Page 34

Chapter 34

T hey went back to the typewriter shop, walking toward the door with quiet tension, Maxim at the front.

“Adler. Remember not to look a stranger in the eye, even if you feel your mate is threatened,” Maxim said.

Gordon heard Adler’s huff.

“Why?”

“Because this old vampire with the interesting lecture about how you and I shouldn’t be together can compel you.”

We should be together. We share the mate bite , Gordon heard in Adler’s thoughts, loud and clear, these past few hours enough to make this…ability an undeniable fact. To strengthen it, if anything.

“I’ll be careful.” I’ll protect my mate, if I have to do it blind, I’ll protect my mate. He’s too soft, not like a wolf.

Gordon had thought that it was going to work the other way around, that Adler would be able to hear his thoughts for the shift during the full moon, that he was going to be exposed. He’d been afraid of laying the insides of his mind bare like that, even if it was to Adler. And now, I’m the one listening in when he doesn’t even know. That’s wrong.

“Adler,” Gordon started, but snapped his mouth shut. Maxim had his hand on the door. “Let’s all be sure to be careful, okay?”

Adler placed his hand on Gordon’s hip. “We’re going to be, sweetheart. You just stay back if anything doesn’t look right.”

Maxim opened the door, and the three of them walked inside.

The shop was unchanged, and after a few moments, the manager who’d never been compelled and had never met a vampire, allegedly, walked back out from the back, frowning when he saw them.

“What now? If you’re here to take me in for questioning, don’t even bother. I know my rights.”

Maxim strode toward him, moving with sleek elegance. “That’s so very good for you, good indeed. But knowledge never matters when one is at the hands of the ruthless like you have likely been, and while your attitude is rather the purview of philosophy and the teachings of empathy, I’ll grant you are not to blame for what was done to you. There is an apartment above this shop, yes?”

The man cocked his head, snorted. “Never been at the hands of anyone, and the purview... Whatever. Yeah, there’s an apartment upstairs. Nice old lady lives there. She’s quiet. Only has the TV on sometimes.”

Gordon saw Maxim’s frown. “The TV. I see.”

The guy crossed his arms, shrugged. “Likes thrillers and murder mysteries. You know how old ladies get. Sometimes I hear it when she’s got it on loud, the fake screaming and all of that.”

“Age is a privilege, not a pain, and your ignorance is blessed. The way to her apartment is through the back?”

“No. You have to go around the side of the building, but you had better bring a warrant.” He pulled out his phone. “I’ll let her know you don’t have one.”

Maxim was faster than the human could handle, and he snatched the phone from the man’s fingers.

“Let me keep this. I think you were compelled to be a convenient alarm.”

“Hey! You fucking vampire scum!”

Gordon didn’t so much hear his mate’s growl as feel it. Adler physically pushed him aside when the shop manager grabbed a pair of scissors from the front desk and went at Maxim with them.

The whole episode took maybe two seconds. Maxim grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted it in some kung-fu move, the scissors dropped, and then he jumped the counter, levering the man’s arm once he landed, effectively pinning him against the counter. Two of the typewriters out on display rattled their keys, and the guy hissed, but that was about all the commotion there was.

“Adler, admirable, but perhaps you could part with your handcuffs? I daresay you ought to take care of our friend here.”

“I’m not your fucking friend, vampire!”

“That’s Mr. Vampire for you, and I was being hyperbolic. Adler?”

“Right.” Adler turned, meeting Gordon’s eyes. “You’re okay?”

Gordon frowned. He stood pushed against one of the shelves with the typewriters, Adler protecting him with his bulk.

“I’m peachy. Go be policy, detective.”

“Right.” My mate shouldn’t be here, he shouldn’t.

Gordon stifled a sigh as Adler pulled out his cuffs and walked toward Maxim and the bigot.

“What do we do with this one?” Gordon asked.

Maxim took the cuffs off Adler and put them in place quickly. “Normally, I’d call backup, but that might be ill-advised.” He spun the man to face him. “You will be staying in the back, right where I leave you,” he said, eyes going wide, then focused as he deployed his compulsion.

“Yes, I will,” the man said, and Maxim walked him toward the back.

Adler turned and closed the distance between him and Gordon, pulling Gordon into an embrace.

“What is it going to cost me to get you to wait in Maxim’s fancy car?”

This close, Gordon almost felt Adler’s thoughts, and they were jumbled, mate and safe prominent. He hugged Adler back.

“I’m here because people might be hurt, plus I’m a vampire. I’m not as soft as you think, detective, plus the last thing I want to do is be a hero. I’m happy to let Maxim and his blades do the slicing.”

And Adler…whined. It was a soft sound, near inaudible, and for some reason, it unlocked a door behind which Gordon found a massive amount of guilt about the way the mate bite had apparently decided to connect them through one-sided telepathy.

He cleared his throat. “Look, Adler—”

“Oh, turtledoves, I would love to leave you to love, but we must find the lost and the loathsome.” Maxim walked out from the back on silent feet. “Come now. And Adler, never look an old vampire in the eye.”

“I know, I know,” Adler said, his hold on Gordon tightening. I’ll protect him blind.

