Sleeper_Google, page 10
part #3 of Hunter Series
“It was stolen?” the queen asked.
She was kind of missing the point. I needed to focus. “Are you trying to tell me Gladys has feelings?”
“Also, how was it stolen?” Zoey wasn’t one to let go.
“Feelings is such a human term.” Felix began to pace like a professor giving a lecture. “The swords we forge in Heaven know their purpose.”
“Is that why Gladys soaks in the blood she spills?” It always fascinated me that no matter how much blood I got on the sword, I never had to wipe her down. The blood would be gone in seconds, soaked into the silver until it was shining and clean again.
Felix’s lips quirked up slightly. “You know that sword at one point was named the Sword of Light?”
“Gladys fits her better.” I wasn’t sure I should be the one carrying around a heavenly weapon. I might fit in better on the Hell plane. And yet if anyone thought they were taking Gladys back, they would have to think again. Was that what they’d come here to do? Had the angels come for my sword?
Marcus put his hands on my shoulders, as if trying to force me to be still.
“I’m sure it does,” Felix allowed. “I wonder if the sword likes being with a female again after so very long. Tell me something. Does the sword purr in your hand? Do you feel a vibration when you touch it?”
“Yes,” Zoey and I said at the same time.
The queen blushed as she started to explain. “I only used the sword once. Danny and I were in a place where he couldn’t carry it easily, so I kept it for him until he needed it. I remember how right it felt in my hands. Danny couldn’t actually touch it, of course. He had to wear gloves. I always thought it was odd that the Nex Apparatus’s traditional weapon would be something a vampire couldn’t handle without gloves.”
I wasn’t a vamp so I’d never had that problem. I touched the sword with bare hands all the time. Now that I understood a bit more, I remembered what Gray had told me when he’d been able to contact me through the sword. “It wasn’t given to the vampires. It used to be Jacob’s.”
Felix’s brows rose in surprise. “Yes, it belonged to Jacob before he became a prophet. It belonged to him when he was an angel. He was tasked to watch over a certain set of humans. Humans don’t know it but they have classes like the vampires. They were created this way to maintain…”
“Balance.” Zoey finished the sentence for him with the sigh of a woman who had heard that word far too many times. “It’s always about balance. The universe is one big yoga studio to the creator. So Jacob got his sword stolen? Was this before or after he decided to walk the Earth plane, rapping about the future?”
The queen and I got along pretty well despite the fact that she sometimes wore a tiara and seemed to do everything in her life in five-inch heels. She was the perfect girly girl and I was the tomboy, but I’d been told the queen had gotten her hands dirty in her time.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I broke away from Marcus’s hold. I paced as I listened, the sound of my boots hitting the floor oddly soothing in a way.
When I looked back at Marcus, he had the saddest look on his face.
“When Jacob was chosen to become a prophet, he gave up his sword. He chose to give it to a group of warrior women in the hopes that the sword would help them maintain their independence. It did for a while until they joined with the vampires,” Felix explained.
“Ah, companions,” Marcus surmised. “This must have happened long before I turned. The weapon was already in our possession at the time, though when I think back, it was wielded by a companion from time to time, usually the one who was married to the head of the Council. At one point in time, our companions fought with us in battles.”
“That’s why it speaks to me,” Zoey whispered. “Damn vamps stole our sword.”
“Stole is a strong word,” Felix admitted. “I believe the queen at the time gave the sword to her husband with the thought that the vampires would take over security. She was in love and the vampire in question actually thought he was doing the right thing. We all know that eventually vampires enslaved the companions.”
“It happened more gradually than you would think,” Marcus said as he watched me. He spoke to the room, but I could feel his eyes on me. “When we realized how rare companions were becoming, how hard it was to find one, the decision was made to protect them. Of course, it was selfish and led to all manner of abuse.”
