Page 11

Chapter 11

“W e’re heading to the Forum ahead of them,” Maxim told Adler outside.

Adler stopped on the stairs that led down from the front door. He had assumed they would be going back to Ruthaven or do some canvassing. This took him by surprise, especially given that Maxim was openly not enthusiastic about the Forum.

Adler didn’t exactly want to leave Gordon behind when his mate didn’t even know where he was going. It was instinct, the need to make sure his mate knew where to find him if he needed to.

Adler knew all that, knew that he was being silly, especially given that Gordon knew how to use a damn cell phone, but still. The wolf was uneasy.

Maxim turned. “I’m sure the Forum people will give both Gordon and Mr. and Mrs. Williamson a ride, Adler, but you are welcome to ride with me and leave your car here for Gordon.” He grinned at Adler. “That way, he can get to you quickly if he needs to.”

Adler relaxed. An alpha can instantly make you less stressed even if that alpha is technically just a vampire hunter.

“I’ll be right back.”

Maxim sighed. “I’m already feeling like a bride left at the altar. Please hurry.”

Adler nodded, walked back into the house, and dropped his car keys next to the forensic equipment outside the scene. “Gordon, I’m leaving my keys out here. I’m riding with Maxim.”

One of the white-clad workers turned, and there wasn’t even a strand of blue hair visible to mark him out as Gordon. “I already called Corinne for pickup, but I can take the car if you want.”

Adler nodded and smiled even if he didn’t see Gordon smile back through his surgical mask and face shield.

“Please do. I’ll leave you to it.” He went outside again, where Maxim was leaning against his own car, a silver BMW.

“My groom has returned to me!” Maxim twirled the end of his long braid around one finger.

“Let’s just go, please.”

“Pah. Spoil sports, the both of you, but very well.”

They both got into the car, and Maxim pulled away from the curb, neatly accelerating and leaving the crime scene behind them.

“How is mated life, hmm?” the hunter asked.

Adler couldn’t help himself. He felt the stupid grin settling on his face, but he was powerless to stop it.

“It’s the best. I do worry I’m enough though.”

Maxim gasped, taking his eyes straight off the road. “In the bedroom? Pray tell, did you not practice before biting people in the sheets? That is so very irresponsible of you! It was the first thing I told my baby boy when he was old enough to understand: learning the art of physical love is a skillset, and you should hasten to acquire it. Adler. Do you need me to talk you through the finer points of it?”

“Please watch the road. I’m worried I’m enough for him when it comes to feeding, not fucking.”

“Ah, yes. That’s a relief.”

Adler rolled his eyes. “Not really.”

“Silly. He will tell you. And hungry vampires are very obvious, pale, red-rimmed eyes, chapped lips. Not a good look.”

“I didn’t know that. Are you sure?”

Maxim snorted. “Of course I’m sure. I lived before the Year of Revelation in 1313, and when humans were still ignorant of our kind, they feared us. There were no donors. Young and unskilled vampires would wander, starved and ready to fall on any unsuspecting traveler and drink them dry. That was when I started to learn my skill.”

Adler let that settle in. I knew he was old. I didn’t think he was older than Revelation. I didn’t know he’s been a hunter for that long.

Maxim noticed Adler’s silence and once more took his eyes off the road. “Are you impressed with me now, more than you already were? If you admire me, feel free to tell me. I’ll listen.”

“Uh. No, thank you. But it’s kind of impressive. Living that long I mean.”

The idea that Adler might not live long had so distressed Gordon at first. Adler’s skin still itched uncomfortably when he remembered how guilty his mate had felt, and for no good reason as far as Adler was concerned.

Maxim shrugged. “Age is not that rare a gift among vampires. We advertise it rarely, and only to a few select people. In either case, you will see when you need to worry about Gordon’s feeding habits, and until such a time, you needn’t waste a thought on it. Now, did you want to learn what I didn’t feel comfortable mentioning earlier?”

“That doesn’t sound ominous at all, Maxim.”

Ahead, the Forum’s building complex became a visible presence on New Amsterdam’s skyline, the dome smooth and reflective, the white buildings neat and tidy, just like the greenery surrounding them.

“Well, that cannot be helped. You haven’t forgotten Philippa Pearson, have you?”

The violent serial killer had certainly left an impression. Her Ripper copycat murders were the kind of things nightmares spawned from.

“What about her?” Adler asked.

“We are going to see Dr. Melissa Seine, the psychiatrist who’s been interviewing Pearson since she was incarcerated. I’d like you to hear what Melissa has to say from Melissa herself.” Maxim parked the car, but not in front of the entrance closest to Gordon’s labs. “Come on.”

Adler didn’t visit the Forum often, other than to pick up Gordon. He himself was the Forum’s responsibility much like any supernatural was, but Adler’s employer was the city, his job to solve cases for the NAPD and liaise with the Forum if and when necessary.

Usually when he came here, Adler had to sign in and tell the security person or reception person—depending on where in the Forum he was going—what he wanted.

