Tooth and Claw (The Harry Russo Diaries Book 2) Read online

  Isaac reached over and grabbed the small, wide-mouthed thermos he had brought with him. He unscrewed the lid and held the bottle out to me. “Tell me what this smells like to you.”

  I wrinkled my nose in anticipation, but took the bottle anyway. There was a thick, dark liquid inside. I took a sniff and instantly regretted it. “Ewww, yuck. Is that blood?” I made a face and handed the bottle back to Isaac. “It smells awful, like rotten pennies.”

  “And yet you said it appealed to you the night of the ritual,” he replied, setting the bottle down on the table.

  “It was different then. I was scared and hungry and getting high on all the magical energy in the air.”

  “Hmmm, yes, it was different.” Isaac looked at me pensively.

  The next thing I knew, he had lunged across the space between us and had me by the throat. In a blink of an eye, he dragged me to the edge, bending me over the small half-wall that surrounded the roof.

  “Holy shit, Ithaac! Are you nutth? Put me down.” I put my hand to my mouth in surprise. “Hey, my fangth!”

  “Interesting,” Isaac replied as he set me back down on my feet. He strode across the roof and grabbed the thermos, bringing it back and holding it under my nose. “Now how does this smell?”

  “Yuck,” I said. “It thmellth exthactly the thame.”

  “Interesting,” he said again, taking a long drink from the thermos. He smacked his lips with a smile and shrugged. “At least we know your fangs will appear when you feel in mortal danger. Now you just have to work on controlling them. Try retracting them. No…wait. Maybe you should practice speaking with them first so you don’t sound like a third grader with a lisp.”

  “Ha, ha, very funny Ithaac. I mean, Isaac.” Hey, you try talking properly with four brand new fangs in your mouth. “Okay, letth…let’s talk about this great idea I had for a coffee shop.”

  Chapter Three

  I love churches. There is something almost magical about them. I don’t mean my kind of magic, I just mean something that makes them feel special. Maybe it’s the calm and hushed voices, the reverence they make you feel. Whatever the case, St. Anthony’s, with its gleaming stain glass windows, was one of my favourite churches in the city.

  I was here for a funeral. Well, I wasn’t actually here to attend the funeral; I was working. Often, we get an order to provide flowers for a funeral service that the family would then like transported to the site of internment. It meant I had to hang around until the end of the service and grab the flowers, then drive them to the cemetery. We had been so busy lately, I had actually hired a delivery guy, but he was out making deliveries across town, so I was working this one.

  Mourners were slowly beginning to trickle in and find seats. I was standing to the side in one of the small chapels off the main nave, trying to be discreet and watching the ghost of the recently departed pace back and forth in front of his own coffin. At least it wasn’t an open coffin. I really don’t get that. Why would you want to stare at a dead guy? Did you need proof he was dead or something?

  The dead guy - his name was Charles Mathers - was muttering to himself. I was really hoping he didn’t notice me. I decided my best bet would be to sneak back out and wait in the narthex, the waiting area at the front of the church. I had just turned to make my escape when a familiar form stepped into the church nave.

  Great, just what I needed. What was he doing here? I swear it seemed like Nash was following me half the time. Now I was stuck between having to deal with the dead guy or the surly, confusing hot guy. Naturally, I chose the dead guy and stayed where I was.

  Unfortunately, Nash must have seen me duck back into the chapel because he started to walk down the aisle heading straight for me.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked in his usual gruff manner. Nash never seemed to feel the need to adhere to the social niceties, at least with me.

  “And a good afternoon to you too, Nash,” I replied. See? I could be polite.

  Nash grunted and just stood looking at me with his hands on his hips. He was dressed in a dark blue suit and tie, and looked extremely sexy even with the annoyed look on his face. I fidgeted under his gaze, tugging down on the bottom of my blouse to adjust it. I was dressed conservatively in my ‘funeral suit’. It wasn’t really a suit but rather a slim fitting, just above the knee, black skirt with a matching black peplum hemmed top. The blouse had three-quarter length sleeves and a rectangular lace panel at the neckline. I thought it made me look respectful yet business-like, since I was working. Gran had once said it made me look like a secretary.

