Chapter 13
Vampires are silent when they want to be. I had no idea how long he’d been in my house. He could have been there all night which was frankly a little pervy.
I wasn’t the only one who had jumped at his voice. Ryder was on his feet, his hands very carefully away from his sides as if proving he was not trying to go for a gun.
Myra, Jean, and Crow were all still seated. Myra quirked an eyebrow at me. “Lock. The. Door. Seriously, Delaney, when are you going to act like an adult and take your own security seriously?”
“You couldn’t knock?” I asked Rossi.
“Every once in a while I prefer a dramatic entrance.” He strolled into my living room, which now felt like a shoe box. My house was small. Hosting six adults in one room was where it really started feeling like it.
“Rossi,” Ryder said. “I can’t say I didn’t suspect it might be you.”
“Oh?” Rossi peered down his nose at Ryder, his expression flickering between amused and angry. “Why are you in my town, Agent?”
That vampire tone could be used to influence people, to hypnotize, or to alter memories. I’d seen it make people say more than they wanted, and force the truth out of them.
It didn’t really work on me or my sisters. Our Reed blood was pretty immune to most of the creature and deity tricks in town.
Still, I could feel it, like knuckles pressing at my temples.
I knew Ryder must feel it too, since it was directed at him. But he smiled and looked completely relaxed. “Because I live here.”
I laughed. Balls. The man had balls.
“Can I get you something to drink, Rossi?” I asked. “I have some Pepsi in the fridge, tea, coffee?”
“Tea would be fine.”
He wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t look quite as angry as he had just a minute before. Maybe he looked curious, like Ryder wasn’t something he had expected to find.
I, for one, was going to take that as a good sign. I imagined living as long as Rossi had might mean that things could get pretty tedious. I hoped Ryder being interesting was better than Ryder looking like something bothersome that should be eaten.
I started heating the water for tea and put on a fresh pot of coffee. I could hear if there was conversation in the living room—small house—but so far, no one was saying anything.
“Ryder said his agency wants to talk to you about human-vamp relations,” I said loud enough for my voice to carry into the other room. “He’s the head of the welcome wagon.”
“I know.” Rossi did that vampire thing where his voice sounded like he was standing right beside me even though he wasn’t. “I was here when he said it.”
I pushed the coffee pot button and checked the tea kettle on the stove, then came back out into the room.
Ryder and Rossi were both still standing, the other three still sitting.
“So let’s get down to it,” I said. “First, there are a few rules.”
“Rules?” Rossi asked.
“My house, my rules. One: no killing. Two: no harming. Three: no fighting. Four: no underhanded tricks that the other doesn’t know about, which includes recording this session.” That, I directed to Ryder, “or altering someone’s mind or memories.” That was for Rossi.
“I’m not wired,” Ryder said. “I wasn’t expecting this coffee and donut session to turn into introductions.”
“There are donuts?” Crow asked. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“There are gonna be now.” Jean tossed her keys to Crow. “Make mine maple.”
“Apple,” Myra said.
“I want a cupcake,” I said.
“Oh, so now you’re letting me out of your sight?” Crow asked. “So I can be your delivery boy? What if I just keep driving?”
“Please,” Myra said. “We know you’re not leaving town. Not without...” she caught herself just in time. “Not without our permission.”
That brought us back to the second thing we really needed to discuss. The missing powers. It would have to wait until we settled this thing with Ryder and Rossi.
I didn’t want Ryder here for the god power discussion. There was no way I was going to tell him gods vacationed in his hometown. Letting him know about vampires was enough of a security breach.
The kettle whistled and Crow held out his hand to Myra. “Credit card. I already pay for your wages with my taxes, I’m not paying for your donuts too.”
She pulled a card out of the slim wallet in her pocket, and I went into the kitchen for tea for the vampire and coffee for the rest of us.
The only tea in my cupboard was Lipton black, a couple Earl Grey that I didn’t remember buying, and a single licorice spice. I filled a cup with water and put one of each bag on a plate beneath it.
“All right. Let the fun begin. Tea.” I handed it to Rossi, then returned to the kitchen for coffee, cream, and sugar. “Rossi, I didn’t hear you promise not to use your tricks on Ryder,” I said as I walked back in.
“You weren’t in the room.”
“He didn’t agree,” Myra said.
