Pure Blood Part 15

When you have a break in a case, the truth is it usually births more questions than it answers. Sure, a caster witch had killed Vincent Blackburn, but any lawyer would point out it didn't have have to be one of the O'Hallorans. to be one of the O'Hallorans.

Besides, if the O'Hallorans had instigated this war, what could they possibly have to gain? The Blackburns were dying out, and Vincent hadn't been hurting anyone. Shelby would explain it away with "live by the sword, die by the sword" but I knew it wasn't that simple. The Blackburns were the wronged party here.

Something was missing from this pat little scenario, a thread of connection between Vincent and his killer that I was betting the O'Hallorans hoped I wouldn't find. They could preach wrongs and counterwrongs all they wanted, but the fact remained that restarting a war that had been dormant for as long as I'd been alive was bad business, as well as just plain stupid.

I had one solid lead in this increasingly weird case- Benny Joubert, the other princ.i.p.al in Bete Noire, the were privy to Vincent's dealing.

I got in my car and thought about that for a few minutes. Joubert was a male were, a pack member if he was pushing drugs on the streets of Nocturne City. Weres controlled most of the drug and skin trade, and the G.o.ds help you if you forgot that fact. He was also a violent, repeat offender and I was one lone Insoli female.

Only one person sprang to mind as a potential partner in this venture, and it made my chest tighten so much I thought all the breath would be forced out of me. The idea of seeing Dmitri again, with Irina, happy? I couldn't stomach it.

On the other hand, if I wanted to keep working the case and not end up raped and mutilated in Joubert's Dumpster, he was the only person I could ask to help me. I vowed that I wouldn't kill or maim him, no matter how maddening he got, and headed for downtown.

Irina opened the apartment door, the skin between her eyes creasing when she saw me. She was going to need Botox in a few years. "What are you doing here? You trespa.s.s."

"Not much good to call the police," I quipped with a hopeful smile. "I need to talk to Dmitri."

"No." She started to shut the door. I stuck an arm out and caught it with a bang.

"I don't think you understand. I need need to talk to Dmitri and I am to talk to Dmitri and I am going going to talk to Dmitri and I am sick of having doors slammed in my face." to talk to Dmitri and I am sick of having doors slammed in my face."

She pushed against me, grunting with the effort, but I held firm, staring into those gold-brown eyes and not bothering to hide my contempt. "You're just wasting my time, Irina. I'm coming inside either way."

"When I get you alone ..." Irina hissed.

"Oh, don't flatter yourself, princess. I'd tear you up and use what's left for bacon bits." Bravado will carry you a long way, and I hoped it disguised the ugly twist of fear inside me. I had no idea how strong Irina was, and you'd better believe I hadn't forgotten she could phase at will. Still, the amount of rage her pale pretty face stirred in me had to be good for something.

"Irina?" Dmitri appeared from what I could only a.s.sume was the bedroom, shirtless, in faded jeans and a studded belt. I felt the surge of territorial instinct, a snarl rising to the surface as my imagination leaped to an image of what they must have been doing when I knocked.

"Ah!" Irina went backward, on her b.u.t.t, and the door flew back to smash the wall, coming off the top hinge and hanging crookedly. Dmitri watched the whole thing dispa.s.sionately, his eyes flicking to gold when he saw me.

"Luna." He came over and helped Irina up. She held onto him with a whimper.

"She wants to kill me."

Seven h.e.l.ls, if I had to see one more second of her Scarlett O'Hara act I was going to turn green and start smashing things.

"I don't think she's going to do that." Dmitri's mouth quirked. He gave Irina a squeeze and released her. "Go back into the bedroom, darlin'. I'll just be a minute."

"You can't talk to her!" Irina said with alarm. "The elders-"

"Are not going to find out about this, are they, Irina?" He gave her that look, the one that was all dark green eyes and shadowy promises of pain, the one he'd used on his pack when he was their leader. Irina dipped her head in a gesture of submission, exposing the back of her neck, then disappeared into the bedroom and shut the door.

"You've got her well trained," I drawled, covering up the gut punch of loss that hit when I saw them together with a cruel tone. "Does she wear a little collar with a bell?"

"Hex it, Luna." Dmitri sighed, sinking into a ratty red armchair. "Did you come here just to bust my b.a.l.l.s?" The apartment wasn't much better furnished than his old pack house in Ghosttown-it looked like someone's foreign grandparents had lived there for about forty years and never cleaned anything.

