Iron & Velvet (Kate Kane, Paranormal Investigator #1) Read online

  She eyed me suspiciously. “Nimue had nothing to do with this. I fucked up and I’m trying to fix it.” She was silent a moment. “So what happens now?”

  I tried to stand up, then decided to give myself a minute. Falling flat on your face in front of the suspect isn’t very professional. “I’m here to take you back to Nimue.”

  “I thought you worked for Julian Saint-Germain.”

  “I do.”

  There was that sort of silence you get when you’re both knackered.

  Maeve climbed painfully to her feet. “I don’t suppose I can persuade you to let me go?”

  “No,” I said, “but at least I’m not giving you over to the vampires.”

  Maeve huffed out another gloomy laugh. “I think I’d rather take my chances with Julian.”

  “She’ll probably kill you.”

  “Only probably—she’s fickle. But Nimue . . . she’ll imprison me for a hundred years or turn me into seafoam.”

  “It’s still better than being dead.” I’m a look-on-the-bright-side kind of girl.

  “You’ve never seen a mages’ prison.”

  “I don’t think Julian’s in a forgiving mood, and I don’t want your death on my conscience. I’m going to call us a cab.”

  I checked my phone. It turned out we were in a Travelodge in Enfield. Shit. I’d run about twenty miles. I was going to feel that in the morning. The wound in my leg was getting a head start—I was feeling that now.

  We waited exhaustedly for the taxi. If the cabbie was surprised to turn up at a Travelodge and pick up a couple of women who looked like they’d been in a knife fight, he didn’t say anything.

  “You should really get to A&E,” Maeve said, once we were on the road.

  “Nice try.”

  “No, I mean it, that looks really bad.”

  “What is this, early-onset Stockholm?”

  “I’m not a psychopath.” She huddled into her seat, resting her head against the window. “I wouldn’t have attacked you if you hadn’t attacked me.”

  “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  I leaned back and carefully stretched out my leg. I was feeling pretty shitty, but there was no way I was taking my eyes off Maeve. Attempted murder aside, she seemed like a fairly decent person, but you didn’t have to be a crazy super-villain to get out of a taxi because the PI who’d caught you had fallen asleep.

  “I couldn’t trust Julian,” said Maeve suddenly. “She would have come for us eventually.”

  “Not until you gave her a reason.”

  “Vampires don’t need reasons. They take because they can.”

  “You seemed happy to give it.”

  “Well.” Maeve flushed. “She can be very disarming. I thought I knew what I was doing.”

  She was either right or playing me. Or both. The thing to do now was just to let it go, hand her over, and close the damn case. But something was still bugging me.

  “I get why you went for Julian, but why some random werewolf?”

  She lifted her head wearily off the window. “That wasn’t me.”

  Suspects you’ve just caught are not what you’d call reliable witnesses, and I had no reason on Earth to believe her. She’d already told me she was terrified of what Nim would do to her, so she was probably just covering herself, but then why admit to anything?

  It was late, I was tired, I’d had my mother in my head, and I couldn’t think straight. She’d attacked Julian. There had to be consequences for that.

  The taxi rolled on through the night.

  There was a gang waiting for us outside the community centre. Half a dozen bikers in various flavours of scary. Their leader was leaning against her motorbike, an FLSTF Fat Boy with a custom paintjob. What can I say? I went through a biker chick phase. And by biker chick phase, I mean I slept with a lot of biker chicks.

  I asked the cabbie to wait on the other side of the street and climbed out after Maeve. There was definite attention from the bikers.

  “Are they on your side?” I asked as the leader came towards us.

  “That’s Michelle,” whispered Maeve. “Guardian of the Watchtower of the South.”

  Well, that explained all the flame decals.

  “You look like shit,” said the Guardian of the Watchtower of the South.

  She was a little shorter than me, but still looked like she could dribble me like a basketball without breaking a sweat. I couldn’t see much beneath all the leather, but I could see on her neck and the backs of her hands the tips of what was clearly a large and complicated tattoo. She had a spill of dark braids and a do not fuck with me expression. I had no intention of fucking with her.

