Night Life Read online

  I blinked. The night had been too long and too full of death. Under the COD field I typed exsanguination and checked the box to indicate that the autopsy was still pending. The printer spit out a hard copy of the report, and I attached the appropriate forms and tucked it into my open-case file, which was really just a tattered accordion folder sitting on top of my desk.

  Jane Doe: filed and processed and tucked away where she needed to be.

  * * * *

  I got up, stretched, and slid into my scuffed motorcycle jacket. The telltale point in my lower back twinged. Definitely time to go home. I had made it to the squad room door when I heard a voice bellow, "And where does that sweet ass think it's going?"

  Turning brought me face-to-leering-face with David Bryson, a fellow detective—if fellow could be classified as the occasional lewd comment and a burning desire on my part to kick him. The only thing keeping me from phasing out on him was the hope that he'd be fired for sexual harassment and I'd get to watch.

  "Hey, Wilder," he panted. A younger Hispanic man was attached to Bryson's arm via handcuffs. The kid had gang tats and a bloody gash on the side of his head. "Be a good girl and help me get this piece of crap to interrogation," Bryson said, detaching himself from the kid and recuffing him.

  "What the hell happened to his head?" The gangbanger smelled like sweat, cheap weed, and fear. Bryson gave off adrenaline and coppery, impotent rage.

  He grinned at me. "Vato resisted. I showed him he couldn't resist the hood of my car."

  I sucked in a breath. “That's great, Bryson. Really great. What's on the menu for the rest of the night? Toilet bowls and telephone books?"

  "Aw, who's he gonna tell? Dumbshit doesn't even speak English." He shoved the banger into a chair by his desk. "Am I right, Pedro?"

  "Su madre aspira martillos en infierno," Pedro muttered. I turned away quickly so Bryson wouldn't catch my snort and grin. Red-faced, he didn't even notice me.

  Instead, he grabbed Pedro by the neck and slammed him face-first into the brick wall of the squad room.

  Pedro moaned once before he slid down and curled into a ball on the linoleum at our feet. "You think that's some funny shit, don't you?" Bryson shouted, drawing back his foot for a kick.

  I stepped over Pedro and put out my hand, palm up. "Enough, Bryson."

  He glared at me, foot still poised, big shoulders hunched. I'd spent enough time in my kickboxing dojo to handle an opponent bigger than myself, but Bryson was not only big, but also armed and a cop with training of his own. This standoff definitely called for sugar rather than round kicks.

  "He had it coming," Bryson snarled at me when he realized I wasn't going to move.

  "Leave it alone, or I'll help this poor kid file a complaint against you right now," I told Bryson. "And you can bet I'll be calling Lieutenant McAllister at home to make sure he sees it."

  After another long second, Bryson stepped back and fixed his tie. Pedro got up and ran like hell.

  Bryson heaved a dramatic sigh. "Shit, Wilder. You can be a class-A bitch sometimes." His eyes traveled down to my chest, lower, and back up. "If you weren't so cute I might pop you one." He reached around and patted me on the bottom. "Thank that sweet ass."

  Bryson squealed as I grabbed his index finger and bent it backward, applying pressure on the knuckle and creating a vise that could snap bone with a few milligrams more pressure.

  "David, I know that the time for this conversation is long overdue, and that's my fault, because up until now I couldn't believe that you could really be such a gigantic dickhead. But apparently you can, so listen up."

  "That's my trigger finger you got!" he yelped.

  "Then you shouldn't have put it on my ass." I pinched harder. "I couldn't care less what you think of me. But for the record, I think you are a violent, incompetent psychopath who has no business being a police officer." Somewhere between the dead girl and the Lockhart jerk from the city, my annoyance had boiled over into rage, and I was feeling it deep down in my gut. Bryson just happened to be the closest target. Not that he didn't deserve it.

  "Now that we understand each other, David…" I squeezed and relished the cry of real pain I elicited. "Take your opinion of me and stick it up your ass. If there's room next to your head, of course." I twisted his hand to the snapping point, realizing how easy it would be to hurt him. How easy it would be to lean in and feel his hot breath as I tore his throat. My hand clamped down and the joint let out a popping sound.

