Banshee Charmer (Files from the Otherworlder Enforcement Agency, #1) Read online

I lost the battle with myself when strong arms grabbed me, and I rose up in the air, only to be caught on a shoulder. As I landed my breath flew from me, and I couldn’t keep the cry from escaping my throat. My gag muffled the noise, and I silently prayed the cloth dulled it enough to go unnoticed.

  “Nice to see you’re going to be awake for this, chère.”

  So much for the surprise attack.

  He was breathing hard. I hoped it was from the exertion of carrying me and not because he was still excited. As we passed the threshold of the garage into the house, light tan ceramic tiles flashed below me. My tile, my house. How did he know where I live? He’d done his homework. He fumbled with the light switches in the kitchen and hallway, before he tossed me onto the bed in my room. His hand snaked up my leg, moving over my stomach to cup my breast, grabbing it painfully.

  “I’ll be back for you soon, chère. Don’t worry. I won’t make you wait too long for it. I’m far too hungry from your shenanigans.”

  He disappeared and I heard him talking a few moments later from the other side of the house—the kitchen maybe. I couldn’t make out the words, but I suspected he was checking in with Kimmy. I wiggled my leg, trying to get my shoes off. If I could get off one shoe, I might be able to pull a foot through the rope and free my feet. Squirming was difficult with my mouth bound, and I wanted to gasp for air, but couldn’t. I forced myself to slow down so I didn’t have a panic attack over my inability to breathe, and I pulled at my right shoe, using the bed and my other shoe to slowly work it off.

  Sudden movement caught my eye and I cried out, almost silently because of the gag. He was back, and there was nothing I could do to protect myself. Desperate, I struggled in vain against the ropes and cuffs.

  “Shhhh…” he whispered in my ear. “Hold still, Kiera.”

  I began my struggles anew at his words. Hold still, my ass.

  He touched my legs, and I opened my eyes to see him pushing on them with his hand, his other hand working the bonds with something—a knife? Suddenly the pressure lifted, and I could move again. I pulled them back to kick him, when his clothes caught my eye. They were different. Surely he hadn’t taken the time to change? There was no blood on his face, and he backed away from me slowly, hands in the air to show he meant no harm. His hair was short.

  Aidan.

  “Keys?” he mouthed.

  I shook my head. My cuff keys had been in my gun holster, which I’d handed off to Kimmy. But I had my legs, and most importantly, my voice.

  The sound of the incubus yelling, and then the slam of something—probably my phone—hitting the wall, distracted Aidan. Then he reached out and pulled me up from the bed, onto my feet. I staggered for a moment, and he held me until I gained my balance. He ran his hand along the side of my face, trying to find room to fit the blade under the gag.

  Then, Aidan was gone, flung across the room. The other incubus stood over him, knife dripping blood in his hand. I’d never heard that incubi were preternaturally strong, but I’d be willing to bet they were now. At least ones who’d recently gorged on the life force of their victims.

  “Aidan?” The incubus sounded confused, as if he wasn’t entirely certain he recognized Aidan.

  I struggled with my gag, pulling the side of my face across my shoulder, trying to dislodge it. The incubus had secured it well. The cloth cut into my skin, and it wouldn’t loosen.

  The incubus knelt by Aidan. “I should have known they would send you after me. How many years have you hunted? Did they think I would hesitate if they sent you? They should have known better.” He leaned in and I could barely hear him. “We don’t need anyone else, Aidan. My women and me, we’re together always. We don’t need you, brother.” The incubus continued talking to him, so softly that I couldn’t make out the words. Then he held the blade up like some sort of horror film bad-guy ready to dispense the killing blow.

  My chest tightened. I couldn’t scream, couldn’t shoot him or strike with my fists—I was powerless. Powerless to help Aidan. Powerless to avenge Amanda. Powerless to save myself.

  No.

