Unbound

Both men hesitated, but Daniel finally muttered something under his breath before walking out of the room, his hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers. Archibald said nothing as he waddled over to the desk and pulled out the necessary forms. His white lab coat fluttered behind him, nearly dragging the ground. He marked X’s where he needed me to fill out information and sign. Spreading the paperwork out on the desk, he left Knox and me to the corpse.

Now that we were alone, I pulled off the blue-tinted sunglasses I had been wearing and hooked them over the top button of my shirt. “That could have gone better.” I wanted to snarl in frustration.

Knox paced away from the corpse, his arms crossed over his chest. “They’re unnerved by what we are. It can’t be helped.”

“Bullshit. They were unnerved by your behavior. I’ve seen you easily sway anything with nice breasts and a tight ass. What happened here?”

“Maybe it’s because those men lacked the aforementioned items,” he commented dryly, making me want to throw something at his head.

“Well, you better learn to widen your scope because they’re not going anywhere and we need their assistance. You need them and they’ll be far more helpful if they’re not worried about you grabbing a snack.”

“If you want, I can go tweak their memories,” he offered.

I waved my hand at him, stopping any movement toward the door. “No, don’t go messing with their memories. You need their trust and you don’t get that if you’re mucking around in their brains.”

“They’ll never know.”

“I’ll know.”

Knox nodded, removing his dark sunglasses so that I could look into his brown eyes. “I’ll do better next time.”

“Thank you,” I murmured as I stepped up to the body. It was highly unusual for Knox to be so gruff and harsh when dealing with humans. His nature was very ingratiating, and his dark, handsome looks tended to win over the reluctant. His maker had the same manner. Because of his uncharacteristic behavior, I was beginning to worry that Knox had been well-acquainted with the victim.

Looking down at the steel tray, my eyes skimmed over the badly burned face. The skin was blackened and the eyes were now gone as if they had melted in their sockets, sending the fluid down in to the back of the skull. It looked like he might have had short-cut, brown hair. But the condition of the head wasn’t the disturbing part. It was the fact that it was no longer attached to the body.

It was likely that that was the killing blow, but the murderer could have removed his heart first and then his head. The nightwalker’s chest cavity had been ripped open and the heart cut out using some kind of serrated blade that had torn the edges of the flesh into ugly shreds. At least it was likely that the victim had felt no pain. It appeared that it all happened during the daylight hours, meaning that the vampire had been dead to the world.

“I’m assuming that you recognize who this is,” I said, my own mood growing more sour and anxious as I continued to examine the corpse. I vaguely knew all the nightwalkers within my domain. There were more here than in most cities this size, but then I maintained a tight control over my domain. It afforded those that lived here more of a sense of security and peace than what many cities could offer.

However, during the past few years, I had begun to withdraw from my own kind, no longer wanting to be faced with them. I didn’t want to hear their thoughts in the night, or feel their cool presence as I moved silently through the city searching for my next meal. Knox had taken over much of the night-to-night management. Of course, that simply required him making regular appearances at all the nightwalker hot spots.

“His name was Bryce.” Knox leaned his back against the refrigeration unit, his arms crossed over his chest. His shoulders were stiff and his normally neutral expression was twisted into a frown.

With my hands braced on the table before me, I looked up at my companion. “What’s your problem? Did you know him well?”

A faint shrug briefly lifted his narrow shoulders. “I knew him, but not well.”

“Then what has got you so on edge?”

“He was executed,” he hissed, waving one hand at the severed head. “His head was cut off and his heart removed. He was executed during the day when he was defenseless. How are you not unnerved by this?”

“He was possibly killed during the day,” I corrected, trying to keep both of us calm and rational. “We won’t know for sure until we check his house.” The truth was that I was unnerved and more than a little concerned. If Bryce had been killed at night, it was highly likely that the murderer was another nightwalker. And then my only reason for tracking down the murderer would be punishment for allowing the humans to catch wind of it and threatening our secret. However, if Bryce had been killed during the day, we had a bigger problem. But we had to tackle one thing at a time, and a panicked Knox would do me no good.