Eliza Ford: Cause of Death: Unnatural

Jarek was still fingering the plum he'd taken from the fruit bowl. "You know what the lord will do to her, don't you? You know what he'll do to you if he thinks..."

"If he thinks what, Jarek?" said Em. "That dear old Alina and I have been plotting to overthrow his rule by raising an army of fan dancers and bar tenders? Don't be an idiot, lover. Use your head. Alina and I have been trying to kill each other for how many hundred years now?"

Em relaxed. She had him now. She could feel his energies unwinding, his thoughts curling out to hers in the way they used to do when they both wielded the power of her father's court.

"Alina turned up a few weeks ago," she said. "I've been watching her to see what she'll do, see just how deep she'll dig herself. It's been amusing. Have you seen her lately? I was going to call to you - give her just enough leash and then..."

Em looked up to see Jarek smiling. This time the smile was in his eyes and well as his lips. There was affection there too, and a hint of all the fun they'd ever had.

"Will you come home to witness her punishment, my dear?" Jarek said, reaching out to brush her hair from her eyes.

Em grinned back at him. "I might," she said, playfully. "If you promise to make it worth my while."

Jarek's form spun into smoke and curled all around Em. She could feel his mind pushing at hers, his dark energy pulsing around her willing her to join him in a different field of existence. Em tilted her head back and allowed a part of her energy to spiral into the void where her kind usually lived. Jarek was waiting there as he always had. Their two beings twisted around each other in the old, familiar patterns. It felt so good, so right, thought Em. She had missed him, just as she had missed the Family, her father, her life in the darkness.

Jarek tugged a little harder, pulling her completely into nothingness. Together their energies entwined and exploded out of the room, out of the apartment, across the streets and buildings of the cities and over the thousands of mortals who lived and breathed beneath them. They flashed across the land, Emilia and Jarek, one entity, feeling and testing their old powers, the strengths in each other, their potential, their every heart's desire.

Jarek trolled around inside her mind, grinning at the notion of forensics, smirking at Robert, laughing at Nick. Jennifer, her friends, her favorite foods, her toothpaste, yoga classes. He brushed by her memories of the club, and playfully, she pulled his mind away. No need for him to go there, she thought.

Em felt around inside Jarek's thoughts. Memories of lovers since her, politics at her father's hall, the orgies of a recent cull, the precision of Jarek's mind, his determination, his ambition. It was a thrill to be with him again, a dark, guilty pleasure to be so carefree in her own form again.

But she stopped. There was a noise, far, far away. It was a familiar sound, but for a second she couldn't figure out what it meant.

Her cell phone was ringing.

She snapped back into her body, coming down from her higher energy field with a jerk that threw her head back. Beside her Jarek's black smoke coalesced into human form with a decidedly irritated expression on his face.

"What?" he said, impatiently.

Em ignored him and answered the phone. She realized she was relieved to hear it ring. She'd gone too far with Jarek just then.

It was Robert.

"Sorry to spoil your evening Em," he said. "Four bodies. You're never going to guess where."

Em shook her head to clear the last remaining affects of her fling with Jarek. She needed to concentrate. A crime scene. Work. Four victims.

"Where?" she said.

"The club," said Robert. "The burlesque club we only left a few hours ago. I can't believe it myself."

"I'll be there," said Em. "Will you call Nick, or shall I?"

When she hung up she looked back at Jarek and smiled a tight lipped smile. He growled.

"Thanks for the ride, lover," Em said, "but mama has to work now."

She was angry at herself for letting Jarek pull her back into her old life so quickly. She hadn't even put up the slightest resistance. What a tart, what a tramp, she berated herself.

She bustled together her phone, her handbag and then looked down at her dress. She ran into her room and tore off her coat and her dress. Jarek's black smoke flashed past her and her reformed lying down on her bed, propped up on one elbow. He looked amused, but resigned.

"Your master calls and you run," he said. "How endearing. Now if I could only get you to obey me in that manner."

"Shut up, Jarek," said Em pulling on jeans and a sweater. "There's something else killing down near the harbor, and it's not Alina. Haven't you noticed it? It's not one of the Family, it's not one of the other clans either. I don't know what it is."

Jarek sat up and looked suddenly interested. "You don't know what it is?" he exclaimed, "But that's your gift, that's what you do. You know everyone, everything." He sounded intrigued.

"Tell me about it," said Em. "And whatever it is, it's been giving me the most vicious headaches."

Jarek's eyebrows shot up again.

"I think it's just killed again, down near Alina's club. No, Jarek, no," she said, as Jarek stood up and rippled with a fierce black energy. "I think Alina might have something to do with it, but I also think she's scared. If you spook Alina, we might lose our chance of finding out whatever this thing is."

He grunted.

"You mean you want me to sit here like a good boy, while you dash off and have all the fun," he said grumpily.

"Yes. Yes, that's exactly what I want you to," said Em, heading back out into the kitchen to grab her bag. "You might fix me some dinner while you're waiting. And there's a vacuum cleaner in the cupboard," she yelled over her shoulder as she headed out the door.

As she closed the door to her apartment, it flew out of her hand as if a storm had blown it and slammed with noise loud enough to wake the dead. A flicker of darkness punched her hard in the stomach, then brushed up past her face like a caress.

"Bitch," it whispered.

Em grinned.

In a laneway not far from the burlesque club Robert and Nick stood over the bodies and began the process of collecting evidence. A photographer snapped the scene from every angle and a few police stood around waiting for someone from the coroner's office to arrive.

Em took a cop with her and went into the club to talk to Alina. After all the routine questions, she sent the policeman out and stood facing Alina as the older woman sat sulking on a lounge in her office.

"Just tonight, just a few short hours ago, Alina, you told me no harm was going to come from this little charade of yours." Em was fuming, and Alina seemed more interested in examining her nails. "You promised me nothing like this was going to happen."

"And you have no proof that any of my clientele are responsible. Or my staff," whined Alina.

"There are four dead humans on your doorstep, and your club is full of vampires. Don't try to tell me that's a coincidence."

"Four dead humans." Alina tossed her head. "As if that matters. And besides, did you see the state of that meat? Those bites were positively crude. You know I don't cater to riffraff."

Em sighed. That was probably true, she thought, wondering why it was her headache was back again. The mind itch in the back of her head was pounding. Maybe it was this place, thought Em. Maybe there was something here Alina was hiding. But no. Her head was killing her last week at the docks, hell, it had been hurting on and off for three weeks now. It wasn't Alina.

But Alina was definitely part of the problem here, and the headache was not putting Em in a good mood. She decided to pull a bit of law over the woman and see how that went.