Fang and Claw Read online

  The front door of the tiny house had been left open, but she still knocked and announced their arrival. “Dallas police!” She nudged the door open with her foot, her right hand resting on the weapon nestled under her left arm. When she entered the living room, she saw a uniformed officer handing a glass of water to a petite, plump young woman. Her face was streaked with tears and her red hair was in disarray. She had a crumpled tissue in her lap.

  “Lieutenant Anderson,” she introduced herself as the officer stepped toward them.

  “Ma’am,” he acknowledged her rank with a straightening of his shoulders. “My partner has the other half in the kitchen.” He nodded toward a short hallway. She locked eyes with Colton, then jerked her head in that direction. He paused just long enough to convey his displeasure, then moved down the hall in silence.

  “Miss, what’s your name?” Ignoring Colton’s defiance, at least for now, Lacey crouched down in front of the woman, to appear less intimidating as she spoke.

  The woman sniffled and caught her breath. “Missy. Melissa Tompson.”

  “Can you tell me what happened, Missy?”

  She wiped her face with the tattered tissue. “I--it all happened so fast. He came home and I guess he’d been drinking.” Her voice wavered. “I was just about to put dinner on the table, and I-- I guess it wasn’t fast enough for him. So he hit me.” Her hand went to her left cheek, where the angry red imprint of a hand was becoming visible and just beginning to bruise.

  “And did you hit him back?” Given the innate nature of Wolves in general, and her knowledge of a few in particular, Lacey assumed that Missy would have retaliated.

  “No, no.” She shook her head. “I’ve always been able to control my temper, even before I took the anger management classes.” She smiled with a wry grin. “My dad always said he was disappointed in me.” Lacey nodded, understanding how a calm Wolf in a culture that encouraged violence would be an enigma.

  Though she was surprised to discover that the assailant in this case was not the Wolf but the Shifter, she didn’t mention it. “Did he hit you more than once?” Missy shook her head again. “Well, he’ll be going to jail tonight for simple assault. I can get you in touch with a departmental counselor if you’d like. Are you married?”

  “No, but we’ve been together for so long it didn’t really seem to matter anymore.”

  “He’s got no right to hit you.” Lacey looked right into her eyes to hammer the point home. “If you’re scared to leave him, we can get you a protective order. All you have to do is come down to the department.” Reaching into her pocket, Lacey handed the woman a card. “You let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you.”

  “Thank you. I’m hoping this will all blow over like a bad dream.” She wiped at her tear-streaked face.

  Lacey, knowing how domestic violence of any kind left scars on the psyche, knew it wouldn’t just blow over, but would rear its ugly head time and time again, and left her to the uniform. She walked into the kitchen to interview the Shifter. Hunched over a small dining table was a sinewy man with long brown hair. His hands were cuffed behind his back. Fists held tight to his hips, Colton stood with feet set wide, his bulk seeming to hover over the suspect, a look of barely-contained anger in his eyes. When he caught sight of Lacey, he stepped aside and turned his back on the culprit.

  “What’s his story?” With a glance she included both Colton and the uniform in her question.

  The uniform glanced at Colton, in that one look deferring to him to answer.

  “He admits it, says he’s been drinking. He was pissed that dinner wasn’t on the table when he walked in, and he slapped her.” Colton reported without looking at the suspect.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt her!” The handcuffs rattled as the remorseful man shifted in his chair. “I don’t know what came over me! I feel bad about doing it, now. I love her!”

  “Well, I’m afraid you’re coming with us tonight.” Lacey’s voice was scathing.

  “I know.” Shame was evident in the man’s tone. “I deserve it.”

  “What’s your Animal?”

  “Fox.” His head still hung, his demeanor a parallel to the shy yet crafty animal he could become.

  Lacey nodded to the uniform, who helped the man to his feet and perp-walked him out to the car. Lacey and Colton followed, and watched until the man was secured into the back of the patrol car. The second uniform rejoined his partner.

  “Take him in,” Colton instructed. “We’ll meet you there.” He turned to Lacey. “Are you done here?”

  “I’ve got everything I need. This one feels like an open-and-shut case.”

  “Don’t say that, you might jinx it!” Colton laughed in a humorless way.

  “Come on, we’ve got paperwork to do.”

  They returned to the department, and saw to it that the remorseful Shifter was surrendered into the hands of the drones in Booking. Lacey left strict instructions on the type of cell he was incarcerated in; a Fox could slip through the bars of the standard cells with ease.

  They went to their respective work places in the Major Crimes unit. After just a few minutes, Lacey, as usual, handed all the case information on a memory card to her aide, David, to file in the computer database. In the meantime, she had the other cases to look over and sign off on.

  God, I hate doing this crap, she thought. And the computers don’t help, all they do is make MORE work for us to do! Disgusted, she gave the cluttered pile a shove. What we need is a good old-fashioned case. The kind we can’t close in fifteen minutes.

  Colton’s voice echoed in the back of her mind, you might jinx it! It was fortunate that she wasn’t quite as superstitious as Wolves were. But that might prove to be her undoing.

