Chapter 16

Raffleton Street was a narrow affair with a road barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other. Turned out that the Order had a van they kept at the carriage stables—a green and yellow contraption with weapons and a cage in the back. It took up more than half of the road as we made our way down, and Edwin was forced to park partially on the sidewalk to leave enough room for any other vehicles to pass.

The note simply said, Raffleton, number 11, missing persons case. And it wasn’t until we were climbing out of the van that it occurred to me that the Sangualex were allowing us to deal with a human problem. “I thought the Sangualex didn’t let us work on human cases.”

“They don’t,” Padma said. “Raffleton is home to the tulpa.”

I had no idea what that was, and my expression must have shown it.

Padma shook her head as if in despair. “Your brief of this territory was seriously lacking.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to accept that.”

“Tulpas are creatures born of human imagination,” Merry provided. “What some might call the monsters under the bed.”

“What kind of monsters?”

“The kind that have made Dracul territory their home,” Padma said. “You won’t find many like these creatures in any other territory.”

“The ones who live here have adapted to being among humans in the open,” Edwin said. “Even though they’re often shunned.” He broke away and headed down the street. “I’m surprised we got a Raven about this one. The Sangualex usually ignore these reports altogether.”

We followed. “Aren’t the Sangualex asleep at this time?”

“The vamps are,” Padma said. “But their personal veins run the operation during daylight hours.”

There was so much I needed to learn. So much that hadn’t been in my brief. I bit back my annoyance; it would do no good to me now.

Number eleven was a neat mid-terrace house with a green door and golden knocker. The drapes were drawn, and the windows looked grimy, but the small front yard was well-kept, grass neatly trimmed with a border of soil ready for spring blooms. Someone cared about this garden, even if their net curtains needed a wash.

Edwin knocked on the door, and we waited.

Long seconds passed, and Edwin was about to knock again when the door opened a crack, and a gray face with deep-set eyes peered out.

“Winnie Dargo?” Edwin asked.

“Yarrk.” Her voice was deep and echoey.

“We’re with the Order.”

“Ick, one mormenth.” She closed the door, and when it opened a moment later, it was to a smaller version of Winnie—a child dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. She had the same gray, gaunt look as Winnie with the deep eye sockets so it looked like her face was more skull than skin.

“Come in,” she said in the same echoey voice. “Please.”

We entered a dark corridor with ugly peeling wallpaper and the sharp acrid smell of cat piss.

I switched to breathing through my mouth.

Winne was visible in the doorway down the hall. Her head touched the top of the door frame, and I realized she’d stooped down when answering the front door to us. She was a tall, slender thing with arms too long for her frame. Her legs were hidden behind her floor-length skirt, but the feet that peeked out were long and bony.

Someone had imagined this creature into being?

“Tell thaam,” Winnie urged the child version of her.

“My dad hasn’t come home in seven days,” the girl said. “He always comes home on time from the factory, but he didn’t. We called his phone and even borrowed a Raven but nothing.”

Seven days? “Why’d you take so long to report it?”

“We didn’t.” It was difficult to be sure with her eye sockets so dark and deep, but I got the impression she was glaring at me. “Reported him missing when he didn’t come home.”

Of course they did. But the Sangualex didn’t bother doing anything about it till now. I glanced at Padma, but she was staring straight ahead, jaw tight, probably thinking the same thing I was. Missing persons cases got harder to solve the colder the trail got, and seven days was pretty icy.

“We’ll look into it,” Edwin said. “Give us the address of the factory, any recent photos, and do you remember what he was wearing?”

Padma tapped my shoulder. “Let’s wait outside.”

Back on the street, fresh air in my lungs. So many houses, so many tulpa, and the law here was neglecting their needs. Clearly marking them as second-class citizens.

“We have to help them.”

“You know as well as I do that the trail will be stone-cold by now.”

“I know. But there may be some clue, something we can find to get them answers.”

Edwin joined us on the sidewalk a moment later. “Let’s go talk to some factory workers.”