  “Me or her?”

  She put a hand on Maeve’s shoulder, firm but not aggressive. “Come on, Maeve. What a fucking mess, you silly cow.” Her eyes flicked briefly to me. “And you can fuck off as well.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer and, as they turned away, I saw the back of her jacket was emblazoned with the image of an angel brandishing a flaming sword.

  I fucked off to A&E.

  St. Ann’s was only ten minutes away—just long enough, in fact, for me to pull out my phone to call Julian and then think better of it. The news that I’d found the killer, who had turned out to be her ex-girlfriend, and promptly handed her over to my ex-girlfriend, would probably sound better in person. Also, my leg was really hurting.

  I got to the top of the triage queue pretty quickly because I was dripping blood everywhere, but that meant I was completely stumped when the guy in blue pyjamas asked me what I’d done to myself. Got in a fight with a blood-witch was obviously out, and my old standby of cooking accident wasn’t going to cut it either. So I said I’d fallen into my dishwater and landed on a carving knife. They mopped up the mess and gave me some painkillers, then left me sitting around for three hours, which I spent wishing I had a book or, better still, a drink.

  Well, at least I was out the house.

  Eventually I was shown into a cubicle between a bloke who’d been shoved through a shop window and another bloke who’d broken his hand punching someone in the face. Fun times. A doctor stopped by to confirm that we had, indeed, broken our hands, cut our legs, and gone through plate glass windows. And then a medical student came by to see what it looked like. I related my Dishwasher Carving Knife Adventure to three other people and informed each of them that yes, I did smoke, yes, I did drink, but no, I wasn’t allergic to anything or taking prescription medications. After another hour, a nurse I hadn’t seen before stuck me with a local anaesthetic and sewed me up in five minutes. I waited another half hour for a doctor to come and give me permission to go home, before I thought fuck it and discharged myself.

  I smoked a quick fag in the hospital car park under the cheerful blue banner that read This is a smoke-free site while I waited for a cab to come and take me to Brewer Street. I arrived in the middle of Section 28, the Velvet’s official gay night, as opposed to all of its other really-quite-gay nights. Ashriel was on the door, wearing a tight T-shirt and tighter jeans. Every boy in the queue was staring at him in awe.

  “You look like shit,” he greeted me.

  “Thanks. I get that a lot. You look like a gay pin-up.”

  He grinned. “Thanks. I get that a lot.”

  “Hah. I see what you did there. Seriously, though, are you on the pull? I thought you didn’t do that anymore.”

  “I don’t, and even if I did, I’m not a big fan of cock.”

  I put my hands up. “Preaching to the choir. But I thought demons did anything with a soul.”

  “That doesn’t mean we don’t have preferences.”

  “Are you saying,” I smirked, “that you’re gay for pay?”

  “If by ‘for pay’ you mean ‘in order to suck the soul, essence, and very capacity for joy from my victims,’ then yeah, kind of. But not lately.”

  “No offence, but what’s with that?”

  “I saw someone make a choice, and I made a choice of
my own.”

  “Wow, cryptic.”

  He gave me a look. “I’m standing on Brewer Street in a shirt you can see my nipples through. How personal do you want this to get?”

  “But they’re such good nipples.”

  “Incubus.” He gave an illustrative gesture.

  “It’s just,” I went on, “I’ve never met a demon who was able to make that choice.”

  “There are a few of us around. And working for Julian takes the edge off. It’s a vampire sex power thing.”

  “Speaking of, I need to see her.”

  Ashriel waved me through. “She’s in the gallery.”

  It was packed in there, the air thick with sweat, sex, and other fun stuff. The dance floor was alive with writhing bodies. They were playing some kind of disco-infused tech house that was way too trendy for me to recognise. But it did make me want to dance and promote a homosexual lifestyle, so I guess it was doing its job. The gallery was curtained off and accessible only by the slightly rickety spiral staircase near the bar. There was a burly bouncer type at the bottom, but Ashriel had obviously told her I was coming because she unhooked the little velvet rope and let me through.