"No," I said. "Surprisingly not. I came because ..." The end of the sentence stuck in my throat. How could I ask him for favors after the way we'd parted? After he'd chosen his Hexed pack over me?

Because I needed to prove that he still wanted me, of course. I'd been surviving without a breakdown on the hope of this very moment ever since the horrible scene at Bete Noire.

"Dmitri, I need your help," I said firmly, loudly enough for Irina to hear. "I have to do something dangerous, with some dangerous people, and you were the only person I could think of who would go with me."

Composing his face into careful lines, Dmitri steepled his fingers. "I can't help you anymore, Luna."

"Hear me out," I said, holding up a hand. 'There's a were named Benny Joubert that I need to question in a murder. If I go alone, I'll just be an Insoli, and a cop besides, and he'll hurt me badly, but I'll still go. So think about it for a second before you say no."

I can be pretty d.a.m.n manipulative when the occasion calls for it. It worked too, because Dmitri dropped his act and pa.s.sed a hand over his eyes, messing up his copper hair even more than the undoubtedly fabulous s.e.x with Irina already had.

"Do you have any idea what you do to me?" he muttered, so softly I had to move closer to hear.

"Apparently, nothing like what Irina can do," I fired back, feeling like c.r.a.p the moment the words came out. Dmitri dropped his hand and looked at me, unabashed hurt on his face.

"Dammit, Luna. You should have let me bring you into the pack when I had the chance. All of this-the elders, my mating with Irina-this all could have been you." He sighed and dropped his elbows on his knees, supporting his chin. "I think about you all the time. I smell you. You're in me just like the daemon."

I touched his bare shoulder with the very tips of my fingers, a gesture I'd used when we were together to gauge his mood. He let out a small shuddering breath.

"I need your help," I said again. "I'm asking you. Please." Please say yes. Please prove to me that this is all a terrible misunderstanding. Please say yes. Please prove to me that this is all a terrible misunderstanding.

"How can I not?" Dmitri sighed. "You're going to do it anyway. I know you."

Not exactly what I'd hoped for, but I'd take it. "Thank you," I said, all the tension trickling from me. "Really. Thank you." I didn't realize just how much I'd been dreading confronting Benny Joubert alone. From hard experience, I know I can't stand up against an adult male were unless I'm phased, and it would be one h.e.l.l of a trick for that to happen on this particular day.

Dmitri stood and opened the door to the bedroom. Irina jumped back, looking embarra.s.sed. "I am coming with you."

"No," said Dmitri automatically. "You stay here with Sergei and Yelena, where it's safe."

I searched his voice for any hint of love and the concern a were would hold for his mate, but there was just cold practicality. My inner vindictive b.i.t.c.h did a little dance.

"Dmitri .. ." Irina started and flowed into a rapid-fire scolding in Ukrainian. I could tell it was a scolding because she was shaking her finger. Dmitri growled and brushed her off, putting on a T-shirt advertising Jack Daniels and a leather jacket. He snapped something else at Irina and after a few seconds of pouting she brought him his boots and slipped them on his feet.

"G.o.ds, you get any more mail-order bride and I'm going to puke up hearts and flowers," I said. Irina and Dmitri both glared at me.

"Be quiet, Insoli," said Irina. "You got what you wanted, now there will be silence."

"There will be one h.e.l.l of a smack in the mouth for you, you keep that up," I said, mimicking her throaty accent. "Let's get this over with. The sooner I don't have to look at your cheap highlights, the better off we'll be."

Irina opened her mouth to reply but Dmitri stood and held up his hands. "Enough, from both of you. Irina, stop baiting Luna. Luna, stop making it so easy."

Irina shut her mouth, plump red lips pressed so tightly they almost disappeared. Guess there were a few few advantages to no longer being Dmitri's mate. Dominates are ugly things when they're used to control someone lower in the pack than you. advantages to no longer being Dmitri's mate. Dominates are ugly things when they're used to control someone lower in the pack than you.

"Fine," Irina finally sniffed, her eyes bright with fury. "I can only hope you get your throat torn out by this man we are going to see."

I rolled my eyes as she left the room. Dmitri gripped my arm. "Who is is this Joubert guy? What's his pack?" this Joubert guy? What's his pack?"

