Shadows of Old Ghosts Read online

  “I didn’t exactly realize he wasn’t an Ancient until it was too late,” she said in a sour tone.

  “Yeah, I’m sure Mattson really ate up that excuse. Again.”

  She held up her index finger. “Technically, he was fighting back. And technically I didn’t beat the shit out of this one. The pavement did most of the damage.” She twisted her lips. “Except maybe the broken nose.”

  He let out his breath and shook his head. For a long moment the two stared at each other. “So now what? Where are you going?”

  She shook her head. “Over to the general field office. Mattson said I could stay if I took a partner.” She scowled. “Someone to keep me in line, is how he put it.”

  “Who are you being partnered with?”

  “Jirel Turmaine.”

  Jensen’s eyes narrowed and he sat on the edge of her desk. “Jaren Ullemaster’s golden boy.”

  “You’ve never even met the guy.”

  “Yeah, but isn’t it a little weird that he has ties with Ullemaster and is personal friends with Xander and just so happens to get some of the best cases in the area?”

  “Everybody says he’s one of the best. Maybe that’s why he gets some of the best cases.”

  Jensen didn’t appear to be convinced. “Yeah, maybe. Anyway what happened to the partner he had? I thought they were an item.”

  Aviira shrugged. “Hell if I know. I don’t pay attention to shit like that.”

  He fixed her with a strange stare.

  “I can take care of myself, Jensen,” she said softly. Her eyes flickered up to the door behind him to make sure nobody was in the hall. The rumors were bad enough as it was. “Besides, it’s not like I’m going to a different branch or something. I’ll still be around.”

  He nodded, but there was sadness in the motion. He reached over and ran a finger lightly across the back of her hand, over the scar that wound its way over the skin. “Well. Try not to forget about the little people down here in special investigations.”

  “It’s not like I’m asking to leave,” she whispered. She pulled her hand free of his and put it on top of her box of files. “I think this is bullshit...but it’s better than handing in my badge. Mattson made me a deal so that I could stay with the Society. I have to make this work no matter what, Jensen. I can’t get fired.”

  He didn’t respond, so she slapped his arm with the back of her hand. “Hey. Don’t be so dramatic. I’m going to be on the other side of the building. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Yeah.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Well. You call me when you’re done being a puss. We’ll hang out.” She picked up her box of case files.

  “Just be careful with him,” Jensen said. “I’ve heard some weird rumors.”

  “Thank you,” she said as she crossed the room. “I can take care of myself. Besides, look at what happened to the last guy who put his hands on me.”

  Jensen crossed his arms over his chest and gave her a grim smile. “Yeah. That’s what I’m worried about.”

  ***

  The headquarters of the Society for the Protection and Safety of Ancients was a long, confusing underground building that sat tucked away underneath the public offices of the Pro-Ancient Alliance. The offices of the Society were the lifeblood of the security of Ancients throughout the world, effectively protecting and serving the several million people with the Blood of the Old—the bloodlines that pre-dated modern man by several millennia and were the basis of every fairy tale and myth to ever be known to mankind.

  Since the time of the Salem witch trials, every major city around the world had its own Society office, and each one broke down into numerous subdivisions ranging from protecting Ancient children to civil rights management to keeping the identities of several of the more unsavory races from being known to the general human public. Crimes committed against and by Ancients fell under Society jurisdiction with cooperation from the local police when human victims or perpetrators were involved. All of the branches answered to Jaren Ullemaster, the head of the Society, who oversaw the comings and goings of the international organization from within the United Nations.

  The reason the Society and the Alliance were in operation was because the existence of Ancients was at one time linked to witches, and from it came the implication that all Ancients were dangerous, capable of dark magic, or monsters with nothing better to do than steal children from their beds at night. It took nearly four hundred years of persecution and fear-mongering for the human community to come to terms with the fact that Ancients not only existed but were generally no more dangerous than they were. These days, most people work, live, ride the bus, go to the gym beside Ancients and generally have no idea.

  This was all not to say that there weren’t dangerous Ancients out there. There were plenty of bloodlines that had the designation of “undesirable” and the Society kept a close eye on them. And, just like the human population, there were plenty of Ancients who had nothing better to do than commit crimes or cause havoc. The Society’s job was to reel them in and punish them accordingly, without the intervention of the police, who had long had a certain way of abusing the privilege when it came to Ancients and their protection. The police dealt with their people and the Society dealt with theirs, and for the most part, life went on about as smoothly as could be expected.

  The Society office in Denver was the largest branch between Chicago and Vegas and it had several subdivisions, but rumors still bounced easily from office to office. Field agents rarely crossed paths with agents from other offices and each office tended to create its own clique, which only fed the rumor mill.

  As Aviira walked into the general field agency office with her box of case files from special investigations, she did not miss the curious looks that swiveled in her direction. She knew all about the rumors that floated around about her, all the names people had come up with for her. “That crazy redhead from special investigations” seemed to be the most popular one. It wouldn’t have surprised her to find out more people knew her by that style than her actual name.

