“Would you rather have the Windsor clan up in here?”
I shudder. “Good point. I just wish we didn’t need a Detroit master at all.”
“Theo Coltrane can be the master of the chains, whips, and handcuffs in my bedroom,” Darla says, chomping vigorously.
“I feel a blood donation coming on,” Ren volleys. And back and forth they go, whispering naughty nothings, reaching again and again for more popcorn. But when I try to reach in, Darla slaps my hand away without even looking.
“Dancing in the sheets,” she says, not missing a beat.
“Do the monster mash.”
“Give a dog a bone.”
“Press my upvote button.”
“Shaboink-boink!”
“Rumpy-pumpy!” That last one was a little too excited. Theo Coltrane glances over at us. We duck down behind the computer monitors. Thankfully, the vamp I brought in overtakes his attention. He approaches the Cleveland master with quivering, begging hands, practically on bended knee. “Master,” he whines. “Please.”
I’m surprised to see on Theo’s face an emotion I thought impossible for a vampire: compassion. Raising the vamp to his full height, Theo gently places a hand on his cheek and whispers a few choice words into his ear. Immediately, the vamp is soothed, as though a healing elixir has just coursed through his undead veins. His face relaxes into a blissful smile.
Behind them, Parker Reed makes a discreet check of his wrist watch. The sun will be up in minutes. That gives me an idea.
“You guys are so immature,” I hiss to Ren and Darla. “Imagine how embarrassed you’ll be if your lover boy comes over here and sees this mess.”
With a full mouth, Darla mumbles, “What mess?”
I swat the popcorn tub out of her hands and run away.
Thanks to the truck’s fussy starter, I barely beat Deputy Director Reed to his home under the Ambassador Bridge. I’ve pulled off to the side of the road, just shy of the magical ward that looks like a gate to human eyes, when Reed’s shiny black Mercedes rolls up beside me. I’d love to talk at him through our open windows, but that feels too casual for a distinguished gentleman like Reed. He’s the formal, classy type I would delight in mocking, if not for one thing: he treats me as an equal, even though there is nothing equal about a powerful vampire and a fox shifter. I like him.
So I return that respect by braving the ass-whipping cold to stand outside his window.
“Agent Davies, good morning,” he says, his voice polite but quiet. “You’ll catch your death out here. Won’t you come in?”
Shocked, I glance at the thick concrete walls beneath the Ambassador Bridge. Nora Jacobs lives down there with all her men. Terrance Balfrey, my old boss from club Underworld, owns the place, but he let Nora and her harem move in so they could all be together. It’s the most elite of inner sanctums in Detroit. It’s like the Bat Cave.
Noticing my glance, Reed gives a thin smile. “Into my car, I mean.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, no, that’s okay. This’ll be quick.”
“The seats are warmed.”
“I bet they are. And your heater probably doesn’t smell like butt crack, either. Must be nice.”
His eyes widen ever so slightly. “Hmm, yes.”
Dammit, screw the pleasantries. Jamming fists into my coat pockets, I cut straight to the chase. “I’m looking for a vampire with a black chin.”
“Black?”
“Right, like a tattoo. A thick black stripe that goes from the bottom lip down the chin, and all the way down the throat. You’re a billion years old, right? You know all the vamps around here.”
“I am, and I do.” His brow furrows. “But I’ve never seen such a marking. A black chin.” He shakes his head.
“Not one of Henry’s, then?”
“Definitely not.”
“A rogue, maybe?”
“I couldn’t say.” He shoots me a wary look. “Agent Davies, this wouldn’t happen to concern the case with—”
I cut him off, too freezing to bother with bullshitting. “Yes, it does, Deputy Director, and I’m sorry, I know I’m not supposed to touch that case, but this is something new, and Madison West is stretched thin right now. She can’t make this a priority.”
“Need it be a priority?”
“Yes,” I urge.
“For Detective Brenner, you mean.”
“For…” I let my voice trail off, embarrassed.
“For the two of you,” he says.
“Yes. For us, it’s a priority. Did Oliver tell you these might be the same vamps that killed…” Again, I don’t finish my thought.
Reed’s eyes harden. “Nora’s mother? Yes, I’m aware.”
“Does Nora know?”
“Absolutely not.” His voice takes on a lethal edge. “With all she’s been through, I’d be supremely disappointed should such conjectures be made known to her.”
“No, hey, I ain’t saying shit, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“In any case, those would no longer be the vampires who attacked Nora and her mother. Detective Brenner describes them as having white eyes.”
“That’s right. Revenants. They were dead, until some necromancer reanimated them.”
“In body only, an important distinction. Their minds are gone, leaving empty shells. Necromancy is a hybrid of dark sorcery and demonic ritual. Their bodies are now hosts for demon spirits.”
“I get that, but will Nora see it that way?”
“The vampires who killed Nora’s mother are dead.” He puts a solid period—full stop—at the end of that sentence.
“Yes, sir.”
Having laid down the law, Reed then blinks, and his face softens. “The revenants who killed Detective Brenner’s sister, however, are still out there. And you have reason to believe that one of them is marked with a black chin?”
“Last night,” I explain, “Me and Brenner were…well, that’s…it doesn’t matter what we were doing, but all of a sudden he remembered something about the attack that he’d never remembered before. And the memory came back to him at the same time that—”
“—Henry died,” Parker finishes, intrigued. “A compulsion was released.”
“We thought that Henry had already released Brenner’s compulsion, but apparently he kept this one detail hidden.”
He frowns. “A detail which, as I said, means nothing to me. There is no vampire with a black chin that I’ve ever seen.”
“And you’ve seen a lot.”
“More than you could imagine.”
“Vampires from all over this region. You guys get around. You know each other.”
“Correct.”
I bite my lip, desperate to get a better answer out of him. “A black chin, that’s not something you forget. You would have noticed.”
He gives me a concerned look. “Are you sure you won’t sit with me?”
“No, that’s nice of you. Really. But I should go. And you probably want to get in there, see Nora.”
“I do,” he admits. “Tonight was…a close call.”