shadows of salem 01 - shadow born (15 page)

Huh.
Was that why I’d never run into a fae, then? Because Chicago was a big city? “I’m guessing that means vampires and other supernaturals born of fae magic aren’t susceptible to iron?”

“Yes, which is why they are able to thrive by comparison.” The sneer deepened, and I raised my eyebrows at the clear prejudice in my guard’s amber eyes. “Vampires, shifters, witches, and the myriad other supernaturals out there make their homes in the iron-clad cities where we cannot dwell, and so they are able to carve out their own territories. If we shared the same lands, you can bet that we would be on top, and that all the other races would bow to our will.”

“Er, so are you saying that the other supernaturals around here
do
bow to fae will?”

“Not as much as they should, these days.” The guard scowled. “Lord Tremaine will yank them into line, though. He always does.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, starting to head toward the entrance to my apartment. “I better head in. Have a good evening.”

The guard returned my farewell, and I went inside, mulling over what I’d just learned as I trudged up the stairs.

Maddock had told me he was here to oversee the supernatural community in this area, but were his intentions simply to protect the residents, or to subjugate them to fae rule? If the bodyguard’s views were any indication, the fae considered themselves far superior to their magical by-blows and felt all supernaturals should defer to them. I bet that created all kinds of animosity toward the fae.

And maybe, just maybe, even the kind of animosity that would lead an old coven of witches to start kidnapping fae citizens.

I wanted to delve into research the moment I set foot in my apartment, but my body demanded food and relaxation first. So I whipped out a TV dinner from the freezer, then drew myself a hot, luxurious bath.

As I sank into the water, a shiver of apprehension trickled down my spine. I’d nearly
died
the last time I was in here. But I pressed my lips together and pushed the feeling away. I was not going to let the experience keep me from enjoying my bath. I’d discovered long ago that the best way to get over a traumatic experience was to face triggers head-on rather than letting them squish me into a little ball of fear. That might not work for everyone, but it worked for me, and I wasn’t about to stop now.

Sighing, I rested my head on the lip of the tub and touched the cross that rested on my soap-covered chest. I felt as if I was getting dragged out to sea by getting mixed up with Maddock in his quest to find these missing fae, and I needed to ground myself, to remind myself why I was really here. To find out what happened to Tom.

But as my fingers brushed the metal, a vision hit me, one of the most disorienting I’d ever had.

Yellowed, linoleum-tiled halls. Nuns dressed in long, black habits. Children of various ages wearing bedraggled uniforms. A picture of a group of kids outside a church-like building hung on one of the walls, with a large sign out front that read “New Advent Home for Children.”

A room with rickety wooden desks and a dusty chalkboard. A struggle. The room spun as fists flew, metal flashed.

Blood. So much blood.

The world tilted, and then I was on my side, liquid seeping onto the scratched tile beneath me. And that was when the screams came.

Gasping, I shot straight up in the tub, water sloshing over the sides. My heart galloped so hard I thought it might burst through my chest. God, but what had I just seen? I knew from conversations with Tom that the New Advent Home for Children was the orphanage where he’d grown up. But what was up with all that violence, all that blood? Had someone been killed?

From the vantage point that I’d witnessed the battle, the wearer of the cross hadn’t been a child, but an adult. Was this a recent vision? Had Tom been at the orphanage? Was
that
where he’d
actually
been killed?

They’d sent me his cross, saying that was all they could find left of him. Had he died wearing it in a fire, or in a battle inside of an orphanage? The whole thing had never sat right with me. The cross would have been ruined by the fire, and the flames would have left behind
some
remains.

Bodies don’t just disappear, and the excuse that Tom’s body must have been moved was sloppy—if they thought that, why hadn’t they searched for it? All these questions were a part of why I was here now. Tom’s case needed to be investigated
properly
.

I scrubbed myself clean as quickly as I could, then left the bath and hurried into a pair of shorts and a tank top. Curling up on the couch with a can of coke, I opened up my laptop and ran a search on the New Advent Home for Children. Google told me it was located in Boston, about an hour’s drive from here.

