Dying Dreams (Book 1 of Dying Dreams Trilogy) (3 page)

So, Ellison concocted some tests. A buddy of his had killed a deer and they didn’t tell Liza how. That night she dreamed she was a deer shot with an arrow, she’d run off and been taken down by two more arrows. Her dream replicated exactly what had happened. Ellison was convinced, but she wasn’t ready to believe it until he took her to the local vet’s office. He’d slept with a girl who worked there, Liza accused him of sleeping with her just to get an in at the vet’s office but he denied it, and she let Liza get close to a dog who’d died in an unusual way.

That night, she dreamed that the dog, a German shepherd, was chasing a squirrel. The dog ran into the street following its prey and almost got hit by a car. The dog made it across the street and into the woods and was caught in a bear trap. The dog, though bleeding heavily, was still feeling strong and probably would have survived but, in its effort to get free, it made a lot of noise and a pack of coyotes took advantage of the easy prey. It was a horrific, painful death and she told Ellison she was done. She wasn’t going to play his game anymore. He apologized and felt terrible. He gave her the report of the dog’s death and it matched her dream exactly. They were both convinced after that, but they never talked about it again and she’d hoped never to die in another dream.

The biology lab at East Carolina University was empty when Liza arrived, so she started working. The university had suffered extensive flooding and wind damage in a major hurricane six years before and many campus buildings had had to be condemned. There hadn’t been money to replace the buildings, so modular classrooms had been moved in and now constituted the science department. What the school lacked in looks it made up for in the dedication and achievements of its faculty.

Liza was putting together specimens for an undergraduate summer school class, an underwater botany section. She used the seaweed she’d picked up the day before – the bits her friend didn’t need for her project – as well as samples they’d ordered that were from different fresh and saltwater bodies around the world. It was actually a pretty interesting array. She got everything together and laid it on the desks next to the students’ microscopes. The professor she was assisting, Dr. Gupp, showed up as she was finishing. He was older than her, in his mid-forties and starting to grey, but he looked like he was in his early thirties. He was in great shape, tan and lean, and he had an easygoing and fun personality. She’d never seen him get angry, but that morning he looked worried.

“Morning, Liza,” he said, as he walked in. “Would you mind putting off what you’re doing for a moment to speak with me?”

“Sure, Gupp,” she said, not worried. She worked hard for Dr. Gupp and was over two-thirds of the way through her dissertation. Whatever he was worried about couldn’t possibly affect her directly. She followed him back to his office and sat down in the chair in front of his desk. She was still tired from her night out and it felt good to sit. Dr. Gupp sat on the corner of his desk and looked down at her.

“Where’d you find those samples you gave me yesterday?”

She wanted to tell Gupp the truth, but she’d promised Agent Rice she wouldn’t and, well, the whole story just sounded too weird in her head. “There was a dead fish washed up on shore. I’d never seen anything like it before.”

Gupp nodded. “Any chance you bagged the fish and brought it with you?”

She shook her head. “No. It was in an advanced state of decomp, Gupp, pretty nasty. Why, what did you learn from the samples?” For the first time, she wondered if she’d made a mistake giving the scale and hair to Gupp, but it had made sense the day before. She’d studied the samples long enough to be sure that the scale wasn’t plastic and the hair wasn’t human, and had hoped Gupp, with his years of field work and study might have seen something like them before. She believed in science and logical explanations, and if there were truly mermaids in the sea, Gupp would know about them or he’d find what she hadn’t been able to and prove the woman was a human in a costume.

He studied her for a long moment. “The scale is cycloid, very similar to an eel’s scale, but different enough to be unlike anything I’ve seen before. And that strand of hair you gave me… did the fish have hair?”

Why hadn’t she thought this through before she gave Gupp the samples? Oh, yeah, because she never thought things through, she just figured everything would work out in the end and this was Gupp, she didn’t keep secrets from him. But telling him she plucked the hair from a dead woman because she thought she might be a mermaid? That was just too weird. “There was a lot of debris washed up on the shore. It seemed like the hair was attached, but like I said decomp was advanced, so…”

“That hair is insane. It’s got the composition of beaver fur, but it’s so long. Would you mind going back to the beach this morning, after you get the classroom lab set up, to see if the fish is still there? I’d go with you but–”

“You have to teach. Sure, I was planning to head out that way later anyway and I don’t have to be at the restaurant until six.”

