Soul Survivor (8 page)

T
he rest of the night was just blackness. I slept without dreams; slept without nightmares; slept without worry until the blaring sound of the hotel phone ringing startled me out of the darkness. I shot up out of my deep sleep, gasping for breath.

“Calm down. It's just the wake-up call.” George stretched and said through a yawn.

After taking a moment to look around the room, I threw the covers aside, in search of the little coffee maker that comes in these hotel rooms. I looked on the desk, next to the TV, on the vanity mirror . . . there wasn't a single self-service coffee pod anywhere.

George approached as I was looking through the closets where they kept the ironing board and extra hangers. “What in the Hell are you looking for? The magical door to Narnia?”

With a sigh, I sat back on my heels. “I can't find the coffeepot. I'll just have to pinch my nose and drink Starbucks, I guess.”

“Baby girl, hardly anyone in this damn city drinks coffee—that's considered devil-juice.”

“What?” I shot to my feet, grabbing George by his T-shirt. “George, if I don't get coffee this morning, I will not be a tolerable person!”

“And how is that different than any other day?” he asked, flicking my hands from his shirt as though they were a mere piece of lint. He shifted into his outfit for the day. A button-down shirt and pinstriped pants. And of course, his newsboy hat. The vibrant blue shirt paired with his mocha skin and perfectly coarse ringlet hair was absolutely delectable. “You finish getting ready. I'll meet you in the lobby in ten minutes—and I promise to have a cup of coffee for you.”

I perked at the mention of caffeine. “A latte?”

“Don't push your luck.” The door slammed behind him.

I actually changed clothes myself—physical clothes that I had packed with me—as well as did my own makeup. I managed to get just enough energy to shift my hair into something manageable, but even that left me a little breathless.

There was a quiet knock on the door and when I stood to answer, darkness closed in on the edges of my vision. After a deep breath and another knock from outside, I finally managed to open it.

Damien leaned against the door frame. The scent of arabica beans flooded my nostrils and I closed my eyes, breathing it in. “Now that is a sight for sore eyes,” I said.

“Why thank you.” Damien's smile was cocky and lopsided as he handed one of the cups to me.

“I meant the coffee, jackass,” I answered but couldn't suppress my own smile.

“Sure ya did,” he winked. He took his time looking me over and my skin tingled under his gaze. “Everything okay today?”

“After a sip of this”—I held the coffee cup up—“it will be.”

His smile slipped, revealing more concern than he usually let on. “You look . . . tired. Beautiful, but tired.”

With a shrug, I grabbed my purse from the bed. “I'm going to need to power up again tonight. I didn't get anything from Aaron before I—well, you know.” Swallowing, I didn't want to talk any more about how I'd murdered a man. Not even to save my own life.

Damien nodded, another smirk spreading along his face. “Well, if you need help in that department . . .”

“And just how would a night with you do me any good? It's not like I can recharge off of you.”

His grin widened. “Oh, it would do you good. Trust me.”

Giving his arm a playful nudge, I swung my purse over my shoulder and guided him out of my room. “C'mon, Casanova. Don't pretend you could handle me.”

He grunted. “Oh, baby. I could handle ten of you and still have enough stamina to take you dancing after.”

 

Damien and Adrienne had arranged all the proper clearances prior to our arrival. They handed me a temporary badge along with industrial-strength pepper spray and a walkie-talkie.

“Really?” I looked at them through an eye roll. “A walkie-talkie?”

“We have a low budget,” Adrienne said before walking into the morgue.

When we arrived at the coroner's office, Damien held my elbow, pulling me back from the group. “Oh, there's one more government-issued item.” He pulled fuzzy hot pink handcuffs from his file fax and clipped them to my belt loops. “Got them just for you, puddin'.”

Should I have been insulted? Maybe. But mostly, I just found it endearing. Even if he'd done it to get a rise out of me.

“In case you need to restrain someone . . . this time you won't have to use their own
belt
.”