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  Colton was more than happy to be going home just five minutes past the end-of-shift. He’d put in too many long hours and days during his time with the Major Crimes Unit, and it didn’t seem as if that would get any better with the formation of the Undead Unit. Because a lot of the Undead were nocturnal, he had a feeling his biological clock was about to turn around.

  So he wanted to spend every moment possible with his beautiful wife, Becca, and their pups. The kids were now six months old, just big enough to be getting into tons of trouble and hassling their mother. As he climbed into his aging pickup truck for the ride home, a smile crossed his face as he wondered what antics they had been up to today.

  Peace washed over him as he pulled up to his building. He didn’t mind spending the day surrounded by people, but they weren’t his kind. His brownstone apartment was in a building tenanted by Wolves. Many of the families were related to each other in some manner. Being around those of his own kind made Colton relax after putting in a long day of protecting and serving.

  Becca greeted him at the door, carrying a child under each arm. The kids were struggling against her grip, attempting to reach one another to continue a fight she had obviously just broken up. Her soft, round face lit up and she gave him a quick kiss before turning her attention back to the rambunctious children she was holding.

  “Now, you’re both in time-out, and if you come out before I say you can, you’ll be in worse trouble. Go.” She set them down on their feet and gave each a quick slap to the rear, sending them off in the direction of the bedrooms. She glanced into the living room where the sounds of other children could be heard. “How was your day, honey?” Her voice was musical.

  “First case today.” He was cheerful as the smells of home invaded his extraordinary senses. He twitched his nose, double-checking that nothing smelled amiss since he’d left earlier that morning.

  Her face clouded over for an instant. “Oh?” Biting her lip, she seemed unsure if the news was good or bad.

  He swept her up in his arms and gave her a much more passionate kiss than before. Besides the usual scents of home, her unique pheromones filled his nose, and he breathed deeply of her smell of honey and baking bread. It was always the bes
t part of coming home. “Domestic dispute, a Wolf and a Shifter. The Shifter broke down and admitted to it before we even got there. Open and shut.”

  “Well, I guess that’s good, then.” She walked with sinewy grace to the kitchen where the smell of cooking food permeated the air. They ate pretty much what they had eaten as humans, but now preferred their meat a bit raw. With a side of animal hearts.

  He followed, enjoying watching the sway of her hips as she moved. She went to the stove to resume her cooking. He made himself comfortable at the small dining table tucked into the corner of the room and watched her.

  She was a little on the plump side, something to be expected after having given birth to a litter of five, but in his opinion, there was just more of her to love. Her golden-red hair was a riot of curls that tended to frizz, and he noticed with amusement several long strands sticking up as if she had been trying to tear her hair out. With the five kids at home all day, he imagined she might have thought about it. If you could look up the phrase ‘frazzled mother’ in the dictionary, it was possible that you would find her picture there.

  “I did get to work the case with Anderson, though.” He sniffed the aromatic air in appreciation.

  He saw the shudder move down her spine. “What was that like?” Her voice held a hint of fear.

  “She’s not all bad.” He leaned back in the chair, crossing his long legs at the ankle. “She drives a bad-ass car, that’s for sure!”

  She turned to glare at him. “Colton Scarber, you watch your language around those kids! You know they all want to be just like daddy!”

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  “Do you think she knows? I mean, about, you know?” There was a nervous tone to her voice.

  “Greece?” He finished the thought for her. “I don’t see how she couldn’t know. She was there. But she didn’t mention it.”

  Though Colton, a born rather than bitten Wolf, hadn’t experienced it, the incident was imprinted on his brain as part of his Pack instincts. They had evolved a kind of racial memory and any information his ancestors had known was available to him. That same knowledge would be passed down to his kids, and their kids, forever down his bloodline.

  “Well, I certainly hope she doesn’t blame you for it. You weren’t even born yet.”

  “I know it. But it does make it a little tense to work around her.”

  “What are you going to do?” Becca wondered.

  “I’ll see how things go. If nothing else, I could request a transfer. But I’d like to stick it out. I think it’s a good opportunity.”

  “If you think you can handle it, you know I support you.”

  From the other room came shouts and snarls, like the sounds of young puppies acting tough. Colton got up and went to the refrigerator, digging around until he found a bottle of beer. There was a sudden loud thump and a high-pitched yip from the living room, and they both turned in that direction.

  “I’ll get them,” he said to her.

  When he got to the living room he saw his other three kids, all sitting in silence on the floor about four feet apart. Two of them looked guilty, while tears welled up in the eyes of the third. He sat down in his cushy, well-worn and over-sized recliner, and beckoned to the child.

  “Come here, Derek.” The boy eagerly climbed into his father’s lap while the other two looked on. “Were you playing too rough?”

  “Ya Da-da.”

  “Where does it hurt?”

  Derek pointed to his left arm, where a series of long, red scratches danced across the skin.

  Rough play was common among Werewolf packs, and Colton remembered his fair share of wins (and losses) in scuffles with his own siblings. There was a fine line between encouraging the children’s natural inclinations, yet preparing them for the anger management classes the government would soon impose on them.