  I let go, jumping a step back.

  Bryson stared at me with wide eyes, holding his hand. Then he turned without a word and practically ran out of the squad room. The big baby.

  As soon as he was gone, I bolted for my car.

  Shit. It had never hit me so early before a full moon, and so hard. A full seven days still. I stroked the chain under my shirt and felt the cool kiss of the silver star pendant against my skin. The rage I'd felt in the squad room still demanded satisfaction, a hunt brought to a bloody close.

  Weres are all instinct and nerves, loosely held together by the thin veil of humanity that covers us when the moon is new. When we get angry, control is a memory. You can hurt people, and probably will at least once. Wearing silver when you're human is a good deterrent, or a little wolfsbane next to the skin if you don't mind smelling like an old lady's medicine cabinet. But when were rage really grips you, nothing on this earth can stop it.

  I breathed in, out, and turned on the car, forcing my hands to stop shaking. Bryson was an idiot and a terrible cop, but what I had done was unforgivable. I had lost it. Something had awakened the were and I didn't know what. That scared the hell out of me.

  I kept my pentacle outside my shirt, touching it every few seconds with my free hand. It did little to calm me as I drove home while the sun came up.

  Two

  By the time I got home, sunrise had become a fluffy pink line across the horizon, deepening to lava orange at the heart. The dilapidated one-and-a-half-story cottage Sunny and I shared sat on a hill that sloped to the ocean, on the opposite side of Siren Bay from the city proper. It may not have been the trendy address, but there sure was less pollution, and there were fewer gunshots at night.

  Salt smell wafted toward me when I got out of the Fairlane and I heard the gentle whoosh of the waves like they were right next to me. The humid air curled the wild roses that climbed the front of the cottage, but aside from that it looked like the front of a Hallmark card.

  A light glowed from the kitchen window, and I shouted, "I'm home!" to Sunny as I came in the front door and kicked off my boots.

  Sunny padded into the front room on bare feet, wearing sweatpants and a tunic. If I could look as good as my tiny cousin in what amounted to basically a sack of cotton, life would be sweet.

  "Morning," she said, swirling a tea bag in her purple ceramic mug.

  "I will never, ever understand why you get up this early when there's no earthly need to," I told her. "I'm so damn exhausted I could sleep through the Hex Riots."

  Sunny shrugged. "Witches greet the dawn. Doesn't hurt to remember where you get your gifts from."

  "Guess there are some benefits to missing out on the legendary Swann witch blood," I said. Swann was my mother's maiden name, Sunny her niece by my aunt Delia. Delia, Sunny, and my grandmother had all gotten the blood. I hadn't. My grandmother blamed Vincent Wilder, my father and a plain human. Privately, I thought she was probably right, but to everyone who mattered I couldn't give a flying broom whether I had the blood or not.

  Sunny extended her mug. "Green tea? Chai, maybe?"

  I shook my head. "The only thing I want right now is a hot, hot shower and some sleep."

  "Your loss," she informed me with a wink, taking her knobby wooden caster and a plug of sage incense for the dawn-greeting.

  "I'm sure," I said, shrugging my jacket off. Its thick leather had kept my skin off the road or a suspect's knife out of my ribs more than once. The jacket went on the coat tree next to Sunny's moss-gr
een shawl, and my shoulder holster with it. My Glock went into the middle drawer of the old desk that served as our toss-all table for letters, keys, and miscellaneous junk. I locked the drawer and hung the key around my neck. That image of the hardened cop sleeping with a gun under their pillow is crap. Cops get their heads blown off with their own guns at home just as often as civilians.

  Sunny watched with mild disapproval, as she always did when I took out my weapon around her. Caster witches usually came with all the pacifistic trappings you'd expect from white magick users. I always felt slightly deceptive when I made a show of putting the Glock away. We both knew that it wasn't the gun Sunny should be afraid of. I was way more hazardous to her health.

  She asked, "Did anything bad happen during your shift?" No, not psychic, but with a witch's sense of when energy was disturbed.

