“In the big city with my BFFs!” Madoc read out.
“It was tagged Charleston,” Took told him. He stepped away from Madoc and took two long steps over to the wall where he flicked the lights off. The high wattage took a moment to fade as the dull glow of the filament died reluctantly, and then Madoc stared out into the garden. Moonlit instead of sunlit, but the magnolia still blocked the view of the street behind.
“Are you sure you aren’t a sorcerer?” he asked. Took snorted a laugh, but Madoc could taste suspicion in the back of his throat. He glanced from the photo to the window and wondered how much money the Waring family could scrape out of the political coffers. Who could they buy? It worked its way into his voice, a scratch of accusation that was blunt in the sterile, dressed kitchen. “This is beyond luck. Nobody else made this connection, Bennett. Not one fucking member of VINE even heard of Appleton. What made you go there? Who made you go there?”
There was a pause. Then Took abruptly flicked the lights back on, and the actinic glare was enough to make Madoc blink as his eyes tried to adjust.
“Go to hell,” Took said.
Madoc knuckled the water out of his eyes and turned to look at Took. “That’s not an answer,” he said. “I know you wouldn’t… stage… the investigation, but if someone else did?”
“And I just followed along, like a dog on a leash? Might be an issue with Agent Lawrence, but I know what I am doing.”
“So does she,” Madoc defended his new agent sharply. “I’m still your SSA, Bennett, and I did not approve this investigation—”
“It was approved, though.”
“I don’t care. How did you find Annabelle Franklin?” His temper had slipped enough that it crawled into his voice, and there was an edge of command to the words. It was somewhere past the amygdala jerk of a drill sergeant’s bark, but not within the rungs of a boyar’s silky, “this is your idea” compulsion.
It should have worked—not as well as when Took was human and Madoc’s voice had been the goad that got a dazed agent back on his feet after a car crash, but enough to drag an answer out of him, enough to leave Madoc’s gut sour with regret that he’d jerked strings as though Took were his puppet and not his friend. Instead Took just worked his jaw to the side as though his eardrums had popped on a flight and rubbed the side of his head. Madoc wasn’t sure if he was relieved or not. Guilt might be the price he’d pay for a good answer.
“I investigated,” Took said. “You should try it.”
He grabbed the folder from the counter and stalked out of the kitchen, toward the front door. Madoc glared at the span of gray cotton over broad shoulders and refused to chase after Took like some abject suitor. He reached inside instead, through the crack in his soul, to where the smoke and shadows lived.
The world went cold around him, the colors stripped down to tones of gray, and slow. His bloodline dragged at him, a net that wanted to wash him away to drown in the sterile salt sea before it ever got him home, and it took effort to move against the current.
All he’d wanted was the cold shadow, but the effort of it let the smoke slip away from him. It was hot and dry, the cloy of burned apples strong in his throat, but it made it easier to push against the pull of his blood. The walls faded out as he stepped through them and stalked around the house.
Things moved out in the dark. He could hear the click and growl of them, the massive, bony outline of something’s skull against the sky as it turned. A star flared and died in the dry pit of an eye socket, and even Madoc’s mind, armored and set by years and blood, creaked under the weight of the brief illumination.
In the Old Country there were haunts and dark, strange creatures in the shadows of the world, but they knew to skirt the heels of vampires. The gods and spirits native to American soil saw no reason for that. It was one reason that the Anakim had been forced into the Accord. Under the shadow of Tepes’s wing, the living would never have massed enough influence to force a compromise. They certainly never had back home.
The great thing caught sight of him and raised a thin, stringy arm with too many joints. Madoc stepped out of the shadows as it pointed a claw in what might have been a greeting or a threat. He preferred not to think about which.
The weight of his bones settled back under his skin, the warmth of the night air sticky on his skin, as he turned solid on the front porch. Took yanked the front door open. Surprise flashed over his face as he saw Madoc already there. He opened his mouth to say something, but Madoc grabbed the collar of his shirt and shoved him back into the house.
He kicked the door shut behind him.
“You want to hand in your badge and play private eye? Do it,” he rasped out as he let go of Took’s shirt. “You want to be a VINE agent, then you better be willing to justify this. It doesn’t look good that you picked some ghost connection that none of us knew about.”
Took stepped back and impatiently yanked his shirt straight. “Apples,” he said shortly.
For a second, Madoc thought Took had caught the smell of the smoke on the air. He licked the taste of ashes from his fangs. “What?”
“I’m not going to just take poisoned bait,” Took said. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the staircase. The folder dangled from his fingers. “Appleton isn’t any of the leads the Warings served up for him. It was apples. Have you ever heard of Apple and Pear Teas?”
Madoc clenched his jaw. He hadn’t missed this part, the walk-through of how smart Took had been with his puzzle. Okay, that was a lie. He’d missed nearly all of Took, but it wasn’t as though he’d ever had the patience to sit through the “Look How Clever I Am” show. He’d understood Took’s need to establish himself when everyone else was a vampire, but never enjoyed it. “I don’t need a lesson in profiling, Bennett. Just give a good reason that you, and only you, found this link. You’re good, but you’re not magic.”
“No, I’m not,” Took said. He slid down the banister and sat on the stairs, long legs stretched out in front of him. “But VINE did a good job on the investigation. There weren’t that many angles you hadn’t already nailed down, so that made it easier. I just chased the ragged ends… and the apples. There was a vlog—”
Glass shattered and a heavy brown bottle rolled over the expensively laid floor. A trickle of liquid spilled over the waxed surface, and the sweet-bitter smell of accelerant and juniper filled the air. It hung for a moment—long enough for Took to lurch to his feet and Madoc to tackle him back down onto the stairs—and then it ignited with a deceptively softwhoof.
Fire spun toward the ceiling, and licks of soot marked over the blistered paint and spilled out over the floor. The heat of it scorched Madoc’s side, leather and metal tight around his ribs, and stung against the exposed skin of his throat and jaw. He tucked his arm around Took’s head and swore into the hollow of his throat.
More projectiles smashed and splashed against the outside of the house. The heat banked and pitched, the sudden alarmed squall of a siren somewhere in the house a too-late warning of fire.
“Get off,” Took growled as he shoved Madoc’s shoulders and hitched his hips to roll him away. He flinched as sparks hit him and left shriveled pocks on his shirt and pinprick blisters across his cheekbones. “I don’t need to be protected. What the hell?”
