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

Dr. Merriman, more than a few times, but someone to help me actually deal with my problems was a luxury not afforded to most cops, unless they beat up their girlfriends or tried to eat their guns.

“We’re dealing with this in our own way,” Petra said coldly. “Something you obviously know nothing about.”

“You know what, Mrs. Dubois, I’m doing my job to the best of my ability,” I said. “Maybe if you didn’t keep harassing me I’d be able to build a case against the man who hurt your daughter.”

“So you do have someone in mind,” Petra said, rounding on me. “Who is it?”

“I’m afraid I can’t reveal the details of an open investigation,” I said primly. Nate Dubois I felt for. His wife was just starting to piss me off.

“Not even to the person who could call her pack off of your scent?” Petra said, her eyes darkening as the pupils expanded. My were snarled inside my head and I felt my fingernails sting as my claws started to grow.

I beat the were back. “I’m not playing this game with you,” I told Petra in a deliberately quiet tone.

“If I removed you from this case, I could get some real progress,” Petra snarled. “Believe that I’ll be talking to your chief in the morning. We have plenty of friends, including the commissioner.”

Nate put a hand on her arm. “Can we just go home, please?”

Petra put her hands over her face, and her shoulders started to shake. “I’m so sorry, Lieutenant Wilder. I know that every time we meet, I treat you horribly.” She grabbed my hands. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I said, looking to Nate with a help me expression. He put his arms around Petra as she started to sob in earnest.

“Come on, love,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

I pulled up Nikolai Rostov’s file on the department database once Nate and Petra had stumbled out, and checked his known addresses. None were current, no businesses listed. Aside from enforcing mob law, Nikolai was a ghost. No wonder no one could build a case against him.

The pictures were still sitting on my desktop and I looked at the meatpacker’s logo again, faded and patchy. I punched the company name into the department database search and found an address sure enough, with a notation that the company was in foreclosure.

I hit my intercom. “Norris, forward my calls to my cell.” He grunted at me.

“And what should I tell any further drunken, disgruntled werewolves who invade our office space?”

“That you’re an enormous curmudgeon?” I suggested with a bright smile. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Don’t get yourself shot,” Norris said, turning back to his computer. “That would be terrible. Just terrible.”

CHAPTER 10

The drive to the suburbs took me across the overpass of Ghosttown, the burned-out wreckage of the government housing project that the Hex Riots destroyed in 1969, through the tract houses that were starting to finger out from the center of Nocturne City, and finally into the industrial wasteland, old chemical factories like patient, rusted sentinels by the roadside, weeds and birds and graffiti spreading life over their carcasses.

The meatpacking warehouse was just another ghost along the strip, sandwiched between a restaurant supply warehouse and a strip club called Tit for Tat. About as classy a locale as I would expect from a mobster who trafficked in sex slaves.

I pulled into the parking area, empty except for my car and a few pallets of old refrigeration equipment that had rusted to lace in the elements.

I locked the car and headed into the warehouse through the cargo door, pushing aside bloodstained plastic strips designed to keep the cold air in. Arrows painted on the floor guided me toward the front office. I followed them along a white-tiled hallway illuminated by half-dead fluorescent tubes, only to find the shades pulled and a sign crookedly shoved into the window that proclaimed closed.

I tried the door anyway. It was locked, in a shocking development. I looked at the frame for alarm wires, and saw nothing but an antique security camera. I pulled out my lockpicks, which lived on my belt next to my handcuffs, a packet of rubber gloves and the waist rig for my sidearm. I’m a good lockpick even without tools, which comes more from a teenage life as a delinquent than training as a cop.

Either way, I got the lock open in about fifteen seconds. The door clicked open an inch, and I scented the room beyond. Cheap carpet, dust, stale air and perfume.

Keeping my hand on my gun, I pushed the door open and edged inside, hoping that I’d caught Nikolai with his pants down.

A secretary stared at me from behind a reception desk. “We are closed.”

“Um,” I said, easing my finger off the trigger guard of the Sig and brushing my hands over my jacket to smooth it. “Your door was open.”

“No, it wasn’t,” she said plainly.

“Okay,” I said with a sigh. “Just tell me where Nikolai is.”

“I do not know who you speak of,” she said, her accent managing to make her sound prissy even though she was wearing a garish floral-print blouse, had red hair that could have been put out with a fire extinguisher and bright blue eye makeup. “You leave before I call the police.”

“That’s good,” I said. “You calling the police on your front—I mean, your ‘meatpacking warehouse.’” I made sure to use air quotes.

She glared at me. “You are a very rude woman. You will leave now.”

“Tell you what,” I said, leaning on the desk. “I’m fresh out of patience, so you toddle on back and tell Nikolai I’m here, or I’ll give you a reason to wear that much cheap makeup on your face.”

Her lip curled back and I started when I saw fangs. She didn’t smell like a were, but then again, she was sporting about a gallon of cheap perfume. “I wouldn’t do a thing for you, except throw you out on your fat ass.”

“Word of advice, Fuzzy,”