Ilona Andrews - Dark and Stormy Knights

Because while claiming this mortal flesh had indeed provided her with the benefits of permanence—energy and power an unnamed being like the Tulpa could never tap into—its shortcomings were equally potent. The Tulpa—another being who’d walked into existence as a doppelgänger and knew what it was to be untouchable—had bested Skamar briefly and used her new body against her. She swallowed hard as she remembered him driving iron ties into her wrists and ankles before hanging her from a lightning rod and setting her up beneath a roiling sky. For all her strength, she’d been utterly helpless to free herself.

And that pain now stalked her dreams. The first time she woke with a pounding heart and sweat-soaked sheets, she was clear out the apartment door before realizing she wasn’t being chased. Not by anything more than memories, at least.

Her paranoia, too, was off the charts. Thus her avoidance of neighbors, small talk with strangers, and even something as simple as a cup of coffee with Vaughn.

Especially a cup of coffee with Vaughn. Because she might be new to the whole flesh-and-bone thing, but she’d watched these mortals long enough to wonder openly at the messy emotions that routinely marred their lives. So what if the blue heat in a man’s eyes suddenly made her stomach plummet into her knees? Or if his mouth, when not quirked in humor, looked like a beautiful destructive force? Feelings for another person were an unnecessary chaos. Intimacy gone bad would only open her up to more pain, more fear.

Fuck that.

But Zoe was right about Joanna. She had saved her from crucifixion, so that’s why Skamar finally nodded.

But she would also continue to hunt the Tulpa. It was the only way she knew to combat the night sweats and remembered fears. And when she caught that sadistic, mutable fucker? She’d string him up as he’d done to her. She’d let him rot so slowly that he’d sit as close to death as anyone could and still remain alive. Then she’d patch him up, nurse him back to near health, and do it all over again. Then the leader of the Shadows, too, would know pain and fear and paranoia.

He would know intimately, she thought as she stood, what it was to be touched.

An early spring wind kicked at Skamar like a hard leather boot, though winter still laced the air, lending it icy force. Physical discomfort had taken some getting used to upon claiming her corporeal form, but she tried to look on the bright side. Having to consider her clothing made her blend more naturally with humanity, and she was confident she looked like any other tourist as she patrolled the Boulevard. Though she was admittedly missing the yard-long pink plastic margarita cup. Yet once she’d entered the site of the first victim’s abduction—a giant mall centering the infamous Las Vegas Strip—it seemed all she really needed to do to blend was wander aimlessly . . . and buy a bunch of crap she didn’t need.

The place was decked out like the North Pole had puked on it, Skamar thought, making her way to the food court. It was there, claimed the newspapers, that a Caucasian man had approached the counter of McGee’s Muffin Shop, ordered a lemon-poppyseed pastry, warmed, before yanking the owner’s daughter, Lilly, from behind the counter. Some eyewitnesses claimed he’d then leapt a glass balustrade to drop thirty feet before disappearing, and the police hadn’t been able to decide whether they should ignore those onlookers altogether or look at them most closely.

So the muffin shop, now considered a crime scene, was cordoned off and dark, and mothers of young children steered their offspring from the storefront as if abduction were an infectious disease. Therefore Skamar hadn’t long to wait for an opportunity to leap the counter and disappear into the back room.

The giant stainless-steel mixers were clean, the counter-tops wiped. It was orderly for a place so abruptly deserted. Yet beneath the scents of flour and sugar—and a particularly noticeable half-open tub of hardening blueberry muffin batter—Skamar still recognized human. The most obvious one smelled of whittled wood, a signatory male scent, though one laced with peppery shock. Skamar dismissed it and ferreted out the other, one as faint as soft, boiled ginger. That had to be Lilly’s.

Shutting her eyes, Skamar memorized the hooks and nuances in order to track the girl later. When the door handle next to her began to twist, she jerked back to awareness and thought briefly of bolting back over the counter . . . but why give the mortals another far-fetched story? Besides, the ID cards Zoe had provided included one for a licensed P.I. She’d just tell the shop owner that one of the other families had hired her. Any man desperate to find his missing daughter wouldn’t question that.

Yet it wasn’t the owner who flicked on the lights and startled at the sight of her. Skamar was dumbfounded, too. Of all people, her annoying neighbor was the last she expected to see.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked in as unfriendly a voice as she’d ever heard. As if he had a right to question her.

Skamar flashed her license. “I should ask you the same.”

“Brass trumps paper.” Vaughn flashed his badge. “Now answer the question.”

“A cop?” was all she said, letting her arm fall. “You have a job?”

“You can complete actual sentences?”

Her eyes hardened, but so did his. This was a different Vaughn from the one who undressed her with his gaze each time she passed his balcony. This one was a cool opponent, and perversely she liked it. She also thought she could use it.

“You’re the lead detective, then?” she asked, gaining a mere perfunctory nod. “I was hired by the Brundage family to find their daughter. Maybe we could work together?”

That flat cop’s gaze met the suggestion as enthusiastically as a cat met water. Yes, Skamar thought. She liked this Vaughn very much. “Does that mean you have something useful to add to the investigation, or would I be the only one contributing to this working relationship?”

“I’ve just started,” she admitted with a tilt of her head. “But I’m good, dogged . . . and I was born to hunt the people who do this.”

He didn’t answer immediately, frowning as he looked around and then shuddering as his eyes fell on the bin of batter. The odd moment passed quickly, though. “You mean the monsters.”

She smiled briefly. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

Eyes narrowed, Vaughn considered her a moment longer, then offered up his own thin smile. “The third victim was abducted while sleeping. I’m headed to her house now if you want to come along.”

Skamar nodded her thanks, so relieved he’d agreed that she didn’t worry too much about why. Maybe he was suspicious and wanted to keep her close. Maybe it was another way to angle in for that damn cup of coffee. Whatever, Skamar thought, following Vaughn from the shop. She’d find a way to work it to her advantage. And the unusual step of working with a mortal might prove a good tactic. Busting through the Tulpa’s defenses via his front door hadn’t produced results, but maybe she could slip through the back this way. If she was really lucky, she might even catch him sleeping.

They were allowed into Debi Truby’s bedroom by parents so grief-stricken, they looked like the walking dead. Skamar had never scented so sharp an anguish before, and she wondered how such a little person could be so firmly anchored in a family that her absence set them all adrift. Debi’s father floated inconsequentially from room to room, and her mother looked as though she’d been yanked up at the root.

Meanwhile, this new Vaughn pointed out that there was no sign of struggle, forced entry, or unfamiliar fingerprints, which told Skamar little in the way of anything new. She confirmed that Debi was exactly Ashlyn’s age and that her youthful scent was impossible to distinguish from an initiate’s. That’s why the Shadows were casting such a wide net. They’d probably hold the girls until they started menses, returning them, memories erased, once it was clear they weren’t Ashlyn. Then again, they might just kill them.