  Maybe she was a little crazy. But she was also the only agent anywhere in the last fifteen years to infiltrate an underground ring of anti-Ancient cultists known as Hunters, and that pulled a lot of weight. She’d managed to send a very important Hunter named Brendan Byrne to prison for life after spending eighteen months undercover with him and his fundamentalist crew. It was potentially one of the only reasons she’d been saved from having her badge taken away completely after her most recent screw ups on assignment. It made her feel a little better about the whole thing, since she’d nearly had her throat cut in the coup on Brendan, and it all would have been a waste if she’d been fired.

  As she crossed the floor in the direction of Xander’s office, she caught a glimpse of her new partner, Jirel, from across the room. He was chatting with a few other agents and looking impossibly well put-together. She had only met him in passing but the rumors about him filled in the rest of her schema. He was half-elf, the son of the last living full-blooded elf, at least as far as the Alliance was aware. Some people said he was secretive and moody, and others said he was flirtatious and charming, but everyone admitted he was one of the best in the business, no small feat considering he couldn’t be more than thirty years old. Still, the fact that he had connections with Jaren Ullemaster had always made Aviira dismissive of that fact. He was good-looking, even she had to admit that, with that thick chestnut-brown hair that he wore long and trimmed goatee and cheekbones that could cut glass. Aviira had long suspected that was part of what made Jensen distrustful even though he’d legitimately never met the man.

  Xander’s office door was cracked open, so she knocked with the backs of her fingers.

  “Come in.”

  She pushed the door open. Xander, too, was someone she had never actually been introduced to, though she would recognize him in a crowd. The rumors she’d heard about him, on the other hand, had never been anything but positive. Xand
er was optimistic, cheerful, and dedicated, not to mention a complete workaholic, or so she’d heard at least. He looked up at her and smiled. He was also a good-looking guy with ashy blonde hair and watery blue eyes, but was obviously trying to pretend he was younger than he was; she pegged him as somewhere in his early thirties but his hair was shaved on both sides of his head and slicked back like a modified Mohawk.

  “Aviira?”

  “Yeah.”

  He stood up. “Come on in.” Aviira set her box on a chair near the door and crossed the room to him. She shook his hand curtly. “Welcome to field ops. Have a seat.”

  Aviira sat down on the other side of his desk. As Xander sat down again she caught the flash of a wedding band on his hand, but with a cursory glance around his desk there were no pictures that indicated he was happy to broadcast this fact. Mattson’s desk was covered in photos of his wife and children. The only picture on Xander’s desk was of a brown and white dog with enormous ears. It was taped to his monitor.

  Xander picked up his phone and dialed. After a second’s pause he said, “Hey. Come on down.” When he hung up, he smiled at Aviira. “Have you and Jirel met?”

  “Only in passing.”

  A moment later, he was gliding into the room—quite literally. Aviira had to glance at his feet to check that he was actually picking them up as he walked. He shot her a smile and extended a hand. “Hi. I’m Jirel.”

  He had a strong accent that sounded like the language of origin landed him somewhere in eastern Europe, which conflicted with his dark hair and tan skin tone. It was almost difficult to understand him at first. She shook his hand. “Aviira.”

  “Very nice to meet you, Aviira.” The way her own name slid off his lips in between that accent made her feel like she had never heard it spoken the way it was supposed to be spoken. It put a shiver of—what? Something—at the base of her neck. He gave her a look of scrutiny. “Do we live in the same apartment building? You look familiar.”

  She raised her eyebrows. She never quite liked to be reminded that she stood out in a crowd, though she imagined with her mane of copper-red hair and unusually bright blue eyes it was probably hard not to. The scar that sat right in the crease between her lips made her sure she’d never make it out of a police lineup. “Maybe. Where do you live?”

  “The building near the corner of Bannock and Speer.”

  A small smile fought its way to her face. All of downtown and suburban Denver to pick from and she lived in the exact same building as her new partner. Great. “I guess we do then.”

  He gave her a disarming smile. “Convenient, then.”

  She wasn’t so sure.

  “Have a seat, Jirel,” Xander said quietly. “There’s a few things we need to discuss.”

  He took the chair next to Aviira. She crossed one leg over the other and folded her arms across her chest, gave him another once-over. He was wearing jeans into which a black polo shirt was tucked. She considered for a moment that he was looking a mite more professional than she was in her black skinny jeans with a rip in one knee, long-sleeved button up with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and Converse sneakers. She rationalized that she’d walked into the office that morning still half-expecting to be fired.

  Xander cleared his throat. “Obviously there’s a big elephant in the room, and that’s the fact that both of you are being put together because you’re each one red flag away from handing in your badges.”

  News to me, Aviira thought. What could Ullemaster’s charming golden boy have done that was that serious? And how had she not heard about it by now?

