Authors: AE Jones
Then he turned toward me and I knew immediately what had reduced Dolly to a pile of Jell-O. His eyes were the most gorgeous blue I had ever seen. They were almost turquoise—practically iridescent.
Good God.
I rearranged my face into its normal petulant position. “Come with me.”
He didn’t flinch. “Nice to meet you, Dolly. I’ll give you the recipe later.”
I had already started to walk away and faltered when he spoke. His voice was a gorgeous, deep tone that vibrated down my spinal column and spilled over me like liquid sex. It was official. It had been way too long since I had been
involved
with anyone. I needed to take care of that soon. But first I had to get rid of the new guy.
I hatched my plan quickly. Scaring the crap out of him was the best way to move him along and demonstrate to Nicholas the team was fine the way it was. I was the only human needed.
I walked the new guy down the hall into my cluttered office. Paperwork was not my friend. Pointing to the visitor’s chair, I plopped down in mine behind the desk.
He smiled but then his eyebrows drew together in confusion.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“No. Jean Luc mentioned I would be meeting with Kyle McKinley. Are you his assistant?”
Wow, in one sentence
Mr.-Blue-Eyes-Liquid-Sex
had managed to turn me off. I wasn’t going to succumb to his charms after all. “I’m Kyle.”
“Sorry. Honest mistake.”
“Not really. While we’re at it, I’m going to do you a favor. Whatever you do, don’t make fun of Jean Luc’s name—or Misha’s, for that matter.” I didn’t volunteer that the only time Jean Luc had ever gotten mad at me was when we had first met and I had called him Captain Picard. I hadn’t been able to help myself. I had never met a Jean Luc in real life. After I apologized and his fangs retracted, we became good friends.
“Do you have to have an unusual name to work here?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“So let me guess, your name is John Smith?”
He smiled at me. “Joe Dalton. You can call me Joe.”
Clearing my throat, I drummed my fingers on the cool metal desk and stared at him. Where to begin? “Dalton, do you know why you’ve been assigned to work with us?”
“I was told by the captain your group is working on a case that could cause some bad press for the city. He didn’t give me any specific details. Just said it could be volatile.”
Which was an understatement. Captain Morrison was one of the few people the BSR told about the supernatural events we covered up. But there was only so much we could hide before people became suspicious, so Morrison ran interference for us when necessary.
“Yeah, I would say we have a volatile situation in the making. Do you know what our company does?”
“Only from my research online and from asking some of the other cops if they have ever worked with you before. You’re a detective agency, but your site is somewhat vague about the types of cases you handle.”
I’d give him a point for doing his homework. “We’re very selective about our clients. We’ve even helped the police department on occasion.”
He pulled his chair closer to the desk, scraping the wood floor. “Then why am I here, Kyle?”
“Last night, we responded to a call at the Erie Bar.”
He nodded. “I review the call sheets after each shift. The report stated there was a fight at the bar, but by the time the squad car responded the bouncers had taken care of it.”
“It’s what we want the public to believe.”
“What really happened?”
It was time to put
Operation Freak-Out
into play. “There was a murder at the bar last night.”
“And who exactly was killed?”
“Not who,
what
. A vampire was decapitated.”
“A vampire?” His eyes narrowed in disbelief, and I hadn’t even gotten to the good stuff yet.
“Yeah. According to our witness, the vamp came running into the bar followed closely by a Pavel demon, and they started to fight.”
He sat up straighter. “Let me see if I have this right. You’re telling me a real vampire…and a what?”
“Pavel demon.”
“A real vampire and a Pavel demon got in a fight at one of the most popular bars in the city and no one reported it?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“How is that even possible?”
I had to hand it to him; he hadn’t a) called me crazy, b) run from the room, or c) wet his pants. Yet. “I know this is hard to believe, but there are really things that go bump in the night. They exist. Vampires, demons, shifters, they’re all real.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “No, I know about the supernatural. What I’m asking is how did you cover it up?”
I stared at him. Well, dang. Didn’t that just sink my battleship? “How do you know about supes?”
“Who do you think helps Captain Morrison come up with cover stories when something supernatural occurs? After one too many incidents, I asked enough questions to make the captain nervous. He filled me in on what he knows.”
I scowled. “Who else has he been talking to about us?”
“No one I know of. I know about the supes, as you call them, but he didn’t tell me about your agency, or what you do. Which brings me back to the question of how you covered up the murder?”
“I’m a Mind Sweeper.”
“Isn’t that a game on your computer with the grid and little bombs?”
“That’s Minesweeper. I’m a Min-duh Sweeper.” Okay, it was a good thing he was cute, since he was not Mensa material. “I have the ability to wipe people’s memories and replace them with new ones.”
“Are you human?”
Wasn’t that the question of the century? He didn’t waste any time getting right to the point. “I’m human, but for some reason I’ve been given this ability.”
And I waited for
the look
. The one I always got when someone realized I wasn’t “normal.” It was similar to the look you get from people when you have a giant pimple on your forehead and they try not to stare at it, which makes the situation even more awkward.
Surprisingly, he kept looking me straight in the eye and didn’t appear fazed by my announcement. “What about your teammates. What are they?”
I released the breath I had been holding. “Jean Luc is a vampire and Misha’s a Shamat demon.”
He paused before continuing, “Does Dolly know about you?”
I laughed. “Oh, yeah. Dolly’s a shifter. She can sniff out supernatural a mile away. That’s why she works the front desk. She screens the clients and dissuades norms from trying to hire us.”
