Blood Hunt (Codex Blair Book 2) Read online

  “I can’t believe you. You know how important it is for us to keep this quiet, you know how dangerous it is when just one person on the outside knows, and you told five of them.” I shook my head, disgust written across my face.

  “What am I supposed to do, Blair?” He stood up abruptly. “You don’t tell me anything that’s going on out there!”

  “I have it handled!” I shouted, standing up as well.

  “Which is why I have five dead bodies, right?”

  I flinched. “That’s not fair.”

  “No, it isn’t, none of this is fair. But you can’t do it alone any more than I can. We need help, and we need to work together. I don’t know what we’re dealing with, but as soon as I found out that the only common link was the blood…I knew we had to bring you in,” he said.

  I stared at him for a moment, heaving out a heavy sigh. “I know. I know what we’re dealing with.”

  His eyes widened in surprise. “What?”

  “A vampire.”

  4

  At half past eight in the morning, I went to the police station. It was an imposing building.

  I wanted to run away, which I’m sure is the exact opposite reaction you’re supposed to have to the police. That whole thing where they’re supposed to be there to help citizens, where you’re supposed to feel safe around them. I just couldn’t feel that way, with the nature of my work.

  I had half my gear on today, just the rings, band, and chain. I couldn’t exactly bring wands into the police station, they wouldn’t like that. I felt naked without them, knowing what I was getting myself into, but there was no reason to suspect an attack in the light of day.

  Setting my jaw in determination, I walked into the building. “I’m here to see Finn,” I said to the secretary at the desk.

  She sized me up, lifting on eyebrow as if she thought I didn’t belong here. The tank top and jeans didn’t help my case, I’m sure.

  Well, jokes on you, this was the one time someone would be wrong to think that. I may not feel like I belonged there, but I had been invited.

  “Who?”

  I frowned, looking away for a moment. “Uh. Detective Inspector O’Malley.”

  “Oh.” That didn’t seem to do anything to make me more legitimate in her eyes, she just shook her head and reached to press a button on her phone.

  I held my breath, keeping still, hoping I wouldn’t fry the thing. Or any of the other equipment in the building.

  “Detective Inspector? A young lady is here for you.”

  I chuckled at that. Lady? Yeah, right.

  She nodded at a bench behind me. “I’m sure he’ll be right out.”

  Rolling my eyes, I turned and took two steps towards the bench, but before I could sit down Finn came out.

  “Blair.”

  I was surprised at how curt his tone was. The secretary looked surprised too, but I’d assume that was because he’d come out to see me so quickly. I nodded at her and Finn, and followed him when he turned and walked back through the door he’d come out of.

  “Sorry, it’s been a rough day already. They found another body this morning.”

  “Six?” I sucked in a breath. This was not good.

  “Yeah. So, no one’s in the best mood.”

  I nodded. That was understandable. I had been in a crabby mood already, just coming to the police station had done that to me, but I probably would have been anyway after hearing that.

  “So, are you taking me to see the body?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No point in that just yet, they haven’t been brought in. We’ll head out as a unit to the scene soon, and you’re coming with us. I’m taking you to see the team.”

  My eyes widened, and I focused them on the floor in front of me while we walked. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought about meeting the other detectives yet, but it just hadn’t crossed my mind. I was suddenly nervous, drumming my fingers on my thigh and resisting the urge to pull out strands of my hair. I didn’t want to meet anyone; I didn’t want to work with anyone.

  It would have been so much easier if Finn had just handled this side of things and asked me questions when he needed to, but I suppose it made more sense for me to be directly involved.

  We walked down the hall in silence, passing doors on the right as we went, before he stopped in front of one.

  “You ready?”

  “No.” I laughed, trying to dispel some of the nerves that had seized hold of me.

  “I’m sure you’ll adjust,” he said, grinning for a moment, which relaxed me a bit.

  Finn was the funny one, the one that everyone got along with, the one that could make everyone settle down. It was so unnerving to see him so serious like he had been, like he no doubt would be again as soon as we walked through that door. Was he like this all the time at work? I shivered just thinking about it.

  I nodded, and he opened the door.

  Inside, three men and two women stood in plain clothes. I knew better than to think them civilians though, detectives always worked out of uniform. More than that, it was the way they stood, the way they carried themselves when they walked from one side of the room to the other to grab a cup of tea. The self-assurance that came with doing a job for a long time, the grave set of their faces, the strong set of their shoulders. Everything about them screamed police to me.

  I wanted to run.

  Instead, I squared my own shoulders and walked in the room. Finn followed behind me, closing the door when he did.

  “Everyone, this is Blair Sheach. The consultant I told you about. Blair, this is Chase, Brian, Alex, George, and Krista,” he said, pointing at each one as he went through their names.

  It sounded so official, and I wished for a moment that I looked the part. I no longer looked like a malnourished street rat, but I certainly didn’t look like a professional.

  Their eyes fixed on me, judging me up and down before they settled on my face. It was creepy.

  “She’s the consultant?” Krista was the first to speak, clearly not impressed with me.