He smiled. “Thanks, Liza. I appreciate it.”

She didn’t expect the mermaid to still be on the beach, but she’d hoped to find Agent Rice. The chances of that were about as likely as being struck by lightning, but she didn’t have any better ideas and she needed to see him. She’d seen the face of the man who’d killed that mermaid and she needed to tell him. Then, she needed to ask him how no one had ever noticed there were fucking mermaids in the ocean.

She walked up and down the beach, enjoying another sunny, warm June day, glad it hadn’t gotten too hot, yet. She combed the sand for seashells or seaweed samples, but there wasn’t as much since the sea had been calm for the past two days. She walked and saw nothing. No Agent Rice and no mermaids. After an hour, she headed back to the lab to help Dr. Gupp clean up, and to do some work on her own project.

*SLOANE*

“You look like shit,” Fulsom said. He was sitting in the cubicle they shared, his feet propped on the desk and his knowing smirk annoying Sloane. “Have another fight with Frankie?”

“I need a new couch,” Sloane said, twisting and rubbing his back. He didn’t like to talk about his personal life at work, but he knew from experience that Fulsom wouldn’t back down until he got the story out of him. He was like a pit bull with gossip. It was easier to just throw him a bone.

“No, what you need to do is start paying more attention to your girl. You’re never gonna get the transfer, so stop wrecking your personal life and start putting Frankie first.”

“One of us has to think about the job,” Sloane said. “You got anything back on the mermaid?”

Fulsom nodded, his expression grim. “Same as the others. She was suffering from the increased temperature and acidity of the waters and she swam too close to shore. Looks like she was disoriented and was electrocuted. Adamson says it’s the right voltage for an eel.”

“How many eels are in that water?” Sloane asked. “Enough to kill eight mermaids in five weeks?”

“Not our problem. Boss wants us to go have a talk with the wolves today.”

“Fuck the boss,” Sloane said. “And fuck the wolves.” He hated those guys, more concerned with who had the biggest dick than with getting anything decided. He’d spend the day breaking up fights and cooling tempers. He’d rather cut the lawn out front with nail clippers. “I thought Richards and French had that gig.”

“They do, but the boss feels they need back-up. Someone called the police two nights ago claiming they saw wolves in their neighborhood. We’re to go talk to Gabriel tonight while Richards and French patrol the neighborhood where the sighting occurred.”

“Wish I’d known about this sooner. I promised Frankie I’d take her out to a nice dinner tonight.”

Fulsom gave him a long look. “You’re looking a bit peaked, Rice. You coming down with the flu? Maybe you should sit this one out.”

“And if I do? You’ll be stuck partnering with Shoring for this gig. You want that?”

“I want you to make it work with Frankie,” Fulsom said, in a rare serious mood. “I like her and she deserves to be treated better.”

Sloane grabbed his suit jacket from the back of his chair and slipped it on. “Then maybe you should date her.”

“I’m married, asshole, but someone else is going to be dating her if you don’t take better care of her.”

Sloane strode toward the door and their usual beat patrolling known fae neighborhoods, but he knew Fulsom was right. Frankie did deserve better and a part of him hoped she did leave him. She was gorgeous, and smart, and funny and incredible in bed, but the thought of her leaving him only filled him with relief and hope. Hope that she could find someone better than him, someone who’d give her what she wanted. And give him a break, another, darker part of his mind whispered. A night without a fight, a night in his own bed, the freedom to live as he chose. Yeah, it was time for Frankie to go and, if she couldn’t figure it out for herself, maybe he’d give her a little push.

“Hello, agents,” a sultry voice purred in Sloane’s ear. The woman attached to the voice ran a hand down his back and actually pinched his ass. He spun and had her by the wrist and against the wall so fast he felt a bit dizzy. The female werewolf just laughed and Sloane had to admit she had no reason to be shy. She had the face of an angel and the body of a devil and her laugh, god her laugh, made him warm in places he liked to get warm. “I had a feeling you liked it rough,” she said.

