Chapter 21

Gryph

It was taking everything in my power not to punch one of the smug asshole detectives in the face. Both were shades, and both had opted to create nearly identical forms. Each of the blonds was just shy of six feet tall with slight builds. Both had full lips and a square jaw line with a hint of scruff. Their eyes were the only way to tell them apart. Detective Hardy had brown eyes, while Detective Mason had blue. Upon arrival, they’d spent ten minutes trying to decide if crime scene techs were really needed. Since they’d been dispatched with the detectives, it seemed like a ridiculous argument.

“All I’m saying is that crime scene techs are used when an actual crime has been committed,” Detective Hardy insisted.

“Threatening Julia is a crime,” I told him.

“I suppose this could be viewed as a threat to Miss Dupree,” Detective Mason mused as he looked at the decapitated stuffed beagle with the words, Die blonde bitch, written in blood on the side.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who thought it was a stupid thing to say because Dylan practically growled his response. “Of course, it’s a threat. She’s already received another threat.”

“That’s right,” Detective Hardy said as he looked around the lobby. “Miss Dupree received a disturbing email.”

“It wasn’t much of a threat,” Detective Mason added gruffly.

“I disagree,” Gryph growled.

“I had assumed you were sent out here because you’d already worked on my case,” Julia interrupted.

Detective Mason shrugged. “That must be it. We’ll have another look at that email when we get back to the station. It seems someone may be threatening Miss Dupree.”

“Clearly, someone is threatening her,” I ground out as I gestured to the stuffed beagle.

“I’d agree if she was a beagle,” Detective Hardy told us with a condescending sneer.

“Are you making light of the danger Miss Dupree is in?” Dylan asked with a definite edge to his voice. “I’d hate to be forced to file a formal complaint with your lieutenant.”

“We have yet to decide if there is a threat to Miss Dupree,” Detective Mason argued.

I knew my eyes were nearly yellow. Between someone threatening my mate, the police acting like it was no big deal, and Dylan standing up for her, my wolf was definitely not happy with the situation. I knew Dylan was like an older brother to Julia, but that didn’t change my wolf’s reaction. He wanted to be the one protecting her.

“It’s definitely a threat,” one of the techs gathering evidence chimed in. They’d ignored the arguing detectives and started doing their job as soon as they arrived. It was nice to know someone was willing to do the job they were being paid for.

Both detectives glared at him. “When we need your opinion, we’ll ask for it, Edgar.”

Edgar looked pissed, but he reined it in, having more restraint than I did.

“Stop with the games,” I snapped. “We all know this is a threat. What we need to know is what you’re going to do to stop these threats.”

“We’ll need a list of people Miss Dupree has been romantically involved with,” Detective Hardy stated.

“This could be someone who was a former client of Bliss,” I added, earning me a scowl from the detectives. “The email she received doesn’t sound like it came from an old lover.”

“While it’s nice that Miss Dupree has a guard dog, it would be best to leave the police work to the experts,” Detective Hardy snapped.

Detective Mason placed a hand on Detective Hardy’s arm and opened his mouth to speak when Julia interrupted them. “I think it would be best if someone else was assigned to my case. You clearly have a problem being here.”

Both detectives looked taken aback by her suggestion. Detective Hardy was the first to recover. “We’re the detectives assigned to your case, Miss Dupree,” he told her. “If we can all just work together, we’ll be able to solve this.”

My jaw was going to hurt with as hard as I was clenching it. These detectives didn’t seem interested in working with us, despite Detective Hardy’s suggestion.

“This seems like a crime of passion,” Edgar the tech chimed in again. If his grin was anything to go by, he enjoyed fucking with the asshole detectives. I decided Edgar was okay with me. I was certain Edgar was a shade since he had very little scent. With a mop of messy black hair and eyes nearly that dark, Edgar looked too young to be working with the police. Then again, it was hard to tell the age of a shade since they chose the form they used. He could have been centuries old, and I would have no way of knowing unless he told me his age.

“If this is a crime of passion, we should be looking into ex-lovers,” Detective Mason began. “Most crimes are committed by a lover or ex-lover.”

“Just a minute ago, it wasn’t a threat. Now, it’s a crime of passion,” Dylan said with raised eyebrows. “Which is it?”

“We’re here to investigate, not make hasty judgments,” Detective Mason snapped.

“Then you’ll look at people other than my exes?” Julia asked.

“We deal in relationships here,” Allie added before the detectives could respond. “I’m not saying this has to be a former Bliss client, but I don’t think it should be ruled out.”

“The exes seem like the best angle,” Detective Mason replied.

“None of my relationships ended with any great tragedy,” Julia argued. “There wasn’t any drama that could make someone hate me like this.”

“It’s true,” Allie added. “I’ve heard the stories about her worst break-ups, and they were really boring.”

