“I’m investigating four shapeshifter murders,” I told him. “Have you heard anything?”
“No. But I can ask.”
“Well, see, I’m no good to you, because I’m not a virgin and you are no good to me because you know nothing about the murders. Maybe some other time?”
He reached out to me. One second his hand was empty and the next a small black card with a white phone number appeared as if by magic. “Take a card?” he asked, winking. “Come on, take one.”
“Will it sprout fangs when the magic hits?”
“You won’t find out unless you take it. Or are you chicken?”
I swiped the card. “Just a warning, if it turns into something nasty, I’ll shoot it.”
Roman laughed quietly.
“You want one of mine?”
“Five-five-five, twenty-one thirteen.”
The number to the office. He must’ve gotten it from Kate.
“Well, I’ve got to go,” I said.
Roman glanced up and said in a conspiratorial voice. “If I disappear in a dramatic pillar of black smoke, do you think the sprinklers will go off?”
I leaned over to him and kept my voice low. “Probably. But I’m willing to close my eyes for a second and pretend you did anyway.”
I closed my eyes for a long moment and when I opened them, he was gone.
When I returned to the terminal, Ascanio handed me a notepad with notes. “I found some articles. Also the volhv likes you,” he said, his gaze fixed on the screen.
“Yes, he does.” I scanned his notes. He’d made a list of the art auctions Jamar had visited.
“Does this mean you’re done with Raphael?”
I gave him my sniper stare. “If you ever want to set foot out of the office again, you will stop taking an interest in my love life. It doesn’t concern you.”
He turned to me with an expression of remorse that could’ve made the angels weep. “Yes, ma’am.”
How do you go from Baby Rory to Ascanio? To think that one day I might have kids, and given that I was half-bouda they would probably turn out just like him. The mind boggled.
“It says here Jamar bought a toilet seat for fifty thousand dollars,” Ascanio said.
I looked on the screen. “It says it’s from Amarna, from the eighteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt.”
“It’s a toilet seat,” Ascanio said.
“It’s four thousand years old.”
He looked at me, incredulous. “Some ancient Egyptians sat on it and took a dump.”
“I assume so.”
“He paid fifty thousand dollars for a used toilet seat.”
“Maybe it was gold-plated,” I told him.
“No, it says here it’s made of limestone, so if you were to use it, you’d freeze your ass off when you sat on it.”
“It’s not cold in Egypt. It’s hot. Your grasp of geography is shaky, my friend.” I sat down at a terminal next to him and typed “Jamar Groves” into the search window.
“You could buy a car for fifty thousand dollars. A really nice car.” Ascanio’s eyes lit up. “A Hummer. You could buy a converted Hummer.”
“You don’t need a Hummer,” I said.
“Chicks dig the Hummer.”
“You don’t need any chicks either.”
He gave me an injured look. “I have needs.”
“I have needs too and right now I need you to concentrate on tracking down Jamar’s antique collection. Get to it.”
We’d been in the library for three hours when the magic hit, cutting our research short. We’d identified thirty-seven items. Considering that my list of the vault’s contents included only twenty-nine, that gave us at least eight artifacts for which we couldn’t account. A knife from Crete; two necklaces from the Etruscan civilization, which was apparently some sort of pre-Roman culture in Italy; a cat-headed statue from the Kingdom of Kush; a bronze head of Sargon the Great, who was some sort of king in Akkadia; a spear from the same country; and two stone tablets with ancient Hebrew writings. None of those lit up with Christmas lights and sirens when we found them. Whether I liked it or not, it was time to quit and head home.
“That mechanic said he’d found the check from the woman he towed,” Ascanio said.
“Yes?” He was going to be my next stop.
“I can pick up that check for you,” Ascanio offered.
I eyed him. “Promise not to get yourself killed.”
“I promise.”
“And if there is any threat, you will run like a scared bunny.”
He nodded.
“Okay.” I gave him the money. “Do not kill, do not get killed, do not mess up. Go, faithful apprentice!”
He flashed me a grin and took off. Well, it would keep him out of trouble for a little while. Hopefully.
I stared at the now-dead computer terminal. Tonight Raphael and I would go to Anapa’s house.
If all went well, we wouldn’t kill each other.
CHAPTER 8
Raphael was on time. He was always on time. At seven, a small rock hit my bedroom window and bounced off the bars with a loud clink. I glanced through the glass. Raphael stood below, wearing a tuxedo.