“I’m working, Sherry,” he said, clenching his teeth and trying to tamp down his body’s response to her. He should have been exhausted after the day he’d had, searching for a missing fae kid and then breaking up a fae brawl in the middle of downtown, but Sherry charged his adrenaline.

She shrugged. “Maybe later, when you’re not working?”

“Leave the guy alone, Sherry,” a husky voice said over Sloane’s shoulder. “Or Vince will have to kick his ass.”

Sloane released Sherry and stepped away from her. “You and Vince?”

“Yeah,” she pouted. “You ruin all my fun, Tom.”

Tom grabbed her hand and led her away from Sloane and farther into the shifter-owned bar. He had no interest in tussling with Vince. And he was sure Sherry was nothing but trouble, even without a jealous, two-hundred-pound werewolf boyfriend.

Shifters, in general and in specific, were nothing but trouble. All of them, male and female, were obsessed with dominance games and sex. He had argued with his boss that shifters shouldn’t be in their jurisdiction, but part of their job was keeping the supernatural world a secret and snarling werewolves was the sort of thing that drew unwanted attention. Even so, he’d been in the division for eight years, was almost thirty and felt he was definitely too old and too experienced to still be dealing with fist fights and shifter politics.

Sloane studied the crowd filling the bar. Wolves, in human form, chatted and slapped one another on the back, but very few of them smiled. Like the wild version of themselves, male werewolves could be territorial and were especially sensitive to other men getting anywhere near their mates. Although everyone in the three-star restaurant swore allegiance to the pack, they kept their distance from one another as soon as they found a mate and started creating a family. The bar was neutral territory for them to see friends and family, but that didn’t mean they didn’t feel the instinct to fight with every other wolf in the room to re-confirm the pecking order.

The women weren’t as territorial as their mates, but they seemed to love it when their men fought for them and they had their own dominance games. If a wolf, male or female, sensed weakness in another wolf, they would fight to move higher in the ranks. Sloane had seen them kill to do it. Not that any of them were bad people, they worked and they cared for their families, they just enjoyed physical fighting more than most humans did.

Sloane’s stomach growled as the smells of fries and burgers wafted over to him from the kitchen, but he ignored his hunger and continued to study his surroundings. The bar looked a bit dingier than it had the last time he’d been there. The walls needed to be painted and a few of the tables looked ready to fall apart if someone touched them. He wondered if business had slowed or if the wolves just had more pressing concerns than keeping the bar looking fresh and clean.

Sloane found Gabriel Moon, owner of the bar and alpha of the U.S. United Shifters Coalition and of the East Coast Wolf Pack, sitting at the bar, listening to the bartender and drinking a glass of pink wine. Sloane supposed when you were alpha of over 700 shifters you didn’t need to worry about a pink drink threatening your manhood. Gabriel Moon was older, appearing to be in his sixties, but since shifters didn’t age like humans he was probably well over two-hundred years old. Moon was one of the only shifters Sloane respected, he was probably one of the very few sentient beings Sloane respected. Sloane sat down next to Moon and the bartender looked at him, stopped talking, and walked away. He wouldn’t serve Sloane, didn’t serve agents, but Sloane couldn’t drink on the job anyway.

“Get your transfer, yet?” Moon asked.

“Had a wolf sighting,” Sloane said, already knowing exactly how the conversation was going to go. “You know anything about it?”

“They’re never going to transfer you, until you lose that 25% of fae blood you’re carrying in your veins.”

It was an old argument. One Sloane never won and he didn’t want to rehash it, but Moon had his way of doing things. “I’ll get my transfer. I just have to prove to them I’m capable.”

“How many solves you got?”

“Fifty.”

“Out of how many cases?”

“Sixty-five.”

Moon nodded, as though he hadn’t heard those statistics before. “How many vacation days you taken in the past eight years?”

“None.”

“How many of the people working in your division are human?”

“None.”

“You got a supernat for a boss?”

“No.”

“No. You got a human for a boss, watching over the supernats. How many supernats work in the other divisions?”