Chapter 16
ALEXANDER
Being yanked around by his father’s bodyguards was never fun, but right now it was agonising.
Usually, the dead-eyed vampires were ushering Vladimir to and from meetings, and when Alexander was forced to attend, he was ushered around too.
He hated being surrounded by the much larger men, none of whom had any appreciable sense of personality or humour and who acted like they were made of stone.
“I really don’t understand why I needed to leave now.
” His stomach was in knots at the thought of leaving Tobias behind, wide-eyed and bewildered and very possibly in danger.
Giving him the keys to the car and apartment at least ensured that he’d not be standing around waiting for public transit, but that didn’t mean that he was going to follow Alexander’s directions.
Tobias, if anything, clearly had a mind of his own and a way of interpreting even persuasive commands to fit his own desires.
“Mistress Maria said,” was all he got out of one of the guards.
He didn’t even know the man’s name – they were far too interchangeable – and even though his panic was rising, he knew it was idiotic to get into a three-on-one fight that he likely couldn’t physically win, let alone in front of curious mortal eyes.
The night had gotten cold, even to Alexander’s icy skin – or maybe that was just the anxiety making his limbs leaden. Maria was leaning against the side of a Bentley with the engine still running, the driver behind the wheel.
“Sister,” Alexander said. “Fancy bumping into you.”
“Come on, get in.” She clicked her fingers in his direction. “You can fuck your new boyfriend until neither of you can walk after we’ve dealt with the existential threat facing our family and potentially also you, alright?”
Alexander eyed her. She was trying to look confident, like she was admonishing him, but her hair was in frizzy disarray, like she’d run out of the manor without carefully smoothing down every strand with hairspray the way she was wont to do.
Her black turtleneck was dusted in a fine coating of cat hair from the pet that was ostensibly hers but spent more time hanging around Alexander while he was at Rothburn.
And most tellingly, she had smudged her scarlet lipstick outside the lines, a smear going off the corner of her mouth.
Even though he was worried for Tobias’ safety, his anger softened as he took in how much his little sister was clearly worried for him. He’d known Tobias for a little more than a week, but he and Maria shared hundreds of years of love, an entire history of caring for each other.
“I couldn’t leave you alone if you were in danger,” she said, her voice wobbling.
“Oh, Maria.” He stepped forward and folded her into a hug, letting her sag against him.
He reminded himself of the way that he’d been terrified for Tobias’ safety until he’d gotten him in his sights, and he didn’t blame Maria for pulling him away.
Not when he knew so acutely what it felt like to experience that kind of concern.
“I’m alright. It’s not the first time that someone has targeted me. It will all be fine.”
“This time is different.” She pulled away, and he took the opportunity to lick his thumb and run it beneath her mouth, cleaning up her lipstick.
She gave what sounded suspiciously like a sniff, but covered it with a huff, her mask sliding back into place.
“And I wouldn’t have had to rush my makeup if I thought you could handle this yourself.
Instead, I was placing calls to the hospital from the back of the car, trying to find someone to let us in.
But it turns out that we need to head to the morgue instead. ”
“The morgue?” Alexander opened the door for her and ushered her into the car before circling around to the other side, settling down into the plush leather of the seat, the built-in heater already on. “Why?”
“I’ve found something, or actually not found something.
” Maria narrowed her eyes at him. “I went to the attack sites, and as you said, there’s not really any scent left.
So if there’s no longer a scent at the scene of the crime, we’re going to have to check the bodies.
I thought that meant going to the hospital to visit with the victims, but when I poked around, it turned out that they’d all died of their injuries.
Apparently the police kept it quiet so that the attacker wouldn’t be…
inspired to continue, if that was their goal. So yes. The morgue.”
“Oh.” He blinked a few times. His preoccupation with Tobias had clearly interfered with his reasoning, because of course there was another place for him to pick up the scent of the attacker.
“Seeing the dead actually dead hasn’t ever been my thing.
Couldn’t you do this alone? Plus, I have commitments your brutes took me away from. I’d like to get back to them.”
She rolled her eyes. “What kind of magic sex trance does this boy have you in?”
Heat suffused his cheeks. “Don’t talk about Tobias like that.”
“So he has a name.” It was Maria’s turn to stare blankly. “Well fuck me. We’ll deal with your romantic feelings for a mortal after we foil the coup against our family’s power, okay?”
Alexander didn’t feel like arguing, and instead he texted Tobias to make sure that he’d gotten into the car safely.
Tobias replied with a selfie of him behind the wheel, and while he looked like he was only trying to be cheerful and not truly succeeding, at least he was inside something with a locked door.
Alexander tucked his phone into his coat pocket, as sure as he could be that Tobias would be safe for now while he tracked down the attacker.
Maybe he and Maria could dismember them together tonight and put an end to the whole thing.
He and Tobias could relax until Alexander had to go to Rothburn the following week for the centennial ball.