“Well, I love Danny, but he would have pried that sword out of my cold, dead hands,” Zoey grumbled. “Did my ancestors not understand the words blue and balls? You put them together and your husbands tend to rethink their positions.”
Yeah, I liked the queen sometimes. It was why my resentment toward her seemed so out of place. But then my hands had started to shake, so I was all funky. “I’m not a companion. Do you think it speaks to me because I’m female?”
“I suspect that’s part of it,” Felix replied. “The sword understands blood, DNA in a way. You’re unique in the world and I think the sword knows that. You don’t use that fact enough.”
“Which is likely why it works when she does. She doesn’t run around beating people over the head with her power. So tell me, is there any way we can use Gladys to track down the Sword of Justice?” The queen asked the exact question I’d been planning to ask.
Felix sat down. “I have to think on it. I’ll request another meeting with my family and run the idea past them. I worry that Gladys has been on the Earth plane for far too long. Marcus, anything historical you can pull about either sword would be helpful.”
He bowed his head. “I will endeavor to find all I can.”
“I’ve got something, Kelsey.” Casey stood in the doorway. “I’ve got the picture pulled but it’s heavily pixelated, so I’m running it through some software. It will put together a couple of most-likely faces. It studies the geometry to bring about something we might be able to use.”
I heard Casey’s words, but I felt the space between myself and Marcus. It was as though there was something between us now. Some unnamed wall that kept him from me.
“Do that and let me know when we’ve got anything close to an ID.” I needed someone who had been there, seen what had happened. We had the witches coming in tomorrow to tell me about the ward. Casey would figure out a way to ID our witness. I would try to locate that missing sword. Because it wasn’t coincidence that Heaven had lost a sword and I had demons dying here. No way. No how. “Casey, will you bring Felix up to speed on the case so far? I think the good doc is going to be deputized for this one. Whoever stole that sword is using it to kill highly placed halflings.”
“Damn it.” Felix sighed, his shoulders slumping. “All right. I need to see everything you have. I’ll try to come up with some kind of profile.”
I hadn’t thought about that. I kind of had a profiler. Felix Day understood how people worked. And when I say people, I really mean creatures of all kinds.
I had a job for the queen, too. “Your Majesty, I need to know everything about the king’s upcoming schedule. And I need someone with his ear to the ground. If there are more halflings coming to talk to the king, I want to know, and they need protection.”
“I can get that for you. I’ll have Albert ask around. He still has some connections to that world. Ether bartenders are an excellent source of information as well,” the queen agreed. “But I want in on the stealing it back part. It’s been too long. I need practice.”
I wasn’t sure why the queen needed to practice her thievery. She’d gotten out of the business long ago. “I’m planning on finding out who took it, smashing his or her face in, and then taking the fucker back. No real skill involved.”
Zoey frowned. “Wolves. You’re all the same, you know. You never appreciate the finer arts.”
“They don’t, actually.” Casey crossed his arms over his chest. “She has no idea how complex this computer program is. She walks in and hands me a blur of a picture and expects the world, but do I get cookies? No. I get yelled at when the state of technology isn’t moving fast enough for her.”
“You can’t eat cookies.” Why was everyone up in my grill today?
“That is not the point,” Casey replied. “A nice note would be good. Maybe a pat on the back, and not with an ax because I know that’s what just went through your head.”
It hadn’t. Not at all. I hadn’t thought of an ax. I’m not a monster. I thought of a punch to the back. That was all. Still, perhaps my management style needed some work. Justin and I were way better since I bought him a bunch of comic book T-shirts and told him to ditch the ties Dev Quinn made him wear. Sometimes a little kindness went a long way. “I promise to listen to your new songs if you give me a name.”
His whole face softened. “Really? I’ve got a whole bunch of new ones. I’ll hold you to that.”
I’ve perfected sleeping with my eyes open and I totally was going to make Liv sit in on that concert. And I’d pretty much say anything to get out of there and find some peace. I needed to be in my room, to take a deep breath. I couldn’t seem to do that.
