Kenna's Song by Betsy Dornbusch

The day assaulted me with cold as soon as I stepped outside, and Paul assaulted me with an irritated yell as soon as I stepped in the office. “Nolan! Get in here.”

“Good morning to you, too, Paul.”

He leaned on his fists over his desk top. “You want to tell me what went down with Daniel Rowan?”

“I tried, but you left,” I said, spreading my hands. Paul had a temper, but I wasn’t about to let him push me around. “He shot at me and thankfully Kenna showed up—”

“And she thought it was friggin’ snack time?” Paul ran his fingers through his hair, making it stick up. He looked like a startled comic book character. “You two trying to start a war here?”

“He shot first, and he told me it was under Coven orders.”

Paul sighed, sank down in his seat, and tucked his chin into the neck of his turtleneck sweater.

I crossed to the coffee pot on top of his file cabinet and poured two cups. He took it and held it in both hands as I sat down.

“I don’t like Rowan for Scarlet,” I said. “But I think a vampire killed him, all right.”

“You really think Scarlet was behind the hit on you?”

“I racked my brain trying to come up with what I did to warrant it, but hell, I’ve been gone. Before that, I was putting my hours in with routine surveillance. The Coven’s been on the straight-and-narrow since that thing with the C.U. football team last spring.”

A flicker of impatience crossed Paul’s face. I hurried on. “My theory is that it’s someone from outside Coven House—maybe it’s a bid for a takeover and Scarlet was trying to negotiate somehow by killing me.” It sounded stupid even to me, but Paul bit.

“How about from outside Denver?”

“I haven’t seen any new faces lately.” That didn’t mean much. Vampires are pros at concealing themselves. I took a sip of his bad coffee. It sat on my tongue for a minute before I could convince my throat to swallow.

Paul opened a file on his desk. “Well, I’ve got a theory. I think it’s a Jack Crow.”

I almost sprayed coffee all over his desk.

“Look at the facts,” Paul went on. “Our perp went after the top vampire in Denver. He killed Scarlet viciously. Instant press.”

He had a point. Serial vampire hunters love to show off. But successful Crows are few and far between. Usually the first vampire fights back and wins. If it was a Jack Crow, then he had death wish.

“But if it’s political,” I pointed out, cringing inwardly as I proposed Kenna’s theory, which I’d already ruled out. “Daniel might have lied to protect his dad.” I nudged away the twinge that told me it was a stretch.

Paul rubbed his lips with his finger, thinking. It went unsaid that the two attacks were connected; Paul didn’t like coincidences any better than I did.

“Rowan has practically ignored that kid—he’s the third son,” he said. “Why use him now? No. I really think our Jack Crow manipulated Daniel to come after you, and maybe Daniel took it on as a way to get back at his father. But however it went down, it still means one thing. Someone’s hunting vampires.”

I drank down more coffee, trying to make sense of his reasoning. “But why would a Crow come after me? I’m not a vampire, remember?”

Paul sighed again. I wasn’t catching on quick enough. “Who’s the most powerful vampire in Denver, now that Scarlet’s dead?”

I shrugged. “Rowan.”

“Think, Nolan.”

I sat back and rested my coffee cup on my thigh. “Kenna,” I said. “You think they were trying to get to her through me?” I absorbed that. Though she always tried to do the right thing, Kenna was no angel, and she was ruthless in a fight. Most importantly, the F.V.A. had her back.

The theory was plausible, but my skeptical nature didn’t like it. Manipulation of this quality was too clever for a human—even a Jack Crow. “I don’t know, Paul. If so, he didn’t make a decent choice for a hit-man—Daniel was no match for her.”

“Maybe Daniel was the only vampire stupid enough to try it,” Paul pointed out.

All right, there was a point. A green third-son like Daniel Rowan might think he’d come out of a fight with Kenna still undead. “But why?”

“Glory? Revenge? Bored?” Paul said, opening the file on his desk like he was tired of the conversation. “Or, maybe Daniel acted on orders from his dad.”

I thought we’d ruled Rowan Senior out. Kenna and I certainly had, and I didn’t like Paul pushing an illogical suspect to bolster his own theory about the Jack Crow. He was using the sort of circular reasoning that gets you on the wrong end of a fang.

