An hour later I found myself at the home of one Fred Mitchell Jackson, retired janitor. From what Trent had managed to pull up on him, his wife had died a few years back and they’d had no children. He lived alone in the tiny ranch house that seemed out of place amongst the mini mansions. The size alone made it incongruous. The fact that all the windows were covered in what looked like tinfoil was just a plus.

I bet he was hell on his HOA.

Unfortunately, I needed to talk to the dude because I’d noticed he had security cameras, and one of them was pointed at the street that ran in front of both his and Lester’s homes. If there was one security camera, there might be more. It was a long shot, but the king wanted to figure out who was killing his friends and it was sort of my job.

Naturally, though, I wasn’t allowed to do it alone.

“Should I ring the doorbell again?” Trent frowned at the door like his sheer will alone could force the thing open.

“Or you could show some patience.” Somehow I didn’t think that Trent’s continuous knocking would work out in the long run. It was more likely to get us peppered with buckshot than a nice long talk with the dude whose whole existence reeked of paranoia.

Then again, crazy Fred also lived next to the demon Hell lord equivalent of Prince Harry, if the number of condoms he went through were any indication of his lifestyle. So Fred kind of had a right to be paranoid.

I smiled at the camera and tried to give him my most harmless look, but my brain was working overtime. “I didn’t know demons wore condoms. I kind of thought they were all out to reproduce. Kind of like wolves.”

Vamps didn’t need condoms. Those swimmers died during the change. The rest of the body still functioned, but sperm didn’t survive the transition. Gray had been kind of baby crazy when we were together. Of course, he’d also only had like five years left on the Earth plane before he joined Papa Sloane in Hell. His biological clock had been ticking and hard.

“Lots of wolves wear condoms when they have sex.” Trent had gone still, sniffing the air in that way that let me know the sommelier of scents was in the house.

“That’s not what I’ve heard.” I rang the bell again and went back to showing the camera that I wasn’t any threat at all. “I’ve heard wolves fuck like bunnies trying to reproduce as fast as they can since they don’t actually reproduce the way bunnies do. Hey, why aren’t there werebunnies out there?”

It made me sad that almost all the werecreatures were predatory. Sure there were weredeer and some werepigs, but I’d never met a person who turned into a chicken on the full moon. Same with sweet little bunnies.

“Because we ate them all,” Trent replied with absolutely no shame tingeing his tone. “Not we, actually, but our forefathers. Apparently they were really tasty.”

“That’s horrible.” His ancestors should be damn glad there hadn’t been a werePETA organization back then.

 My outrage didn’t faze him at all. “And plenty of wolves suit up for sex. I wouldn’t want a baby who didn’t come from my mate.”

“So wolves never have second marriages?” It seemed wrong that he would go through the rest of his life alone.

His eyes came open suddenly and he sent me what seemed like a suspicious stare. “Marriages, yes, true matings, no. A wolf only feels the mating call once in his life and then it’s done.”

And he’d already had his call. From what I understood, Trent had been just out of high school when he’d mated. He’d married a girl from his home pack and then joined the Army and served in the same unit my father had. There was a whole werewolf unit the government didn’t like to talk about.

I had to think Trent’s mating howl had shaken the ground.

I’d heard the mating howl once when I was with the Italian wolves. A male called out on a full moon for the female of his heart and she’d answered. It had been moving, in an emotional way. The idea of what Trent had lost made my heart kind of ache.

Sometimes I think my life was easier when I was numb. Before I’d met Gray and then Marcus, I had buried myself in a neat and tidy shell. Oh, sure sometimes my she-wolf scratched her way to the surface and I tried to murder people, but I didn’t have all these pesky feelings. I didn’t worry that Marcus was falling out of love with me and I wouldn’t have given a crap that Trent was lonely. I would have taken another shot of tequila and not cared.

“So you don’t think you’ll ever have a girlfriend again?” Why was I still standing here? This dude wasn’t opening the door. I reached into my bag to pull out a business card and ask him to call me, which he probably wouldn’t.

I might have to work some vampy mojo on him to get him to talk. If I could catch him outside, since vampy mojo only works in person.

