Sierra Dean - Secret Unleashed

I longed for my sword, since it would have sliced through the lock like it was made of butter. But my weapon choice had been vetoed by Holden at the hotel. We were on a simple informational scouting mission. A sword would just draw unwanted attention. Unfortunately he was right, so I’d agreed to leave it behind, opting for my favorite gun instead.

I couldn’t shoot the lock off, that would be too much noise in the small space and would definitely bring us an unwanted audience. Hoping no one would come out of their rooms at that moment, I braced my back against the wall and kicked the door.

The particleboard gave no resistance, practically crumbling around my foot. It swung wide, slamming against an interior wall before swinging back towards me. Holden and Maxime were drawn by the sound and came to join me in the dark mouth of the room.

“This one?” Holden asked, giving a repulsed glance into the rooms surrounding it.

“They’re all equally bad,” I reminded him. “This one felt right.”

“No vampire in his right mind would hide so close to that…smell.”

“Wouldn’t that be what he’d expect another vampire to think, though? I mean, this is the last place I’d want to hide too, but that makes it perfect.”

We stole into the room, shutting the broken door behind us to cut down on the chances of someone noticing it and calling the police. Cloaked in darkness, I became less capable than the others. I could see, but not as well as a full-blooded vampire, and I didn’t want to risk missing an important clue.

Fumbling along the wall, my hand found the light switch and a fat spider at the same time. I flicked on the light and recoiled. The spider—now exposed and irritated—raised its front legs in a challenging gesture, then scuttled down the wall and out of sight.

Fucking spiders. I’d fought a lot of scary monsters in my time, and still spiders gave me the creeps. Keaty, my PI partner, had once told me he’d been sent to recover something stolen by a fae. Turned out the fae spent his days in spider form, guarding a webbed nest of jewels and money that would make Smaug weep with jealousy.

I got a wicked case of the heebie-jeebies whenever Keaty told that story. He’d obviously survived, and knowing Keaty, the fae had not. But learning there was a type of fae who took the form of a giant spider? That was the kind of knowledge human beings were lucky not to have.

Wiping my hand on my pants to rid myself of the tactile memory of the spider, I gave the room a glance now that I could see it better. Holden and Maxime were doing the same, and I wondered if they saw anything I was missing.

The space was clean, much tidier than I’d expected given how disgusting the building itself was. A plain, scarred wood table sat in the center of the room. There was a set of pliers and a roll of soldering wire on it, but nothing to indicate what they were for. A simple chair—wood, but not matching the table—was tucked underneath. All the walls had orange carpet stapled to them, likely as a buffer from the sound in neighboring rooms. It seemed to work, because the jazz was an almost enjoyable volume from in here, the too-sharp high notes blotted down or muted out entirely.

Yellowing flyers and handbills for long-ago concerts in local bars were tacked into the carpet, and someone had spray-painted a lime-green penis beside the door so it would appear to be ejaculating on whoever was walking into the room.

Nothing here told me about my father. The clues were all remnants of a previous tenant, one who’d possibly been in a band called Lady Killers and had an affinity for alien cock.

Either I’d picked the wrong room, or Sutherland was hiding his secrets better than I expected. I’d given myself too much credit as a detective. Over the years I’d learned a lot from Keaty, but I was still the student in so many ways. If he were here…

Of course.

I jerked my cellphone out of my pocket and pressed the speed-dial key for my mentor.

“McQueen,” he grumbled. “This had better be good. It’s two in the morning.” I’d forgotten about the time difference between California and New York.

“Oh don’t pretend like you were asleep.”

“As a matter of fact I was. Sometimes I do need to yield to my basic human needs.”

Hearing Keaty confess to having human needs was about as strange to me as a serial killer liking cuddles. It didn’t fit.

“I need your help with something.”

“Naturally. Come by the office.” The grogginess in his voice began to lift after he hefted a mighty yawn over the line. “Give me ten min—”

“Keaty, I’m in San Francisco.”

Without missing a beat, he said, “I’m not coming to you.”

“No, no. But do you think you can get to a computer?”

He sighed but didn’t protest, and given the rustling sounds, I was beginning to suspect I’d roused him from a nap at his desk. The familiar creak of leather was a dead giveaway. I wondered if he slept with his eyes open.

Windows announced its alertness from his laptop with its cheerful chimes, and he said, “What am I looking for?”

“I’m going to Skype you from my phone so you can see the room I’m in, okay?”

“Fine, but what am I looking for?”

Giving him a quick review of the situation, I left out the part about Sutherland being my father. I’d tell Keaty eventually, but now didn’t seem like the right time. For years, Francis Keats had been a stand-in father figure for me. I knew our relationship had its issues because of what I was, but he loved me in his own sociopathic way, and I loved him. It didn’t seem right to tell him about my real father over the phone.

When he had the necessary backstory, I hung up and redialed using the phone’s Skype app. I might not be great with fancy-pants technology, but the video-calling feature had been forced on me by my younger sister Eugenia. Since she was all the way down in Louisiana with my uncle’s wolf pack, she liked to be able to see me.

Thinking of Genie, I felt a swell of joy in my stomach. I hadn’t known her long—we’d met for the first time that spring—but I enjoyed having at least one family member who liked me for me. My brother Ben—Genie’s twin—hadn’t yet warmed to me the way she had, but that was fine. I couldn’t expect a big Kumbaya-style hug-fest from my siblings when we’d gone eighteen years without meeting.

Genie and Ben didn’t know their father either. It seemed Mercy had trouble with commitment after Sutherland died, abandoning her twins the same way she’d abandoned me.

Keaty accepted the video invite, and his face filled the screen of my phone. He wore his simple wire-framed glasses, and his dark blond hair stuck up at the back. Instead of his usual pressed dress shirt and tie, he was wearing a rumpled white T-shirt. He really had been sleeping.

“You want me to tell you where you think this rogue hid something?”

“He’s not a rogue.”

“Oh, forgive me. You want me to tell you where this missing vampire might have stashed items he’s intentionally keeping from the council, ignoring strict order from his leaders? Better?”

“Whatever.” I didn’t want to waste time arguing with him. I’d never win, and we’d both end up irritated. Since irritation accomplished nothing, I moved on.

I pressed the option to flip my phone’s camera from the front to the back, so Keaty was now able to see the room as I did. The image of his face on my phone went from annoyed to zoned-in.

“Go slow,” he instructed. “I need to see everything from the floor up to the ceiling.”

I did as he asked, going around the room in a painstakingly slow circle, scanning the camera up and down as I went so he could get a glimpse at every nook and cranny, every visible inch of the place. As I approached the door again, my heart sank. He hadn’t stopped me once, made no comments that might suggest he’d seen something noteworthy.