“I believe Daniel at least thought the orders came from Scarlet.” I shook my head and thought of the mess inside that study. “Why would Danial lie to me when he thought he was going to kill me?”

“When would Scarlet have had time to give the order?” Paul retorted. “Cheng found a clip full of bullets embedded in his torso. Whoever did it pumped him full before he cut him up.”

I shook my head. “Come on. You haven’t gone up against one of these guys.” I wasn’t trying to get a dig in, but just remind him that I knew killing vampires better than anyone in the department. I’d been undercover at Coven House, and I’d seen plenty of duels before they were outlawed. “Lead or no, they don’t just lay there. They don’t lose consciousness, remember? And Scarlet had a cache of weapons stored all over that room.”

Paul wasn’t paying me particular attention because he was staring down at the file. “That sword had virus on it. It’s not a match for Scarlet, but its decay rate is consistent with the time of murder.”

Vampire blood, that meant. Scarlet had fought back. I gestured hard and ignored the coffee I spilled on my pants. “Why didn’t you say that before?”

He looked up at me. His pupils looked like black holes; his cheeks were pale. “I just saw it.”

“I’ll go scout the neighborhood, do the usual rounds, see if anything comes up. You get some rest,” I added, feeling magnanimous since evidence had all but confirmed a vampire had killed Scarlet. “You look like you’re coming down with something.”

The day produced nothing but more frustration. At least things went my way with Rowan’s grub—he confirmed Rowan’s story and made for a believable alibi, being as he was the mayor’s son. That explained Rowan’s coy attitude.

I revisited the crime scene and puttered around Coven House while the vampires slept. Near dusk, I gave it up and went home to collect Kenna. The more I thought it over, the more Paul’s theory didn’t sit right. I could accept the idea of Jack Crow, sure, but not one with two M.O.s. Murdering is like going to mass for serial hunters; they like ritual.

Kenna sat quietly waiting for me, humming her little song. We couldn’t leave yet—the sun was just dipping behind the back range.

“Stop it,” I said. “You’re creeping me out with that.”

“I would never hurt you,” she said.

“I’m kidding, Kenna.” I sat down, a bowl of soup between my knees, and relayed Paul’s theory. “It just doesn’t add up, though. What serial hunter changes his M.O.?”

She was strangely quiet. Usually she liked to pick apart these cases as much as I did. But then, it wasn’t usually a vampire victim. Usually a vampire was the obvious perpetrator.

“This one’s different,” I went on. “It’s personal. I can feel it.”

She slid one leg over the other, her jeans stretched taut across her thigh. The V of her neckline revealed more skin than was professional.

I couldn’t think with her sitting like that. I set the soup bowl aside, leaned back, and closed my tired eyes. “Paul thinks they were coming after you last night, by the way,” I said. “He sounded worried. I think he’s in love with you, and he’d just better get in line because that’s my job.”

“Why would they come after me?”

She could have made a grocery list sound like pillow talk. I rolled my head against the back of the sofa. “Because he thinks you’re the most powerful vampire in Denver now.”

“I am,” she said.

I opened my eyes. She stared back at me, unblinking.

Who stood to gain the most with Scarlet’s death?

Not Rowan.

Shit.

She realized what I was thinking at the same time I did. Vampires aren’t telepathic, but they’re good at detecting subtle body language. No doubt my cheek twitched or my nostrils flared.

“You think I did it,” she said.

I hesitated before nodding. We watched each other warily, trying to wait the other out. She won.

“It hadn’t occurred to me until just now,” I said. “But when Rowan’s son attacked me, you turned up at just the right time. And then you killed him and fed. At the time I kind of wondered about it, but...” She was so sensual when she fed that I’d been distracted.

Rowan should have raised holy hell with the F.V.A. about his son’s murder, but he didn’t because it was Kenna, and she was more powerful than Rowan by a long shot.

“Different M.O.s, you said,” she whispered. “It feels like different killers.”

“Different reasons,” I pointed out. “Killing Scarlet was about revenge.”

We hadn’t even had the right victims. I thought I’d been the target, and then maybe Kenna, but she’d been after Scarlet and Daniel Rowan all along, and through them, firm control of the new lord of the Denver Coven.

