Under a Blood Moon Read online

  “Your back is bleeding!”

  “It will heal in a second, come to bed.” Jakob brushed me off but the raw skin and thin rivers of blood captivated me. I pushed him down onto the bed and grabbed a tissue. By the time I had blotted the blood away the wounds had healed. When I looked a second time, the skin was perfect. My hand went over it smoothly. I couldn’t even feel where the scratches had been.

  “It’s healed.” My voice couldn’t mask my disbelief.

  “One of the few perks of my lifestyle.” Jakob said with a smile, rolling over. “I never have to worry about making love to you against cement.”

  “I’m glad. I needed that.” I curled up next to him, my head on his chest. His heart beat strong for my benefit. I wanted to tell him not to waste the energy but didn’t.

  “Another bad day at work?”

  “The worst. Dead bodies, well, parts of dead bodies anyway, and our chief suspect found dead at the end of the day.” I shook my head and cuddled closer to him. He had gone completely still. “It doesn’t make for very good pillow talk.”

  “I asked, my love.” He kissed me. “Parts of dead bodies, does that mean there was a werewolf attack?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I’ve dealt with them before. How many people did they take?”

  “Three, but we barely have enough parts for two of them. This is incredibly gruesome talk before dinner. Are you sure you want to hear more?” I asked.

  “I want to hear everything about your day, gruesome or not.”

  Unfortunately, mists couldn’t carry food, since I wasn’t willing to leave Jakob alone long enough for him to cook; I had to settle for a quick dinner of leftovers. He put it together for me while I told him the whole story, including my own childish behavior.

  He did his best to reassure me that no one had noticed. I loved him for it, even if I didn’t believe him. Afterwards I watched him try to find something suitable for work in the few clothes he had in my closet. He was lucky it was Friday night, otherwise the outfit he put together, khakis and a button down shirt but no tie, would have stood out. As it was, his casual look would make his secretary wonder. I expected to hear about a comment or two when he came home.

  “You know this would be easier if you brought over more clothes. Although that would probably be too sinful for you, wouldn’t it?” I teased.

  “Not nearly as sinful as the complete lack of color in your closet,” he teased back. “When did you decide to wear black all the time?”

  “It’s Anna’s fault. She insisted we throw out everything that didn’t fit. We’re supposed to go shopping this weekend. I hope she realizes I’m a lowly detective, with a lowly detective’s salary.” I frowned. Fashion models might get free clothes, but I doubted their friends got any kind of discount. If I knew Anna, her taste would be expensive, even with my current annual spending on clothes at zero, I didn’t know if I could keep up with her.

  “I’ll have to thank her for getting you to purge.” He reached over on the nightstand for his wallet. “In fact, take her out to lunch for me and use this for anything with color.” He handed me a black credit card that looked like it had a higher credit limit than a small country.

  “I don’t know what to say, except maybe to promise not to buy too much.” I kissed him on the cheek, still fingering the card. A lingering doubt crept into my mind as I looked at the nightstand. “How did your wallet get up here?”

  “I didn’t take it with me,” he said, pulling on his shoes.

  “What kind of errands did you run that didn’t require your wallet?”

  “The kind you don’t want to ask me about, and I don’t want to tell you about.”

  I thought he was teasing me until I looked into his eyes. It didn’t take much to put together the bit of fang I felt kissing him with the ability to turn into a mist and the fast healing. Vampires were always more powerful after they fed.

  “Someday we’ll talk about it, right?” I asked.

  “Someday but not tonight. Tonight I have to listen to the crazy dreams of a werejaguar chocolatier, thanks to my equally crazy lover.”

  I laughed. “If you could taste his food you wouldn’t feel that way.”

  “Nothing will ever taste sweeter than you.” He sealed the promise with a kiss. “Wait up for me. I’ll be home early in case anything drops by.” Anything not anyone, it was the only mention Jakob had made of our ghostly visitor.

  “I’ll be happy to,” I said, kissing him back desperately.