Not so with Maxim. The fae and vampire receptionist team simply nodded at Maxim, who barely spared them a glance as he walked straight into the bowels of this building.

He’s better than an all-access pass, Adler thought, hurrying to meet the hunter’s long strides without outpacing him.

“Where are we?” Adler asked. “The Forum’s psych unit?” So far, there had been no signage at all.

Maxim turned as he took a left down a very nondescript, windowless hallway that looked decidedly less cheery than the hallway outside of Gordon’s morgue, quite a feat seeing as how Gordon’s morgue was in the basement. And full of dead people. Also one sexy pathologist who has long conversations with them.

“Wouldn’t that be nice. No, this is the interdisciplinary division. It would be more accurate to call them a think tank, a secret society, or better yet a cabal, but they frown upon those monickers. They don’t like to be associated with any group, because heavens, where would we be if the independence of our brightest minds were ever cast in doubt? Where would we be if they decided to take a position and stand by it?”

“You sound like you have feelings about this division.”

Maxim gave him some side-eye. “You could tell? And here I was, trying for subtlety.”

The hallway brightened with a line of windows on the right, and Maxim walked past the first office door and knocked on the second. The sign outside read only “Melissa Seine.” There was no title there, nothing, just the doctor’s name.

“Come in,” said a cheery voice, and Maxim pushed the door inward.

Adler wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it was not this.

The first thing he noticed were the smells. Willa was the pack’s best tracker, but Adler considered himself decent when it came to picking up a scent and following it.

This office was full of scents: lavender, orange, smoke, sage, peppermint, something chalky, followed by cinnamon, recently struck matches, and sun-warmed skin.

The colors and textures flooded Adler’s brain like an action movie with too many explosions. Beanbags lined the floor next to meditation pillows and yoga mats, all in bright colors and patterns that made focusing on any one thing hard. There were also a few chairs, but they looked outlandish, what with the sloping designs of their backs and legs.

The doctor herself did not match her office at all. She was tall with short black hair, and her skin was several shades darker than Adler’s. She also had the pointed ears of the fae sans glamour and the beautiful, aristocratic features of one.

Presumably she even smelled like fae, except with all the other scents in this room, Adler had no way of telling. What really made her clash with the place though was her black business suit with a white shirt and black tie. Dr. Melissa Seine, in this room that looked like colorful pixie vomit, was an immaculate beacon of sleek professionalism.

“Melissa.” Maxim approached the doctor to greet her with a kiss to either cheek. “This is a friend, Detective Adler with the New Amsterdam Police Department. I hope we aren’t interrupting anything.”

Adler approached the fae, who gave him a practiced, professional smile and shook his hand.

“Maxim. You love interrupting things, yet don’t enjoy being interrupted yourself.”

Adler bristled. This was not the kind of thing one said to an alpha. If the fae noticed how her words rubbed him the wrong way, she didn’t show it.

Maxim beamed, more gracious than most other alphas. “Ah, Melissa, your insights are still worthy of being made into fortune cookie filling. I was hoping you could tell Adler about your suspicions about Philippa Pearson.”

At this, the fae’s beautiful face wrinkled, and she gave Adler a piercing look. “He’s a werewolf.”

“And as I said, Melissa, a friend.” Maxim turned to Adler. “Melissa likes cultivating mild paranoia.”

The fae snorted. “If it isn’t the vampire calling the leech bloodthirsty. You vouch for him?”

“Of course I vouch for him.” Maxim gracefully sat in one of the oddly shaped chairs and crossed his legs. “And do trust me, I had Heath look into him when he joined the police and started moving up in Willa’s pack.” Maxim looked at Adler. “He found that one parking ticket you got when you were nineteen, Adler. I was shocked.”

Adler flinched. “You what?”

Maxim shrugged. “Bold background checks prevent distressing disappointments.”

Melissa just nodded. “Fine. Take a seat.”

She took one of the larger beanbags herself, managing to fold her long legs into the noisily shifting seat and looking elegant doing it. Adler had never seen a fae sit on a beanbag before.

Adler took one of the least outlandish chairs. To his surprise, the thing was actually comfortable.

“Adler was present when we arrested Miss Pearson,” Maxim began.

The doctor nodded. “I saw the name on the files.” She looked to Adler. “You got the internal investigation into the death investigations of Persons’s parents started. And the one into the accident that killed her foster parents.” She framed the word “accident” in air quotes.

Adler nodded. “Something wasn’t right there. It deserved at least a second look.”

“I agree,” the fae said. “But don’t expect anyone to find out much.” She took a deep breath. “I can’t prove anything, but I would bet money on there being something bigger behind all this.”

“Ah.”

It didn’t come as a surprise, not really. The Pearson case had never felt really finished to Adler even if concluding it had been so easy after Maxim had gotten involved, no trial needed, no waiting for judgment. Something about the case itself just smelled off, rotten, wrong.

Maxim sighed. “What Melissa won’t say because she doesn’t like the word, is that she suspects this is a conspiracy, and I find myself increasingly willing to agree with her.”

Adler blinked. “Say what? You think the humans are conspiring to… what? Murder other humans?”