  Nash grunted and just continued to stare at me, expecting an answer.

  I rolled my eyes and replied, “I’m working. Flowers, a funeral…get the connection?” I crossed my arms in front of my chest defensively. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m on the job.” Nash gave me another once over, his expression softening. “You look nice. Very professional.” He took a step closer, leaning towards me.

  I frowned at him. “Don’t even think about it, mister. Tell your wolf to quit sniffing me.” Nash had a weird habit of always sniffing at me. He said it was his wolf, like they were two different entities or something. I really didn’t know how the whole werewolf thing worked, maybe they were. I’d have to ask Tess. Up until recently, she hadn’t been allowed to share her wolfy side with me, but now that I was ‘out’ to the werewolf community maybe things were different.

  Nash took a step back and scowled again, but this time I think it was more at himself than me. He had made it quite clear that although his wolf seemed to like me, Nash the man, just found me annoying. Sometimes the inner wolf must have won though, because we had shared some smoldering kisses. I self-consciously licked my lips, biting the corner of my mouth at the thought. Nash was a very good kisser.

  After an awkward moment, I suddenly registered what Nash had said. He was on the job? “Was Charles Mathers a homicide victim?”

  “That’s police business,” came the curt reply.

  “If it was police business, why did you bring it up in the first place?” I looked over to where Charles’s ghost was still pacing.

  “I…well…I figured that if you were here that maybe so was his ghost,” Nash shrugged. Nash had found out that I was a ghost magnet a few weeks ago and knew I had the ability to speak to them.

  “As a matter of fact, his ghost is here. He seems rather agitated, but I don’t think he has much interest in talking to me.” So far all Charles’s ghost had done was pace back and forth in front of his coffin and stop and stare at a young Asian woman sitting in the second row of pews. The woman was visibly upset, alternating between sobbing into a tissue and leaning her head against a female friend’s shoulder. “Did you talk to his girlfriend,” I asked pointing to the young woman.

  “How do you know she’s his girlfriend?”

  “Well, look at her.” I gestured to the sobbing woman. “And besides, Charles can’t stop staring at her.”

  “We did. But she wasn’t any help.” Nash looked frustrated. He also looked like he was biting his tongue trying not to ask what I knew he really wanted to ask.

  I huffed out a breath. “Do you want me to try and talk to him?” I asked Nash, putting him out of his misery.

  “Can you?” Nash looked relieved.

  “I can try.”

  There were a few more minutes until the service began. I walked over to the front of the church to where I had placed two large funeral arrangements on either side of the casket, making a show of straightening them, hoping to get Charles’s attention. He was oblivious to me though. He was almost what I would call a ‘repeater’, a ghost that repeats the same action over and over, unable to interact or do anything else. He seemed to have just enough awareness that the young Asian woman’s distress was bothering him. He paced back and forth muttering the same thing over and ov
er, occasionally stopping to stare at her.

  I hurried back to the chapel, the service was about to start and I wouldn’t be getting anything else from Charles. Nash grabbed my arm. “So, did you get anything? Is he here?” He looked around the chapel.

  “No. He’s still over there by the casket. I didn’t get much.”

  “Can’t you talk to him?”

  “No, he’s stuck in a loop. I wasn’t able to talk to him, but I did hear something.” Just then the congregation rose and the priest entered the nave from a door on the other side of the aisle. The family of the deceased followed him.

  Nash pulled me back further into the chapel, pressing me up against the back wall. “What do you mean? What did he say?” he whispered.

  I took a deep breath, enjoying Nash’s freshly showered scent. His body was pressed up close to mine, making my face flush with heat. I swallowed, the words seemingly stuck in my throat and I inwardly berated my traitorous body for being so attracted to Nash, the most aggravating man on the planet. “There’s not really enough of him there to be fully sentient. It’s like there’s just a shadow of him there. It’s hard to explain.” I licked my lips self-consciously again. Why did Nash have to stand so damn close?