  I ground my teeth. “I’m certain I know more about what we’re doing than you do, love.” My words were quick and sharp.

  She rolled her eyes, looking at her cohorts for agreement. The men looked grim.

  “O’Malley, it does seem a bit preposterous that she could be of any assistance at all,” Brian said.

  “I recognise that she doesn’t look like the average consultant we bring in. I forgot to tell her that you’re all a bunch of shallow wankers who think the way someone dresses somehow impacts their knowledge,” he shrugged, his tone casual though I could see the irritation on his face. “She’s a Wizard.”

  I gawked at him, then turned to look at the shocked faces of his cohorts.

  “Don’t you think that’s information I should have decided I wanted to share?” I asked, shaking my head. Never mind the fact I wasn’t a Wizard, only a mage, it wasn’t something these people would understand. It was still information about myself, information that I should have been allowed to choose to share.

  He shrugged again. “They already know about the supernatural, and it’s the reason you’re here.”

  I scowled at him, but otherwise did not respond. I was watching the detectives now, for their reactions, to see how it affected their view of me. Apparently, it mattered a lot. They were all looking at me now as though I were a God, a creature they couldn’t quite comprehend, something dangerous that would need controlling and watching. This was why I hadn’t wanted them to know; mundanes don’t understand.

  I sighed. “Yeah, well, whatever. So, what are we doing?”

  “We have a scene to get to, I just wanted to introduce you lot in private, to get that bit of business out of the way. Come on, we need to get to that crime scene before the other idiots have time to screw it up,” Finn said, pivoting on his heel and leaving the room after. I followed immediately, and heard the footsteps of the group behind me.

  5

  We a
rrived at the scene of the crime, which looked so innocent from where I parked. The alley was roped off, police were milling about, but it didn’t look like the site of a grisly murder from out here. Just like maybe a homeless person had overdosed or something, like maybe it wasn’t where a vampire had killed indiscriminately.

  I got out of my car, locked it, and walked toward the police tape. Everything inside of me was saying that this was a place I did not belong, that this was something I shouldn’t be doing. I wasn’t a professional, and I didn’t think that I was going to be any help to Finn at the end of the day. I wasn’t Sherlock Holmes, I couldn’t deduce shit in seconds flat, and I wasn’t about to impress anyone.

  Finn had arrived a minute or two before me and was busy speaking with one of the officers. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, standing awkwardly behind him and hoping that no one would notice how out of place I looked. There was no way that was happening, though. I was too young to be here, twenty-five would be understandable if I was wearing a junior officer’s uniform maybe. If it wasn’t for my height, I would probably pass as a teenager who had just wandered up and was rubber necking a crime scene.

  “No civilians.” The officer barked at me, having finally noticed that I was standing behind Finn.

  Finn looked over his shoulder, a surprised look on his face for a moment before his eyes landed on me. “She’s with me,” he said, turning back to the officer.

  The officer blinked, glancing between the two of us before his eyes narrowed and he shook his head. “Fine.”

  Ah, the glory of being the unwanted person. Fortunately, this was the theme for my entire life so I wasn’t in the least bit surprised to be filling that role again. True, I was used to not being unwanted around Finn, so it was a bit of a surprising barb.

  The two concluded their conversation, and the six of us—the others had either already been there or trickled in behind me—ducked under the police tape and walked into the alley.

  My knee jerk reaction upon seeing the body was to vomit. My stomach lurched and I quickly turned around, covering my mouth while I fought to keep the vomit from spilling into my mouth. An acrid burn filled my throat and my vision blurred for a moment. I sucked down a few breaths of air, pushing the horror down inside of myself.

  I thought I was prepared for this, Finn had told me what the murder scene would entail, but there’s no way to prepare yourself for that violent a death. I won the fight for composure, then focused on getting myself ready to look again. I breathed through my nose, looked inside my mind for the parts of me that could feel the horror of the scene I would look at and moving them into a special room, to be brought out again after this was over.

  Once that was done, I turned and looked on the scene with dispassionate eyes. I found that the entire gang was looking at me with curious eyes, Finn seemed rather concerned.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Let’s go ahead.” I walked forward to catch up with them, they were standing in front of the body with little notepads flipped open and pens at the ready.

  “Twenty-two-year-old female, brown hair, medium build. Red T-Shirt, blue jeans, black flats,” Finn provided the description while the others wrote it down. He squatted in front of the corpse, the body not the head, and pulled a wallet from her back pocket. He nodded. “Age confirmed. Name is Jolanda Jones.”

  I felt a whisper from the room in my mind, and gave a firm mental shove at the door.

  “Body is drained of blood, no pre- or post-mortem bleeding from either the neck or head,” he said, turning to look at the head to his right. “Blair?” He looked at me as he formed the question.

  I nodded and stepped forward, joining him in a squat in front of the body.

  “This oughta be good.” I heard one of the male detectives behind me.