  I ran at the incubus and did the only thing I could think of—swinging my foot out, I kicked him in the side with all the strength I could muster. It wasn’t much with my cramped legs and cuffed arms.

  One kick, two, and the incubus fell to his side just as I lost my balance and landed on my back, gasping in pain against the gag in my mouth as my trapped arms twisted painfully under my weight.

  Spots flashed and I blinked several times to clear my vision. Sudden pressure hit my legs, and I looked up to see Aidan—wrestling with the incubus for the knife.

  The incubus struck out with an elbow, catching Aidan in the jaw, stunning him. He got his knee between them, and then pushed hard, sending Aidan flying across the room. Definitely abnormally strong.

  I kicked out, striking the incubus in the head with my heel. He turned to look at me, and only a flash of rage registered before Aidan, stumbling to his feet, used the distraction to grab the knife. Shoving his arms down, he pushed the blade into the incubus’s neck.

  He twitched and tried to shove Aidan off, coughing. Blood flew from his mouth and spotted Aidan’s face. Aidan grimaced and pushed the knife down further, cutting into the creature’s neck. The incubus mouthed a word at Aidan, and then went still.

  …

  The first set of uniforms came in and uncuffed me. Aidan followed me out to the front porch, but kept his distance. It seemed like only minutes later Claude and his partner, Astrid Holmes, arrived on scene. Astrid held back, talking to one of the uniforms, but Claude made a beeline for me.

  “I got your message,” Claude told me as he shot a suspicious glance at Aidan.

  “He’s okay,” I muttered, knowing Claude would hear my soft tone.

  Claude nodded. “We should get you to the hospital.”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  He frowned but didn’t argue with me. “What happened?”

  I told him an abbreviated version of the events of the night, still trying to wrap my brain around what I was going to tell Lieutenant Vasquez and Internal Affairs. I decided coming clean was probably best, or close to clean anyway. None of the personal stuff that had happened between Aidan and me was anyone’s business but our own. I’d just have to think of how to frame it right so Vasquez didn’t fire me on the spot.

  Claude nodded as I finished my story. “Well, killing the incubus complicates things, but we should still be able to ID him as the murderer, since all of the standard oh-dubs were run on Amanda and the victim before her.”

  “Rebecca,” I muttered.

  “Yeah, well. So long as the energies match, you should be in the clear on this.” He glanced at Aidan. “Not sure about your friend, though. Do you know who he’s working for yet?”

  I shook my head and Claude crossed his arms, keeping his gaze firmly planted on the incubus. A few seconds later, paramedics were treating Aidan and asking me what seemed like a million questions. They wanted to take me to the hospital, but I refused. I might as well deal with Vasquez now, or he’d just have time to think of more questions to ask me when I did finally have to face him.

  Vasquez himself showed up nearly twenty minutes later, and I didn’t notice him at first because I was busy watching Aidan. He’d settled into a corner of the room, carefully noting the activity around him, but reticent. He wouldn’t meet my gaze, and I was about thirty seconds away from smacking him and demanding answers when Vasquez stomped up my steps.

  Claude fielded him for a few seconds. I couldn’t hear what he told the lieutenant, but whatever he said, it transformed Vasquez’s expression from wild-eyed raging to a solid frown line that generally meant your ass, but not your badge. A bit of tension left my neck at the change, but when he pushed by Claude and stalked toward me, it returned.

  “Wha
t the hell happened here, Mac?” His voice boomed over the rest of the noises surrounding us, and even Aidan glanced over. Great, now he wanted to pay attention?

  “I got a call with a lead—”

  “Oh just a random call, huh? From whom? How’d they know to call you?”

  “I—”

  “And Sylvester’s huh? I guess I don’t look like such a damned idiot now do I?”

  I blinked. “What are you talking about?”

  He shook his head. “You went into that club without even checking it out? Who do you think owns the damn place? The Chevaliers, that’s who. The damn bloodsuckers you didn’t even want to interview.”