  I went up. So this was the vampire sex room. Everything was blood-red velvet or gleaming gold, the sort of exquisite bad taste you could only get away with if you really were an eight-hundred-year-old immortal hedonist. Julian sprawled on a chaise longue, yet another ruffly shirt hanging half off one shoulder, a long cigarette holder dangling from between her fingers. As I picked my way through a pile of languidly entwined female bodies, she drew one of her groupies gently towards her, brushed a fall of hair from the woman’s neck and bit her. A rush of pleasure seemed to engulf the room. Julian’s victim? Partner? Mid-evening snack? Whatever, she was writhing in blatant orgasmic ecstasy.

  I felt like a total eleventh wheel.

  I thought about coughing politely, but then realised it probably wouldn’t do any good and searched around for something to look at. I was technically still at work, and this was definitely NSFW. I fixed my eyes on an ornate silver chalice standing on a pedestal next to the shag longue.

  After what seemed even longer than the wait at A&E, Julian let the woman go, and she crumpled to the ground, spent. Julian wiped blood from her face and licked it from her fingers with the sensuous relish of an actress in a chocolate advert.

  “Oh, good evening, Kate,” she purred.

  I was quipless. “Hi.”

  Julian addressed her orgy. “All right, my kittens. Run along and play.”

  There was a brief delay while clothes were gathered up, and then we were alone.

  “You’ve got a little something . . .” I brushed my face in the universal gesture for you’re covered in blood.

  Julian retrieved a white silk handkerchief, dipped it into the chalice, which turned out to be full of pure, clear water, and dabbed at the mess on her face. “All gone?”

  I nodded.

  “Soooo . . .” She fell back onto the chaise longue. “Are you here for business or pleasure?” She grinned. “Please say pleasure.”

  “Business.”

  She looked disappointed and gave me big eyes.

  “I caught somebody.”

  “Great, can we fuck now?”

  “It was your ex-girlfriend. She was definitely behind the attack last night. I can’t be so sure about the werewolf.”

  There was a pause.

  She blinked. “Sorry, which ex-girlfriend?”

  “Maeve.”

  Julian looked blank.

  “The blood-witch.”

  “Oh, her,” she drawled. “Well, where is she? I take attempts to kill me pretty personally.”

  “I left her with Nimue. She’ll handle it.”

  And the next thing I knew Julian was right in my face, teeth bared. I’d thought she moved quickly in daylight, but this was a full-on vamp-bamf. She could have torn my heart out and I wouldn’t even have seen it coming. Instinctively I stepped back, and she was already behind me. I turned to face her.

  “That was not the deal.”

  People had kept telling me Julian was dangerous. I thought it was because they didn’t want me to sleep with her, but I was starting to realise it was because she could rip me to fucking pieces. And probably would if I pissed her off or showed her I was scared.

  “We didn’t have a deal,” I said, trying to keep my voice from cracking. “You gave me a job. I never said I’d help you kill anybody.”

  “I don’t need your help to kill anybody.”

  Dating Patrick had given me a fair amount of experience with vampires losing their rag. You know you’ve totally blown it when they get so angry they forget to pretend they’re alive. They don’t move, they don’t twitch, they don’t even blink. Right now, Julian was so still and so cold and so about to kill me, it was like staring down the barrel of a gun.

  “I was trying to avoid starting a war.”

  “I hired you to find a killer, not play diplomat.”

  “Well, I did what I did, and I did find the killer.” I took a deep breath, just in case it was the last one I ever had. “Either kill me for it, or get the fuck out my face.”

  She stared at me with pale, empty eyes. “I should kill you.”

  “Then do it, just do it, just fucking do it.”

  I found myself unexpectedly alive.

  She stroked a sharp fingertip down the line of my throat, right along my carotid artery. “God, you’re sexy when you’re being an idiot.”

  “You are fucking impossible,” I growled. “I thought you were going to kill me.”

  “I was.”

  I had no idea what to say to that, so I kissed her. It was rough and messy, and Julian’s hands closed round my forearms hard enough to bruise, so I wasn’t sure whether she was trying to pull me close or shove me away. I forced her lips apart and pressed myself into her mouth. It was like slipping into silk, though the rest of her was ice and steel. I caught my tongue on the edge of her fangs, drowning everything in a rush of heat and iron.