“Cute,” I said. “But I already have leopard-print ones at home.” I turned and followed Adrienne into the coroner's office. She and George were already inside shaking the hand of a tall, white-haired man who was round at the midsection but otherwise in decent shape for his age. If we were anywhere other than Salt Lake City, I would have thought the belly was a result of too much beer.

“Has there been an autopsy on the first victim yet?” Adrienne's voice interrupted my observations.

The coroner—Jed—as I came to learn, handed her a file. “Just the other day. Mr. Kaelica has not yet had an autopsy. It's on the schedule for today.”

Damien nodded. “Well, let's have a look at him first.”

My stomach flip-flopped and I caught Damien's arm just as my knees started quaking. “We're looking at a corpse?” I hissed.

He looked at me as though he were talking to a five-year-old. “What else would we be doing at a coroner's office?”

Damn, if we were going to do this dating thing for real, he'd have to learn to be a bit more empathetic. My mind went immediately to Drew—the way he used to just hold me when I was having a bad day. I quickly pushed him from my thoughts. He hadn't held me like that since the whole Adrienne drama six months ago.

With a shudder, I forced down the sick that was threatening to surface and stiffened my legs, hoping to calm the quaking coming from down there.

“You can always wait out here,” Damien said with just the slightest trace of annoyance, “but then I'm not quite sure why my department is paying you for this little visit.”

Every muscle in my face clenched and I spoke through gritted teeth. “I am
fine
. Let's go.”

“Are you sure, Monica? You don't look so . . . ,” Adrienne started.

“I said
let's go.
” If I'd been sure I could walk ahead of them without vomiting everywhere, I would have stomped forward.

A hand on my elbow made me gasp and I released a breath when I saw it was just George. “Hey there,” he said softly, taking the empty paper coffee cup from my hand. “Glad to see you're caffeinated.” He winked and his full lips curved to his eyes. My George. My rock.

His shoulder was firm against my cheek—not the most comfortable, but I rested on him anyway. “Let's go,” he said. “If we lag behind too long they'll think you backed out.”

The room was frigid—a giant ice box. But the perishables weren't food. At least not to anyone other than a vampire. And even vamps had standards—they liked their blood pumping. No one liked a frozen dinner.

There were several surgical tables with people covered in sheets. “I was just about to prep him for the autopsy this afternoon,” Jed said while peeling away the white cotton sheet.

I bit back a cry at the sight of the dead older man on the table. Damien and Adrienne circled the corpse like a couple of vultures, their gloved hands lifting, poking, and stretching various body parts. His body was covered in slash marks . . . like he'd been hit repeatedly with a switch. His deeply lined face was slackened, but despite being dead, he still looked tense. Runes surrounded his body like faint swirls all up and down his skin. They looked Celtic or of some sort of ancient Irish magic. Taking a step forward, George followed. “He looks . . . familiar,” I said to no one in particular. “There's something about him.”

Jed held out a box of surgical gloves. “Please,” he said, “before getting any closer.”

I nodded, and George and I each took a pair, popping them over our hands.

Damien and Adrienne exchanged a look, and he gave her the tiniest little nod. She moved to Jed, her smile turned on like a five-hundred-watt lightbulb. “Dr. Spencer, would you mind if we had a few minutes with the body? We work so much better when we can just brainstorm aloud and our superior would hate for someone not on our team to hear our blathering ideas.”

“Well, Detective, I'm really not supposed to . . .”

“Oh, I know,” she cooed, slipping the latex glove off and placing a hand on his arm. “And I wouldn't dream of asking you to do anything you weren't comfortable with.”

“Son of a bitch,” I whispered as his eyes glazed over. A mixed look of adoration and worship overcame his gentle features.

“Of course, Detective. If that's what you need to get the job done.”

“So you'll wait for us to call you back in, yes?”

“Yes.” Like a zombie he exited the room, the door clamping shut behind him.