"I don't know," I said honestly. "I just know that he's hairy and not very pretty." Your pack and pack magick determines pecking order in the greater scope of weres. Redbacks were near the top, from what I could tell. I should have been a Serpent Eye, the pack with no pack magick, but in a way being Insoli was better than being a Serpent Eye. They scared the h.e.l.l out of most other weres, for good reason.

"Hope Joubert's not a biter," Dmitri muttered as we left the apartment.

"You and me both," I said.

CHAPTER 18.

The dispatcher gave me Benny Joubert's address of record, a three-story stately home in Needle Park. Needle Park was actually the Bowers, once upon a time, a small bedroom community in the lull between Cedar Hill and the city outskirts that had been built by the sailors who came through Nocturne in the nineteenth century. Since then, fewer families and more drugs had moved in, and now Needle Park was as sad and dangerous, in its own way, as Waterfront or Ghosttown.

I parked at the curb, tucking the Fairlane between overflowing trash cans and what I a.s.sumed was Joubert's car, a late-model black Mercedes. No one had touched it, and that made me nervous. Joubert would be a major player in the neighborhood to command that sort of respect.

"Okay," I said as we paused in a row on the sidewalk. "You two just hang back here unless I get into trouble. No sense in spooking him."

Irina sniffed. I lasered her with a glare. "You didn't have to come, princess."

"Who else will watch over Dmitri?" she snapped. "It is your fault he was infected in the first place. We cannot trust you."

Sometimes, no comeback works as well as an extended middle finger.

Irina pursed her lips sourly and deliberately turned away, pretending to examine the decaying wood-frame houses and cracked pavement with great interest.

"One more time," I said. "You wait here unless something bad goes down. Got it?"

"Don't p.i.s.s him off any more than you have to," said Dmitri.

I hated that he knew me so well. Writing him off as a fling would be worlds easier than feeling the twinge that our past mating caused between his were and mine. That's why weres only give the bite, in theory, to men or women they plan to stay with for the rest of their lives. Dmitri was 0 for 2 with his mates, as was I. Although I didn't count a predatory Serpent Eye forcing himself on a fifteen-year-old girl, really. It sure as h.e.l.l wasn't my fault Joshua had lost his mate, but I was the one left with that burning need to replace him with a pack leader or another male-h.e.l.l, female. Any were would do, in an Insoli's more instinctual moments.

Life as a packless were woman sure was a laugh and a half, most days.

I reached Joubert's front door, which was covered with a heavy steel security grate, and rang the bell. When that produced no discernable sound from inside, I kicked at the grate and shouted, "Joubert! Open up!"

After a long two minutes I heard shuffling and the clacking of at least three dead bolts being thrown, and then the inner door swung open. Benny Joubert smelled almost as bad as he looked. His skin had a yellowish cast and the wild brown hair in his photo was longer and greasy. Up close, his face was bisected with scars- knife or claw, I couldn't tell.

"What the f.u.c.k do you want?" he said by way of a greeting.

I tried to breathe through my mouth and said, "I need to ask you about Vincent Blackburn."

His small dark eyes squinted at me, almost disappearing into their close-set sockets. "You a cop?"

"Yes," I said, deciding that playing it straight was probably the quickest way to get what I wanted. .

"Let's see some ID."

I let him examine my shield until he nodded slowly and unlocked the grate, shoving it to the side. "Vincent Blackburn. I heard that queer turned up dead."

For a were, whom most plain humans on earth hated and feared with a pa.s.sion usually reserved for IRS audits and Freddy Kreuger, Joubert had a charmingly backward outlook.

"Mr. Blackburn was murdered," I said. "I'm the detective in charge of the inquiry. I understand you're a partner in the club where he bartended." was murdered," I said. "I'm the detective in charge of the inquiry. I understand you're a partner in the club where he bartended."

Joubert shrugged. "I don't do the hiring. If I did we wouldnt've had so many G.o.dd.a.m.n fairies in the place."

"Well, Tinkerbell," I said, "I'm not interested in your employee procurement. I'm interested in the drugs you and Vincent were funneling through Bete Noire."

He snapped from his sagging posture to rigid attention and I could tell my status had been upgraded from "minor annoyance" to "dangerous nuisance."

