Sleeper_Google, page 5
part #3 of Hunter Series
“I’ve worked three murders in the last three weeks,” Jamie began. “They were all killed in a similar manner.”
“The manner being?” Trent asked.
“Complete and utter evisceration, with a side of dinner.” Jamie nodded at the cop standing at the door. “By that I mean whatever killed these guys ate a piece of them, too.”
“Wolf?” It wasn’t that I thought wolves were killers, but they were definitely known to get hungry in the middle of a job.
“Not according to Nicole.” He held the door open as the king walked through. “She found saliva on the bite marks, but it doesn’t match a wolf. It’s part demon, but she hasn’t been able to narrow down the species. That means something. Nicole is a specialist. She’s seen a lot of supernatural shit.”
Nicole had worked with Gray for years. She’d been his CSI and she knew her shit. She could get a spoonful of soup and in a couple of hours discern who and what and why. If she didn’t understand what was going on, I was a little scared.
“Do they have anything in common? Besides being demonic and ending up as someone’s snack?” I followed behind Jamie. If Nicole was back here, she was likely to be happy to see my big bro. The last time I’d met her, she’d revealed to me that she thought Jamie was a total hottie. I couldn’t see it because hey, brother, but he was single and not getting any younger. I was totally up to play matchmaker.
Maybe if Jamie got married and pushed a couple of rugrats my mother’s way, she would get off my back. I’d explained to her that Marcus’s baby-making days happened like a couple of millennia before, and Gray’s babies might come under his legacy, therefore condoms would be used, but she kept at it. I got a couple of texts every week describing what was happening to my aging ovaries.
“Not that I can see.” Jamie moved into the living room. “But I haven’t delved too deep yet. Four feels like a pattern. I’ll start trying to connect them.”
The décor was pretty sparse. As far as I could see, the deceased demon had a couple of La-Z-Boys and a massive flat screen TV. The living room was nice and neat, with two sets of controllers left on the table between the chairs. The media stand under the TV contained almost every game console known to man, so we knew he had a hobby and very likely a friend.
Jamie moved through the house, walking down the hallway toward the back. “All three demons are halflings. Two with royal blood. The first victim was what I would call ‘known to the Council.’”
“What does that mean?” I asked, following behind Trent and trying not to notice how muscular his back was. Maybe it was because Marcus had been standoffish lately, but it was hard to not see that wolf’s masculinity.
Trent stopped, turning and showing off his equally muscular chest because the dude liked to buy too-tight shirts. “It means the demon had either worked for or pleaded a case to the Council. He’s in our formal records.”
Donovan had stopped as well, turning toward me. “We have two records. The formal and informal. Informally we keep records on absolutely everyone we come into contact with, but those are kept in my office and not the official Council chambers. Even if it’s nothing but a name and some documentation. A formal record includes an interview. The first victim had dealings with the Council, serious dealings. I believe he’d come to us for protection. Which we failed at.”
“We were still deciding his status when he was killed.” Trent turned my way. “And it was less than half a day between his request and demise, so don’t bitch at the king. We have to have some time to decide.”
“We don’t need time. I knew all three of them.” Donovan’s jaw tightened, making him look like a pissed-off superhero. He was good at that. “They were…if not friends, I would call them allies. They gave me good information and I’m sorry to see them go. If that tells you anything. Someone knows that they were passing me knowledge I could use. That’s why I’m here today. I’ve got a small network of helpful halflings, and it’s getting smaller by the day.”
That answered a lot of questions. He’d been gathering intel and someone had found out. I was in the middle of a political battle. I’m going to be honest with you here. I don’t love politics. I find them nasty and obnoxious, and I know they’re necessary. I’m not some impractical girl who thinks everything is love and daisies. Sometimes crappy things happen and there’s not a lot I can do about it.
I followed him through the house. The walls were empty, as though the owner had enough money to buy this beautiful place but nothing to truly show off. No family photos hung on the wall. No movie posters or football pennants that bespoke of a man’s hobbies.