  I slipped into a pair of silk pajamas, a gift from Jakob. While his were always black, the pair I wore was deep green. It brought out the color in my eyes, making them look the way I wished they looked for the first eighteen years of my life. I thought about going through the fashion magazines Anna had left but wasn’t really in the mood. Just when I was completely unsure what to do with myself the phone rang.

  “Mal? It’s Phoebe, I um, I got your message.” Phoebe normally answered the phone with a perky half-Spanish greeting. She was all jokes, all the time.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I thought I was the spirit witch, here?” Her voice stayed a shadow of her normally happy tone.

  “Sorry, it’s obvious, what happened?”

  “You remember the guy? The one that was perfect in every way except he was married?”

  “The one we all told you to stay away from?” I could imagine her nodding into the phone. “Yeah, I remember that one.”

  “Well, I didn’t. I mean, I should have listened to you and everybody else but I didn’t.”

  “And?” I tried to keep my voice level but I was suddenly worried, people who cheat on their wives weren’t known for stability.

  “It ended two days ago. I haven’t been able to face anyone. I screwed up even being with him. I knew no one was going to give me sympathy for getting hurt,” she sniffed.

  “I have complete sympathy for you, as a great woman once said ‘Love makes you do the wacky.’”

  She laughed, one of those half laughs people give when they’re still crying. “Who said that?”

  “Buffy, or maybe Willow, I’m no good at the early episodes.” That made her really laugh. “Now tell me all about the guy.”

  “He was great, he was charming. I met him at work.” Phoebe was a high school guidance counselor. As a former social worker, I had complete sympathy for her. I lived for the day when she realized how truly insane her work was and got out of it.

  “Please tell me he’s not a student.”

  “Do I look that dumb? He was a student’s dad, doing this whole ‘we’re having problems at home I want to check up on junior’ thing. Ugh, I can’t believe I bought that.”

  “Sometimes smart women make dumb choices,” I said sagely.

  She ignored me and went on. “Anyway, he told me his marriage was pretty much over, one date lead to another and, the next thing you know, we’re having the textbook affair, hotel rooms, flowers, candy but don’t call me at home, dear.” She gave a bitter laugh.

  “So what happened, why did he end it?”

  “He didn’t, I did. We were cuddled up in this great suite at the DeVoy hotel,”

  I cut her off. “Not the one on the second floor with the living room in the front, right?”

  “No,” she drew the word out into three syllables, a sign the real Phoebe was coming back. “Third floor studio suite with a sky light, why?”

  “I found a dead body in the one on the second floor a few months ago, it looked like a nice room, but you know bad vibes and all.”

  “Thank you, Mallory, for ruining one of nicest hotels in town for me.”

  “Any time, so you and Mr. Wonderful were all cuddled up and…?”

  “And I read him. It was a stupid thing to do. I asked what he was thinking about, and he said something cute like, wouldn’t you like to guess, so I read him, the way only a spirit witch can.” Her cheerful tone was gone.

  “What was he thinking of?”r />
  “Names for his new son. His wife is pregnant. That’s the real problem at home. I was something to fill the time until his regular playground was open for business again.” She finished bitterly. “Here I am thinking about a future with this guy and how great it’s going to be when he’s free of his wife, and all along he’s wondering if we can keep this side thing going until the baby is old enough for him to get some regularly at home. Prick.”

  “Definitely. So should we get the girls together and drag him down to Convenire for the night? I think Mr. Normal would love the witches’ bar. We could let Anna wrap fire around him, or have Isaura blow him around the dance floor with hurricane winds. I’m sure we it would be a time he’ll never forget.” I wished Phoebe could see my wicked grin.

  “Damn! I wish I had thought of that. All I did was stop taking his calls and send his flowers and candy back to him at home.”

  “Won’t his wife find it there?”

  “Exactly.” Satisfaction filled her voice. “What am I going to do, Mal? I can’t be the life of the party when I feel like hell. Trust me when I say you don’t want to be around a sad spirit witch. We can project, you know.”