“Why the sudden interest in my love life, Owens?” Trent closed his eyes again and breathed deep. “He’s coming and he’s alone. I do smell metal though. Gun oil. Get behind me. Now, Owens.”

I could handle a dude with a gun, but Trent was moving in front of me anyway.

“Who are you and what do you want?” The near shouted question came over what must be hidden speakers.

So he had the place wired for sound. Nice. I looked up and around and finally found the speaker. It was camouflaged against the dark bricks of the house. It had a nice sound, too. Very almighty powerful Oz of him.

I could play Dorothy. I waved from behind my muscular bulwark. “Hey, Mr. Jackson! I’m Kelsey Owens, a private investigator looking into the murder that happened across the street. I was wondering if you noticed anything odd last night. Maybe a bright light or a kind of booming sound, like a different plane opened up and spat out an assassin or something?”

I couldn’t see Trent’s eyes roll, but it was all there in his tone. “Could you try to act professional?”

I was. Mr. Jackson spoke crazy so I was giving it to him in his language. And honestly, he wasn’t truly crazy. Some humans see things they can’t handle and it breaks them in a way. When your eyes see something that can’t reconcile with your version of reality, often you end up warped. I didn’t know what had happened to the former janitor, but I was going to treat him with some respect, and that meant leveling with him where I could.

“And if I did see something? Who would believe me anyway?” There was a sorrow behind the bellow now.

“Me. I would believe you, Mr. Jackson. I’m not the cops. I’m something else entirely, and my only goal is to find out the truth of what happened, no matter how odd or surreal that truth turns out to be.” I should put that on my business cards.

“And what about that werewolf with you? What’s he here to do?” Jackson asked.

I heard a huff of surprise from Trent, but I felt like I’d scored. Yeah, life’s so much easier when I don’t have to play around. “The wolf’s here because no one ever believes I can do a job on my own. There’s sexism in the supernatural world, too, you know. It’s exhausting and I miss my alone time.”

“One day I will show you sexism,” Trent muttered.

The door came open and a balding head peeked through. “You can come in, but you should know I got silver bullets. I got all the bullets to deal with your kind.”

I doubted that, but I still gave him a sunny smile because I’ve learned that shoving down my morose side helps with twitchy clients. Like I said, even in my world it sucks to be female. If you don’t smile you have resting bitch face and some jerk tells you how much prettier you would be if you would flash him a flirty grin. That’s when he gets to see my active bitch face, which is way scarier.

Still, the smile seemed to work on the elderly Mr. Jackson. He let us both into his creepy hoarder house and stepped back, narrowly avoiding a stack of newspapers that looked like they went back to the 1950s. “You say you’re looking into what happened to Les?”

“First of all, how exactly do you know about wolves and why would you say I’m one?” Trent was still putting his body between us, though the other dude weighed all of a hundred pounds soaking wet.

“Caught you on camera. Wereanimals’ eyes shine a particular way in certain light,” Jackson explained. “And I know about wolves because my pappy was a hunter back in the old days. Know about demons, too. Les was one of the decent ones.”

“You aren’t known to the Council.” Trent managed to make that sound like the worst crime imaginable.

Jackson’s hand tightened on the rifle he was carrying like it was a security blanket. “You from the Council? I won’t go down easy, you know.”

I held out a hand. “No one’s trying to take you down, Mr. Jackson. I take it you don’t hunt like your grandfather?”

He shook his head. “No. Never wanted to. I met my Jane and I wanted a peaceful life. I left it all behind, so the Council’s got nothing on me.”

“Humans who know about the supernatural world need to be registered,” Trent insisted.

It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Don’t listen to him. He’s a big old Council kiss ass. I, for one, don’t feel any need to tell anyone about the fact that you happen to know some crazy supernatural creatures exist. But I do need to know if you heard or saw anything last night. Your friend Lester wasn’t some nobody.”

Jackson’s jaw squared but his shoulders came down. “I know. He was one of the high-ups, but he was a half-blood. They ain’t all bad.”

Didn’t I know it? I nodded his way. “Half-bloods can go one of two ways. I have a royal blood friend and he’s one of the best men I’ve ever met. I know the king. He told me Lester was a friend of his.”