"What the f.u.c.k did you just say?" he demanded hoa.r.s.ely, pig-eyes taking on a light. He was scenting prey, just as I would if our situation were reversed. Why couldn't it be reversed?

I stepped into his personal s.p.a.ce, one foot resting on the threshold. "I said you're a f.u.c.king drug pusher, and while we're on the subject of personal failings, are you aware of the wonderful invention called deodorant?"

Joubert should have gotten mad and started calling me names and given me a reason to arrest him, but his nostrils flared and then he laughed. "You think you scare me, coming around my place and flashing a badge?" His hand snaked out and grabbed me by the hair, exposing my throat in one deft movement that I never would have thought possible from his pudgy, scarred frame. "You don't know what scared is, is, you Insoli b.i.t.c.h." you Insoli b.i.t.c.h."

c.r.a.p.

I had just enough time to process the single thought before Joubert slammed my head into the security grate so hard I saw fireworks. He whipped me into his house by the hair, tossing me halfway across his foyer, where I landed in a heap. The door slammed shut and Joubert advanced on me, already loosening the fly on his filthy khaki pants. "Now you and me are going to have a real chat, b.i.t.c.h-one that involves you screaming my name."

G.o.ds, my head. It was bleeding, a lot, worse than when I'd hit the mesh in the cage. And it hurt, so much so that my ears were still ringing. He's killed you, He's killed you, the logical part of my brain whispered. the logical part of my brain whispered. These are your last moments of coherent thought. Get ready to be a turnip for the rest of your life. These are your last moments of coherent thought. Get ready to be a turnip for the rest of your life.

My logic has a tendency to turn pessimist at the worst times.

Joubert grabbed my hair again and pulled me eye-level with his fly. "Sometimes, you have to show 'em how to put their mouths to good use, but they usually catch on."

What was he doing, conducting a seminar? I was oddly detached, not panicking at all, and I knew it was from blood loss. Head wounds bleed fast and thick, and they don't stop until they're good and ready.

"Understand, b.i.t.c.h?" Joubert asked me. He wasn't using the word b.i.t.c.h b.i.t.c.h in the sense that a plain human would-he meant it to indicate he was going to breed with me and I didn't have a say in the matter. in the sense that a plain human would-he meant it to indicate he was going to breed with me and I didn't have a say in the matter.

I muttered under my breath.

"What's that?" Joubert demanded.

I raised my head and blinked away the blood, which stung horribly. "I said, a Tootsie Roll would be more satisfying."

Never knowing when to shut the h.e.l.l up can can come in handy, under the right circ.u.mstances. Joubert snarled and raised a stubby hand full of ragged nails to hit me, but his door splintered inward and he spun instead, yanking my hair painfully. come in handy, under the right circ.u.mstances. Joubert snarled and raised a stubby hand full of ragged nails to hit me, but his door splintered inward and he spun instead, yanking my hair painfully.

Dmitri crossed the foyer in one long stride and grabbed Joubert's free arm, twisting it like a piece of spaghetti. I winced at the crack. "Get your f.u.c.king hands off her," Dmitri said, "or I'll amputate this arm here and now and then start in on your b.a.l.l.s."

"Hex you!" Joubert snarled back. He and Dmitri showed their fangs, trying to establish dominance over one another. In the meantime, Joubert was still tangled in my hair, so I bit him on the wrist, hard. He shrieked and let go of me. "Is this your b.i.t.c.h?" he asked Dmitri. "I understand a man has needs, but you should have trained her better." His lips parted in a salacious expression. "Or better yet, let me."

You know that expression, cold fury? cold fury? I thought it was just a saying until I saw the expression on Dmitri's face. It was blank except for anger, and not the hot pa.s.sionate kind that ends in stabbings and double suicides. This was merciless hunter's rage, all of it focused on Joubert. I thought it was just a saying until I saw the expression on Dmitri's face. It was blank except for anger, and not the hot pa.s.sionate kind that ends in stabbings and double suicides. This was merciless hunter's rage, all of it focused on Joubert.

"That," he said in an even tone more terrifying than any snarl, "was a royally bad f.u.c.king idea."

Dmitri growled, showing his full fangs, and his eyes went black, as if someone had spilled ink across the pupils. I recoiled against the bottom of the stairs instinctively. His eyes weren't supposed to be black. No living thing's eyes were supposed to look like that...