She shifted, slightly, but it was enough to provoke me into drawing my pistol. She kept her hands carefully in sight. “I tortured Scarlet until he ordered Daniel to rough you up. He went for it, thinking I’d stop.”

I shook my head, confused. “Why?”

“To protect you. You know Scarlet has been gunning for you since you were made as F.V.A.”

“But why manipulate Daniel?” I asked.

Was she ever beautiful when she smiled. “I couldn’t kill Rowan, too. That’d raise too many questions. I had to get control of Rowan or he’d come after you, too. The attack on you gave me the perfect excuse to kill Daniel. Rowan knows who’s in control now.”

I thought of Rowan’s precise control that night. Message received, loud and clear. “I can’t let this one ride,” I said.

A lock of her hair dipped inside her low neckline as she shook her head. “Go ahead. Take me in. It won’t go anywhere with Paul, not now.”

Paul. He’d looked sick. “You didn’t...”

She nodded. “He wanted it. He asked while you were gone.” My gut gave this sort of sick twist. She read my feelings perfectly and rushed on, “It didn’t mean anything, though. There’s nothing between us.”

“Does he know about any of this?”

“No.”

I believed her, but I had no idea what to say.

“Nolan, let me protect you,” she said. “You’re all I have. I can’t stand the thought of losing you.”

I set the gun down. I wasn’t going to shoot her. “I can’t stand the thought of you locked up.”

“We’ll frame Rowan for killing Scarlet, and I’ll control the Coven. You’ll be safe, and we can be together.”

“You’re asking me to choose between you and my honor as a cop.” In truth, it was bigger. She was asking me to choose between humans and vampires. Don’t think I hadn’t regretted the inoculation, especially when she and I worked a case in perfect tandem, or when she saved my life, or when she slept in my warm bed just to be near me even though we couldn’t touch.

Her voice caught. “You don’t love me.”

“You know I do,” I said. “You know I’ve loved you since we met. We’re lucky just to have...well. Whether or not I’ve got a price on my head doesn’t change anything between us. We’re different species, Kenna, and we always will be.”

My throat closed around the truth. I was mortal. In one or ten or fifty years I’d be dead, and she’d still be in prison for what she’d done. Or, Rowan could be in prison, framed to protect our impossible love. I spoke slowly. “I do love you. But I’m human, and I’m a cop. I can’t condone killing to achieve an end, and I can’t condone convicting an innocent.”

“Kiss me, then,” she said.

I shook my head, unbelieving. “No, Kenna...”

She slipped from the chair and crawled toward my knees. Her hand slid up my leg, deepening my constant ache for her. I tightened and turned my face away from the feel of her touch.

“Kiss me.”

Like a radio in another room, I heard her humming deep in her chest. Her hands slid over my shoulders, pulled me toward her.

My mouth opened to protest, but her lips closed over mine. Her song tickled my mouth sensuously. I dared to pull her tightly against me. God help me, I did love her, and maybe it would somehow be all right...

And then one of her fangs sliced my tongue and I tasted blood.

She arched away from me. For another moment, she was frozen in my arms. She stared into my eyes. I still had hope.

Her guttural, animal cry shattered it. She convulsed against me so violently it threw me back. I caught her before she slid to the floor and held her, crooning, as anaphylactic shock racked her body. It was over in a matter of minutes.

Paul was the first vampire to be a F.V.A. director. We all had to change our hours for departmental meetings, but it worked out. Relations improved dramatically between Coven House and the Denver branch of the F.V.A. Paul and Lord Rowan were never quite friends, but they worked together well.

I never had a photo of Kenna, of course. A year later, her face was fading from my mind. Not the feel of her, never that, but her smile was gone. I went on working, more dead inside than the beings I policed. They treated me with more respect, and Lord Rowan assured me the price on my head was lifted. Maybe it was because I had something in common with them now. Most of them had lost people they loved, too.

Two days ago it was my birthday. I received a package from Coven House. Figuring it was a professional courtesy, I tore off the paper to find an old painting. The glaze was crackled and the gold-leafed frame was chipped and the date read 1889.

It was Kenna, all right, smiling just like she did when she sang her song.


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