  "Homicide," I said, rubbing my eyes. They felt like some of the beach sand we constantly tracked into the foyer had gotten caught under the lids. "A girl. A young woman, probably twenty or so. She was… it wasn't quick."

  Before I could react, Sunny's arms were around me and she was holding me close. "I'm sorry, Luna," she murmured.

  Normally I would have flinched, or at least backed away from Sunny's overwhelming sympathy, but right now it just felt good to have contact with a human who wasn't in handcuffs or trying to touch my butt. I patted her shoulder in return and then extricated myself. "Thanks, Sun. I'm going to go catch that shower."

  She nodded. "I need to get outside before the whole dawn is over." She went out the front door, still barefoot.

  I stood in the center of the living room for a few seconds, then turned and jogged after her. "Sunny!"

  She turned back halfway across our sandy front yard. "Yes?"

  "Will you be around when I wake up? I…" I sighed. Forget the pride, Luna. If your phase is out of control, the pride won't do you any good while you 're ripping up people near and dear to you. "I need to talk to you about my phase. I think something's off."

  Sunny nodded, concern creasing her round face. "Of course, hon. I don't have a class today, so I'll be around. Come find me when you're awake."

  Upstairs, scalding my skin under the flimsy shower-head attached to our clawfoot tub, I didn't feel any better. Sunny being a witch didn't automatically make her a were expert. Without a pack to guide me, it was the blind leading the freaking blind.

  I put on sweats and a tank top and fell into bed. I think I was asleep before my head was fully on the pillow.

  I dreamed about Jane Doe's open, staring eyes and fresh blood running under a street lamp.

  * * * *

  I woke up to the sound of Sunny rustling around in her room, humming. Sensitive ears are not a bonus when you have roommates.

  My head throbbed, coming to a pinpoint between my eyes. I rolled over, groaned, and looked at my alarm clock. One in the afternoon. For someone who usually didn't hit the mattress until eight in the morning, I was a damn light sleeper lately.

  I went to my closet to find an outfit, and my foot caught a pile of jeans. I cursed. Really needed to donate some of this crap to the fashionably challenged poor.

  Sunny heard my mumbling and knocked on the bedroom door. I swear that girl has better hearing than I do, and she's not even a were.

  "Luna? Are you awake or cursing in your sleep again?"

  "Depends on what you mean by awake."

  She opened my door and came in, sitting on the edge of the bed in a flurry of velvet. Loose black cotton pants and a flowing purple top with those wide sleeves and a low-cut, lacy neck. On most, the getup would scream Ren-faire escapee, but Sunny's small waist and curvaceous top pulled it off. I felt underdressed in my pajamas, and pulled on a robe and boudoir slippers with red satin toes.

  "Can we make the talk quick? I'm drying rose hips I picked this morning and I can't leave them too long."

  "Promise not to subject me to any more of that tea you brew from them and I'll make it light-speed."

  Sunny pursed her lips. "Most people love my teas."

  "In case you hadn't noticed, cuz, I'm not most people. Most people don't turn into two-hundred-pound wolves when the moon is full." I threw a pile of T-shirts and underwear off my rocking chair, making just enough room for my butt, and sat.

  "You really need to donate some of this stuff," Sunny observed. I handed her a stormy glare in response.

  Sunny and I are opposites in a lot of ways, not least of which being the way we dress. When she had moved from our hometown of San Romita to Nocturne City, she practically had to put a gun to my head to convince me that living together was a good idea. Sometimes, like when she was chanting at all hours or cooking a particularly smelly spell, I still wasn't sure of our arrangement.

  "So what seems to be wrong with your moonphase?" she asked.

  But at times like this, I was damn glad to have her around.

  "Well…" I sighed. Thinking about beating up Bryson, in the light of day with a well-rested mind, was embarrassing. What was I, a playground bully? Even if he did have it coming… "I had a run-in with Bryson last night."

  Sunny raised a curved eyebrow. She knew Bryson. "Go on."

  "He touched me. And I grabbed him. I think I broke his finger. He was screaming in pain, literally. And I enjoyed it, Sunny. I practically phased out. I wanted to kill him."