Had the missing kids Tom was talking about actually been from Boston? That would explain why Captain Randall didn’t seem to know about them...but then why hadn’t he mentioned that Tom was digging around in Boston? And why hadn’t Tom told me the truth about where he was going? The two of them were covering something up…and only one of them was alive to tell me the truth.

Angry now, I shrugged on a hoodie over my tank top, then went outside to talk to my new bodyguard. I wanted to get a hold of Maddock and see what he knew about this. Cover-ups seemed to be his specialty, after all, and he
had
offered to help me find out what happened to Tom. I was going to get his help, and then I was going to Boston.

I trotted down the steps and out the front door of the apartment building, then approached the black Mercedes. It was dark out, so it wasn’t until I was standing next to the driver’s side door that I noticed the shadowy outline of the guard sprawled in his seat.

Alarm bells rang in my head, and I instinctively placed a hand on my weapon. I didn’t know the guy, but he’d struck me as a professional. No way was he going to just fall asleep in his car when he was supposed to be protecting me.

Sucking in a deep breath, I braced myself for the worst, then yanked open the car door. The thick, salty stench of blood instantly clogged my nostrils, and my eyes widened in horror at the sight of the guard slumped against a tan leather seat. His supposedly unbreakable skin was sliced open in a hundred places, blood seeping from all the wounds. Lifeless eyes stared up at the car’s roof, the amber irises I’d found so interesting devoid of spark.

And just as I reached out to check his pulse, to determine if he really was dead, his body disintegrated in front of my eyes.

CHAPTER 16

I
pulled up outside Maddock’s club with screeching brakes, then slammed out of my Jeep. The line of people waiting to get in snaked through the parking lot and around the block, just like last time, but I bypassed them and stormed up to the Mountain Man guarding the front door.

Said man moved his bulk to block the door and fixed his cold blue eyes on me. “You can’t go in.”

I pushed back my blazer, revealing my badge, and rested my hand on the butt of my weapon. “Like hell I’m not. Let me through. I’m here to see Maddock Tremaine on official police business.”

“Lord Tremaine would be more than happy to meet you at your precinct at a time of his choosing if you need to discuss official business with him.” The bouncer’s face was stony. “But you’re on the no-entry list, Detective, and that isn’t going to change.”

“If you don’t let me in
right now
, I’m going to rain every kind of legal hell I possibly can down on this club, and I will
never
help your boss again.”

The guard smirked. “I doubt Lord Tremaine is concerned about that, considering that you don’t actually have any jurisdiction in Salem.”

Damn. So he’d found out about that. Aware that all eyes were on me, I leaned in close enough that my nose nearly brushed the bouncer’s chest and glared up at him. “The guard that
Lord Tremaine
assigned to keep watch over my house is
dead
.”

Mountain Man’s nostrils flared. “Caid? Dead? That’s impossible.”

“He was sliced up like sashimi and shoved into his car, but I can’t prove that since he disintegrated shortly after I found him.” I scowled at the bouncer. “Are you going to let me in, or not?”

“One moment.” The bouncer pulled a radio from his belt, then moved a few paces away and spoke into it quietly. A muffled voice crackled back. This went on for about a minute before he finally turned back to me.

“Lord Tremaine will see you now.” The guard opened the door, and loud bass music spilled out into the night along with dark laughter and the scents of booze, expensive cologne, and sex. “Someone will escort you.”

I stepped into the dim interior to find another Mountain Man waiting for me. This one’s head was shaved bald, and he had a long, wicked scar slashing vertically across the left half of his face. Consequently, the left eye was milky white and unseeing, but that didn’t lessen the potency of his frigid stare as he looked me up and down.

“Right this way,
Detective
.” He angled his big body so that I could pass by. “Down to the end and then up the stairs.”

Right. Just like last time.
Except that this time, there was a behemoth herding me up the stairs, his body so close to mine that I could feel the menace rolling off him, sending warning signals skipping up my back.

