Claimed by the Immortal

wood sprite anymore.”

Damien’s tone changed subtly, seeming to charge the air a little. “Then people don’t know what real power is.”

The man froze again, then closed his cash register. “Maybe so. The less I know, the better.”

The man wrapped the books in brown paper and tied the parcel with a string. Caro was charmed for a moment because it seemed so old-fashioned.

Then she and Damien were on the icy street again, listening to the door lock behind them.

“What do you think?” Caro asked him.

“Later. Let’s get away from here as soon as we can.”

They walked down a dark alley, then he put her on his back again and the night sped by too fast to see.

Chapter 6

Garner was at the office when they returned, and he made no secret of his impatience to talk with Jude.

“Where is he? He sends me out to do things, and now he’s not even answering his phone? What’s the point of always being in touch, like he demands?” Garner waved a phone. “Radio phones in case someone gets in trouble. His idea. And then he doesn’t answer?”

Damien stilled. “He didn’t say where he was going. Did he tell you?”

“Of course not! He never lets me know anything. I feel like a dog. Go here, Garner, go there, Garner. Cripes.”

Damien ignored the complaints. “What has you so worked up?”

“There’s been another murder!”

Now it was Caro who froze. “Who? How?”

Garner, clearly glad to at last have someone to listen, leaned forward. “That guy whose entire family was killed last week? The one you came here about? His brother-in-law bit the dust. But that’s not what’s so interesting. What’s interesting is that he lived alone, that he was inside a locked condo and that there’s a lot of street talk about how it could have happened. Where the hell is Jude?”

“Wait,” Caro said. “Did he have any relationship with the Pritchetts other than the marriage?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that the only reason they found him was because some friends started to get worried when he disappeared for three days and didn’t return calls. That’s why I need Jude!”

“Relax,” Damien said quietly. “Jude can’t answer his phone if he’s traveling fast.”

“It’s been a half hour. He can cross this entire city faster than that. It’s irrelevant anyway. I don’t see his car out there.”

Damien exchanged looks with Caro. “He did drive.”

“Yes.” Tension was winding her tighter than a spring, the kind of tension she felt when walking into a potentially deadly situation.

“Can you find out anything on the computer?” Damien asked her.

“I’d need a case number.”

“No way to get it?”

She jammed her hand into her jeans and pulled out her cell. She dialed a familiar number and heard a familiar voice. “Pat? I need some help. I hear Andrew Pritchett’s brother-in-law was found dead.”

Pat asked her to hold a minute, and shortly thereafter Caro could tell from the change in sounds that Pat had moved to a bathroom. When she hung up, she was able to answer Damien’s question.

“They don’t know if the death is associated. No information on how it occurred but Pat said the guy looked as if he’d been scared to death. That might indicate a weak heart. Regardless, she’s going to text me the case number.”

“Then you can get the reports?”

Caro hesitated. “It won’t exactly be legal, but yes.”

“In the meantime,” Damien said, turning back to Garner, “see what you can find on that machine about associations between Pritchett and his brother-in-law. Maybe they were in business together.”

“Why me?” Garner asked, regarding the computer as if it might explode. “Jude will have a fit if I mess something up. Why can’t you do it?”

“Because I’ve never bothered to master a computer. What would I need it for?”

“Plenty, apparently,” Garner muttered. “Imagine that. Thousands of years old and no computer experience.”

“Try this,” Damien said a little acidly. “Thousands of years old and only in the last few decades of that time have computers become meaningful at all to ordinary people.”

At that, Garner smirked. “Time to catch up, vampire.”

“I rarely waste time learning skills that are utterly useless to me.”

“Oh, cut it out,” Caro said irritably. “I’ll see what I can do as soon as I get the file number.”

“I’m still worried about Jude,” Damien said. “I wish he’d given us some idea where he was going.”

“Maybe,” said Garner, brandishing his phone, “he’s just not answering because it’s me calling.”

Damien lifted both brows but then pulled out his own phone and put it to his ear. “There you are,” he said after a moment. “Garner is having kittens because you’re not returning his calls.”

He listened a moment, then laughed. “No, you can tell him that yourself. Caro’s about to use your computer if you don’t mind. Really? All right, I’ll tell her.”

He disconnected and looked at Caro. “Jude said to wait. Terri is examining the body and he’s already been to the crime scene. He has information.”

“All he had to do was tell me that,” Garner observed morosely. “Then I wouldn’t have had to worry.”

Nobody answered him.

Caro started to remove her jacket as the chill from riding on Damien’s back began to slip away. Coffee. Hot chocolate. Then her hand found the stitched pouch she’d been carrying.

She pulled it out of her pocket and held it up. “Something affected me tonight when we were in that bookshop. Something made me step back from that man, and it didn’t feel like that thing that’s been following me. Could it be this?”

“It could,” Damien said. He took it from her hand. “I wonder if I was too trusting.”

“In what way?”

“Alika said you need protection. You do, but how can I be sure this will provide it? Maybe it’s not for protection at all.”

“Lovely,” said Garner.

Damien barely spared him a glance. “So now we have two questions. Did Alika give you this for real protection? If so, was it this that made you back away from that shopkeeper tonight? If not, why did you back away? Did you sense something wasn’t right about him?”

Caro racked her brains trying to figure it out, finally admitting, “I don’t know.”

“Great,” muttered the never-silent Garner. “Either one of them could be involved in this.”

“Or neither,” Caro said sensibly. “Don’t put on blinders, Garner. It limits investigations.”

“We still have more places to check out, too,” Damien added. “But I really want to know how the brother-in- law might be involved in this, and whether his death was from natural causes.”

“That’s important, all right,” Caro agreed. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that coincidences do happen.”

“Maybe in your line of work,” Garner argued. “In mine there are fewer coincidences.”

“So what are people saying on the street?” she asked to divert him from his irritability.

“Woo-woo stuff, which is only woo-woo if you’ve never seen it in action. It probably doesn’t mean much really. At least in terms of anyone knowing anything. So the condo was locked. Anybody walking out could have