Charlaine Harris - Wolfsbane and Mistletoe

“I’m not a wolf.”

Jezebel wrinkled her forehead. “But you smell like—”

I held up a hand. “Don’t, okay?” Yuki being a wolf constituted a problem. Unlike humans and most mages, Weres are very resistant to magical suggestions. There was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to spell him to tell me anything, or to blank his memory afterward. And Weres don’t frighten or intimidate easily. This could get ugly.

I stepped into the hallway and cast a privacy spell to let me call Gil without worrying about Were hearing. “I didn’t give you my personal cell so you could ruin my holiday,” he told me acerbically.

“It isn’t Christmas for another four hours. And besides, you haven’t heard why I’m calling yet. I might have a line on those girls.”

“Like hell you do. You haven’t even been on the case a day!”

“I said might have. But there’s a chance I’ll need to use a little . . . persuasion . . . to get my lead to talk.”

“What lead?”

“Just a guy. It might be nothing. But I wanted to clear it with you first.”

“You called me up on Christmas Eve to ask if you can torture someone?”

“It probably won’t come to that.” I stepped out of the way of a large dominatrix in a shiny PVC cat suit and the guy in chains who was crawling after her. They edged around me politely. “Although I appear to be in the right place for it.”

“What? Where are you?”

I didn’t answer, because a door had opened down the hall and a very familiar backside emerged. The guy it was attached to didn’t see me, maybe because the half-dressed young woman lounging in the door had his whole attention. “I’ll take care of you, Nissa,” he said fondly. “Now what are you going to do for me?”

“I tell everybody, we no talk to the mage.” Her voice was low and sultry, with a heavy Spanish accent.

“To any mages,” Cyrus corrected, a finger to her lips. “But particularly to any with dark hair, spectacular legs, and homicidal tendencies.”

She pouted. “Is she prettier than me?”

“She’s more dangerous than you, which is what you need to keep in mind,” he chided. Then he kissed her.

His shirt was unbuttoned with the tails hanging, leaving the hollow of his throat pale and vulnerable. I swallowed hard, trying to resist the alien desire to leap down the corridor and tear into that soft flesh, to feel his blood slick and hot in my mouth. For a moment, I could actually taste it.

“Lia!” Gil’s voice in my ear made me jump. “Where the hell are you? What’s going on?” I tried to answer, but the words wouldn’t come.

I’d wondered why Cyrus had left Jersey at almost the same time I did. I’d been vain enough to think that it might have had something to do with me, although he’d made no effort to contact me. I’d also thought things might have gotten a little hot for him in Atlantic City, so he’d moved West to its bigger, badder cousin, where he wasn’t as well known. But what if he’d had another reason?

Because I found it really hard to believe that all this had been going on and no one in the high clans had heard anything. And since no effort was being made to stop it, it was a good guess that they were being paid to look the other way. For that to work, they’d need someone to gather and channel the kickbacks to the leaders. Someone with lots of contacts and no reputation to lose, who could be a convenient scapegoat if things went wrong. Someone like Cyrus.

I slipped back into Jezebel’s room and shut the door with a soft click, laying my forehead against it. The sudden adrenaline rush faded to leave me cold, sick, and shaking. I had to take a few deep breaths to catch up with myself, to remember that there was a procedure to be followed. If I was right and leading Weres were dirty, I needed proof. And for me to successfully bring a case like this, it had better be airtight.

“I’ll call you back,” I said, cutting into whatever Gil had been squawking. I put my phone away very deliberately and turned around so I wouldn’t be tempted to put a fist through the door. “I’m going to go talk with Yuki,” I said.

Jezebel took in my expression. “Huh. Think I’ll go talk to him, too.”

As a Were, Yuki was a sad disappointment. He started looking panicked before I even asked him anything, about the time I hung him from the chandelier in his office. It was wrought iron with lots of pointy bits and didn’t appear to be all that comfortable. I smiled pleasantly like my trainers had taught me and pulled out photos of the missing girls.

“Have you seen any of these?” He started to shake his head and I held up a finger. “Think real hard. Because I know you’d hate to lie to me. Just like I’d hate to see you get overly intimate with the coatrack.”

“I haven’t seen them,” he said. For some reason, all the lilt had gone out of his voice.

“He’s telling the truth,” Jezebel said. “I could smell it if he was lying.”

“Then what about the two wolves who went missing from here? What happened to them?”

I could almost see Yuki trying to puzzle out how much he could plausibly get away with denying. I was about to apply more threats, but Jezebel decided we’d talked enough. I got the feeling there wasn’t a lot of love lost between those two, and she obviously thought it would be a shame to waste a good memory wipe. After she pulled a Taser out of her wrap and started waving it around, Yuki became positively voluble.

“The boss selected them for a private party,” he said quickly. “The buyers specifically wanted wolves.”

“And when they didn’t come back?”

“No one comes back from those kind of parties,” he said, his eyes tracking the Taser. “Some patrons like it extra rough, and we have rules about the extent of damage inflicted on-site. But elsewhere . . . things can get messy.”

“And the clans do nothing?”

“We usually pick lone wolves for that kind of thing.”

“But not this time.” I poked him hard enough to set him swinging. “Why not?”

“Because we didn’t have any! The bosses prefer to use clan wolves around here when possible, because if they run away, the clan will bring them back. But we employ lone wolves from time to time for jobs like this. The clans don’t like it much if we return their people in pieces. Or don’t return them at all.”

“Then why didn’t their clan object this time? If the girls die, there goes their cut of the profits.”

“They were well compensated. Very well, from what I heard.” He looked sulky, like maybe they hadn’t offered to share.

As sick as his story was, it did sound possible, but only where the Felani girls were concerned. Because I couldn’t see anybody capturing high clan members for some demented fun and games. It would almost ensure that they were caught, and Arnou wouldn’t take cash in retribution. They would take blood. And everybody knew it.

“Who paid you?” I asked.

“I don’t know. The names were obviously fake.” Jezebel brandished the Taser again and he paled. “A lot of people don’t use their real names when they contact us!”

“But they have to give a real address. What was it?”

Yuki shook his head frantically. “I can’t tell you that!”

“I’ll get it out of him!” Jezebel snarled. She was clearly looking forward to it.

“Give me the address and I’ll blank all this from your memory,” I said, holding her off. “If the clan questions you, you can deny any involvement and they’ll believe it. Because you’ll believe it.”

Yuki just hung there, swaying gently, for a long moment. His heavy mascara had run, making tracks through his pearly cheek powder, like he was crying black tears. I put on my sympathetic face, and I guess it must have worked because he finally told me.