  I shrugged off the jab and peered at the body in front of me. “The puncture wounds would have been here.” I pointed to a side of the neck, where it was jagged and had been ripped off. “Or here.” I pointed to the other side. “I don’t know a whole lot about vampires just yet, we haven’t had a problem with them before, but I’ve heard that in most cases they go for the right side of the neck. If you can get a mortician to clean this…” I gestured at the right side of the neck. “At all, you might be able to confirm what we’re dealing with.”

  “What’s the point of that? I thought you knew for certain it was a vampire.”

  “There is no knowing for certain without actual confirmation, Finn,” I said, my temper flaring. “I’m not omniscient. There’s only so much I can do.”

  “Well, what can you do?” he asked.

  I frowned, staring down at the body as if the head would reattach, the body sit up, and between them tell me everything.

  I blinked, sitting up a little straighter. That gave me an idea. There was a spell that Fred had taught me a few months ago, I hadn’t used it yet, but it might just do the trick. The downside was that it was a little gruesome. Well, more than a little.

  I would have to touch the head. And press it against my face. My stomach protested at the thought of it.

  “There is something, but I’d need more privacy than we have right now,” I said.

  “What kind of privacy? I can’t let you walk away with the body.”

  “No, not that. Just need the people back at the alley entrance to not see me.” I hooked a thumb over my shoulder.

  Finn nodded, a pensive look on his face for a moment before he gestured behind him for the five detectives to come closer.

  “What’s up, boss?” Chase asked.

  “I’m going to need you to form a wall between us and the entrance. Block Blair from view.”

  I looked over my shoulder at them, trying to summon a look of confidence. They just looked confused. All the same, they nodded and formed the wall, standing shoulder to shoulder, heads bent towards the body as if they were examining it with us.

  I took in a deep breath and pointed at the head. “I need that.”

  Finn’s eyes widened a bit, but he picked it up and handed it to me without a word.

  I placed the head in front of me and reached into my pocket, pulling out a bit of chalk. I carefully drew a circle around myself, pivoting to get behind me. At the point where the circle closed, I pushed a bit of will into it, imbuing my magic. I felt the circle spring up around me as a giant column, the air instantly purified and cleansed of the energy every passer-by and the detectives had brought into the alley.

  I took a deep breath, swallowed nervously, and picked up the head. I held it with my thumbs at the temple, and began to chant the spell Fred had taught me. I felt the power begin to swell within my centre, tension rising as it grew in power. I directed it, wary of pushing it too fast and destroying the head. That would be so hard to explain away, and oh Gods, I did not want to have all that blood and brains on me. I pushed it through my fingertips, wincing at the prickling pain, as delicate as if I were threading a needle.

  Her eyes snapped open and locked in on mine. “Ostende mihi,” I murmured, pressing my head against her forehead, maintaining eye contact with her.

  I was walking home from a fun evening at a bar with my friends. It was so nice to see them again, it had been a while since all the girls had got together for a night out. Boyfriends, fiancés, husbands, had been an obstacle for a while now. It was understandable that everyone was busy, but it still stung.

  I didn’t have any of the above to keep me busy, just the cat at home that was waiting for me. I didn’t know what was wrong with me that no one ever wanted me for more than the half minute it took them to figure out that I was…weird. I didn’t flirt like other girls did, I talked too much about nerdy movies, about programming computers, about anything other than flattering some random guy who had offered to buy me a drink.

  You’d think it would be easier in this technological age, for a nerd like me to have found a kindred spirit, but I just hadn’t been able to make it work so far. I had tried going to conventions, but every
one there just wasn’t…fun.

  I sighed, readjusting the handbag on my shoulder, and continued down the street. It was such a long walk home from the bar we’d gone to—not the bar we usually went to, no, that was too far away for the other girls to go to because some of them had babies that they needed to be able to get back to at the drop of a hat if something went wrong.

  Like their husbands couldn’t handle being alone with a baby for five seconds.

  I rolled my eyes, crossing by an alley. I paused to look down it, debating whether to take the short cut home. I’d done it once or twice when I’d been shopping on this side of town, but that had been in the daylight. I was nervous about going down an alley in the middle of the night, but I wanted to get home. My show was going to be on soon, and I didn’t think I’d get there until after it started if I continued the way I’d been going.

  I shrugged away my anxiety and turned down the alley.

  A few minutes after I’d been walking down it, turning a corner, I heard the distinct sound of footsteps behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw a man not far behind.

  “Um…y-you’re not following me, are you?” I asked, my anxiety creeping into my tone.

  “No,” he said, smiling. I felt my anxiety melt away just looking at that smile. He was gorgeous, much taller than me, with short black hair and pale white skin. He wore jeans with a long sleeve white button up and a black waistcoat. It was an attractive meeting of casual and not-quite-formal.

  I felt myself smiling back at him. “Sorry. I’m just a little nervous walking down the alley alone.”

  “Well, you’re not alone now, are you? I’ll keep you safe,” he said, walking up beside me.

  I did feel safe beside him, tension easing out of my shoulders. I nodded. “Thank you. You are such a gentleman.”

  “Not at all, milady.” He flashed me another grin.