“Norms?”
“Sorry, short for normals or humans.”
“Well…okay.” He leaned back from the desk and took a deep breath. “So you were at the bar and wiped everyone’s memories so they don’t remember seeing a demon kill a vampire?”
“Yep. Except it wasn’t a demon that killed the vampire. It was an angel.”
He stood up. “Excuse me. Did you just say an angel killed him? How?”
“He pulled out a sword and whacked his head off.”
He paled, making his turquoise eyes stand out even more. I had finally gotten to him.
“What did the angel look like?” he asked.
That question threw me. “I don’t know. They don’t have wings, if that’s what you mean.”
“Didn’t you say there was a witness?”
“Yes, a shifter.”
“And this shifter didn’t give you a description of the angel?” he pushed.
“We didn’t think to ask. It’s not like we can go to heaven and arrest him, now, can we?”
“We need to question this witness again.”
A nervous tickle grew in my chest. “That could be a problem. I, ahhh…scrubbed his memory.”
He laid his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “You what?”
His Alpha male posturing set off my temper. The nervousness I experienced moments ago coalesced into tendrils of angry heat in my chest. I shot up and did some leaning of my own. “Listen. You weren’t there. He was terrified and had every right to be. Since when do angels come down and start lopping off heads? He begged me to wipe his memory, so I did. Now do yourself a favor and back the hell off.”
Dalton kept his hands there for a few seconds longer, glaring at me, before he shoved away from the desk. He took a breath and ran his hands through his hair. “Sorry. I was thinking like a cop. You’re right. It’s not like we can go to heaven and flash around drawings, asking ‘Have you seen this angel before?’”
I took a deep breath as well, trying to calm down. I wasn’t sure how this guy had pushed my buttons so quickly. “We probably should have asked him to describe the angel. I can’t imagine they all look the same.”
“Do you think we could talk to the witness again?”
Shrugging, I stepped around my desk toward the door. “It couldn’t hurt. I’ve never tried to reverse a mind sweep before, but there’s always a first time.”
Chapter 3
We came to a stop in front of the Erie Bar. I blew out a hard breath. What were we going to accomplish at nine in the morning when the place didn’t open until lunch? But Dalton wanted to check out the alley behind the bar. I had insisted on driving, which I had expected would piss off Super Cop, but he didn’t bat an eye. And I wasn’t sure how I was going to shake him now, since he was already aware of the supernatural and didn’t seem too freaked out about it. Of course, knowing about it was a different thing altogether from seeing it in the lumpy green flesh.
After parking and popping a few coins in the meter, we walked across the street and down the alley. It looked even more pathetic during the day. Not much to see, other than a very aromatic dumpster, random garbage strewn everywhere, and a pile of old rags heaped against the wall.
“Here we are. What do you hope to find?” I asked.
He shrugged slightly as he walked up and down the alley, peering from side to side. “You never know when you might spot something in daylight that you missed earlier. I always come back to the scene of the crime to go over the events again. Don’t I, Sam?”
“Sam?” I grumbled. “Very funny, are you going to start calling me other guys’ names now?”
“No, he was talking to me.”
I jumped, actually did a little jig with my feet in the air, and jerked around to face the pile of rags that had now started to move. A man slowly emerged, sat up, and rubbed his face. He was ancient and wiry, but his eyes still held a spark.
Dalton walked over to him and squatted down. “How you doing, Sam?”
“Good, Joe.”
“You know why I’m here?”
“Yeah. There was a ruckus last night in the Erie.”
“As usual, you’re on the ball.”
He smiled and sat up straighter. “You know you can count on me.”
“So what did you see?”
He frowned for a minute. “At first I thought I was having the DTs. But I haven’t been drinking as much lately. I was behind the dumpster settling in for the night when the door slammed open and this thing came out.”
“What did it look like?”
He scratched his elbow before responding. “Like a cross between the devil and Barney the dinosaur.”
I chuckled to myself. The old goat had a sense of humor.
“Then what?” Dalton continued.
“A man came chasing after it.”
“Did he catch him?”
Sam shook his head. “No, the purple thing disappeared into thin air.”
“Can you describe the man?”
“Nah, he had dark brown hair and was medium-sized. I didn’t see his face.”
“What did he do?”
“He stood there for a couple of seconds mumbling to himself and then beamed up to the mother ship.”
Okay, Sam was actually eighty-five percent right. I gave him props for knowing that much.
“Was either of them carrying anything?” I interjected.
“The second guy was carrying a big-ass sword.”
“What else did you see?” Dalton prompted.
He pointed to me. “Later, I saw her and the vampire.”
I gaped at him in surprise, and he scoffed at me and continued, “I know about the beasties you hide. I see lots of things in this town. Nobody pays me any attention.”
I didn’t bother to deny it. What was the point? “Is there anything else you can tell us?”
“The bartender came out and headed for home.” He frowned. “But I think someone was following him.”
“Did you see who it was?” I persisted.
“No, but I heard footsteps.”
Dalton stood up and reached into his pocket, pulling out some bills and pushing them into Sam’s hand. “Thanks for the info, Sam.”
“Sorry I don’t know more. You can check with Peter one alley over. He might have seen something. But have the girl approach him first, Joe. He don’t like cops much.”
We walked down the alley and slowly turned the corner. At first glance I didn’t see anyone. Dalton stepped slightly in front of me.
“I’ll lead.”
“I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. Besides, didn’t Sam say Peter didn’t like cops?”