I nodded toward a DPD officer who rushed down the hall, his skin the tiniest bit green. If he saw me, he didn’t acknowledge it. I think he was trying not to throw up.
Trent took a deep whiff and held up a single fist. Our entire party went still. Trent walked ahead of the king, who seemed used to his bodyguard shutting the party down for a nice smell.
He was still for a moment and I watched him, utterly fascinated. I’ve got a decent sense of smell, but nothing like a purebred wolf. Werewolves aren’t bitten and turned the way you see in movies. If a wolf bites you, you’re simply going to die or spend some quality time in the ER. If you see too much, a nice cocktail of antipsychotics tends to help. Trent had been born a wolf, his parents’ DNA informing his own. He’d always had these powers, and though he’d never once led a pack, he was all alpha.
I’d never asked him why. It seemed too intimate a conversation to have. From what I knew of Trent’s history, he’d had a mate once and she’d died. He went into the Army and then later served under the king.
I had to think that was why he hadn’t led his own pack. The king was right about one thing. Wolves tend to mate for life. Some will wait very long times to find the right mate. Some marry young, but it’s almost always for life. Trent had lost his mate, and alphas are never single for long. They have to show their prowess by mating and having children. Never more than a few. The most I’ve ever heard of was three children, and even then it had happened because of Devinshea Quinn’s fertility magic.
Trent was an only child, his mate dead, and he would likely spend the rest of his life without a true partner. He would take lovers when he needed to, but his heart and soul had been given already. He would be alone for the rest of his life.
Somehow that made me feel infinitely sad.
“What is it, Trent?” Donovan asked. “Past the humans and decomp. I can smell those. And at least two other demons.”
Trent breathed in again, letting the scents wash over him. “Several humans, including one who takes her laundry seriously.”
“That would be Nicole,” Jamie said with a grin. “She always smells like fabric softener.”
Trent closed his eyes and tried again. “But I’m not sure about the demons. One is dead. The decomp is attached to him. Smell again, Your Highness. And Kelsey. Open your senses. Take it in.”
I shook my head his way. “I don’t smell the way you do. I can follow a trail, but I can’t pick out scents. It’s all a jumble.”
I have heightened senses. I could certainly smell the decomp, but honestly, I couldn’t tell how many humans had come and gone and I couldn’t say anything more than there were two demons. At some point he’d burnt microwave popcorn. That was a smell that lingered. Other than that, I was clueless.
Trent moved to my side as the king seemed to take him seriously. Donovan went still and breathed in.
“Yes.” Donovan’s eyes opened and he turned toward the room at the end of the hall. “I see what you’re saying. I can smell demon and something else. I don’t know what that is. Is it an animal of some kind? And damn, that’s a lot of demon blood.”
Trent stood behind me. “Close your eyes.”
I frowned up at him, turning so he could see my non-amusement. It brought me into close contact with him and reminded me that my sex life had started to resemble a TV show on pause. My inner wolf immediately responded to his scent. Clean and masculine. He’d taken a shower and washed his hair before we’d come here. Not that there was much hair. He kept it high and tight. He also had that sexy half beard a lot of wolves seemed to keep. Some of them go for the full ZZ Top, and then there are wolves like my uncle who shave three times a day and look soft as a baby’s butt. Trent probably shaved when he woke up, and then his wolfiness took over again and left him with that perfect scruff that kind of did something for me.
“I told you. I’m not great with the scent thing.”
Donovan nodded toward Trent. “Walk her through it. She needs to get better with her senses. She can’t always kill everything in her path. I’ll take Jamie and go talk to the CSI.”
“Or I can talk to the CSI myself and she’ll tell me what’s going on.” I didn’t see the need for a lesson.
Donovan shook his head. “Nope. Marcus said you’re proving stubborn when it comes to using your full wolf senses, and you won’t take a werewolf mentor. Now you’ve got Trent. Good luck with that. We’ll talk about a training schedule when we’re done. Come on, Jamie. Give your sister a minute for this particular lesson.”