  Nash took a deep breath and I watched as the pupils in his vibrant green eyes dilated. He touched my cheek with his hand, his thumb rubbing my bottom lip and I resisted the urge to nip it with my teeth. I turned my head away from his hand and shifted my feet uncomfortably. Nash took a quick step back, a look of surprise on his face. “Well, what did you get then?” he asked gruffly.

  “Charles just kept repeating that he shouldn’t have taken the test, but he needed the money for a ring. Then he said he didn’t know the trial was a sham.” I shrugged. It seemed like all gibberish to me. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  “No,” Nash frowned, “at least not yet.” He ran a hand through his hair, something he always did when he was thinking or frustrated. “Do you think you might be able to try again after the service?”

  “It depends. Probably not.” It wasn’t that I wasn’t willing to try, but from experience, I found that ghosts usually didn’t stick around after a funeral. Even if I didn’t go for the whole organized religion thing, I had respect for the rituals. Father Mike, the priest here at St. Anthony’s, was one of the better ones and whether it was the power of prayer or maybe he had a bit of the gift himself, his service usually banished the lingering spirits before I needed to. “I doubt if Charles will still be around after the service.”

  After that, there wasn’t much left to do but wait for the funeral to end so that I could do my job and move the flowers to the cemetery. Since the funeral had already started, Nash was trapped with me, so we waited in uncomfortable silence until the end of the service.

  As the mourners began to file out following the casket and the immediate family, I made my way to the altar area to grab the first urn of flowers. I’d have to hustle to get them out to my truck and over to the cemetery before the rest of the service began there.

  Nash dogged my heels. “So, is he still here?” He looked around self-consciously.

  “No, he’s gone.” I picked up the first floral arrangement and shoved it at Nash. “Will you give me a hand and help get these out to my truck?” I grabbed the other arrangement and headed towards the side door that led out to the parking lot, not waiting for an answer.

  I loaded the first arrangement into the bed of the truck, securing it in the holder I had there for that purpose. I turned to find Nash staring at my truck, a look of shock on his face. No surprise there. The last time Nash had seen my truck it was a brand new, fully loaded F-150, complete with a great, big bow on the hood. It had been a ‘small token’ of Salvador’s appreciation. I was uncomfortable accepting gifts from the most powerful vampire in the city, not to mention the truck was way more than I needed, so I had sold it and used the money to buy a sturdy but used Toyoto Tacoma. It met my needs, not to mention the fact that it didn’t cost the same as a small house, and I had taken the difference and donated it to a local homeless shelter.

  “What happened to the Ford?” Nash asked.

  “I didn’t need it.” I shrugged.

  “You gave it back to Salvador?” Nash looked surprised.

  “He wouldn’t take it back so I sold it.”

  Nash stared at me incredulously.

  “Look,” I continued, “it was too much. Do you know how much that truck was worth? Fifty thousand dollars! That’s just crazy.” I grabbed the flowers, forgotten in Nash’s arms, and put them in the back of the truck.

  “You’re the anonymous donor at the homeless shelter, aren’t you?” Nash asked as the situation became clear to him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied. It kind of defeated the purpose of being anonymous if you went around telling everyone about it. “Listen, thanks for your help. I have to get going.” I turned and hurried towards the cab of the truck. “Good luck with your investigation. I hope you find out what happened to Charles.” I waved and jumped in the truck not waiting for a reply.

  Chapter Four

  “You’re crossing your eyes,” Gran’s voice broke my concentration and the pencil dropped to the counter top.

  “I was not.” I scowled at her and grabbed the pencil before it could roll off the counter to the floor. “This is hard you know.” I was practicing my telekinesis, another one of the little ‘gifts’ I suddenly had access too. “At least you would know if you ever bothered to visit anymore.”

  Gran was a ghost. She had passed away over seven years ago and well, just never really left. Even after her death, she had continued to be an important person in my life, but lately she had made herself scarce, ever since Isaac had moved in.