Ryder held his cup up over his shoulder and I refilled it. I sat, filled my cup, and handed the pot to Jean. She filled her cup and Myra’s.
“So let’s have that promise,” I said.
The vampire was dangling three tea bags off his fingers. “We really need to talk about your lack of tea in this house. Lipton? Could you find nothing more...pedestrian? Doesn’t Folgers put out a tea?”
“Still not a promise.” I slurped coffee, which wasn’t Folgers, thank you very much.
“Fine.” Rossi chose the Lipton with a grimace. “I agree to your terms. Mr. Bailey?”
“Terms are good with me.”
Rossi wasted no time. “Who is your boss?”
Ryder ground his teeth together for a moment and gave me a dirty look like I had coached Rossi or something. Finally he seemed to give in. “Jake Monroy.”
“Your client?” I said before thinking. “Not your client,” I corrected. Well, no wonder he’d been arguing with Ryder late at night on his doorstep. Now I wondered what they had been arguing about. “What about Frank?”
“He was a recruiter. He was my boss at the beginning.”
“Did you or someone in your agency kill Sven?” Rossi went on like I didn’t even exist.
“No.”
“Did the hunters?”
“It’s possible, but I have no proof.”
“Give me their names.”
It might not have been actual mental manipulation, but the way Rossi said it carried weight and pressure. As if the years of his life made each word come out heavier than it should.
“No.”
“Bad move,” Jean said. “Never piss off the fanger.”
“He can say no,” I said. “This is a discussion not an interrogation.”
Rossi slipped his steady gaze over to me. From the corner of my eye I could see Ryder relax. I had sympathy for Ryder. Rossi’s gaze could make a brick wall squirm.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion, Delaney.”
“That’s okay, I’ll give it to you for free. I want the names of the people in town hunting vampires too, but if Ryder gives them to you, then he’s no longer useful to you. That isn’t how you’re going to behave. We’ve talked about you not killing him, haven’t we?”
I didn’t mean for it to come out in such a motherly sort of tone and felt my ears go hot with a blush as Rossi raised both eyebrows and gave me an incredulous smile.
“Did you just use a ‘mom’ voice on me?”
“No. That was my cop voice. And the statement stands. No killing Ryder.”
“Did I say I was going to kill him? Delaney, I am a peaceful man. My soul is in balance. My Karma and conscience are clear. All chakras go.”
None of that was actually a promise not to kill him.
“So why don’t we make this easy.” Rossi turned that molten gaze of his back on Ryder. “Who killed one of mine?”
That came with a flash of fang and that glowy-eye thing.
Ryder didn’t move, but even I could tell his heart rate kicked up a notch. “I don’t know. That’s what I’m here to figure out. I only know one of those men, those vampire hunters. When I saw him in the bar, I knew they had to be in town looking for your kind. My job, Mr. Rossi, whether you believe it or not, is to make sure that your kind can live safely among the mortals of this world. I am not a vampire hunter. Not a vampire killer.”
“Tell me why they had your blood, Ryder Bailey. Tell me why I should ignore that it was your blood that killed Sven.”
“I wasn’t a part of it. I donated to the Red Cross outside the hotel where I was staying. That’s the only way I know someone could have gotten their hands on my blood.”
“Who?”
“You tell me. I didn’t even know my blood was a part of Sven’s death until Delaney told me. While you’re at it, maybe you can tell me who would have wanted Sven dead. If there are other vampires in Ordinary, and I’m assuming there are, why him? Was he just the most vulnerable? Was it bad luck? Did he do something that brought attention to himself?”
“He was new here.”
“And? Was he new to being a vampire?”
“Time is such a relative thing.”
“Was he relatively new?”
“Yes, from my perspective. But there are those who are younger than he is.”
“So why did the hunters zero in on him now? Is there something else that brought attention to your town? That brought attention to the vampires here? You know why my agency came here—the capsized boat incident. But that was over a year ago. Why are the hunters here now? Did you do something?”
I was watching Rossi when Ryder asked that question and I saw the slight tic of his jaw. No one who hadn’t been staring right at him would have noticed it. It was such a tiny tell, even if someone noticed it, they probably wouldn’t know what it meant.
But I knew what it meant. Rossi was hiding something. There was something that had brought the vampire hunters to town. I didn’t know what it was, but I was keenly curious.