I didn’t even think about stopping to stare at the other patrons or skimming my fingers along surfaces to see if someone had gotten sloppy and I might find anything here. There was a time and a place for everything, and I knew that within these walls, the fact that I represented the law didn’t matter. I needed to hold myself in check, at least until I was in front of Maddock.

I thought we would be going to the same room where I’d first overheard Maddock and Vox conversing, but Mountain Man guided me farther down the hall, to a room on the left. He knocked on a large door with wild beasts carved into the dark wood, angling his body in such a way that I couldn’t easily grab the doorknob and push my way in.

“Enter,” Maddock’s deep, richly-accented voice snapped, and Mountain Man pushed the door open.

“Sir, she’s here—”

“Yes, I am, and you don’t need to talk for me.” I brushed past him and into the room—a study, I realized. Dark, heavy wood, sumptuous red carpeting, and shelves lined with books both old and new. A large oil painting of a woman draped in red silk dominated the wall across from his desk, and his dark, exotic scent filled the space, marking it unequivocally as his.

Maddock’s green eyes pierced me like a lance—his eyes glittered like gems, his face granite, and I knew right then that he was furious.

“Leave us,” he snapped at the guard.

The guard bowed, then backed out of the room as if Maddock was the goddamn Queen of England. I would have rolled my eyes if the situation wasn’t so serious.

“Sit,” Maddock said softly, indicating the buttery brown leather chairs arranged in front of his desk. “And tell me exactly what happened.”

“Fuck you.” I folded my arms and stayed right where I was. “You don’t get to sit there and tell me to make myself comfortable, as if ten seconds ago I wasn’t being told I was blacklisted from this club. What the hell, Tremaine? I thought we were working together.”

“We are,” he said coldly, “but our partnership does not require granting ye access to my club. The only reason I let ye in now is because you told the bouncer Caid is dead. Is that true?”

“He was sliced up and left to rot in that expensive Mercedes you gave him.” I felt a twinge of sympathy for the dead fae, but I brushed it aside—I needed to hold onto my anger. “I came here to let you know, thinking maybe you’d have some answers and we could hash out a plan together. But apparently I’m not even allowed to see you.”

My strides took me across the room, and the next thing I knew my hands were splayed across his desk, palms pressing into papers neatly organized into small stacks. Maddock’s eyes widened as I leaned in, baring my teeth at him, and I took satisfaction at his surprise—I bet he thought I didn’t have the guts.

“So what is it, Maddock Tremaine? Did you think this was going to be a one-way street, where you can teleport into my living room, leave guards outside my apartment, and otherwise call on me wherever you like, but I’m not allowed to do the same with you? Do you think that you can sneer at me like I’m less than the dirt stuck between the crevices in your shoes, and yet look at me like…like…”

“Like what, Detective?” he asked, his eyebrow arching.

My face burned with unfinished thought. He knew damn well what.

“Like you are now,” I said, and I hated the breathless note that entered my voice. He had a way of looking at me not just like he was undressing me with his eyes, but as if I was
already
bare.

Maddock leaned back in his chair and peered up at me, one corner of his mouth tipping up almost into a smile. “Ye mean like I want to pin ye to the wall and fuck ye until ye can’t breathe anymore?”

I swallowed, trying to block out that image.

“Well, Detective, I am not sure who wants that more…me, or ye? But I do believe ye had something more important to whine about. The matter of my guard, Caid? If ye could, please get back to that bit.”

We could play this game all he liked, but I wasn’t about to let him win. I refused to let him get to me. So I leaned in even closer, until I could feel his breath on my cheeks, until his deliciously masculine scent was dangerously close to overwhelming me.

“If you think you’re getting away with either one of those things, you’ve got your head so far up your ass, I’m surprised you can see anything.”

“Oh, I can see just fine,” Maddock said. His Scottish burr was whisper-soft, and his eyes had shifted from brilliantly cold to blisteringly hot. “And what I see is a little girl standing in front of me, pretending to be a woman. A little girl who thinks she can intimidate me by entering my personal space and using foul language. You may be bold, Detective, but yer bloody foolish as well.”