The car pulled to a stop at a nondescript building on the outskirts of Oxford proper. There was a young policeman waiting outside and smoking a cigarette, which made Alexander’s fingers itch for one.
“PC Thomas.” Maria was smiling widely as she got out of the car, and she went over to kiss the blushing policeman on the cheek. “Thank you so much for doing us this favour.”
“Of… of course.” The man stammered. Alexander wasn’t sure if Maria had even needed to put a compulsion on the man, or whether she’d just batted her eyelashes and gotten him totally infatuated. “Right this way, Miss Damianos.”
Alexander trailed after them, the bodyguards fanning out behind.
The policeman led them to a set of double doors and waved them in.
The room they were led into was sterile, the white tile harsh under the glare of the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, the walls lined with metal cabinets.
The smell of formaldehyde hung in the air, making Alexander wince as the odour assaulted his far-more-sensitive-than-mortal senses.
He’d never visited a morgue, and based on this experience he didn’t fancy coming back to one.
There was a mortician in a rubber smock standing in front of a steel table, with the body of an elderly man lying partially dissected in front of him.
Alexander was glad that the smell of embalming chemicals masked the tang of blood, because it had been too long since he’d fed and he didn’t know if he could prevent his fangs from elongating if there was blood in the air.
“One moment.” The mortician was an older woman with a no-nonsense look about her. Her dark grey hair was captured under a mesh cap, and she was wearing safety goggles that made her look like an owl. “I’m just finishing up with this heart attack here. I wasn’t expecting visitors.”
Alexander looked at his sister, who just arched an eyebrow and pulled out her phone to start scrolling.
He turned back to the mortician, examining the way she was making delicate cuts into the corpse’s heart wall.
Alexander so rarely saw death like this, clinical and laid out.
When he killed a human, it was bloodless and often in the throes of passion, and then he left it for someone else to deal with later.
For some reason, looking at this type of death made him uneasy enough to shift from foot to foot, guilt twisting in his chest. Was it because he was thinking of Tobias, now? How his body would be laid out and taken to pieces if someone killed him?
Alexander was afraid of what it meant for everything he knew if the answer was yes.
“Done!” the mortician pronounced, snapping off her latex gloves and dropping her scalpel on a metal tray with a clatter. “Now, PC Thomas, what did you say your consultants were looking for?”
“The attack victims.” The policeman’s voice wavered, but he covered it up with a cough. “These two are from London, and they’re helping to, ah, do some… police stuff.” He hadn’t been compelled, then, or he’d be a much better liar.
The mortician’s bemused expression set off alarm bells in Alexander’s head, and he stepped forward to give her a winning smile, extending his hand to shake.
“We’re psychological profilers who have been brought in to help the investigation.
” The lie rolled off his tongue. “It helps to see the bodies. Sometimes we notice clues that medical examiners haven’t picked up on because they’re not clinically significant. ”
“Ah.” The woman’s shoulders relaxed, and Alexander did too.
He didn’t know if he had the concentration to control two humans at once, not right now when his attention was split between his current task, wondering if Tobias was still safe, and wondering why his heart throbbed just a bit every time he pictured Tobias’ face.
“We still have them. They’re right over here.
We keep custody of the bodies until murder investigations are closed, in case of an eventuality like this.
It’s terrible for the families – no closure, you see, not like what you’d get if you were able to have a quick funeral – but what can you do? ”
She crouched down to the bottom row of the long series of metal cabinets that lined the back of the room. “The first one is right–”
She pulled out the drawer and stopped dead.
“Um,” Maria said, leaning over her shoulder, “shouldn’t there be a body in there?”
“Yes.” The answer was clipped as the woman shuffled on her knees over to a drawer three down, pulling it out. “Oh my God.”
It was empty too, save for condensation that rose out into the room as the freezer-like temperature made contact with the air. And large, deep scratches in the metal on the inside of the drawers.
Almost like something had been trying to claw its way out.
“Where are the bodies?” The policeman had crossed the room and was peering into the empty drawers too, disbelief etched on his face. He pulled out his radio and called for backup as the mortician frantically began opening other drawers, all of which were full.
“We need to leave,” Maria muttered in his ear, tugging him by the elbow. “Now!’
Alexander didn’t argue. His mind was stuck on the missing bodies, and the slowly dawning unease of what that could mean.
They left the shocked-looking mortals behind and slipped out of the room. There were already police sirens in the distance, so they hurried back into the Bentley, the bodyguards shutting the doors behind them before getting into their own car, one sitting up front with the driver.
“No one would have taken the bodies.” Maria chewed on her lip. “Why? They’d gotten what they wanted out of them. What would they do, eat them?”
A terrible idea was occurring to Alexander, something far more horrible than mortals being killed for intimidation. “No,” he said, his voice strangled even to his own ears. “I don’t think so. I don’t think the bodies were stolen. I think the bodies left.”
“What?” Maria went, if possible, even paler than before.
“It’s not intimidation,” Alexander answered. “It’s creation.”
And that was so, so much worse.