Two hours later, we had no more information than before. According to witnesses, Mr. Dargo had left work at his normal time but hadn’t shown up the next day. There were no regular stops that he made on the way home. We walked his route, hoping to find some clues but nothing. The streets were cobble and stone, and it had rained plenty between the night of his disappearance and today. Any forensic clues would have been washed away.

“What we need is a mageri,” Merry said.

But the Order didn’t employ mageri, so no one commented on that suggestion. We did, however, work with faebloods with extrasensory abilities on a freelance basis from time to time. A little mystical intervention could have helped us on this case. “I’m going to ask Micah if he can send us someone when I speak to him tomorrow.”

Padma snorted. “You really do have confidence in your guy, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Even if he gets the Order to agree, they still need to get it past the Sangualex. They control the law here and how it’s run.”

“Yeah, well, that needs to change. We can’t work like this—with one hand tied behind our backs. It’s ridiculous.”

“She’s right,” Merry said. “We need to fight back. Demand more autonomy to do our jobs. If we’d had it before, then…then our friends might still be alive.”

Something shifted in Padma’s expression, too fast for me to decipher. “We won’t lose anyone else.”

“I’ll let the family know that we’re keeping the case open for now,” Edwin said as we got back to the van. “Who knows, someone might come to us with information.”

“What we need is the manpower to widen the search,” Merry said. “Check any places where someone could dump a body.”

“Yeah, but we don’t have that,” Padma said bitterly.

I yanked open the van door. “Then we put that back on the Sangualex doorstep.”

“I’ll call in,” Padma said.

That was all we could do for now.

And that sucked.

Ordell and Hemlockdidn’t show for supper, and with Matthew’s warning running through my mind, I needed to speak to my appointed protectors. Edwin pointed me in the direction of the east wing, third floor, where the pair were housed.

They had the two rooms at the bottom of the corridor, closest to the vaulted window at the end of it. Ordell on the left and Hemlock on the right, according to Edwin.

I knocked on Ordell’s door, but there was no answer. I tried Hemlock and was about to give up when a muffled grunt filtered through the door. Um…okay. Someone was having some alone fun…

I made to step away, but the next sound stopped me—a sharp whistle of air and a soft crack that sounded suspiciously like leather on skin. It was followed by another groan, this one pained.

Images tumbled through my mind, all kinky and definitely not my problem, until a strangled sob hit my ears.

Fuck it. He could be hurt. I twisted the doorknob, and the door opened easily. Silently. The room was dark, drapes drawn, but my eyes adjusted quickly to locate a figure on the floor beside the bed.

Hemlock was on his knees, bare back to me, head bowed as he brought his arm up to lash himself with a small flail. The leather slapped at his back, adding to the bloody trails already marring his skin and cutting open the silvery tracks of old scars.

What the fuck?

Thwack.

I needed to leave.

Thwack.

I needed to look away from the play of muscle across his shoulders and the beads of perspiration running down his chiseled sides.

Thwack.

My breath twisted in my chest.

Thwack.

His muffled groan made my core contract.

And then he moaned, this sound more pleasure than pain, and the breath I’d been holding escaped from my lips in a sharp exhale.

He stilled.

I froze, internally cursing myself for being a nosy cow and opening the damn door.

He turned his head, offering me his shadowy profile. His dark hair was damp, probably with sweat, and falling across his forehead, strands sticking to his cheekbones. His throat bobbed, and when he spoke, his voice was a defeated rasp. “Do you make a habit of walking into people’s rooms?”

My face burned with shame. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

He snorted and turned away. “Get out.” He didn’t need to raise his voice for the words to act like a punch to the chest.

I backed out of the room, closing the door softly before leaning against it, heart battering my ribs.

This was not my problem. Not my business. But it would be a while before I managed to get the image of him on the ground out of my head and even longer before the sound of his moan of pleasure stopped echoing in my ears.