Damien snickered once he'd left and Adrienne popped the glove back on. Back to her normal voice. “Well, let's get started for real.”

“Having a partner who's an angel really comes in handy.” Damien winked at her. “Then again, in your prostitute days, you could accomplish almost as much.”

She shrugged. “Might as well use the powers we've got at hand.”

Damien pulled the overhead light down to Moe Kaelica's inner thigh. “Look what we've got here. Just like victim number one, he has a vampire bite.”

All feelings of queasiness disappeared. I was suddenly alert. “Let me see,” I said, pushing my way forward. I moved between Adrienne and Damien. Sure enough, there were two open wounds in the same area. My scars tingled, though I was certain that was entirely in my head. I knew that wound better than I knew how to make a latte, and something about the one in front of me was not right.

“I think we have a vampire murderer on our hands,” Adrienne stated, flipping open an iPad. She pushed it into George's hands. “Make yourself useful. Take notes.”

“Man, you're a lot bossier when you're on duty,” he muttered, sitting in a chair at the corner of the room.

“Not so fast,” I cut her off, holding a hand up. “Do you have a ruler?”

The two detectives exchanged looks. Fist to his mouth, Damien cleared his throat. “It's an autopsy room. I'm sure they do.”

“Here.” Adrienne pulled out a small measuring tape from her purse. I couldn't help the way my face twisted. I mean, who carries measuring tape? As if reading my mind, she answered with an eye roll of her own. “It's for my knitting.”

“Of course it is, Pollyanna,” I muttered while measuring the distance between the teeth marks. “There. Almost three inches. Who the Hell would have a mouth that big between canines?”

Damien looked at Adrienne, who shrugged. “There are lots of people who have large jaws.”

“Really?” My eyes narrowed. It was as though he was opposing me just to be difficult. “Smile wide for me. Let's measure your chompers.”

“Could you wash off the tape first?”

After soaping it up and rinsing it off, I held the tape up to his teeth. “There. See? You're an average-sized man . . .”

He scoffed with a crinkle of his brow. “Sweetheart, I'm anything but average.”

I chose to ignore the interruption. “. . . and your measurement was just at about two inches. So, we're either talking about a giant . . . or someone is trying to make it
look
like a vampire murder.”

Adrienne smiled, and from behind her George gave me a wink. “That's great, Monica. Really . . . good work.”

Damien held up a hand. “Whoa, whoa. We can't rule vampires out entirely. We could just have an exceptionally large vamp on our hands.”

“We could,” Adrienne agreed. “But I'm not about to hedge my bets on that. We'll keep an open mind for now.”

“And just who made you the one running this investigation?” His knuckles were bleached of color, clenched onto his hips.

“I could ask you the same question.”

After a moment's silence, Damien cleared his throat. “All right then.” He chewed his top lip in a very uncharacteristic way. “Anything else on his body that's noteworthy?”

I studied Moe and lifted his left hand. It was stone cold and even harder than I'd imagined it would feel. I turned the hand over—and there it was, my family's crest.

“We saw pictures of this symbol in the file last night. It looks like some sort of old Celtic—”

“It's a family crest,” I said, swallowing. Squeezing my eyes shut, I pushed the memories to the back of my mind. It was so long ago, I had to dust away the fog just to remember snippets. I couldn't even really recall what Mama looked like. But her smell—she'd always carried the scent of flour and cedar. My sisters and I would play in the field and as a little girl, I would pretend the sheep were a sea of dragons holding me prisoner. “Or more accurately, it's
my
family crest,” I added, quieter. “I wanted to be sure before I said anything.” I lowered Moe's hand and raised my eyes to meet Damien's.

His mouth hung open and he clamped it shut at the realization that he was gaping. Quickly diverting his eyes back to his notepad, he scribbled something.

A sudden touch startled me. It wasn't until acrylic nails circled my back that I realized it was Adrienne's hand offering comfort. “Are you sure?” she asked. “It must be years since you've seen it. . . .”