“You won’t be a suspect for long,” I promise. “Now that I know what you were up to, I can easily clear you.”
“Right. In my dreams.” Her dark eyebrows pull together. “Talk to me once you have no doubt of my guilt.” She glances at Kit. “Privately.”
Okay, what is that about?
I throw out a wild guess. “If you know who the real killer is, I can ask Kit to leave so we can—”
“I don’t.” She lowers the furniture back to the floor. “But we should talk. Afterward. Now if that’s all, you’d better go talk to the rest of your suspects.”
Kit stands up and sets her glass on the nearby table. “Thanks for the drink.”
Our exit beneath the giant rock comes with a lot less fear.
“Kain’s next,” Kit says over her shoulder. “Hopefully he’s back.”
Before I can ask her where he’d gone, I spot a familiar figure coming down the corridor.
It’s Filth, and he’s giving me the evil eye.
“If it isn’t the blood whore,” he sneers when I’m within earshot. “Do let me know when you’re ready for an undiluted fix.”
I give him a placid stare. “Did you have any trouble getting the tampons, errand boy?”
Felix chuckles. “I forgot to tell you, I did make the checkout process harder for him—and there is a video.”
Filth’s fangs emerge. “I’ll rip your—”
“No, you won’t.” Kit has turned into Kain.
“Speaking of ripping…” I look over Filth’s sickly body. “Are you strong enough to rip someone in half?”
Kain Kit gives me a glare. “Don’t antagonize him further.”
“I’m asking as part of my investigation,” I say, stretching the truth only a little. “It’s a compliment, in a way. You said only the oldest vampires can accomplish such a feat.”
“I’ve never tried to rip something in half. I suspect I’d greatly enjoy it, though.” Filth gives me a deliberate once-over.
“That’s nice,” I say. “So what were you doing when Gemma was killed?”
“I was on a job with Kain.” His fangs go away. “Someone without a Mandate stepped out of line, so we put him down like a rabid dog—the way we should’ve done with you.”
“Thank you,” I say calmly. “Sounds like you and Kain are each other’s alibis. I hope you don’t take it personally when I verify your story with Kain and in the dream world.”
“You keep doing your pretend work. I’ll wait until you fail.” He brushes past us.
Kit turns back into her usual self and heads down the corridor to a black metal door. She knocks on it, and just as I catch up, Kain opens the door.
“She’s yours again,” Kit says. She turns to me. “I have some business to attend to, but I guess I’ll see you in my dreams?”
I smile. “Thanks for your help.”
“How goes the investigation?” Kain asks, gesturing for me to come inside.
He leads me into a sleek kitchen that reminds me of Colton’s, just with a normal-sized table and chairs, and sits me down on a stylish black bar stool as I bring him up to speed on everything except the alibi Filth provided a minute ago. It’s unlikely their stories won’t match, but if so, that would be a major breakthrough. And I can’t dismiss what Kit said about Kain’s potential culpability.
The vampire opens a bottle of distilled water and puts it in front of me like a bartender. “Tonight, you’ll establish a dream link with everyone on the Council. You’ll dreamwalk in everyone you’ve spoken with thus far, plus a few people I personally suspect.”
I greedily gulp the water. “Actually, I might have to do one or the other. There’s a limit to how much I can use my power in a day, and setting up links is draining. Why don’t I just set up links and dreamwalk in the people I’ve spoken with so far?”
“I want everyone on the Council to feel as though their dreams can be invaded at any moment.” He perches on a stool next to me. “Then, if you have enough power, we can dive deeper into the suspects.”
“You don’t think it was Eduardo, Colton, Kit, or Nina who killed Gemma?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think. Just do as I say.”
I swallow a less-than-polite retort. “Sure. By the way—and this is mere formality—can you tell me what you were doing when Gemma was killed?”
He doesn’t blink. “No problem. Use your power to clear me of suspicion right away, so you can speak to me more openly about the case.”
“I will—though it could mean I won’t be able to set up links with everyone on the Council today.”
“Fine, fine. Can always leave people with strong alibis for later.” He gets up, takes a blood bag from the fridge, and tosses it into the microwave. “It’d been quite a day. An insane werewolf from one of the Otherlands arrived at the local airport and attacked the humans there. We had to kill him and glamour hundreds of victims to forget the incident.”
“Wow,” Felix whispers.
Indeed. I wouldn’t want to be an Enforcer, that’s for sure.
“JFK airport?” I ask as the microwave beeps.
“That’s the one.” He takes out his snack and returns to his seat next to me. Ripping open a corner of the bag, he takes a big gulp from it.
I suppress my instinctive disgust at the sight of him consuming someone’s bodily fluids. “Can you tell me something about the event that makes it memorable?”
“How often do you think insane Cognizant show up on this world?”
“No idea. Not often?”
“This was the first incident I’d been involved with. Newcomers such as yourself usually keep their heads down. They know that without the Mandate, they can be killed without due process just for being here.”
He downs the rest of the blood bag, no doubt to illustrate what would happen to someone with yummy blood in such circumstances. If it’s a threat, it works well.
I force my voice to stay steady. “That’s enough detail.”
“Good.” He slides down from his stool and extends his hand. “Come with me.”
I look at his hand, the very one that only a second ago held a bag containing someone’s blood. He gives me a look that seems to suggest the handholding isn’t optional. Inwardly cringing and making plans to use a whole bottle of sanitizer later, I limply take his hand and let him lead me deeper into the apartment.
Oh, puck.
The last room we enter is his bedroom.
A vampire’s bedroom, or what passes for one, given that they don’t need to sleep.
My heart rate skyrockets. This place looks too much like the dream room where I do Ariel’s exposure therapy. Instruments for erotic and not-so-erotic torture glitter and gleam everywhere. The bed itself has iron rings built into the headboard and the base, clearly to make it easier to chain people for nefarious purposes.
On Gomorrah, everyone thinks vampires are kinky, and this one is playing right into that stereotype.
Kain lets go of my hand and looks between me and the bed with a strange expression.
I loudly swallow.