“Hey!” Julia protested. “Things got pretty heated when I broke up with Merissa my junior year of high school.”

“This Merissa may be our suspect,” Detective Hardy stated, looking to Detective Mason for agreement.

Detective Mason was staring at Julia with something close to hatred, but he quickly masked it with a bored expression. With a casual shrug he added, “She sounds like a good suspect. You did say you had a heated break-up.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Julia insisted. “My break-up with Merissa was more than a decade ago, and the heated part came from a disagreement over who owned a signed CD. I just felt that a gift remained with the recipient, and she disagreed.”

“We’ll need her full name,” Detective Mason told her.

Julia sighed and reluctantly answered their question. “Merissa Vigil.”

“You dated Merissa Fucking Vigil?” Dylan practically shouted.

Both detectives looked thoughtful as they processed what she’d said. As for me, I had no clue why this was a big deal. “Who is Merissa Vigil?”

“She’s a witch from a very powerful family,” Edgar answered with something akin to glee.

“A break-up with a witch like Merissa Vigil could have angered her family,” Detective Mason added.

“While I agree that many of the important witch families are assholes, they aren’t killers,” I pointed out. “Why would this be such a red flag?”

“It really isn’t,” Julia began. “Her family just happens to be more powerful, and many are intimidated by them. Merissa’s father had a relationship with a fallen angel before he met Merissa’s mother. People just assume Merissa is scary because of her brothers. Her brothers aren’t that scary. At least, Merissa always insisted they aren’t. Since they’re both much older than Merissa, I’ve only seen them a handful of times.”

“Xavier and Rainer Vigil are both powerful warlocks and demon lords,” Dylan added. “Rainer actually works for Lucifer. While I’m inclined to agree that they’re very unlikely to go after you like this, they are both extremely dangerous.”

“Merissa isn’t harboring some secret resentment since I let her have the CD back,” I pointed out. “She got what she wanted.”

“Maybe it was you she really wanted,” I suggested, even though it didn’t feel right to me either. Ten years was a long time to wait to seek revenge for something like this.

Julia shook her head. “I was Merissa’s only experiment into dating women. She quickly discovered she preferred men, and she’s happy with her warlock, or so I’ve heard.”

“One of her brothers may feel you hurt their sister,” Detective Mason added with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Neither Xavier nor Rainer would send threats,” Dylan stated confidently. “They also wouldn’t wait years for revenge. It’s definitely not one of them.”

“He’s right,” Julia agreed.

“We’ll handle the police work,” Detective Hardy added in a condescending tone. “You should stick to what you know, setting up hook-ups for your clients.”

“Hook-ups?” Allie demanded.

I decided we weren’t going to get anywhere with these detectives. I’d call later to see if I could get the case reassigned. Clearly, the detectives who’d been sent had no intention of looking at anyone other than Julia’s exes. While I agreed it was worth looking at the Vigil brothers, it seemed like a bad idea to rule out other possibilities. I wasn’t even certain these detectives would look into the Vigil brothers. “Is there anything else you need from Julia tonight?”

“That should be all for this evening,” Detective Mason replied. “We’ll contact you if we have more questions. In the meantime, we will need a list of people you’ve been romantically involved with, Miss Dupree.”

Julia gave him a curt nod before responding through her teeth. “Just leave your card, and I’ll see what I can do about getting you that list. I’ll also let you know if I can think of any former clients who might be angry with me.”

“We don’t need the list of clients,” Detective Hardy assured her. “The techs will finish gathering evidence, and we’ll be in touch if we need more information.”

“Will you be staying at your home alone?” Detective Mason asked.

“She’s staying with me until this is resolved,” I replied for her, almost laughing at Julia’s sharp look.

“And where is that?” Detective Mason asked.

“Is there a reason you need to know Gryph’s address?” Dylan asked, going into full lawyer mode.

“We’re trying to protect Miss Dupree,” Detective Hardy replied.

“Are you saying the police plan to assign round-the-clock guards for Julia?” Dylan pressed.

“We can’t justify that,” Detective Mason replied as he glared at Dylan.

“Is Julia suspected of a crime?” Dylan followed up.

“Of course not,” Detective Mason said with a huff.

“Then, she prefers to keep this information to herself at this time,” Dylan told them.

“Are you trying to prevent us from doing our job?” Detective Hardy demanded.

“We’ll be happy to provide any information you need to investigate the case,” Dylan assured him. “Did you have any other questions?”

“We’ll be in touch,” Detective Mason snapped before stalking off with Detective Mason at his side.

We said nothing as they stepped into the elevator.

“Assholes,” Julia muttered after the doors closed.

“You got that right, Sass,” I agreed.

The three lab techs stopped to regard us. Up to that point, all except Edgar had been pretending they couldn’t hear our conversation with the detectives.