“No,” Rossi lied smoothly.
“Is there something you did to bring attention to this place?”
“No.” The lie was quicker this time.
“All right. Do you know enough about Sven’s past for us to assume it could have been an old vendetta against him? Did he have any outstanding debts or alliances that would have caused this?”
Ryder was starting to sound an awful lot like a cop instead of a freelance monster negotiator or whatever his job description was. A bloom of pride warmed my chest. He really was trying to approach the murder with sympathy and problem solving.
He had good cop instincts, which in this case were also good survival instincts. For the first time since he’d been suspected in this killing, I got the feeling that he might actually be innocent and might get out of this alive.
I didn’t know what I’d expected out of this confrontation. Well, yes, I knew. I expected a fight between Rossi and Ryder. But maybe Ryder had a chance of getting Rossi to listen to his side of the story.
Of course, Rossi had been known to “accidentally” drop people off cliffs after hearing them out. If he wanted Ryder dead, it would take a hell of a lot of interference on our part to keep that from happening.
Rossi did want Ryder dead, but Ryder was still here, breathing. This meeting was going a lot better than I’d expected.
“I am going to taste you, Ryder Bailey,” Rossi’s voice sent shivers down my neck. “And,
when I do, I will know the truth of you.”
Ryder was stock still. Finally his gaze drifted to mine. “Is that something that happens here?”
“No,” I said, recovering my wits. “Of course not. No. Rossi, what the hell? You know there is no feeding in Ordinary.”
“I said taste, not feed.”
“Whatever. No fang-on-vein. That’s the rule. It’s why we hold blood drives every other month, remember?”
“You...right, of course, you do.” The words seemed to come out of Ryder without his permission and he firmly shut his mouth. He was probably wondering if Mr. Tudor, a sweet balding man who ran the community blood drives was a vampire.
He wasn’t. He was a bloodthirsty little redcap.
“It only breaks the rules if the mortal is unwilling. If they are willing, well, it’s a free country, baby.”
“The country might be free but the blood isn’t. No.”
“What will it do if you taste me?” Ryder asked.
“It will break rules set in place long before you got here,” I said. “No.”
“I will know the truth of you,” Rossi told him over my head.
Rude.
“You said that. What does it mean?”
“I will know your truths. I will know your deceptions. Perhaps I will know your soul.”
That sounded like hippy-dippy stuff, or maybe vampy-wampy stuff. Or maybe it was the truth. Maybe a vampire, a very old prime vampire like Rossi could know the what and why of a person with one little sip.
Myra was scowling. She shrugged.
Jean’s eyes were twice as wide as they should be. “Oh, shitballs. Are you going to do it, Ryder? Are you going to let a vampire bite you?”
“No. But I’ll give him a taste if it means he’ll believe I didn’t kill Sven.” He slipped two fingers into his front pocket and pulled out a pocket knife. He flicked open the short blade and held it over the tip of his ring finger.
“This really isn’t necessary,” I said.
“Oh, let the man make up his own mind. You’re not his mom.” Rossi strolled—no, more like glided—across the room to stand in front of Ryder.
I’d never seen Rossi drink blood. It just wasn’t something he ever did in public. As a matter of fact, all the vamps in town kept their blood habits quietly to themselves.
So I could admit there was a tiny bit of utter fascination on my part.
Would Rossi really know all those things about Ryder? Was drinking his blood like reading tea leaves? Would he know everything Ryder wanted to hide, all the good, all the bad?
Was I ready for the truth to come out, no matter what that truth might be?
No.
But then, this had never been my choice. I’d mostly been stalling this moment of truth, wanting to decide for myself on Ryder’s innocence or guilt. Wanting a chance to stand between him and Rossi when the truth—Ryder’s guilt—was confirmed.
I’d been harboring a very real fear of Ryder being guilty.
“I didn’t kill Sven,” Ryder said. “I don’t know who did.” He flicked the blade against his fingertip, just a tiny slice. Blood welled there in a rich, thick drop.
Rossi didn’t even look down at Ryder’s finger. He was watching Ryder’s eyes. Then he bent just enough to lower his face so close, if either of them exhaled too far, Rossi’s lips would touch Ryder’s finger.
But neither of them exhaled. I didn’t think they were breathing.
