L. BANKS - Cursed To Death

“We’ll call you, for sure,” Sasha said. “But you make sure you have someone you can trust stay in here with you while you close. Promise me that.”

Ethan nodded as the king’s best man turned and also nodded. “Milord has sent for Fae archers to reinforce me. I will be fine. Just check on Penelope… and let her know I wasn’t being callous to have strangers contact her before I’d had a chance. Make her know-”

“Ethan…” Sasha said, stopping before his office door and hugging him. “We’ve got your back. We’ll explain to her that you by rights couldn’t leave here and she was unreachable by telephone. Just make sure you give us her address before we leave.”

Ethan’s body relaxed against hers and they parted after a moment. “Thank you, Sasha. Thank you both,” Ethan said with a sniff and then walked down the hall in the opposite direction.

The guard opened the door and stood aside before entering behind Sasha and Hunter and closing it behind them. They found Sir Rodney pacing with his hands behind his back. Sir Rodney walked a hot path between Ethan’s desk and the bank of file cabinets against the far wall, dragging his fingers through his thicket of dark brown tresses. His handsome face was near ashen with grief, but his jewel-blue eyes glittered with unspent rage. “I want whoever attacked this girl found and dismembered,” he said in a low, threatening tone.

“Not a problem,” Hunter replied, anger beginning to make his wolf canines crest. “It is the way of the wolf-however, we must be sure of who the assailant was, beyond all doubt, before we act in such resolute terms.”

“Thank you,” Sir Rodney said, rage glittering in his eyes. “Then I appreciate your allegiance on such short notice.”

“We are one,” Hunter said, offering the monarch an Old World handshake, by clasping each other’s forearms.

Sasha nodded. “Did she say anything about why she was down there in the wine cellar? Is there anything you can tell us that might shed light on the tragedy?”

Sir Rodney’s gaze held Sasha’s for a moment and then went to Hunter’s before seeking a far-off point in the office. “No. I was to meet her at her apartment. That was all she said.”

Brief silence created a new level of tension in the room as Sir Rodney leaned an outstretched arm against the file cabinet. He allowed his head to drop forward and he spoke to Sasha and Hunter with his eyes closed. “I cared for her,” Sir Rodney finally said in a gravelly tone. “Many of us did. Find her killer… this wasn’t an accident. We need a neutral party-someone who can look into a Phoenix death without the Fae being directly involved… or it could cause diplomatic complications and raise questions we are not prepared to answer at present.”

“We’ll do our best.” Sasha held the distressed monarch’s gaze and then she looked away. It was time to get out of here. But she had to show Sir Rodney what she had found. Extracting the card from her wallet, she held it out to him. “She was a blood donor for the Vampires… Were you aware of that?”

Sir Rodney straightened and snatched the card from Sasha and then flung it down on Ethan’s desk. “I knew she’d danced for them once or twice, but I d’not know she was a damned donor.”

Sasha glanced at Hunter. Sir Rodney’s Fae brogue had become thick, his rage allowing his dialect to surface as swiftly as the color that had risen to his face.

“In that case,” Hunter said evenly, “we’ll approach the death as highly suspicious.”

“It is highly suspicious,” Sir Rodney said flatly. “The timing of this, just as I was to collect her after her work shift and the way she approached me in the bar… no, this wasn’t some Phoenix transition gone wrong.” He looked at Sasha and Hunter. “You can rule out some crazy concept of contagion. Ethan told me the theories. And what of this Were scent you picked up?”

Sir Rodney’s voice had escalated on every word. Sasha gave Hunter a look to allow her to speak in a more calming female voice to the upset monarch. Hunter inclined his head slightly, agreeing without words.

“It was female and feral, but none like we’ve ever encountered in this region. That’s two potential leads… the only clan of local Weres we know of that has any feral females is the old Buchanan clan. This card,” she said, walking over to the desk to pick it up and stash it back in her pocket, “means, of course, we have to stop by the baron’s establishment just to rattle his cage for grins.” Oh, yeah, she and Vampire Baron Geoff Montague had history, the rat bastard.

“If you need anything-men, artillery, whatever you require, say it, and it is done.”

“Thank you, Sir Rodney… we’ll be sure to do that. But first we need to do the groundwork before we go to war.”

Hunter held his gaze. “We want to be sure to seek redress from the right culprit.”

“Yes, yes, you’re right,” Sir Rodney said, blotting the sweat from his brow. “Just keep me advised.”

“We will,” Sasha said, glancing at the air conditioner’s thermostat. She felt like she was burning up, yet it was only on sixty-seven degrees and blowing full blast.

A trickle of sweat ran down Sasha’s neck and almost made her jump out of her skin. The cellar with a body in it was giving her the heebie-jeebies. For reasons she couldn’t explain if her life depended on it, her senses were more than keen-there was a level of skittishness haunting her now that was normally not a part of her makeup as a soldier.

Hunter caught her start, his gaze steady but questioning. There was also something too tense in it that she wasn’t ready to cope with right now.

Regaining her concentration, Sasha sought Sir Rodney’s sad expression as a focal point. “If someone was chasing her, there would have been Phoenix plumes all around, and it doesn’t look like there was a struggle. No crates are crushed, the shelves are intact, there are no scuff marks on the floor or evidence of an accelerant, if someone came in and set her on fire or anything. No sulfur residue, so I’m not so sure it was a Vamp attack… a Black Death charge leaves a really distinctive odor. But having a card from their club means something-I can feel it.”

Charred remains still stung her nose, even though they were well away from the immediate site, and the general-regulation damp cellar scent added to it, making Sasha slightly queasy. But there was nothing abnormal for her to latch on to… except a feral animal odor that she couldn’t define-and blood. She looked at Hunter for a moment, frustrated by the lack of evidence. “If it was wolves that went after her, well… they generally don’t go in for barbecuing their victims first.”

As soon as she’d said it, she regretted the last part of her statement when Sir Rodney blanched and looked away. “I’m sorry, you know what I mean. Wolves eat raw, the attack is immediate, and Desidera’s remains weren’t disturbed as though a wolf had gone after her and left her dismembered before she flamed.”

“It’s all right,” Sir Rodney said, turning away. “I know you’re just trying to make sense of this the best way you can… and your assessment matches mine. That’s why I just don’t understand how something like this could happen. She wasn’t suicidal. She was happy!”

Sir Rodney’s gaze was fixed on a point on the wall and he slowly nodded. “Save for her unusually nervous behavior tonight, she was happy.” He briefly closed his eyes again as he released a long sigh. “The damnable part of this is, it all happened in a crowded establishment. There could have been hidden Vampires here, sorcerers, witches-covens even, Werewolves from the outlawed Louisiana Buchanan clan. How would we even know where to begin? But she got on with everyone… didn’t have an enemy in sight.”