  This was the first time I had seen her in over a week. She had made her opinion on having a vampire in the house loud and clear, at least to me anyway, since I was the only one that could hear her. We ended up having a bit of a dust up over the whole thing, that and the fact that I was still in a bit of a snit that she withheld important information about my heritage from me. For a while there, I thought that maybe Gran had left for good. I don’t know where she goes when she’s not here, she’s never said and I’ve never asked. I don’t think she even knows and if she did, I wasn’t sure that was information I was prepared to process.

  “Well try again then,” she said. “It’s not going to get any easier if you don’t practice.”

  I rolled my eyes at that bit of wisdom – thanks, Captain Obvious - and set the pencil on the counter top. I took a cleansing breath and focused on it, trying not to squint. “Agitare,” I whispered. The pencil trembled then slowly started to float into the air.

  “Move?” Gran’s tone was incredulous. “You told the pencil to move?”

  “What? It helps me focus.” The pencil dipped lower and then straightened back up.

  “It’s a crutch. You shouldn’t need to use a focus word. You should be able to just look at an object and it will move the way you want.”

  Easier said than done. Tomas, a fellow dhamphir and overall scary individual, could make an object move so fast from one place to another, it was like it had disappeared and then reappeared in the blink of an eye. While I was able to move and even cause objects to float, it took massive concentration on my part just to make it look like a bad B-movie special effect. You know, the kind where the little spaceship is flying, jerking up and down on the screen, and you can just make out the wires holding it up. I concentrated harder on the pencil, bringing it to a landing in the coffee mug I had placed across the kitchen. There were several pens and pencils already there, evidence of my earlier successes.

  “Good job, Harry. Now bring it back,” Isaac said as he walked around the corner and into the kitchen. With a little huff, Gran disappeared.

  I looked at Isaac critical
ly. He was dressed in black jeans and a charcoal, long-sleeved shirt. No suit, no tie. Not bad. Tess and I had been working on him to try and take his usually formal dress code down a notch. Last week he had even trimmed his shoulder-length hair, to a more modern men’s style. It had amped up his sexy factor three-fold. “Looking pretty good there Isaac,” I said.

  Isaac’s hands flew up to the tie that wasn’t there at his neck and I tried to hide my smile behind my hand. He shrugged, brushing imaginary lint off his shirt instead. “I feel under-dressed.” He frowned.

  “You look great. Trust me.” I turned my attention back to the mug. The pencil in question rattled back and forth against the other pens and pencils, but remained where it was. I huffed out an exasperated breath. “Tomas made it look so easy.”

  Isaac laughed. “Tomas has had over a century to practice.”

  “A century! How old is he?” Tomas looked to be about twenty-five, if that.

  “Tomas has been with Salvador for over two-hundred years. In fact, he was around your age now when first I met him.”

  I sat there trying to process the information. “So I won’t age anymore?” Was I going to be stuck at twenty-three forever?

  “No, you will still age, but much more slowly, more in par with how a werewolf ages in fact.” Cool, so Tess and I would age the same. I could live with that. “You won’t stop aging, no matter how slowly, until your first death,” Isaac continued. “Once you are a full vampire, you will no longer age.”

  I squirmed at the words ‘first death’. They ranked right up there with ‘feeding’ in terms of words that made me uncomfortable. There were some things about my true nature which I wished I could have remained blissfully ignorant.

  I turned back to try the pencil again, but the door opened with a bang and Tess rushed in, all in a fluster. “Sorry, sorry. I’m late.” She threw her bag down on the couch. “Matt was supposed to start at six and he never showed up, so I had to take his beginner Tai Chi class.” She kicked off her shoes and threw them under the bench by the door. “I just need to jump in the shower and then I’ll be ready to go.” I had let her talk me into going to the Lodge tonight, although I was having second thoughts. She stopped short and looked at Isaac. “Isaac, looking good, looking good, my man.” She turned to look at me. “Is that what you’re wearing?” She wrinkled up her nose.