Motherfucker. Damn it. I had been a little stubborn about spending time with Trent, but that had a lot to do with what had happened with the visions back in January. It felt weird to be around Trent. I tried to avoid him, but he was always around the wolves in one way or another. He was either running with them or they were talking about him. The one time I’d run when he wasn’t there, they’d talked about how he worked with the king and they couldn’t trust him.
It pissed me off. It made me sympathize with him since he was an outsider, and I knew how that felt. I didn’t want to feel for Trent. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t, so I didn’t.
It was yet another of Marcus’s frustrations when it came to me.
Donovan strode away. Jamie winked my way as he went past, as though everything was a grand and glorious game, and we should simply enjoy playing.
“Close your eyes.” Trent used his deep alpha voice on me.
Naturally, my she-wolf complied. Sometimes when I’m around Trent, I can feel her pacing inside me. Sometimes, like now, she stills and a certain peace settles over me. Like she knows she’s with her people and she’s content. My eyes slid closed. “Fine. Let’s get through this.”
I felt his big palms cover my shoulders. Warm. He was so warm. “Scent is a multilayered thing. It’s never simple. There are always layers. Start with the beginning. What do you smell?”
“You.” Because he was too close. Because he was touching me.
He chuckled behind me. “I bet you do. I hope your nose is as bad as you think it is, Kelsey. Tell me about me.”
It was obvious he wasn’t going away and that my lovely crime scene had gone crappy. So I breathed him in. Most living things smell warm. I know that’s a weird word to use, but it’s true. There’s a warmth to Trent’s scent. A heat, as though his blood is hotter, his skin more alive than the others around us. I could smell Donovan, though he’d left. His scent didn’t have the same liveliness as Trent’s. I would describe it as cool. If I put a color to it, Donovan would be blue. Jamie would be a nice orange. Jamie smelled like home and hearth. I’m pretty sure my mom still does his laundry. There’s this scent of her that lingers.
But Trent was a nice shade of red. The fiery kind. “I can smell the soap you used.”
“Describe it to me.”
Only a freaking wolf… “It smells soapy.” When he growled, I decided to give him what he wanted. I breathed in deeply and tried to think. It’s hard to peel apart the layers. I got why he was using himself as the trial. He was close to me, his body against mine, so he was the strongest scent. It washed over me and I tried to let go, to allow instinct to take over. His smell was pleasant, soothing even, as though my body recognized the alpha inside him and knew I was safe. I felt my body relax as his scent worked its way inside. “You smell like the forest.”
I could practically feel his satisfaction. “Yes. The soap has a pine base. I like it. It’s not too frilly. Go deeper. What else do you smell? You can tell a lot about me from my scent.”
I took another breath and kept my eyes closed. He was right. It was easier to concentrate on scent without my eyes. It was easier to concentrate on him. “I can smell fabric softener and when you talk, I get the faintest hint of mint, but I think it’s covering up something. Did you have a beer before we left? And you didn’t offer me one?” That was rude, but he simply chuckled again. I breathed in, opening myself a little more this time. I smelled blood. Not blood really. But it had been there and now it was gone. “I think I can smell where you’re healing.”
“Very good, Kelsey. That demon roughed me up, but I’m almost healed. The fact that you can smell healing skin means I was right about you. I knew you had better senses than you let on, likely better than you can imagine. Your problem is you spend all your time around those vamps and you never end up testing your senses. If you spent more time with wolves, they would get a workout.”
It took all I had not to relax back against him because the truth was he smelled…comfortable. Like a recliner I could sit in and know I could sleep in for a long time and it would shelter me. I would wake up feeling totally relaxed.
I didn’t relax around the wolves. I tried to stay hyperaware because the one time I had let myself go while with the DFW pack when he’d been there, I’d ended up cuddled against Trent and it had been embarrassing for both of us. He’d been twelve kinds of naked and I’d woken up with my head against his heart, my sleep informed by the beat. His arms had been around me and Marcus had been so mad when I got home because he did have good senses.