  Julian made an unimaginable sound, lust, fury, and pure feral hunger. And the next thing I knew, I was flat on my back and pinned breathless on the chaise longue. Julian reared up, fangs bared, a few drops of my blood clinging to her lips.

  Here lies Kate Kane. Killed in a foreplay accident. Beloved daughter. Sorely missed.

  And then she hesitated. I was stuck staring into the face of a predator, but somewhere in her eyes I thought I could see Julian. And Julian bought me puddings and—usually—didn’t want me dead. I pulled her on top of me and rolled sideways. We tumbled gracelessly onto the floor. She lay underneath me like an unexploded grenade.

  Well, this was fun.

  Actually, it kind of was. My leg was aching, my mouth was bleeding, I’d barely slept, but I felt so fucking alive.

  I tore her stupid frilly shirt open again to reveal white skin and red silk. A flimsy nothing of a bra held together by a ribbon I pulled open with my teeth. Julian shifted, a breathless sound catching at the back of her throat. Heat was gathering under her skin. She stretched her arms over her head, her fingers twisting around the legs of the chaise longue. Her breasts lifted like they wanted attention. So I got on with that, and slipped a hand between her legs. Julian’s hands tightened on the chaise longue until the wood splintered, and her hips arched under mine.

  “Kate,” she gasped, her head tipping back to expose her throat. “Fuck me.”

  She didn’t have to tell me twice.

  Or maybe she did. She had just tried to kill me.

  “Ask me nicely.” I traced the underside of her breast with my tongue.

  She let go of the chaise longue and propped herself on her elbows, shaking me free. “Make me,” she said, glinting a toothy grin.

  “Oh, it’s like that, huh?” I braced myself on a knee and ran the nails of my free hand down her side. She shivered but her expression didn’t change.

  I slipped the steel dagger from its sheath on
my forearm and passed it to my right hand.

  “I do like a girl who comes with her own toys,” sighed Julian.

  I ran the point of the blade lightly down her neck. I wouldn’t do this to somebody with a pulse, but there’s something kind of liberating about being with someone you can’t hurt.

  Julian raised an eyebrow.

  I kissed her steel-touched skin. She was as warm as me now. I moved the knife to her hip and drew a new path up her body, between her breasts.

  Julian watched me, playing it cool.

  I pressed a little harder and made a shallow cut just beneath her collarbone. She gave a surprised yelp that turned into a low moan as I put my mouth to the already healing wound and gently tasted her. I don’t know what I was expecting, but pleasure rolled through me like a good single malt. Julian fell back, holding me to her, fingers buried in my hair, legs coming up to embrace me. I had just enough wherewithal to spin the knife away from us.

  “Oh, Kate,” she whispered. “Kate.”

  I kissed my name from her lips, my mouth wet with the last traces of her blood. There was nothing but the moment. The taste of wine and roseleaves.

  I worked a hand down her trousers, beneath the velvet and the silk of her underwear to warm, wet skin. Julian clung to me, cried out, and I couldn’t quite repress an answering moan. She felt so good. I slid my fingers into her and circled her with my thumb. It was an awkward angle and I wasn’t going to win any prizes for technique but, just then, it didn’t seem to matter. Julian’s back arched, and she pressed herself against my hand, an incoherent litany of pleasure spilling from her lips. She convulsed under me, came on my fingers, snapped forwards and bit me.

  I had a brief moment to be pissed off.

  There was a fleeting spark of pain, and then an endless, incapacitating ecstasy.

  “Oops, sorry,” came Julian’s voice sometime later. “Instinctive response.”

  I felt battered and wrung out and kind of awesome and really in need of a cigarette. Maybe later I’d be embarrassed. Normally people have to touch my cunt before I come. And, somewhere at the back of my mind, I was vaguely aware that letting vampires get their teeth into you made you more vulnerable to their mind control bullshit. Still, right now, I was thinking it was probably worth it. And besides, Julian knew where I lived and could kill me without blinking, so we were basically already playing trust games here.