Daemon’s Mark by Caitlin Kittredge (web ebook reader .TXT) 📕

The apartment building on Winchester Drive was a brick turn-of-the-century firetrap, common to the old part of the city. There was no doorman, no elevator, and no one to care what went on in the dank, half-lit halls.

I climbed up two flights to 18, trying the door. It was locked, with a shiny new deadbolt that was top of the line. I snarled under my breath. “I can’t pick this.”

“We can wake the super up,” Will said. “Assuming this place has one…”

I braced myself against the jamb and gave the door a kick. The deadbolt ripped clean out of the frame and the door rocketed back into the apartment, hinges and all.

“…Or we could do that,” Will finished. I shrugged.

“Didn’t mean to kick it quite so hard.” I’d have to watch that—even with fifteen years of being a were, sometimes I miscalculated.

Will slipped on a pair of gloves and hit the lights, while I cleared the front room, the small kitchen and the bedroom. No one home. JB was probably still frothing at the mouth back at the club.

“Neat in here,” Will said. “For a single guy.”

I gestured at the front room, which managed to hold a leather sofa and a plasma-screen home-theater system, small though it was. “Does this look like the apartment of some club rat to you?”

Will shook his head. “It looks like he’s got some money stashed and doesn’t want to broadcast it with his address.”

“Okay, John Black,” I said, stealing a pair of gloves from Will. “What have you got to hide?”

I searched the kitchen, which held a lot of booze but no food beyond a suspicious container of Thai takeout, and the bathroom. John was fond of his products, as any metrosexual mobster would be. “He’s got to be in with an outfit,” I told Will as I rifled through the papers on the small desk, next to a high-end laptop. “Otherwise this apartment would be stripped clean the first time he stepped out to grab a bag of groceries.”

I ran my hands along the underside of the bed frame, trying to ignore the crimson satin sheets. Single guys have the worst taste.

“Looking for a gun?” Will said.

“Finding one.” I pulled at the small-frame pistol duct-taped to the frame, finding a small Ruger automatic in my hand. Will whistled.

“That’s some serious hardware. Pricey, too.”

“Think he’s got a permit for this?” I said, getting on my knees and peering under the bed. A shoebox greeted me, also taped.

“I dunno. You think that I could click my heels and take us all to Oz?” Will said. I drew the shoebox out and tore the lid off.

“Good point.” The box was full of Polaroids and afew creased documents, bills of lading from a shipping company. The photographs were of girls, many of them grinning against the backdrop of a club or a bar, a few posed against a blank white-painted brick wall with vacant expressions on their faces and glazed eyes.

“Not sexy,” Will said. “What does he do, document his conquests?”

I unfolded the bills and looked at the contents—electronics, souvenirs, party supplies. The destinations were all cities in the Ukraine, the shipping company listing an import/export house as the receiver. I chewed on my lip.

“I don’t think these are conquests, Will. I think these are business partners.”

Will looked over my shoulder. “Prostitutes?”

“Looks that way,” I said. All of the girls were like Lily, older than their years, perfectly blonde, perfectly tempting to any man with a taste for younger flesh.

“Let’s bag this and get it out of here,” I said softly. “I don’t want to look at it anymore.”

Had Lily been lured to her death with the promise of a party she’d never experienced before? Had John Black been the one to do it? And who were the other girls?

Will and I bagged the evidence and sealed it, and I locked it in the trunk of the Nova for Pete to examine tomorrow. For now, I just wanted to go home and curl up in my own bed.

“Want me to stay?” Will said when we pulled up at my apartment. “I can. It’s closer to my work, anyway.”

“Yeah,” I said. I was tired, suddenly, all of my limbs heavy. Lily Dubois’s face wouldn’t leave me alone.

“Come up.”

Will waited while I locked the door behind us and then pulled me to him, pressing his lips over mine.

I put my arms around his neck as his hands traveled under my skirt, over the tops of my stockings and tugged at my thong. “Moving a little fast, aren’t we?” I asked against his mouth.

“I had to watch that waste of oxygen touch you,” Will said. “I’m not waiting.”

Leading him backward to the bed, I agreed, with my hands on his fly and my lips on his neck. I wanted someone to be next to me who wasn’t predatory, who I could be honest with.

Will slid down the sheets, pulling my underwear with him, until his head was between my thighs, running his hands up the skin and stocking. I gasped when I felt his mouth against me and arched my stomach, inviting his attention.

Sliding his hands under my ass and lifting me, Will worked until lights started to swim in front of my eyes, which with him usually wasn’t very long.

“Ready?” he asked me, raising his eyes and dipping his hand into my nightstand for a condom. I nodded, pulling him up and wrapping my legs around his waist.

“So ready.”

We moved, Will urgent and I just needing not to think about the face of a murdered girl for a few minutes. He did a good job of distracting me, and I kept my eyes open, one hand on the back of his neck, brushing the shortcropped golden hair there.

Will leaned down, his breath hot against my neck, teeth searching for purchase. He was the first guy I’d been with since the one who gave me the bite whom I trusted enough to let him close to my most vulnerable spot.

That,