Like we were kids going to the prom.
I swiped my oversized clutch off the bed and checked myself for the last time in the mirror. The evil dress was still stunning and badass. My blond hair floated around my head in a beautifully disarrayed cloud that had taken half an hour to arrange and coax into place. I’d tweezed my eyebrows into a perfect shape, applied a narrow line of eyeliner around my eyes to make them stand out, brushed a light dusting of bronze onto my eyelids, and finished off with a double coat of mascara. My lips were a shimmering, intense red, matching the ruby of the dragon’s eye.
I slipped a bracelet on my wrist: red garnets mixed with white sapphires. It was the only noncostume piece of jewelry I owned. My mother bought it for me when I graduated from the Order’s Academy. I always thought it brought me luck.
I checked my clutch to see if the outline of my Ruger SP101 showed through the black leather. Nope. All good. With the magic up it wouldn’t even fire, but it comforted me to have it with me. I didn’t bring a knife. I could count on Raphael having several.
For some reason, when a typical weresomething got into a fight, nature flipped a switch in its head that dictated it grow claws and fangs and rip things apart instead of shooting them from a distance or cutting them with knives like smart people do. I always thought it was to Raphael’s credit that he was the exception to this rule.
He was waiting. No more stalling. I was as hot as I was going to get.
I shrugged my shoulders and walked out of the apartment in my four-inch black heels. Click-click-click down the stairs and out the door.
The evening breeze swirled around me, flinging scents into my face. Raphael waited for me on the sidewalk. My brain took a second to process what I was seeing and got stuck. My coordination unraveled. I stopped.
Raphael wore a black tuxedo. The light of the early evening played on his face, painting the left side golden, while the right remained in cool shadow. He looked perfectly poised between darkness and light. The elegant jacket mapped the strength of his broad shoulders and the supple resilience of his narrow waist, bringing to the forefront both the natural beauty of his body and its dangerous edge. His blue eyes looked hard and focused, hammering home the point—crossing him would be extremely unwise.
He didn’t wear his tuxedo like a relaxed gentleman would wear a dinner jacket, nor did he wear it the way a knight wore his armor. Raphael wore it the way an assassin wears his leathers and cloak. He was a dagger in a black sheath. I wanted to reach for him, even knowing he would slice my flesh to pieces.
My heart hammered in my chest. This was such a bad idea. But it was my only chance at Anapa and his office, and I owed it to Nick and the families of four dead shapeshifters to take it.
Raphael was looking at me and I just stood there, unable to move. I had to do something. Say something.
Sad, sad Andrea cradling her pitiful broken heart. Pathetic.
The vitriol did its job. The world stopped spinning, my mind snapped into gear, and I finally registered the significance of Raphael’s expression. He looked blank. Completely blank, as if he was gazing at something that had broken his brain.
“Raphael?”
He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
“Are you okay?”
Raphael’s lips moved. He swore.
Ha! I got him! Drink it in, darling. Where’s your seven-foot-tall fiancée now?
“Is there something wrong with my dress?” Rub it in, rub it in…
Raphael finally managed to formulate a word. “No. Just wondering where you hid your gun.”
I showed him my giant clutch.
“Ah,” he said. “Didn’t see that.”
Of course he didn’t. He was too busy looking at me. It was a small revenge, but it tasted so sweet.
Raphael led me to his Pack Jeep that spat and roared, belching magic. He opened the door for me. As I got in, his scent slid along my skin, singing to me.
Maaate. Mate-mate-mate.
Damn it.
I sat in my seat. Instead of closing the door, he leaned toward me, a look of intense concentration on his face as if he were about to say or do something rash.
My breath caught in my throat. If he bent down to kiss me, I would punch him right in the face. I wouldn’t be able to help myself.
Raphael pushed himself away from me and closed the door.
Good. It was better this way. Really.
Raphael got into the Jeep, shut the door, muting the roar of the water engine, and we took off.
He reached to the side compartment in his door, pulled out a folder, and dropped it on my lap. I opened it. A time line of his workers’ movements on the night of the murder. “Great. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
I dug into the time line.
Twenty minutes later it was clear that none of Raphael’s people had had time to double back to the site and murder their friends and colleagues. Raphael was the only man without a solid alibi. According to his schedule, he’d gone home, apparently without his fiancée. Knowing him, I had expected them to be at it like rabbits, but I guess even rabbits had an off day once in a while.