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For a Few Demons More(46)

By:Kim Harrison


“Oh, shit,” I said, then put a hand to my mouth, realizing I’d said it aloud. Both Kisten and David stared at me. “Uh, David, did you tell your dates about the focus?”

His confusion turned to a soft anger. “No,” he said forcefully.

Kisten glowered at the smaller man. “You mean to tell me you nipped six women in six weeks, and you never showed them the focus to impress them?”

David’s jaw clenched. “I don’t need to lure women to my bed. I ask them, and if they’re willing, they come. Showing them wouldn’t have impressed them anyway. They’re human.”

I pulled my elbows off the counter, my face warming in indignation. “You date humans? You won’t date a witch because you don’t believe in mixed-species parings, but you’ll sleep around with humans? You big fat hypocrite!”

David pleaded with me with his eyes. “If I dated a Were woman, she’d want to be a part of my pack. We’ve been over this before. And since Weres originally came from humans—”

My eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I got it,” I said, not liking it. Weres came from humans same as vamps, but, unlike becoming a vamp, the only way to become a Were was to be born one.

Usually.

My thoughts zinged back to yesterday morning and being woken by a demon tearing my church apart looking for the focus. Oh-h-h-h, shit, I thought, remembering to keep my mouth shut this time. Missing girlfriends. Three unidentified bodies in the morgue: athletic, professional, and all with a similar look. They were brought in as Weres, but if what I thought happened had happened, they wouldn’t be in the Were database but the human. Suicides from last month’s full moon.

“David, I’m so sorry,” I whispered, and Kisten and David stared at me.

“What?” David said, wary, not distraught.

I looked helplessly at him. “It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. I shouldn’t have given it to you. I didn’t know all you had to do was have it in your possession. I never would have given it to you if I did.” He looked blank at me, and, feeling nauseous, I added, “I think I know where your girlfriends are. It’s my fault, not yours.”

David shook his head. “Give me what?”

“The focus,” I said, my face wrinkled in pity. “I think…it turned your girlfriends.”

His face went ashen, and he put a hand to the counter. “Where are they?” he breathed.

I swallowed hard. “The city morgue.”





NINE


Two trips to the morgue in as many days, I thought, hoping I wasn’t starting a pattern. My gardening sneakers were silent on the cement; David’s steps beside and a little behind me were heavy with a deep depression. Kisten was behind him, and the vampire’s obvious unease would have been funny if we weren’t trooping down here to identify three Jane Wolfs.

The focus was in my bag now, silent and quiescent this far from the full moon. It still held the chill from David’s freezer and made a cold spot against me. Experience said that next Monday it would have shifted from a bone statue of a woman’s face to a silver-sheened wolf ’s muzzle, dripping saliva and making a high-pitched squeal only pixies could hear. I have to get rid of this thing. Maybe I could use it to pay off one of my demon marks. But if Newt or Al sold it in turn to someone else and it started an Inderland power struggle, I’d feel responsible.

We reached the end of the stairway, and with the two men trailing behind me I turned smartly to the right and followed the arrows to the double doors. “Hi, Iceman,” I said, smacking the left side of the swinging door open and striding in as if I owned the place.

The young man sat up, pulling his feet from his desk. “Ms. Morgan,” he said. “Holy cow, you gave me a start.”

Kisten slunk in after me, eyes darting everywhere. “Come here often?” he asked when the kid behind the desk put down his handheld game and stood.

“All the time,” I quipped, extending my hand to meet Iceman’s grip. “Don’t you?”

“No.”

Iceman’s attention flicked from me to Kisten, finally lingering on David, standing with his hands at his sides. His enthusiasm to see me dimmed as he realized we were here to identify someone. “Oh, uh, hey,” he said, his hand slipping from mine, “it’s great to see you, but I can’t let you in there unless you have someone from the I.S. or the FIB with you.” He winced. “Sorry.”

“Detective Glenn is on his way,” I said, feeling bouncy for some reason. Sure, I was here to identify a corpse or three, but I knew someone Kisten didn’t, and that didn’t happen often.