  “Well, you’re a tough boy.” Colton soothed the child, and ruffled the young boy’s mop of dark hair with great affection. “You’re going to grow up big and strong! And you two, don’t be pestering your brother so much!” He glanced over at the others. The two children looked crestfallen at the scolding.

  “All right now, come on. Give your daddy some love.”

  With excited squeals, the other boy and a girl launched themselves into his lap, where they all bounced up and down in manic excitement. The two who had been sent to the bedroom, and who had quietly crept down the hallway to eavesdrop, chanced their mother’s wrath and joined the dog pile on their father’s lap. Drool dribbled down chins and clumsy fingers clutched at him, but he couldn’t have been any happier. He leaned back and crossed his ankles. This was the life.

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  On the other side of town, Lacey could have been on a different planet as she raced down her long, curving driveway, pulling her expensive car into a three-car garage carpeted with earth-toned outdoor carpet. After 500 years, she’d gotten the house and property to reflect her personality and taste. Nestled into the lush woods in a strip of land almost unmarred by human touch, it was her perfect sanctuary.

  She had money, and lots of it, saved up through the decades. The house and its property had long been paid off; there was only the yearly tax to be paid. She didn’t use much electricity, and her water came from a well drilled behind the house. Lacey’s living expenses were very low.

  She spent money on lavish things for herself instead: expensive Turkish rugs, tasteful statues and artwork, music and movies on disc, and Chippendale furniture. Since she was doomed to an immortal life, she was damned well going to live it in as much comfort and decadence as she could.

  Her window treatments tended toward the dark, not because she needed them that way but because she preferred them to be. Vampires could, contrary to the old popular belief, go outside in the daylight, though it tended to irritate their eyes and skin, like a human with poison ivy or a sunburn.

  She opened the door to her haven, and with a grateful sigh, tossed her keys on a small wood table in the foyer. She punched her code into the alarm system panel beeping its soft tone near the door. The panel chimed twice to alert her that it was unarmed.

  Without bothering to turn on the lights, finding her way with excellent night vision and the tiny night light she always left burning in the hallway, she made her way to the kitchen. It was a cavernous space filled with the best of commercial-grade appliances; Lacey could and did eat the same things that she did before she was ‘Turned’, while she was human, and she often enjoyed cooking extravagant meals for herself. In secret, she spent time watching the food channel to learn new recipes. But human food was not what she was after at the moment.

  She opened the door of her stainless steel refrigerator, pulling out a packet of cold cow’s blood. Since Vampires had to survive on blood, to keep the symbiotic virus in their systems fed, and since the laws prohibited them from feeding on humans, an arrangement had been made with meat packing plants all across the world. Humans had processed meat as food for centuries, but the blood had always been disposed of. It was a logical step for the meat providers to package, and by doing so profit from, what they had discarded before. It was the same for the Wolves and Zombies, who needed hearts and brains to survive.

  It wasn’t the best, in Lacey’s opinion, more like the difference between ground beef and filet mignon, but it kept her fed. Even though the animal blood sustained her, it came with drawbacks; she wasn’t as physically strong as when she dined on human blood, and more of her human frailties surfaced. She had, however, never gotten used to drinking it cold; the blood had to be kept chilled or it would spoil. She put the packet carefully into the top-of-the-line microwave and jabbed the preset start button. While the appliance was warming her meal with an audible hum, she took a crystal wine goblet out of the glass-door cabinet, and rinsed it in the gleaming three section sink.

  When the timer went off, she pulled open the cap and poured the warmed blood into the wine glass. She carried her dinner into the living room and sat
down on the plush couch. Setting the cup down on a coaster atop a cherry coffee table, she kicked off her boots and curled her legs underneath her.

  “Screen, on. Soap channel.”

  The big screen television across the room flickered on. Though she’d rather die than admit it, she loved watching reruns of the hundred-year-old daytime drama series. She knew that many of the producers and directors behind the scenes when the dramatic shows had been filmed were Vampires. She’d even met a few of them. She took a sip from her glass and prepared to relax and spend the evening being entertained.

  3

  “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ~~Edmund Burke

  Something was buzzing in her ear. She made a half-hearted attempt to wave it away before she realized that it was her phone. She reached for it as her eyes snapped open, every sense alert now. Answering the phone, she put it on speaker.

  “Anderson.” Her voice didn’t betray the fact that she’d been sleeping.

  “Lieutenant, this is Carl with dispatch.”

  “What’ve you got?”

  He gave her an address which she scrawled on a notepad she always kept on the nightstand. “The complainant was nearly hysterical when she called. Said she’d been walking home from work and was assaulted by a Wolf. I was going to call in SVU but I thought you might like to handle this one.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Give Detective Scarber a call, tell him to meet me there.”

  “He’s next on my list.”

  She climbed out of her king-sized, four poster bed and hurried to the walk-in closet. When she emerged, she was dressed in a comfortable pair of jeans with a button-up shirt tucked carefully into her waistband. She carried her boots, and after putting on a pair of socks, slid her feet into the supple leather. She slipped her weapon into the buttery leather of a belt holster, rather than using the shoulder harness she often carried while on duty.