  Shit. That connected them to at least two of the victims. Claire Simons worked with Nicolas Chevalier, and Kimmy worked at a club the family owned. Was there a connection to the other victim that we didn’t know about?

  “We don’t have anything real that’ll stick to them, nothing beyond a tenuous link. And you’re not going to be the one looking for that connection either.”

  “Now wait—”

  Vasquez threw up a hand, halting my argument. “I told you to stay off this case. You were too close to it. And what did you do? You went out, disobeyed my orders, and almost got yourself killed!”

  “I had to—”

  “What? You had to what? What did you have to do that was more important than your life? Than the lives of your fellow officers? Because that’s what you risked with this game of yours. You put everyone at risk, including yourself!”

  “What I had to do was catch her fucking killer!” I snarled. “And I did! What the hell have you done today?”

  Vasquez stared at me for a second and for the last half of that moment I thought his fist would rise and he would take a swing at me. But then he threw his head back and laughed, and the sound reverberated off the walls of my porch. The noise was even louder than his yelling earlier, and I couldn’t do anything but stare.

  …

  By the time the police left my house, the sun peeked over the horizon. They’d questioned Aidan and me, separately, for hours. Saving my life was likely the only thing that kept him from being questioned at the precinct. That he looked exactly like the killer didn’t help him, and the fact he’d impersonated an OWEA officer was something the police couldn’t take lightly. But he saved one of their own, which bought him something—the night, at least.

  “You okay?” I asked Aidan, when we were finally alone. Covered in blood, he looked like he needed a shower as badly as I did.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “The knife wound was superficial.”

  So I’d been told. “Good. They caught Kimmy.”

  He nodded. “I heard. Good thing.” His jaw muscle twitched. “It sounds like he’s had her under thrall off and on for weeks, screwing with her memory, bringing her in and out of his influence. With how powerful he was, and that kind of time…I don’t think she’ll ever be right, Mac.”

  “Her memory? Is that why she willingly told me about him even though she was probably already thralled?”

  “Could be he made her forget when he wasn’t around her, or he might have told her to pass on that info for some reason. It’s hard to know for sure given his state of mind.”

  I shivered. Even the idea that someone could mess with a person’s memories was chilling. “At least we got him. He won’t be hurting anyone else. OW measures can match him loosely to the other victims—Amanda and Rebecca, at least. Between that and my kidnapping and Kimmy’s…state of mind, it should be an open and shut case.”

  We sat on my porch, silent for a few minutes, watching the sun inch into the morning sky. My whole body hurt, and I was exhausted, but I couldn’t bring myself to break the silence. I stretched my legs out, reaching from the top step where I sat, to the bottom step. Aidan looked to be in a similar state. His face was tense, and darkness encircled his eyes. He sat with his knees under his chin, arms wrapped around his legs.

  “You lied to me. So fucking much.” My voice was flat. Exhaustion had siphoned off most of my rage, but a weight pressed against my chest.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Kiera. I just—” He swallowed.

  “I don’t know if I can trust anything that comes out of your mouth.”

  “I didn’t want to lie to you!”

  “Then tell me the truth now.” My voice broke. I concentrated on breathing. I would not fucking cry.

  “Quinton was my brother,” he said, finally. “He wasn’t…stable. He was never quite right, odd even when we were kids. We figured out something was really wrong when girls started going missing in our hometown—ones he’d been seen with. I realized later that he was getting worse because of the women he’d killed—absorbing too much can be dangerous, but it packs a hefty punch of power.” He let out a heavy sigh. “By the time the locals made the connection and called us, he’d moved on.”

  “Who is us?” The pain in his voice drained the anger from me. I wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder, comfort him, maybe take some of the pain out of his face. But I needed answers.

  “Technically, we are part of the OWEA, but we don’t answer to the normals or report through the standard channels. Our records are separate from the other divisions of the OWEA. Regular agents can’t access them. We’re sent into situations that it would be…awkward for humans to know about.”