Which was normal for Rossi. But not for Ryder.
Rossi’s hand moved so fast, I didn’t even see the motion. One moment he was bent over Ryder’s hand like a supplicant bowing to a king. Then his fingers were caught around Ryder’s wrist, holding his hand tight. Hard.
Ryder’s breathing went a little crooked before he evened it out.
Yeah, it was one thing to know Rossi was a vampire. It was quite another to see him display a tiny percentage of what being a vampire really entailed.
Rossi pressed the pinky of his free hand over Ryder’s finger, just enough to hook the barest drop of blood off Ryder’s finger. Then, staring straight into Ryder’s eyes, he licked that drop into his mouth.
I had no idea what Rossi could actually discern from Ryder’s blood. I wanted to look over at Myra and see if she knew. But I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the old west stare down going on in my living room.
“You disappoint me, Mr. Bailey.” Rossi’s words were cool, smooth and sent chills down my spine again.
I was starting to regret not having my gun on me. Not that a simple bullet wound would slow Rossi down.
“I had hoped you were a liar.”
Then, just like that, Rossi let go of Ryder’s wrist.
I could breathe again, and took in a huge lungful of air.
“He didn’t kill Sven?” I asked.
Ryder threw me an exasperated look. “I’ve told you that,” he muttered.
“He did not.”
“It was his blood on Sven, though,” I said.
“Yes.” Rossi strolled back over to the chair and sat with his tea. He looked tired. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him look tired. “Also, he doesn’t know who killed him.”
“Which is what I’ve also been saying.” Ryder pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket—seriously, who carries a handkerchief these days—and pressed his finger into it to stop the bleeding.
“It would have been easier if you were guilty,” Rossi said. “Or if I could kill you. Both. Both would have been easier. We should do something about making this easier for me, Delaney.”
That was the Rossi I knew. Annoying. Pain in the butt. Not above a little whining.
“I don’t care about easy, I care about justice. You should want to catch the person who killed Sven, not go around randomly killing people hoping you hit pay dirt.”
Rossi shrugged. “Potato, Potah-to.”
Myra sighed. “Okay, so what we know is that Ryder is innocent in Sven’s death. He is also a freelance agent for the Department of Paranormal Protection and wants to contact the vampires in town.”
“You just bled for him,” Jean said. “I think you can check ‘Send fruit basket to the bloodsuckers’ off your to-do list, Ryder.”
“Good to know.” He sat back down and took a drink of his coffee. His hand was steady, and he had that easy sort of body language about him that might be a lie, but was also good enough I bet it would calm nervous dogs.
And apparently blood-hungry vampires.
“Did you join the police force to try to uncover the secrets of Ordinary?” Rossi asked.
“I joined the force because I was asked.” He grinned. “But since I was there, I thought a little digging was in order.”
“What did you find?” he asked.
“Nothing. Not really. The records are clean. The evidence room is so normal as to be boring. I was thinking I’d made a mistake. But then...”
“Sven died,” I said.
“Are all the Rossis vampires?” Ryder asked.
We all looked over at Old Rossi. This was his call, his choice to out everyone in the town, to pull another agency into Ordinary and make some kind of tolerance deal with them.
“No,” he lied smoothly.
I guess that was the answer as to how well Rossi trusted the agency Ryder worked for.
My front door swung open and Crow sauntered in with a box of donuts from the Puffin Muffin. “I’m back! What did I miss? Did we tell Ryder there are gods in town yet?”
Silence.
Then Jean burst out laughing.
Ryder didn’t react to any of it. He just sipped coffee and watched each of us in turn. Finally, his gaze rested on me.
I could see the question there.
I rolled my eyes to tell him Crow was just joking. And crazy. Or both joking and crazy. And possibly dead after I got my hands on him. Crazy dead. No joke.
He narrowed his eyes, didn’t believe me.
Holy crap.
I looked over at Myra since Jean’s hooting was winding down.
Myra seemed to be weighing the consequences of telling Ryder the truth.
Mithra wanted Ryder there when I negotiated for the return of the god powers. Crow had just paved the way for me to tell him that yes, gods were real and he’d known dozens of them for most of his life and oh, hey, would he like to go with me to talk to one who had a beef with our town, and my family in particular, before those gods got really mad at me for letting their powers be burgled by a waitress?