He hadn’t exactly, but I was willing to slip some soft lies by him. It was all for the greater good.

Jackson seemed to calm a bit. “That’s good to know. Les told me he was here to talk to the king about some changes he wanted to make that would help halflings and their families. The good ones.”

“What happened last night?” I asked because he was relaxed and calm and seemed ready to answer some questions.

“Come on in. I think it might be easier to show you than to tell you.” The hand on the rifle eased up and Jackson drew it over one shoulder. Despite the fact that he was wearing pajama bottoms and a too-big white T-shirt, somehow I got the feeling the rifle was part of his daily wardrobe.

Jackson started to move into what looked like it had been a living room at one point. Now it was something akin to command central. While there was a big old TV and a lounge chair, the rest of the room was made up of what appeared to be folding tables and an array of monitors and laptops, and some electronics I’m not even sure what they were. They looked kind of like repurposed video controllers or something. And there was lots of tinfoil. Lots.

“What the hell is this?” Trent frowned as he looked around, obviously freaked out by the tech.

Now this was one place I could have used Casey. Trent is pretty useless when it comes to technology. “I think this is his security system.”

Jackson nodded. “I monitor much of the neighborhood, but I have to be real subtle about it.”

“You watch for supernatural creatures?” Trent asked.

“Nah, I don’t worry about those. It’s the aliens you gotta watch out for,” Jackson replied. “I’ve been in their program since I was a kid. They come every few years, and believe me, that’s a probing you don’t want. The good news is they don’t like to pick us up in populated areas since someone might see, you know.”

Okay, so he was proof positive that one could both know the truth about the world and also be super insane. I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit, but not once had I seen a little green man from outer space. We’ve got enough inner space to be afraid of, but I wasn’t about to argue with the man. If he had some intel, I wanted it.

“I totally get it. So you have hidden cameras all over the place?”

Jackson stopped in front of a bank of monitors. They were all on, all in black and white. I could see one of them was pointed at the front door of our victim. Daniel Donovan was stepping outside into the late afternoon light. He settled his sunglasses over his eyes. Due to the nature of a vampire king, Donovan can daywalk like an academic. He can also fight like a super warrior, play with your mind like a minor magician, and call wolves like an animus vampire. Basically he’s got the most powerful talents of all the classes. I’d heard him talk about the fact that he would give a bunch of his powers up if he could taste pizza one more time. Sharing senses is a minor talent of the academics, but one Donovan envied greatly.

Jamie stepped out beside him and the two talked for a moment.

“Do you record off these cameras or are they a live feed only?” Finally Trent was getting into the swing of things.

“I keep all the recordings. It was way harder before digital, though I don’t trust digital entirely. But after I filled the guest room with VHS tapes going back twenty years, Jane insisted I go digital. Now I have a lot of hard drives.”

All of this was fascinating, but I was starting to feel a tiny bit claustrophobic, and after Trent’s earlier smell-a-thon lesson, I was all open to the unique smells coming out of Mr. Jackson’s house. Burnt mac and cheese and body odor were not my friends. “Can we see the time in question?”

Jackson went to one of the laptops and threw a feed onto the big screen TV. “It was late, but I knew it wasn’t anything like a damn earthquake. At first I thought maybe the insectoids were invading, but then I saw the light. Now see, the insectoids don’t like bright light so I knew it wasn’t them. When I realized where it was coming from, I figured it was demon oriented. Here it is.”

I stared at the screen. It was nothing more than a night shot of the front of the Tudor mini mansion I’d recently been inside. The film was the grainy gray-green that comes with night vision. It appeared all was fine one minute, and the next the whole frame went blindingly white, like someone had thrown a flashbang into it. A searing white light scorched the screen and then was gone like it hadn’t happened at all. The shot went right back to normal.

What the hell had happened? The door was closed. Nothing seemed to have moved. Just that shocking white light. “How did it feel to you?”

Jackson paused the tape. “It shook a bit, but that wasn’t what struck me. It rattled the windows, but I could feel it. When that light hit, I felt a sickness shoot through me. Like a chill going up my spine, but with something behind it. I didn’t shiver. I wanted to throw up. For a second I thought it was the end and then it went away. Just gone. Like it hadn’t happened at all.”

