Ilona Andrews - Dark and Stormy Knights

She was shaking. Her eyes looked even bigger with tears filling them, and his heart thumped twice. This was what he’d been waiting for, it and bad luck at the same time.

Rookwood dropped his rangy frame into the chair behind the desk. Paper crackled and rustled as he poured her a jolt of Scotch and wished he could take a slug of something strong himself. The sensitivity in his canines retreated a little, but his tongue found the sharp places before he took a deep breath and forced some calm. “All right. Pull your shirt up, ma’am, and tell me everything.”

Her name was Amelia King. Thirty on the nose, settled in the suburbs with a husband and a house. They were planning on kids, and she spent her time being the good little wifey, shopping and keeping the house—and herself—trim and clean. Hubby contented himself with making money as a lawyer with Briggs, Fann, and Chisholm.

Mr. King was an up-and-coming criminal defense tightrope walker, successful enough that he was looking at making partner soon.

Which meant he would have security access to the office building downtown. Rookwood’s eyebrow rose a little, but he didn’t say anything. That was probably, he realized later, his mistake.

He should have come clean with her from the beginning.

But by that point she was crying openly. It wasn’t much—a slow trickle from both big, brown, bloodshot, and dark-circled eyes. Her makeup was good, but it couldn’t hold up to that constant leak.

She had no idea anything was wrong until the afternoon she returned from grocery shopping and found out hubby had come home early for once, and in a big way. He’d hung himself with his belt over the banister. Hell of a job he did of it, too. Broke his neck and everything.

Three nights after the funeral, after Amelia had cried herself to sleep again, he’d come back.

“There was a tapping at the window.” She shivered. “I thought I was dreaming.”

The rain swept Rookwood’s window restlessly. His teeth ached, and the bottle of Scotch looked really good. The thought of the canister of red stuff in his minifridge looked even better. “Let me guess. You saw him floating outside. Just bobbing up and down like a balloon.”

“You . . .” Amelia swallowed dryly. She didn’t ask how he knew. It was a stupid question, and maybe she realized it. “It was his eyes.” The color had drained from her face, shadows under her cheekbones turned her gaunt.

“They glowed red.” Rookwood leaned back in his chair. “Are you a churchgoing woman, Mrs. King?”

Her hands tightened in her lap. “No. We were married in front of a judge.”

He waited. An unnecessary detail like that meant there was more to the story. He had trouble keeping his pulse even and steady. This is it. Don’t scare her off. Play this one right, Rookwood.

The traffic outside made wet, shushing noises, and car light ran over the room in waves. The green-shaded lamp didn’t light more than a pool on the desktop. Her eyes glittered a little in the gloom, slowly leaking tears.

Each one was a fresh little nugget of guilt, for him. It was hard to sit still when he wanted to pace.

“My mother was Catholic,” Mrs. King amended slowly. “I thought of going to a priest, but . . .”

“But hubby’s already bitten you, and you didn’t ask too many questions the first time he came in the window. Naturally. Because he’s your husband.”

The first surprise was that her chin came up, and the second was the flash in those brown eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Uh-oh. The front legs of his chair thudded down on the floor. He scooped up a pad of paper and a pen he was fairly sure would work. “Write down the cemetery he’s in, location of the grave, and his exact name—first, middle, last. The fee’s ten thousand. Half now, half when he stops showing up at your window.”

Her hands moved nervously. She didn’t say a goddamn thing about the money. Instead, she went right for the throat. “Will . . . that . . . make the dreams go away?”

“What dreams?” Rookwood asked, but he knew. The same dreams that rocketed around inside his skull every time he settled down on his cot. The red-tinted, hot, squirming little dreams that filled his mouth with saliva and the fresh copper tang, instead of the pale, dead substitute he held the Thirst off with.

God, yes, he knew. Did she want the bad news now or later?

Later, Rook. After she’s paid you.

She shook her head. “If you’re going to treat me like I’m stupid—”

His entire mouth ached, and the crackling in his jaw was clearly audible. He leaned forward into the desk lamp’s glow, knowing it would etch the shadows on his face even deeper. It would gleam along the lines of the sharpening, lengthening canines and fill his eyes with a flat, reflective shine. He hadn’t had his daily dose, and she smelled good—except for the edge of burning to the scent of woman, perfume, and red salt copper.

The edge of burning that tainted his own smell.

His lips peeled back from his teeth. She choked on whatever she’d intended to say next. Under the splash of car tires outside was a nervous, high thudding; it was her pulse tearing through the air of the room and touching his sensitive eardrums.

His mouth ached fiercely as he pulled the Thirst back, the rope he held it on fraying as the sun slipped away over the horizon. His canines retracted, too, his jaw crackling once again. When he was sure he wouldn’t cut his tongue on the sharp edges, he spoke. “The dreams don’t ever stop. But if my . . .” The words stuck in his throat. “If my treatment is successful, they won’t get any worse—and neither will you. That I can promise you, Mrs. King.”

Her rib cage almost fluttered with sharp, sipping breaths. The sweat along the curves of her throat stood out in diamond drops. Her shirt was now damp, and the fresh wave of clove-tinted scent about knocked him sideways.

He’d always wondered what would happen if someone with his particular problem came along. It would be a key to the bigger problem, of course. But he’d wondered what the Thirst might do.

“Am I going to look like . . . that?” She stared at him as though he’d just done something obscene.

Well, he just had . Hadn’t he?

“I don’t know.” He pressed his fingertips together. His mouth didn’t want to work right, wanted to slur the words around as if he were drunk. The Thirst pressed its sharp prickles against the inside of his throat. Soon it would spread over his whole body, and only the red stuff would make it retreat. “But I’ll give you some advice. Get some raw meat from the supermarket and suck on it. The bloodier the better, or tell your butcher you want blood for blood pudding. It’s the only thing that kills that feeling in your throat, and it quiets the dreams down, at least for a while. And that’s all you’re getting for free, Mrs. King.”

Yeah, he was a son of a bitch. But he wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it.

Shady Hope Cemetery and Remembrance Home wasn’t hallowed ground, for all they buried people here and spoke empty words over them. Hallowed ground would have made the dead sleep a little more quietly.

As it was, anything could rise from these graves. In the last six months, Rookwood had gained a thorough education in just how weird and fluid the borders between life and undeath were and an even more thorough education in how someone who didn’t mind a little weirdness could possibly make a living around the edges.

But this was the prize. This was the thing he’d been waiting for since that night of blood and screaming and Chisholm’s fangs in his throat.

As soon as he stepped on the grounds he smelled it, the dry burning rat-fur reek of particular contamination. He’d grown used to the varied and insanely ugly smells drifting across his nasal receptors at the slightest provocation, ever since he’d fought off—