  Sunny bit her lip. We look similar, but her face is round where mine is narrow, open and warm where mine has a tendency to make me look like a bitch. She didn't look proud of me right then, which reminded me of all the times I'd faced off against Rhoda and my mother.

  "I'm assuming you didn't. Kill him, that is."

  "Hex it, Sunny. What do you think? I enjoyed making the SOB squirm more than I've enjoyed anything in a long time, which is a sad comment on my life. But anyway. It's not that."

  I picked up and played with one of my pink velvet pumps, purchased for a Valentine's Day date who never showed. I didn't want to say the next part. It was pathetic and stupid. It made me no better than the were thugs who hung around the corner of Kudzu and La Quito.

  "The thing that worries me, Sunny, is that I did it in the first place. It just exploded. I've only ever felt were rage when the phase is coming on."

  "I can see why you'd worry," Sunny agreed. She stood and pointed to the bed. "Lie down on your stomach. Lift your shirt."

  "Oh, come on, Sunny …"

  "Now, Luna. I don't want a crazed were smashing up my house."

  "Our house. I pay half the rent, and as I remember I was the one who found it in the first place."

  "And if I hadn't been there to pass a credit check, you'd still be in that horrible studio on Woodmont," she shot back. "Lie on the bed and lift your shirt."

  Get past the fairy-princess getup and the touchy-feely caster witch façade, and my cousin can be damn bossy when the mood strikes her. I lay down on my bed and shivered as the purple satin spread touched my bare skin. I pulled my tank up to just under my breasts, exposing the tattoo on my lower back.

  "Hmm," said Sunny. "Looks okay. No redness or swelling."

  The tattoo ink was infused with wolfsbane and silver. Silver on a chain might offer a were peace of mind, but the only thing that holds back a phase is ink in the skin. And not even ink can stop a were in moonlight.

  "I'm not about to phase six and a half days away from a full moon," I reminded Sunny as she prodded the tat. "That would be sort of impossible."

  "I don't know that," said Sunny. She sat next to me and leaned close to examine my back. "Really, Luna, we don't know anything about this except what we've learned through trial and error. And the fewer errors we experience, the longer my tranquility remains intact."

  I blushed thinking about the last "error," and how I'd had to buy Sunny a new sofa. That had been unfair, and cost me two weeks' pay. It wasn't my fault she didn't know how to fasten a kennel door properly.

  Sunny finally pulled my shirt down. "It seems fine. Does it feel all right?"

  I reach
ed back and rubbed the CD-sized circle of ink. "It's fine." The skin prickled under my hand, sending itchy fingers up and down my back.

  Sunny frowned. "I don't have another explanation for the rage. I don't know enough to even offer an opinion. The only person who does—"

  I stopped her. "Forget that. I'll get on the computer and see what I can find out about another charm that negates phase."

  Sunny sniffed. "Sure. Tell me if you find anything." She knew I wouldn't. Everything I knew about being a were came from blind experience and dumb luck. Normally, a pack would usher in a were fresh from the bite and teach them the laws and magicks inherent to pack life. Of course, in the grand tradition of my life, I wasn't so lucky.

  * * * *

  Deciding to eat breakfast before I started my internet quest, I went to the kitchen. Any way you looked at it, I was screwed from the get-go as far as weres went. Most got the bite at birth, or were born of two were parents and had no need. Weres given the bite after childhood were rare. An adult given the bite was a pain in the ass, all confusion and newly blossomed killer instincts that could get your pack into a lot of trouble.

  I checked the icebox, an ancient Frigidaire hulk that looked like it could stop AK-47 fire, to see if Sunny had graced me with any leftovers that weren't made out of soy. She hadn't. Peanut butter and bananas would have to suffice. I assembled all my ingredients and started to chop and spread. "Sunny, where are the plates?" I hollered.

  "Sink!" she shouted back from the upstairs.

  Sometimes a pack member didn't want the responsibility, and abandoned the human with the bite. Those without a pack, like me, were called Insoli, a Latin term that translated loosely to "lonely ones." I'd heard a lot of other versions. Lowest of the Low. Outcast. Packless. The trifecta of unforgivable were insults.

  "Sunny, where are the knives?"

  "Left-hand drawer by the sink!"