“I’ve only worked with Detective Mason before, and he’s not usually that intense,” a female lab tech with short red hair and unnaturally purple eyes told us.

“I’ve worked with them both,” the other female, a short brunette with glasses too big for her face added. “This is pretty much how they’ve always acted around me.”

“Great,” Julia grumbled. “I had to get assigned the two biggest assholes on the police force.”

“Maybe we can get someone else assigned,” I suggested. “I can always call over there to put in the request and file a complaint.”

“Not likely,” Edgar added as he sprayed something around the box and stepped back. “That might work in some departments, but they don’t reassign cases at this one. The new captain says he’s tired of people thinking they can tell the police what to do. He was just recently promoted.”

“You’re going to end up in a lot of trouble if this gets back to the captain,” the redhead told him. “I swear, Edgar, it’s a miracle you haven’t already been fired for talking too much. I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately.”

“Who’s going to tell the captain?” Edgar asked. “You should probably know that Captain Mason is Detective Mason’s father.”

Nepotism played a big role in the preternatural police. There was no testing or extensive training. Shades were born into law enforcement families. Their rank had more to do with their family’s status than any special skills. In most cases, that wasn’t a problem. Shades born into law enforcement families were raised to be officers of the law. Unfortunately, not all families had high ethical standards. There were corrupt, and just plain lazy, families among the law enforcement community. It was next to impossible to get those shades removed from their position.

The tech set her glasses on Persephone’s desk, and her drab brown eyes glowed red as she stared at the box Edgar had just sprayed. A red mist swirled around it before sliding along the floor and beginning to take shape.

“What’s she doing?” I asked.

“It’s a demon tracking spell,” Dylan explained, looking somewhat awed.

Before the red mist could fully take form, it fell to the ground in a pile of red sand.

Edgar laughed at the efforts of the little demon who snatched up her glasses and glared at the pile of sand. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

“Oh, come on, Candara,” the redhead said as she slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Sometimes, people put spells in place to prevent others from tracking them. You’ve got to stop getting so upset when one of your spells doesn’t work.”

Edgar said nothing, just continued to smirk.

“Why didn’t the police stay while you did that?” I asked.

“I don’t trust shades, so I refuse to do it in front of them,” Candara explained.

“So, none of you are shades,” I asked. I’d guessed the females were something else, but Edgar’s lack of scent screamed shade to me.

“Edgar is, but he’s a tech, so it’s okay,” the redhead explained.

I had no idea what that meant, but I decided it wasn’t worth asking for an explanation.

“How much longer do we need to be here?” Allie asked.

“We’re just about done,” Edgar assured us.

Twenty minutes later, the techs had packed up all the evidence.

“This, I did not see coming,” I remarked as I looked around the office at the sea of multi-colored sand on the floor. After her initial spell had failed, Candara had tried three others with no success. The little demon had been muttering and cursing on her way out. It seemed she didn’t often fail.

“The cleaning crew is going to quit if we leave this all over the floor for them to deal with,” Julia grumbled.

An hour later, we’d filled every trash can with sand. The office would still need to be vacuumed, but Julia and Allie seemed to think it was good enough.

“Does this happen a lot with demons?” I asked as we all climbed into the elevator after Julia set the protection spell for the offices. “The thing with the sand,” I clarified.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Dylan replied.

“Neither have I,” Allie added. “I can’t stand those two detectives. They are rude and totally useless.”

“Those dickheads aren’t going to find out who did this,” I muttered.

“They don’t seem terribly interested in looking at anyone other than Julia’s exes. Actually, they didn’t seem very interested in even doing that,” Dylan stated. “I doubt they’ll even interview anyone.”

“Let’s try to think positive,” Allie chimed in. “It’s always possible the lab techs picked up some evidence that will help find the person involved.”

“Do you think it’s true what the lab tech said about not being able to get new detectives assigned to my case?” Julia asked.

“I think he believes it’s true,” I replied. “I’m still going to make some calls. With the captain being Mason’s father, it may not do any good.”

“Why don’t you let me handle that?” Dylan suggested. “I’ll call as Julia’s lawyer to put some pressure on them. If that doesn’t work, I can see if we can get help from the Council of Witches.”

I nodded. “Just keep me updated on what’s going on,” I told him.

“Are you okay?” Julia asked, her hand settling on my bare forearm.

My wolf pressed closer to the surface. I was so on edge after what had happened and the effort I was putting into controlling myself around Julia that I couldn’t manage more than a curt nod at first.

“Gryph,” she coaxed. “You’re scaring me.”

Those words cut through the haze of anger, frustration, and fear. “I’m fine, Sass,” I assured her. “It’s just a werewolf thing.”

Thankfully, she accepted my answer because I wasn’t sure I could do much more talking. I still had no clear plan for how to find the person threatening my witch, but when I found him, he was a dead man.