Dr. Seine shook her head. “First of all, I don’t have problems with words, Maxim, but conspiracy feels inaccurate. And no, this is not human-on-human violence. Pearson was—in my opinion—a cog in a much bigger machine, and she has been pushed toward doing what she did. Some of the way she phrases her responses indicates she has had some type of conditioning in the past.”

“I don’t quite follow,” Adler said. “I mean, to what end?”

“You are aware Pearson’s parents were murdered by a werewolf?” the fae asked.

Adler nodded. “That’s what the report said.”

Seine nodded. “Of course. The murders occurred in the late afternoon. On a day of the full moon. Were you aware of that?”

He hadn’t been. But this cast an entirely new light on that old case.

Wolves turned on a full moon. Some had the ability to turn the night before and—sometimes, in rare cases—the night after, but most wolves needed the sun to set before they could shift.

Only the smallest number could shift when the moon was up in the daytime sky. It was an almost mythic ability, and individual wolves with that skill were usually well-known within a region, not least because a solitary wolf roaming during the daytime could be extremely upsetting to humans, which in turn put all wolves in a difficult position.

If a wolf had murdered the parents during daytime, that was a very small suspect pool.

“I wasn’t.” Adler straightened. “How did the police not take note of that?”

“And how did they not put it anywhere in the file?” Maxim added. “Isn’t that just mysterious? I asked your mate to help me get access to her early psychiatric records. He got me the files, but the contents were not of Pearson but some other patient. Ostensibly, a clerical error, misfiled paperwork, but such a strange one, wouldn’t you agree?”

Adler perked up at that. “So what? You think this is a hate group?”

The fae shrugged. “I don’t know. But when I ask about why she killed the fae, what she would do to me if given the chance or to any other fae, she says ‘they deserve the suffering before death.’ I once asked about her parents, and she told me the exact same thing. There are other things too, tics, avoiding eye contact. But that phrase sticks out most.”

“They deserve the suffering before death,” Adler mumbled to himself. The writing on the wall, literally.

Maxim stirred. “I followed up on a few things myself. You see, investigations surrounding Pearson were often dropped. I asked the officers I spoke with in hypotheticals to see how they would judge when to close an investigation, and their answers were sound. Had they acted like they knew was correct, those cases would still be open.” Maxim shifted forward a fraction. “I asked them how they would proceed normally in similar cases, and their answers were to continue investigating.” He tilted his head. “You see, Adler, some of the officers got very distressed when they were confronted with the fact that they had shut down an investigation before it could ever go anywhere. When they realized that was what they had done, that is.”

Adler clenched and unclenched his fists. “Then why did they do it? Distress doesn’t help much when you already fucked up an investigation.”

Maxim shrugged. “They had no idea why. I compelled them to exclude bribery or anything as mundane as that. Which means they either ran into an excellent hypnotist, or into a vampire with quite the powerful compulsion.”

Adler stirred in his seat, which had suddenly become uncomfortable. “That’s not an everyday skill. Did you try to undo it?”

Maxim shook his head. “It is not everyday at all. And as someone who has that skill, believe me, we take note of it as much as the wolves do of a day shifter. The undoing of it…well. It’s difficult and not even possible in most cases. In addition, there’s always a risk of leaving the mind with permanent damage, so weighing those risks, I didn’t attempt it.”

“Right.” Adler frowned, hating the idea that there were potential witnesses but that they couldn’t help them anymore.

“The paperwork concerning these older cases was impeccable,” Seine added.

“Meaning?” Adler asked.

“It was the kind I would not have given a second look unless the conversations with Pearson hadn’t all felt so off, and even on that second look, everything seemed in order. Maxim had the right idea, going after the files from when she was still a minor.”

Maxim looked back to Adler. “When it looks like a conspiracy and it quacks like a conspiracy…”

This is above my pay grade. Why is he telling me this? “Fine, let’s say it is that, but to what end?”

“Hate,” Seine said.

Maxim got back to his feet. “What she means is, money doesn’t seem a reasonable motivator, since a vampire with that skill wouldn’t need to go to those lengths for it, and a day shifter would likely have the support of any pack they choose.

“Bloodlust might move someone to do this, but for that, there are not enough corpses, dreary though that may sound. However, we do have a human murdering supernaturals or those who have at least some connection to the supernatural world.

“You remember we talked about the Ripper murders in London and the unrest that ensued? I think Pearson or those who helped her wanted that, the same anger the Ripper cases bred in the people. Pearson’s hate for everything supernatural is quite real even if it was carefully cultivated, so that may have well been the common denominator in all this: a shared hate. A love of chaos.”

The room was too colorful, too cheerful to be talking about conspiracies in it. The colors and smells clashed with the memory of that first scene that still stuck in Adler’s head: that murder had made everything shimmer red and wet, the coppery scent of drying blood filling the air. Vinegar to hide the scent of who had done it from werewolf noses.

“Shit,” Adler said.

“You are not entirely wrong,” Maxim agreed. “Not wrong at all.”