  Jirel cleared his throat and similarly crossed his arms. As he did, Aviira caught a glimpse of some of the brightest, most prominent white veins she had ever seen in her life coursing up the insides of his arms, streaking upwards and disappearing into his shirt sleeve. All Ancients had them—they were the one physical marker that set them apart from humans no matter what their other characteristics might be—but she had never seen anyone with veins like his. Usually the prominence of veins had to do with the strength of the bloodline. Older, more diluted lines were harder to detect—hers, a bloodline that predated modern man by a millennia, made her veins almost invisible to the untrained eye. It was one of the reasons she’d gotten away with being undercover with a bunch of anti-Ancient humans for so long.

  “I know you both know how serious this is, so I won’t harp on it too much. I’ve worked with Jirel for a long time and I don’t want to see him go, and from the way Mattson talked about you it sounded like you have a lot of potential too, so I’m not going to beat around the bush when I tell you I’d like it if you both tried to not fuck this up. You have to stay focused, work together, and get back on track. You both could have easily been discharged by now but you’re getting a second chance so I need you to take it seriously.”

  Aviira steepled her fingertips together. “I guess I didn’t realize the whole babysitting thing was a two way street,” she said quietly, glancing at her new partner for a second.

  Jirel didn’t look at her, only made a quiet sound that was somewhere between amusement and disgust.

  Xander sent him a discreet look. “Yeah, well, you two can discuss that on your own time. From here on out I need clean records. From both of you.”

  Aviira exchanged a glance with him, unsure what to say. Thankfully, he broke the silence first.

  “Drinks?”

  She nodded. She was going to need one.

  ***

  “So what’s the scoop on Xander?” Aviira asked. “He doesn’t seem too happy with you right now.”

  Jirel took a drink of his beer. After Aviira had located an empty office to stash her case files, she had spent the afternoon getting a new security badge and transferring all her information to field ops. They had met up at a bar close to their apartment building. The bar was practically empty for being eight o’clock on a Monday night.

  “He just wanted to make it seem to you like he wasn’t playing favorites or something. Rumors are bad enough.”

  Aviira ran a finger along the rim of her glass of whiskey. “That what, you’re his favorite?”

  “He’s ready to fire me, so obviously that can’t be true.”

  “So where does that rumor come from then?”

  “We were college roommates. We’ve been in the Society together since the beginning, except that he went into Informing and I went into the detective field. He got the post out here and offered me a spot on his team. Packed up my life in New York and came out here.”

  “New York? With that accent?”

  A little laugh escaped him. It was a pretty sound, musical. She found herself disliking the fact that she liked it so much. “I spoke my mother’s language until I was a teenager.” He paused. “Elven, in case you were wondering.”

  “Yeah, I knew that,” she said. “Rumor gets around. So—back to Xander. Is it just me or does he not seem to be the kind who settles down and gets married? Just an observation.”

  “A very good one,” Jirel said. “I’m curious how you could tell. You sat in his office today for twenty minutes.”

  She shrugged. “Most married folk I know have pictures of their spouses on their desks. The only thing in his office was a picture of a dog.”

  Jirel smirked and leaned back in his chair. He twirled a thick silver ring around the ring finger of his right hand. “He does love that dog,” he said. “Xander has been almost criminally successful since we left school. Made his way to branch Informant like he wrote the regulations, owns a house and a brand new car and only turned thirty a few months ago. He’s confident and good looking, he could get any woman in the world and he settles for Carissa.” He shook his head a little.

  “Sounds like you’re not crazy about her either, as Xander’s friend.”

  “She’s a human, which is fine, I am far from a bloodline purist, obviously, but it was out of character for Xander. That aside, she’s generally one of the most unpleasant women I’ve ever met i
n my life. Xander wanted some picture perfect life and he did whatever he could to get it, but if I’m being honest with you I doubt it will last.” He paused and then quickly added, “Solely between the two of us, of course.”

  Aviira smirked into her whiskey. For some reason the motion intrigued Jirel—that little scar in the corner of her lips made her smile look even more crooked. It was attractive, in some strange way that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Now that he was observing her up close, he could see that she was covered in scars. Most prominent were several thin lines that crisscrossed over the backs of her right hand and continued into the webbing of her palm, like she’d cut herself holding a piece of glass. The one in between her lips had the same shape as the others. He was tempted to ask.

  She caught him looking and folded her hands together in a motion that spoke self-consciousness. He looked away.

  “So I have to ask, since it’s obviously the reason we’re here, what you did to fuck up so bad you’re so close to being fired,” Aviira said. “I’m sure you know all about me so that part should come as no surprise, but the only thing I’ve ever heard about you is you’re Ullemaster’s prodigy or something. Aside from being Xander’s favorite, of course.” She smirked.

  He gave her a strange look. “I don’t know anything about you,” he said. “I try to keep out of the office rumor mill.”

  She scoffed. “Yeah, but everybody’s heard about the crazy redhead from special investigations.”

  “Fine, I’ve heard about you,” he conceded. “I’ve heard you’re very good at what you do. I heard you infiltrated a Hunter cell a few years ago. So to hear you’re also close to being fired is something of a surprise to me.”