I realized suddenly I didn’t even want to be with Marcus. How was I going to get rid of him? We lived together. All the problems and issues that would come with a breakup started to shout through my head.
Before I could say anything else, the door to the hospital wing opened and Henri was escorting a patient out. Neil Roberts was accompanied by his husband, Chad Thomas. The dark-haired vamp looked like sin on a stick in dark jeans and a leather jacket. He had a hand on Neil’s shoulder.
Zoey’s eyes widened, and she rushed over to greet her BFF. From what I’ve been told, the queen and the werewolf had been friends for years. Neil had been on Zoey’s “crew” along with Sarah Day and the queen’s now husbands, Donovan and Quinn.
“Bella, what is wrong?” Marcus asked as the attention shifted from me.
I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
“I can plainly see that you’re not.”
“Yeah, well, you can’t do anything about it so you’re pretty much useless to me.” The words were out of my mouth before I could call them back. Cruel, mean words that fit the anger in the pit of my stomach, but the minute I saw his face change, I knew I hadn’t meant them. “Marcus, I’m so sorry.”
He took a long breath and his hand patted my back. “Not at all. It’s certainly how I feel these days. Excuse me for a moment, bella. I need to make a call.”
He stepped away, his cell phone already in hand. I tried to focus on anything except the fact that it felt like my whole world was crumbling around me. I turned and looked at the newcomer to the room, even as I tried to stop my mind from going to dark places.
Neil’s hands were wrapped in bandages, his skin a bit pale. Neil Roberts was a werewolf, though unlike most wolves, he was quite fair. His wolf was a gorgeous arctic white with pale blue eyes. “It’s nothing, Z. I had an accident. That’s all.”
Chad frowned his husband’s way. “You’re going that way, then? Explain this accident to the queen, baby.”
Neil’s eyes came up, looking straight at me. It was weird, but it was almost like he was afraid of me.
Maybe I was more of a monster than I gave myself credit for. Oddly, there was a piece of me that thrilled at the fear in Roberts’s eyes.
“What happened?” Zoey asked again.
“Mr. Roberts burned his hands,” Henri said. “It’s all right. They will heal.”
“They were like this when I woke up this evening,” Chad explained. “It’s happened a couple of times in the last few weeks. He’s losing time again, Zoey.”
Oh, then my every instinct was flaring and firing off. Wolves healed. They didn’t heal eventually. If Neil had touched a hot pan or accidently fallen into a freaking fire pit or something, he would have healed in moments, not the hours it had been since dusk had fallen. Those hands should be back to perfection, not wrapped up like they were in a delicate state.
“What kind of silver have you been touching, Roberts?”
I would have told you the man couldn’t have gone paler, but that was the moment he went a stark white and fainted.
Yeah, I made all the baby wolves faint.
* * * *
“Where did Marcus go?” I’d been waiting for Neil Roberts to come out his fainting spell for over an hour. It was all dramatic and super southern, it seemed to me. Like he was playing out Gone with the Wind right before my eyes. His husband had picked him up and laid him out on the nearest couch while Henri and the queen fluttered over him, checking his blood pressure and assuring themselves that he wasn’t dying.
I was getting hungry. I couldn’t stop pacing. I could feel something rising inside me, but there was nothing to do but carry on.
This was one of those times when I could use a nice make-out session with Marcus. Or a sparring session. Lately he’d been giving me the latter option more and more, and at this point I was fairly certain he wouldn’t touch me sexually at all. I’d been mean to him. Hell, I wasn’t sure it would work. As soon as I could, I needed to find someone immortal who didn’t mind taking and giving a few punches.
Casey shrugged. “He said he was going to talk to the king. He was super irritated. He said something about there was no need for him to be here at all. Except he said it in Italian and under his breath. My Italian’s definitely getting better. So is my Dutch. I’m not sure that’s a good thing though. Now I understand when they talk about the good old days. Like the Victorian era and stuff. Weird. I need friends who don’t remember the black plague.”
