was good or bad. He sprang to his feet, pacing the room.

Maybe it’s not the demon at all. Maybe you picked up a whole new monster flu in the Castle. For all he knew, he had giant squid disease and would start sprouting tentacles at any moment.

Crap. He needed a better supernatural immune system.

Geneva and her demon cooties should have been enough to inoculate him against anything else out there. So then what is this? You’re a detective. Detect, already.

The problem was that he’d barely been able to think since the whole demon trip started. It was like his mind was a puddle, and some giant’s boot had stomped in it, scattering his thoughts to the four winds. Pathetic. Think like you’re solving a case.

That meant backing up, starting again from the basics and looking at the evidence with a cool, unemotional eye. A little hard, considering what was at stake. If his demon side got the upper hand, he’d be looking for someone’s life and soul to eat. Many someones. He’d be his own worst nightmare, and he wouldn’t care one little bit.

Grimly, Mac got up and went into the small second bedroom that served as his office. The desk was buried in paper, but he yanked open the drawer and rummaged until he found his notebook and a pen. He missed his partner. He missed the labs and computers and camaraderie that solved cases. He’d been reduced to the simplest tools: paper, pen, and brain. Then make do.

The notebook was black and hinged at the top, the same kind he’d used when he was working a case. Just holding it made him feel better. He walked back into the living room, now turning on a light. He sat on the couch again, flipping the notebook open to a fresh page. He started writing.

1. Return of demon symptoms when in company of hot vampire chick.

2. First instance of dusting was involuntary, under duress.

3. Castle a factor?

4. Not all symptoms same as previous. No pain. Much heat.

It was a halting, stumbling start, but it was something. As he wrote, the throbbing energy running through him sharpened his mind, seemed to help him take control of his ideas. For a moment, he felt like his old self.

5. Not enough data to conclusively determine cause and effect.

He didn’t like the fifth item. It made the whole line of reasoning grind to a halt. Perversely, just because he’d been a demon, that didn’t mean he was an expert—but he refused to believe that Destination: Demonville was inevitable. Time to put on the research shoes.

There was only one person who’d ever tried to help. She had books, resources, and a boatload of magical power. Feeling suddenly hopeful, Mac wrote:

6. Go see Holly Carver.

Then he frowned. It looked good on paper, but that idea sucked. Mac flipped the notebook shut. His stomach felt like a bag of nightcrawlers, writhing with uncertainty. Holly’s stupid magic house had tried to bash him to pulp the last time he’d dropped by. And he really wished he hadn’t tried to eat Holly’s soul the last time they’d met. That made things so awkward. Damn, damn, damn. Bad dates always come back to bite you in the ass.

He sucked in a breath, clenching his teeth again. Once, there had been sparks between him and Holly. A sudden twinge of mirth disrupted his brooding. Caravelli will absolutely hate it if she agrees to help me. Serves him right for chucking me in the Castle.

He pictured the vampire’s unhappy face. Now there was an upside to this whole fiasco.

Hey, if life hands you giant squid disease, make calamari.