I hadn’t done anything. I hadn’t kissed Trent, though the impulse had been there.
That wasn’t the point here. He was trying to teach me something and it wasn’t sexual, though I could smell something earthy and male coming off him I couldn’t quite describe. It made my nipples hard and I hoped Trent was enough of a gentleman to not notice.
“So you took a shower. What else should I notice? The lieutenant dude likes coffee and his wife wears a citrus scent. Or he does. But it’s faint. I think it’s a transfer.”
“Very good.” Trent’s voice rumbled along my ear. “Now go further. Spread your senses out. Smell what I smell. Take a deep breath and dismiss the scents you already know. It’s like turning the channel.”
I took another breath and tried to do as he said. Turn the channel. I could smell all the things I’d talked about, though now there was a spicy, almost salty smell I got coming from Trent. No idea what that was. I let it go because it clung to him and I’d already catalogued him. I let my senses flow wider.
I could smell the bleach from the bathroom and the place where the owner of the home had tried to hide doggie do. That was the worst. Feces covered with a wretched fake floral scent.
Beyond that I smelled the loamy scent of decomp. That was heavy in the house. Blood. The coppery scent was there but subdued, as though it lost its scent as it aged. It matured to a low-grade metallic smell after a good while.
Trent was right. There had been more than one demon here. I caught the scent of the dead one. Death changes the regular scent, lending a gravity to it. He’d been a bit like Gray. He’d been able to take demonic form without having to possess a human. The victim could walk around and not be questioned when he was in the right form. He would look human, talk human, and when he wanted to go all demonic, he could grow horns and fangs and whatever other parts he’d been born with.
“He was royalty,” Trent said, his mouth still close to my ear, as though he was trying to shut out the rest of the world and draw it all down to the two of us and our noses. “Can you tell me why I think that?”
“He had control of his form.” Like Gray, whoever this demon had been, he’d had royal blood. Royalty isn’t a confirmation that the demon can take human form, but it was a requirement. If the demon could take human form, he had some royal blood. Take Gray and his brother. Gray was a halfling, but he had control of his form. Despite Nemcox’s full-on demon status, he could not. Nemcox required a host, hence all those Exorcist films.
“Very good. Now tell me what you’ve missed. Go deeper.”
I followed the scent, allowing it to move. I left the body and tried to case the actual scene.
“I don’t know what that smell is.” It was slightly dirty, a bit rancid. It wasn’t the body though. If anything, I would bet I was smelling saliva. “I can’t tell because there are too many chemicals.”
“That’s Nicole at work. I wish we’d gotten here first.” Trent breathed deep behind me. I could feel the way his body moved against mine. “There’s something else. It’s faint.”
“The second demon.” I could smell him clearly now. Or her. “Is that perfume?”
Trent chuckled behind me. “Yes. And not a particularly expensive one. It’s like she’s trying to cover her natural pheromones with fake pheromones. Although her pheromones are wow, they are quite strong.”
“Eww, they had sex recently. You see, this is why I don’t open my damn senses.” Some smells should be private between a low-level demon and her royal lover.
He chuckled again. “Sometimes I forget how prissy you can be about sex. You weren’t raised with your kind. You’ve got a very human view of fucking.”
I winced and moved away because being that close to him might get my own pheromones going, and I did not want his wolfy senses smelling that. He’d done his job. He’d gotten me to think about the scene with more than my brain. It was way past time to move on.
“We should join the king. I think I get your point.”
“Not even close, sweetheart, but you did well.” He nodded toward the bedroom, allowing me to go first.
You know it’s a sad day when you’re relieved to get to the dead body. I strode across the well-done hand-scraped hardwoods. Everything about the place was upgraded, but there was little that seemed personal about it. It didn’t feel like a home, more like a way station. I would bet the owner didn’t spend the majority of his time here. This was where he came when he was spending time with the Council or other Earth plane friends. Dallas had become the hub of the supernatural world ever since the king took over nine years before. Every kind of supernatural species had an embassy here, and many of the higher-ups kept houses in town.