He wasn’t going to find them among the academics, that was for sure.
“He’s coming around.” The queen was holding a cool rag to Neil’s forehead.
“Hey, babe, you okay?” Chad asked.
“Sit up slowly.” Henri stood over the wolf, as though waiting to rush him into surgery if needed.
Again, Neil Roberts is a wolf. No surgery usually needed. Sometimes bones that had broken needed a reset. If a wolf got filled up with silver bullets and managed to live, a doctor would have to take them out if the wolf was too weak to dispel them. Other than that, I didn’t know any wolves who spent time in a surgical unit unless they worked there.
Neil started to sit up, holding on to Zoey’s hand. The way he moved caused his shirt to pull to the side, showing off a swath of what should have been clean skin.
But I saw a very familiar tat.
Werewolves don’t have tats. Oh, they can sit in the chair and get one all day, but that first change will leave them with nothing but perfect skin and regrets that they wasted all that time. I’d heard some wolves tried to put a couple of drops of silver in the ink to make the tat stay, but those are the wolves who found themselves super sick and in need of Henri’s help.
But it wasn’t merely that somehow Roberts had a tat on his chest. Roberts had the same tat as Gray. My honey has this gorgeous dragon tattoo that covers half his chest. It hadn’t been that big when we first met. It had grown over the course of our relationship, and the last time I’d seen him, that dragon had somehow responded to me. Gray said the tat had woken up when he’d met me, had become something more than a demon tribal tattoo.
That tat had come from Gray’s family. Neil Roberts had been taken by Gray’s brother. Yes, the one and only asshat Nemcox was raising his ugly, I-want-to-cut-it-off head again and I could feel my anger rising at the thought of him.
“Where did you get the tat?”
I probably should have moderated my tone, asked the question with a quiet curiosity instead of sounding like a police sergeant who was about to throw someone in jail. I couldn’t help myself, and that should have been a big old red flag.
Roberts flushed and pulled his shirt down. His hands were shaking. “I think I need to go rest. I’m still not feeling well.”
“I need to see the tat.” I had a horrible suspicion about what was lurking under that shirt. It was easy to put things together when you knew the history. My brain was working overtime, linking events and people together to form a picture I didn’t like.
Roberts had been touching silver. Roberts had a connection with Nemcox. What did his tat do? Was it some way of contacting the demon?
The queen stood over her BFF, shaking her head my way. “I think the interview needs to wait.”
“No.” I wasn’t going to give anyone time to hustle the wolf out of here and potentially fuck up my investigation. These people required me to do a job. Hell, Donovan had basically told me that I would be the Nex Apparatus or I would be dead. Now they wanted to tell me how to do it. It was okay for me to put my ass on the line as long as I wasn’t questioning the queen’s friend? They were about to figure out that I didn’t play that way.
“Hey, Kelsey, you look a little…uhm…okay, you got the crazy-eyes thing down.” Casey was talking and some of it was penetrating my brain.
In that moment, I was fairly certain I didn’t have crazy eyes. I had justice eyes. A crime had been committed. It was my job to solve it. No one was getting in my way. “You should go play on your computer, Casey.”
I didn’t need the peanut gallery hanging around.
“Or you could go and find Marcus.” Henri had stood up and he wasn’t paying attention to the werewolf anymore. He was watching me, his hands out as though I was the dangerous creature in the room. “Kelsey, perhaps we could sit down and discuss this.”
That wasn’t going to happen. “The only person I’m sitting with is Roberts there. Come out, little wolf. I’m not going to bite. I want to ask you how you got that tat on your side. You know what that tat is? It’s a mark of ownership. Nemcox own you, buddy? I want to know where you’ve been in the last twenty-four hours.”
The queen’s face had flushed. “Calm down, Kelsey. I’m not going to let you talk to him that way. He’s been through enough.”