Sleep wasa reluctant bed partner that night. The urge to run, to be out in the night, to patrol was an itch beneath my skin. I worked out doing push-ups, jumping jacks, and sit-ups until my body ached. Until the image of Hemlock’s naked back, rippling with muscle and painted in silver scars finally released its grip on my mind’s eye.

When sleep did come, it dragged me into fitful dreams of stone rooms and marble floors, of whispers down long corridors—the playground for ominous shadows.

“Orina, this way…”Ezekiel beckoned me forward, and I realized I was in his castle. An area I’d never seen before, one my mind was fabricating. “This way, come…”

I followed his voice into a silver-kissed room where drapes billowed and shadows writhed behind the gauzy curtains of a four-poster bed. The soft pile of a luscious carpet cushioned my soles as I drifted forward, skin pebbling with the chill trickling in from the open window.

Closer. I needed to see.

Silk caressed my fingertips as I drew back the curtain, and the scent of sex hit me hard. Two women lay entwined, long, slender limbs wrapped about one another in a love-drunk embrace while they leisurely explored each other.

Heat unfurled like questing fingers low in my belly, reaching for my core. The women kissed deeply, devouring each other for long, aching seconds before turning their ember eyes on me. No…not on me, on something behind me.

I felt the chill of his body a moment before he wrapped an arm around my waist. His other hand went to my throat, curling around it and cradling it.

“Hello, Orina, so nice of you to join us,” Ezekiel said, lips brushing my ear. Heat spiraled though me from the contact. “Mmmm, you like this…” The curtains on the bed blew open to reveal the women, head to toe now as they worked each other with mouths and tongues. “Do you like the way it makes you feel?” He squeezed my throat gently, while his hand around my waist slipped down to the juncture of my thighs.

I wanted it. I wanted to be touched. But not by him.

“Don’t…” My voice trembled.

“You don’t sound so sure.” He cupped me through my sleep shorts, applying pressure with his long fingers, and I couldn’t help but offer him my hips.

His laugh was breathless and delighted. “Oh, yes. So responsive. Shall we test how much?” He slipped his hand into my waistband, fingers inching over my pubic bone down to the epicenter of my arousal, throbbing, wanting. Needing.

I wanted to be touched. To feel that sweet release, but not this dream. Not with him.

I needed to wake up.

Needed to wake up right now?—

I sat up in bed gasping, blood pounding in my head and throbbing between my legs, the need to come a tight spiral inside me. I slipped my hands into my shorts. Fuck, I was wet. Ready. Yes, oh fuck…I bit down on my bottom lip, chasing that feeling, that sweet crest that came just before release. It hit hard, lifting my hips off the mattress and holding me there, tense and quivering, for a beat before releasing me.

I lay there for long minutes after, heart thudding so hard I was sure the world could hear it.

It had been a while since I’d had a sexy dream. Longer since I’d had full-blown sex. Being blessed, being fully ordained, meant giving up cock. I could taste it. I could rub up on it, but insertion was forbidden. Oral was great, but after a while, guys wanted to go all the way, then we had the questions, and in some cases, the accusations and name-calling. Easier to steer clear completely. To guard my body and my heart because one slip could cost me my blessing, and once lost, it could not be reclaimed.

I’d asked Micah why the no sex rule once, and he’d said when two people consummated a relationship, it was more than a meeting of bodies, it was a meeting of souls, however brief. He said every carnal union changed us in some way, tainted us, or elevated us, but the blessing was not something to be shared.

The dream, and the alone sexy time had left me thirsty. I grabbed a robe and headed downstairs for some water. I was halfway up the corridor when the sound of voices drew me up short.

“…times are you going to do this?” Edwin whisper-hissed.

“As many times as it takes,” Padma snapped back. “Ouch.”

“Dammit, look at you. Come on, we need to get you cleaned up.”

Their voices drifted away as they headed in the opposite direction to me.

Great, another mystery.

But right now, I needed water. The Padma mystery was a tomorrow problem.