  “I’m sure it’s terrible, I mean, really horrible. Especially compared to picking up random body parts left over from werewolf attacks or getting attacked by dead Bokors,” I said dryly.

  “Oh hell, your thing, that’s right. What did you need to know?” she sounded guilty, which was the last thing I had wanted.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I laughed. “Hey, why don’t you come shopping with Anna and me tomorrow? I could use someone to keep my checkbook safe.”

  “If you’re sure…”

  “There are precious few hurts that retail therapy can’t cure. Come shop. If you’re really good I’ll tell you about a new chocolate shop I found.” I smiled thinking of how Phoebe would react to Indigo’s smile.

  I got off the phone with Phoebe and called Anna to warn her there was a third member of the shopping party. It was no surprise that I got her machine. I might be dressed in my pajamas ready to go to bed at 10 o’clock on a Friday night, but Anna had probably left to go out. One of the hardships of the life of a model, I’m sure.

  I spent the next few hours deep in a book Phoebe had recommended months ago. I was sure the heroine was about to find out that the one who really loved her was the one she had hated all along when I heard Jakob’s key turn in the lock. I managed to tear myself away so I could greet him with a kiss. I was rewarded with a small white box tied with a thick purple ribbon.

  “A gift from Indigo, should I be jealous?” Jakob asked as my face lit up at the sight of it.

  “Don’t be silly, I’ll always love you more than chocolate,” I took the top off the box, revealing perfect dark truffles, “except maybe once a month, and we don’t hang out together then anyway.”

  Chapter Ten

  A lonely truffle stared up at me from the box. As a compassionate woman, I considered it my duty to eat it for breakfast. I followed up with a college favorite: sugary cereal straight from the box. By the time my doorbell rang, thoughts of dead voodoo queens and werewolves were miles away. I slipped into my shoes and opened the door.

  “Hey!” Anna sang out. Behind her Phoebe called a somewhat perky “Chica!” I ushered them into the apartment.

  “How are you, Pheebs?” I stepped over to give her a hug.

  “Why is it so incredibly dark in here?” Anna asked.

  “Jakob’s upstairs asleep, so the shutters are down.” I answered grabbing my purse. My daylight shutters went from the floor to the ceiling, blocking out even a hint of sunlight. Totally normal for a vampire safe apartment, but I guess Anna had never noticed them before.

  “Oh,” Anna drew the word out as if she had been presented with dessert. “Is he naked? Can we look?”

  “Stay away from my boyfriend, you lecherous good-for-nothing,” I threatened with mock fury.

  “Careful, Mal, models are known to be grabby,” Phoebe warned.

  I pushed the two of them out the door before things got out of hand.

  Anna drove. Her zippy sports car looked like something a model would drive. It even had vanity plates that read “FIR PRCS.” Fire princess, Phoebe translated for me. They came with the car—a gift from Anna’s dad. I tried to contain my jealousy.

  Phoebe and I giggled at how over-the-top Anna could be as she issued a bank of orders related to the day’s shopping. It was only ten in the morning, but somehow we were already behind. I made the mistake of mentioning that the mall only opened at nine.

  “We’re not going to the mall.” Anna’s tone of voice reminded me of a particularly mean second grade teacher. “Mall stores are for people who want crappy clothes that look like good fashion. Do you want to wear crappy clothes, Mallory?”

  I did my best to channel Emma, and said “No” while shaking my head. Phoebe burst into giggles.

  “I can see you’ve never been shopping with Anna before. I hope you got a good night’s rest. This is going to be an adventure,” she said.

  “An adventure in fashion and fabric!” Anna replied, before starting on a lengthy diatribe about the types of fabric I would need to buy and the pieces I was looking for. She had either planned all of it out or somehow had picked up psychic abilities when neither of us was looking. We headed into a shopping district I hadn’t found in the six months I’d lived in town.

  Women walked up and down the tiny pedestrian-only streets lined with boutiques. They all wore dressy clothes and carried stuffed shopping bags. I’d never shopped somewhere with a dress code before. Luckily Anna had thrown away all of my jeans, still I felt only half dressed in my simple sundress.

