Page 27

Chapter 27

G ordon’s grip on his coffee tightened even as Adler walked close enough to him their shoulders were touching. The werewolf was still eating, looking as if he had slowed down with the bagel for propriety’s sake. Gordon hooked his free hand under Adler’s arm.

They left the courtyard surrounded by apartment buildings and headed toward the parking lot where Gordon could already see Maxim’s fancy silver BMW.

“I had hoped you all were wrong about the conspiracy, Maxim. I’d hoped I could just go to work at the morgue today.”

Maxim shrugged, hit the car’s fob, and opened the driver’s door to lean on it and face them.

“So did I. But sometimes, such hope is like rats’ feet over broken glass, hollow and meaningless.”

Gordon blinked and raised his coffee at Maxim. “That’s TS Eliot. I’m not sure it’s the most uplifting of poems to quote from.”

Maxim’s smile was stale and never reached his eyes. “Now, my darling corpse whisperer, you cannot expect me to lift your mood on such a day. I believe that’s a mate’s prerogative.”

Adler grunted in the affirmative as he held his bagel with his teeth just so he could open the car door for Gordon.

“Adler is plenty uplifting,” Gordon said.

Adler stood there, unmoving, his face literally stuffed with bagel. He clearly wanted Gordon to get in the back of the car.

Maxim leaned an elbow on the roof of his car. “Yes. Though, Gordon, I was outside your bedroom door not too long ago, and we both know the blessings of vampiric hearing. I heard nothing being lifted at all. I will say I was surprised about the relative calm after the full moon.”

Adler growled.

“Well, that’s because—”

But Gordon didn’t get to finish. Adler pushed him into the back of the car, still careful and all that, but he was a detective and had experience putting people into cars. Gordon decided to let him and even complied when Adler pulled out the seat belt and waited for Gordon to take it and clip it around himself.

Once Adler had closed the door on him, he took the bagel from his mouth and turned to the hunter.

“Can we just go, please?”

Maxim grinned and got in. “He’s so protective of you, it’s adorable,” he whispered in the time it took Adler to round the car and get in on the passenger side. “Ready, lovelies?”

“Yeah,” Adler said after a quick look at Gordon.

Maxim started the engine and quickly reversed before seamlessly joining the morning’s traffic.

“Oh, Maxim,” Gordon said, sipping his coffee. “I meant to ask, who was in London during the Ripper case? The Jack the Ripper case?”

Maxim looked at Gordon in the rearview mirror as he sped down busy roads, going as fast as those allowed.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, who was the hunter? And who was working in the London Forum at the time?”

“Ah,” Maxim said as Adler finished the last two bites of his bagel. “The hunters at that time were human. As far as I’m aware, they were less skilled in the art of the sword and more skilled in finding ways to get paid by officials. I believe someone in the city at the time called them ‘glorified cutpurses.’ Why?”

“Well, I was looking into the Ripper case again yesterday. That’s why I was late by the way, Adler. Sorry about that again,” Gordon said, his hand reaching out to touch Adler’s shoulder. Adler immediately placed his warmer hand over Gordon’s. “Anyway, the way blame went around, and the way there didn’t seem to be any clues that were really actionable, the thing with the kidney that wasn’t the victim’s kidney—”

“Yes,” Maxim said. “It always smelled like something was very rotten in the city of London at the time. And the people in charge at the Forum back then were not much better.” The hunter shrugged. “Let’s just say I deliberately chose to leave the city for Italy. There was a lot of nepotism, younger vampires who’d been lesser lords decided the Forum would be a nice way to get properly established, a way into supernatural politics when human politics were no longer an option. I didn’t want Heath in that environment, so Italy it was.”

“Huh,” Adler said. “Had no idea. I thought they were always very by the book back then.”

Maxim turned to look at him. “The nepotism and corruption wasn’t the kind of thing they talked about, and they suppressed it in the press. You know I detest politics, but in London back then, there was no staying out of it, let alone keeping Heath out of it. I had about enough after the first Forum vampire baby decided to flirt with him for her own gain and on the orders of her maker.”

Gordon noisily sipped his coffee. “Maxim, you’re a big mother hen.”

“Gordon, darling, I’m the biggest hen who ever mothered, and proud to be so.”

Adler gasped. “You have knives down your jacket. I can smell the oil and the steel. That’s not very motherly.”

Maxim beamed at him. “I keep them in my boots too, detective. And I know to use them in the most caring, most soothing way, with a lullaby on my lips, if need be. All the same, I do wonder sometimes if things would have gone differently if I’d been in London at the time. Not that it changes anything, but I do wonder.”

“What about those human hunters?”

Maxim looked at Gordon in the rearview. “You mean, were there consequences for their failure in ending this and finding the culprit?”

“Yeah, for starters. But also, disciplinary action?”

Maxim sighed. “They were Forum hunters, same as I. The rules didn’t change much since then. You know the kinds of rights I have, the near unlimited power to be both judge and executioner to our kind and to humans who commit crimes against us. Those who are meant to check me are other hunters, and in return, I check them. The idea was to give the best of us the ability to handle the worst of us, no matter their level of power or influence. Back then, humans were suspicious, and they liked hunters to be human. And London—well, London was a cesspool, and those with power and influence knew that a certain breed of human hunters were all too easily swayed. There were no consequences at all, not in their lifetime. It was only around the dawn of the twentieth century that one fae family established themselves as the city’s hunters, and they are keeping it safe to this day.”

“I hate that kind of thing,” Adler grumble-said. “Not fae hunters. The failure of systems and no one paying for it.”

Maxim hummed. “Indeed.”

“I can see you two thinking of creative means of execution. But this gaming the system shit—that’s a lot like the Pearson case, and—what if all of this has been going on since back then?”

Maxim slowed. “Ah.”

“Shit,” Adler said.

“It’s possible, right? Maxim, you said you were pretty sure someone compelled the police officers who should have investigated Pearson but didn’t. What if that vampire has been at this for a long time. Since the Ripper case or even before then?”

Maxim said nothing, and he’d gone still behind the wheel.

“That would make them old. And strong,” Adler said.

He turned, looking at Gordon, and Gordon saw the worry in his mate’s eyes, the protective instinct turning to fear.

“Don’t worry about him. I’ll keep you two safe.” Maxim’s voice was low, sharp. “I’ll keep everyone safe.”

Gordon decided not to press on further. After all, Maxim, mother hen that he was, had a son born of a union between vampire and human, probably not something their killer approved of.

What knowing that did to a parent, Gordon couldn’t begin to fathom, but he wouldn’t want to be in the killer’s shoes when Maxim and all his many knives and mother hen instincts found him.

Consequences indeed.