  “I get plenty of cases where otherworlders have killed normal humans. I’ve never seen you people before.” But it made sense. No wonder Greaves couldn’t find a record of Aidan in the OWEA.

  “Like I said, we’re called in when things need to remain discreet. Special circumstances.”

  “What was so special about this case?”

  “Other than the fact that incubi are supposed to be extinct, you mean?”

  I blinked. I’d forgotten that, but it still didn’t make sense. “Yeah, other than that.”

  “We’ve built up our numbers enough to go public again, as a registered subspecies. Coming out as the result of an investigation into a serial killer isn’t the best way to show ourselves. Worst-case scenario, they could categorize us as subhuman, though even with this coming out party, I doubt that’ll happen. But it would have been nice not to come out by way of a serial killer.”

  “So much for avoiding that. You’ll be lucky if this story isn’t on every channel by now, incubus.”

  “I know.” He put his face down onto his knees. “What’s done is done. We’ll just have to deal with it.”

  “Super special cover up?”

  He shrugged, cocking his head to look at me. “That’s not my problem anymore. My team is strictly an investigative agency, but with fewer rules than standard OWEA divisions.”

  “What? Like the CIA or something?”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s a pretty good parallel. Not as much bureaucracy or personnel. Not as many noses in our business.” He touched his nose playfully.

  “Ah.” There you go, Mac, kill him with your wit. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this sooner? And don’t give me any crap about being sworn to secrecy.”

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you, for reasons I can’t even confide in you now. But mostly the reasons weren’t official.” He kept his eyes pointed anywhere but at me. “I wanted to keep you safe, and it seemed safer to keep you gathering a bit of information here and there—”

  “To help you with your investigation, you mean,” I snapped.

  “Yes, but not to keep all the glory or anything. I just…” His jaw clenched, and he paused as if searching his mind for the right way to say what he needed to. “I’d seen what he’d done, Kiera. I couldn’t let that happen to you.” He glanced up, meeting my eyes for a brief moment before looking away again. “I knew you were special, the first night I met you. I couldn’t stand the thought of him getting his han
ds on you. And after he proved he could take someone as strong as your partner—” Aidan drew a deep, ragged breath. “I wish…”

  “What?” I met his gaze and he looked away.

  “I wish you hadn’t seen him. It must feel—I mean, do you look at me and see the monster who attacked you?”

  I scooted closer to Aidan and pressed two fingers under his chin, prodding him to look me in the eye. His normal grin was gone, replaced by a frown that cut across his features. He looked tired, and sad. I didn’t like it.

  “Hmm…your hair is all wrong. You’re missing a certain crazy glint in your eye. Sorry bub, not seeing it.”

  For a moment he stared at me, jaw slack and eyes wide. Slowly, a smile overtook his face and my heart warmed. He leaned forward and kissed me, a soft touch, testing.

  I kissed him back, tugging him closer to make it more interesting. When he finally pulled away, we were both out of breath. The morning air felt cool against my suddenly hot cheeks.

  Giving me his normal grin, he looked me up and down. “Shower?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

  I laughed, and tension released from my chest. “I’ll meet you in there.”

  As Aidan pushed himself up and went into the house, I watched the sun fully reveal itself on the horizon. Amanda was gone, but her killer no longer threatened the lives of other women. She would be proud, and I could take comfort in that. Justice had been served. A very hot man waited for me in my house. And the sun was shining. I smiled and headed for the shower.

  Acknowledgments

  There are so many people I owe a thank you for their help and encouragement with this project. I want to give a huge thanks to:

  My family, for never doubting I could do anything I set my mind to. You’ve all been amazingly supportive, from reading first drafts to being impressed with all of my small steps forward. A special thanks to my mom, Judy Lopez, for never laughing at my sex scenes—where I could hear her, anyway. And thanks to my cousin, JonEll, for reading an early draft of Banshee Charmer and encouraging me to submit it.