  A valet who couldn’t stop looking at Anna’s legs parked the car. In his defense, her high-heeled sandals did make them go on forever. She wore a light blue linen sundress, a tube of fabric with a sash, but she made it look shockingly good. She walked into the first store with the air of a conqueror. It was all Phoebe and I could do to follow her like puppies. Inside a woman almost as tall as Anna, but not nearly as well put together, greeted her warmly.

  “Bridgette, this is Mallory.” Bridgette looked me up and down. Her expression told me I didn’t belong inside the store with its thick carpet and soft lighting. “She needs a whole new wardrobe. Phoebe and I need mimosas.”

  “Of course.” Bridgette actually had a passable French accent. She inspected me again. Phoebe stifled a laugh at my confused expression. “I think, maybe, green to bring out the eyes, otherwise they fade.”

  “She’s a detective, so we need to stay conservative, but not frumpy. She doesn’t make enough of her height,” Anna put in. “Maybe start with Kors and Herrera?” The two women nodded enthusiastically to each other.

  “Yes, yes,” Bridgette pushed me into a back room. “Don’t worry, with the right clothes you will emerge like the beautiful butterfly.”

  I was left standing while Anna and Phoebe settled into comfortable chairs. The giant fitting room held overstuffed chairs, a divider, and far too many mirrors. Bridgette dropped off two mimosas and handed me a pile of clothes. The mimosas looked much more inviting than all the hangers did. I did my best to contain my disappointment.

  “Are we good enough friends that I undress in front of you two?” I asked.

  “I guess we have to be, that divider doesn’t stop the mirror behind you from reflecting everything,” Phoebe laughed. For someone who was broken up about a love affair gone wrong, she was laughing a lot.

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself. I feel like a horse on the auction block.”

  “No, you’re a beautiful butterfly, remember?” Anna teased.

  The only answer was another fit of laughter. Before I had a chance to reply, more clothes began to pour into the room. It seemed like the minute I put something on, it was nixed for some reason: too impractical, not the right cut, too fitted, not flowing, the list was endless. When I tried on a cocoa brown suit, I didn’t care.
Stitched with care in the most wonderful shade of deep rich brown, it made the red in my hair pop out and warmed my skin to a shade I’d never realized it had. The fabric felt so amazing against my skin I squealed.

  “This one. I want this one,” I shouted. Anna and Phoebe looked up from their drinks. I did my best to model the long lean trousers and the jacket.

  “I like it. It works for you.” Anna inspected sleeve length and investigated the tags. Bridgette came back into the room looking smug. “And only $400. Not bad.”

  “$400?” I squeaked.

  “For the jacket, the pants are probably another two. You’ll need a skirt too.” Anna walked around me, appraising my new look, and nodding to Bridgette.

  “$700? That’s more than I paid for my first car!”

  “Your first car was a wreck. This suit is not.” Anna stood behind me and drew her hand along my body. “Look what it does for you, it’s worth it.”

  “Phoebe. A little help here?”

  “You can’t not buy it, Mal.” She shook her head, whether at my stingy nature or the magic the suit worked. I wasn’t sure. I looked at it in the mirror. It would be the most expensive garment I’d ever owned. I hadn’t even paid seven hundred for my wedding dress. I tried to decide if I could afford it. The sensible thing to do would be to put it back, and buy ten or twelve items for the same amount, getting the most out of my annual clothing budget. I sighed at the way the suit looked.

  “Wait! This is brown right? Perfect! Jakob gave me his credit card, but only for things that weren’t black.” I dug around a bit in my purse, delighted at how the fabric in the suit moved with me. “Oh, but wait his name is on it, he should have given me a note or had me sign it or something. Can I even use it?”

  Bridgette’s eye’s narrowed. I was suddenly not a beautiful butterfly. “Oh dear, I’m sure we would love to…” Anna looked over at the card and her eyes got wide. Bridgette followed her glance and stopped mid-sentence. When she spoke again her accent was much worse. “Oh no, there won’t be any problem, absolument, no.”