“I can make him forget,” Rossi said as if he were offering to order pizza without olives.
“No.” Ryder didn’t deserve to have a vampire messing with his memories. He was innocent in Sven’s death and not the bad guy here. Sure, he’d lied about working for the secret government agency, but he claimed his agency was part of the good guys.
Right now all I wanted was to get rid of the bad guys. To do that, I’d have to find them.
Or let the old and very crafty vampire bend some of the town’s laws so he could find them.
No. It was never a good idea to break Ordinary’s rules.
“Ryder, would you do me a favor and step outside for a couple minutes? I need to discuss a few things with my sisters, Crow, and Rossi.”
The man knew when he was outnumbered. “All right. Let me know when you’ve taken the vote on whether you should just tell me everything or not.” He took his cup with him, palmed two donuts from the box Crow was holding open, then stepped outside.
“What. The. Hell. Crow?” I wanted to hit him, but he was wisely standing on the other side of the couch beyond my reach.
Jean hit him for me instead.
What were sisters for?
“You couldn’t keep your mouth shut?” Myra rubbed at her temples. She didn’t sound angry so much as just mildly disappointed. Yeah, we’d all grown up with Crow as more-or-less our uncle. If there was a pot to be stirred or trouble to start, Crow was for it one-billion percent. We expected that.
But, damn he had bad timing.
“Just because I’m Native I should be seen and not heard? Way to marginalize the Native voices.” He tried to sound offended but the huge grin was sort of a give away.
“Why?” I asked. “Why did you do that?”
“If Ryder’s going to know about the creatures in town, he might as well know about the gods. No one wants to have the Band-Aid ripped off twice. Donut?” He pushed the box out toward Jean who plucked up a maple bar.
“Really?” I asked her.
“What?” She took a huge bite. “All these secrets and sexual tension are making me hungry.”
“Sexual tension?” My voice might have come out a little high.
Myra coughed over a chuckle, and Rossi sighed.
Only very old vampires could put that much suffering into a sigh. “It’s not a secret how much you and Ryder want each other. Honestly, I thought the Reed pragmatism would have kicked in by now and you’d have realized that it will never work between you.”
Both Jean and Myra stood and faced him.
I turned toward him too, so all three Reed girls had squared off, shoulder-to-shoulder.
“Want to try that again?” Myra asked.
“Don’t be a dick, Rossi,” Jean said.
And yes, it made my heart feel all glowy. I knew neither of my sisters were big fans of Ryder at the moment. Not since he’d broken up with me.
But they knew how I felt about him. Because apparently everyone knew how I felt about him. Even old vampires.
Okay, that part was a little weird, but knowing my sisters had my back still made me feel loved.
“Did they have cupcakes?” I asked Crow.
He held up a big, soft red velvet cupcake. “One.” Then he took a huge bite out of it.
“Hey! That was my cupcake, you jerk.”
“And it’s delicious,” he said.
Myra hit him again.
“Whatever I am or am not with Ryder isn’t any of your business, Rossi.” I thought I sounded rather calm. Relaxed. In charge.
But Rossi crossed his arms over his chest and made a rude sound.
“Right?” Crow pushed the rest of my cupcake into his big, fat mouth. “There isn’t any way to unknot those tangled life threads you two have going.”
“What threads?”
“Ryder life threads with Reed life threads.” Crow rubbed icing off his lips with his palm, then wiped his palm on the thigh of his jeans. Something on my face must have clued him in that I wasn’t following his logic, and was also hating him for eating my cupcake.
“All the places where your paths have connected: his blood on the corpse you’re investigating,” he started around a bite of the donut he was now eating, “him part of a secret government creature outreach agency, freelance on top of it. You working for the government of your own free will. Monster hunters he knows who you might want to get rid of. And the fact that he probably loves you and you definitely love him. Childhood sweethearts.”
“We were never sweethearts.”
“You should have been,” Crow said, not unkindly. Then he walked into the kitchen and put the box with the remaining donuts on the table. “So. How do we do this? Come clean, or wipe his brain clean?”
Everyone looked to me.
No pressure.
I opened my mouth.
There was the rap of knuckles on the unlocked front door. The door that pushed open, Ryder leaning into the wedge of space.
“Uh, Delaney?” he said.
“Yeah?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “You have a mob here to see you.”