“Was there a second light?” Trent asked. “If whatever the hell this thing is came in a ball of light, shouldn’t it have left the same way? Do you have that on tape, too?”

He pushed a key and the tape moved forward. “There’s nothing at all until five minutes later. Let me see if I can find her. Les had a lot of visitors, but I’d never seen this one before. Pretty lady. God only knows what she turns into. I can tell you that she got to his place four hours before the incident and…there it is.”

He slowed the tape as the door suddenly slammed opened. A woman rushed outside and then pulled the door closed hard, as though trying to hold something off. She held the doorknob for a moment and then turned and ran. The camera was too far away to get a good shot of her face, but I knew someone who could help me with that.

“Mr. Jackson, I know you like to keep your tapes, but could I have a copy of that one? I need to find that woman. She’s the only real witness I have.”

The older man’s jaw firmed into a mulish line. “And what do I get out of it?”

Trent smiled down at him, a wolfish, predatory grin. “You get me not setting the Council on your ass. How about that?”

He could be rude, but he was also pretty effective. I, on the other hand, liked to keep the lines of communication open. Jackson was crazy, but he saw things. He knew things.

I pulled out my card and handed it to him. “How about I owe you? Do you know what a Nex Apparatus is?”

He took the card, his eyes going wide. “You’re the Nex Apparatus?”

It’s always helpful when your nickname roughly translates to death machine. People tend to take me seriously. Well, people who know Latin. The others kind of stare blankly at me until I pull out a sword or something.

“I’ll email you a copy. And maybe you’ll come help me the next time the Grays show up.”

If there was a group of aliens probing the backsides of the citizens of Dallas, it kind of was my sworn duty to stop it. Also, it would be kind of cool to see an alien, but I rather thought I would spend this favor sobering the old guy up. I could do that, too. “Absolutely.”

I gave him my email and thanked him.

“Come on, Kelsey,” Trent said, starting for the door. “If we hurry we can catch up to the…to Donovan and let him in on what we found.”

I noticed on the real-time monitor that the king and Jamie were still talking on the porch. I would have to chide the king for not realizing he was being monitored.

I followed Trent outside, happy that I had a lead, but somewhat terrified by where it might take me. I had a nasty idea in my head of where that light had come from and if I was right, we might all be in trouble.

But I wasn’t going to put it out there until I could talk to our witness. I walked out the door and immediately felt better.

“Didn’t like being confined, huh?” Trent took a deep breath and stretched his arms out. “That’s the wolf in you. That was tight and the smells were all old and dank. Too many of ’em. So much nicer to be outside.”

It was. I could feel that part of me ease as I let the breeze caress my skin. I was definitely leaving the windows down while we drove back to Ether. Not that I would hang my head out like Trent would. He didn’t even pretend to not like it.

“You did good in there, Owens.” He stopped at the edge of the street.

I should have known sending Trent with me was something of a test. “Good. Tell Donovan I don’t need a keeper.”

He looked back at me. “What fun would that be? Oh, and as to the question you asked me earlier, is it mere curiosity or something else?”

“I asked a question?”

“About wolves and condoms. You should know that some wolves are out to mate with anyone,” he said, reaching for his sunglasses. “But there are some who know that their children will be strongest from a true mating. You can call us romantic or whatever, but I personally don’t want a child who doesn’t come from my fated mate.”

Again that well of sorrow seemed to bubble up. I might need a doctor to check my hormone levels. “So you won’t ever have a kid?”

He frowned and his hand came out to scratch against his neck, a distinctly wolfy gesture. “Didn’t say that. Just said I would wear a condom until the right one lets me in.”

“But you were married.”

“I was married, sweetheart,” he said, starting across the street. “I wasn’t mated. Not all the rumors you’ve heard are true. When I call for my mate, I’m going to make sure she’s ready to howl back. It’s okay. I can be patient.”

I watched him stride away and couldn’t help but stare. The man had a great butt. Someday some she-wolf was going to get her hands on that.

I hurried after him, wishing I hadn’t opened up the subject at all.