“Come on, detective. Let’s go. And you won’t have to protect me, because I’m really happy not getting in the path of danger, okay? I do science stuff. I hand out weed cookies. That’s about as risqué as I can handle.”

Maxim groaned. “Oh, Adler, your sweet mate and my single son, they have not lived. They have not tasted adventure. Whatever shall we do with them?”

Lock them up and keep them safe, Adler thought without hesitation. “Just let them be. Sweetheart, you don’t have to go find adventure. I’ll buy you…what’s that donut edition?”

Heat rose to Gordon’s cheeks. “The Kawaii Demon Hunter Breakfast Special Edition.”

Adler stood back, taking Gordon’s hands in his. “Yeah. You can pick anything from that if you wait in his car.”

“Aw, darlings, is this the first time you tried bribery as a relationship coping mechanism? It’s just so dear, my heart might never recover.”

“We’re coming, Maxim,” Gordon said. “And Adler, I’m coming too. I know you can keep me safe though, so let’s go. Now.”

Gordon hoped that Adler would accept that, and he did, nodding once even though he was frowning.

“It’s a werewolf thing. Wanting you safe.”

Maxim hummed. “That it isn’t. Regardless, let’s see what hides upstairs. Let’s see if it calls for blades or Gordon’s skill.”

Blades I hope, Gordon thought, but kept that to himself.

They rounded the typewriter shop though because of how the city had grown around it, the alley between the shop and the neighboring building was narrow. Gordon had never been trained to gather clues from his surroundings, but he could tell that it would be easy to vanish into this gap and disappear off the street.

The alley itself was unremarkable, cleanish in the way any quiet corner of a big city might get. A spider had made a cobweb between the wall and a rain pipe. Lichen grew on the plaster.

“At the danger of being the Devil’s advocate, maybe our missing college kid got into a bad situation that has nothing to do with an old vampire, and maybe the old vampire is just…a really old bigot,” Gordon whispered, knowing that in all likelihood, he was wrong.

“Ah, youth,” Maxim whispered back, one hand on his short sword. “There was a time, many times, when I hoped bad situations had taken those I was called to find, the vanished, the taken. It’s why humanity has always kept the tales of monsters. The reality of other humans being evil is too much for most of us.”

“The car’s still an option,” Adler said, placing his big warm hand on Gordon’s shoulder. I like that he’s independent and smart and so very beautiful, but if he were a little more scared and preferred hiding over this, I’d be the last to complain.

Gordon chuckled. “Ah, detective. We went over this. I’ll hide behind you.”

Gordon flinched when he realized he’d responded to Adler’s thoughts rather than his words. Shit. I’m telling him, but not out here, not while we’re working with the badassest hunter to ever hunt.

“Yeah, yeah. My independent mate,” Adler said, sounding too fond to care or pick up on any lapse on Gordon’s part.

“I will say, turtledoves, it is getting distractingly adorable to have you around. Please hush now while I pick this lock.”

“Oh, you can do that?” Gordon asked, taking a step closer.

Paula had been able to pick a lock too, and she had shown Gordon once, opening their garden shed one day in high summer. She’d asked Gordon to stand on an old, rickety crate, and he still remembered the feeling of the wood shifting under his weight, of the upside-down green apple painted on the side of the crate, the crisp color long faded. There’d been nothing inside the shed that they had wanted, but it had still felt like an adventure to Gordon.

“Naturally. And I do have to, seeing as there is no doorbell we could ring here, no way to pretend we’re girl scouts with too many cookies.” Maxim had the door open in a flash, pushing it inward slowly, a frown on his face. “This is odd.”

“Huh?”

Adler growled. “The door should swing open toward the outside so that if you’re running—from a fire, someone chasing you—you can get out quickly.”

“Indeed. Gordon, back behind Adler and myself. Stay alert, turtledoves.”

They went into the building. The floor tiles were the first thing Gordon noticed, old looking and patterned with red flowers on yellowish ochre. Dust hung in the air, not the kind of thing that comes from a lack of cleaning alone but from disuse, abandonment.

Quietly, neither of them as quietly as Maxim, they went up the stairs. Maxim was about a flight ahead of where Gordon was when Adler tensed. “Maxim. I smell blood. Not a lot, and not all that fresh. Might not even be from the same person.”

Maxim’s shoulders tensed. “I see. If only young Raven had been into drugs, if only he’d run away with a lover. Adler, I want you and Gordon to stand back. This is my duty first.”

“No eye contact, right?” Adler asked, looking over his shoulder at Gordon.

Maxim nodded. “But if he’s as good as I fear, he can also draw your gaze. It’s easier with wolves actually. I can show you some time, if you consent.”

“Uh, maybe not,” Adler said.

“Fair. Wait here.” Maxim blurred as he sped up the stairs.

After a few seconds, he reappeared in front of them. Gordon, even though he’d seen it before, still found the way he could move without making any noise, extraordinarily creepy.

“A door, third flight up. The attic above that is silent. I’ll go in first, you two follow. If you run into a human, I leave it to you to subdue them, Adler. Gordon, first aid unless you endanger yourself. I will be looking for the vampire.”

Gordon nodded, his heartbeat picking up. Maybe the car doesn’t sound too bad after all. But while he was sure Adler wouldn’t have minded, Gordon knew it was too late to back out now.