had he damned the sleep of death as much as he did right then. Caro might need him desperately, but he was going to be virtually beyond reach. There was not one damned thing he could do about it.
Cussing, as darkness began to grab him, he dropped to the floor, unable to resist his curse any longer.
Caro heard a lot of fussing. She reached toward it, desperate to escape a suffocating darkness that seemed to be squeezing her chest, trying to pull the very air from her body.
She struggled toward the sounds, and gradually they dragged her from the depths of sleep, and she pushed herself up on one elbow. She had only the dimmest memory of how she had arrived here, but she knew where she was. Turning her head, she saw Chloe standing on a chair and pinning a black curtain around the room’s one barred window.
“What’s going on?” she asked groggily.
Chloe glanced over her shoulder. “You,” she said. “The guys were worried because they couldn’t wake you up, so I’m vampire-proofing the office in case we need to go shake them out of their coffins.”
“Coffins? Really?”
“Hardly. Vaults more like. I just like to call them coffins.”
“They can wake up?”
“Resurrect,” Chloe said as she drove another tack in the wall. “Please. It’s resurrection, according to Jude. They don’t sleep, they don’t dream. Gone, poof, like the dead.”
“Oh.” Caro managed to sit all the way up and rub her eyes. “I feel hungover.”
“Something got to you, all right. Jude has enough wards around this office that it’s possible whatever hit you may have been forced to withdraw.”
She jumped down from the chair. “Are you awake enough to do something for me?”
“I think so. Just don’t make it complicated.”
Chloe flashed a grin. “I’m going to take a flashlight outside. I want you to come over here and check to make sure absolutely no light is getting past this curtain.”
“In a minute. I think I can manage it in a minute.”
“I made tea, but if coffee would be better I can make you some.”
“Tea will do fine. Caffeine, right?”
“Plenty. I like it strong and black.”
When Chloe returned and gave her a hot mug of steaming black tea, Caro asked, “What happens if light gets through the curtain? Poof?”
Chloe shook her head. “Not likely. But they’d get severe burns wherever the sun touches them.”
“I don’t want to see that.”
“Me either.”
Chloe perched beside her on the couch. “You’re taking this whole vampire thing awfully well.”
Caro rubbed her temple with her fingertips, trying to ease a dull ache. “Chloe, you’re talking to someone who saw a man levitated and impaled by nothing I could see. Who is being followed by something I can’t see. Who had a grandmother who claimed to be a wi—okay, a mage, and who taught me about things like this. Of course, I didn’t believe her. It had to hit me between the eyes like a two-by-four.”
“Some things have to do that,” Chloe agreed. She sipped her own tea, then placed the mug on a small octagonal table in front of the couch. Curling up, she tucked her legs beneath her and studied Caro. “I figured it out pretty fast one night when Jude saved me from some guys who intended me no good. He swooped in like a superhero and saved the day. Of course, he’d get mad if he heard me say that. He doesn’t like me to make him sound extraordinary in any way.”
“But you think he is? Apart from being a vampire?”
“Let me put it this way, and you can laugh if you want, but I’m serious.” Her expression changed to reflect that. “People are always looking to movies and books to see a story about the battle between good and evil and the triumph of good.”
Caro nodded. “There’s a lot of that.”
“Well, the fact is, there
“And Damien?”
“He’s a trifle arrogant, but he’s part of the battle, too. I’m not sure what he does in Cologne, but he was one of the few who answered Jude’s call for help when we were fighting the rogues—did Damien tell you about that?”
“A bit.”
“A bit is all you need. There were dozens of them and only a handful of us. Damien only came for a brief visit to help Jude with a problem, but he’s stayed and is continuing to help with you.”
Caro nodded, not sure how she felt about knowing that her problem was the reason he stayed. “How long have you worked for Jude?”
“Six years. Long enough to know what kind of person he is. Well, what kind of vampire.” She gave a little giggle. “He’s willing to risk everything to protect others. Even permanent death. So yeah, I have a lot of respect for him. Few of us humans will ever know how much safety he provides in this city.”
“I’m starting to get an inkling.”
“But only an inkling. You protect the city from human threats, and that’s great. But Jude’s more of a supernatural cop. He protects us against the things we can’t see.”
“Like the mystical murderer of an entire family.”
“Like that,” Chloe agreed.
“Does Pat Matthews know?”
“She knows he handles stuff the police won’t. She does
Caro smiled wryly. “I don’t think she’d be comfortable knowing that. But she’s a lot more broad-minded than most I work with. Everyone was trying to shut me down about what I saw. She told me to shut up about it at work and get over here.”
Chloe nodded. “That’s how we get some cases. It’s a working relationship. We take what the police can’t handle.”
“Why are you trusting me so much?”
“Because Pat trusted you and mostly because you’re still here working with us. For Jude, it’s not so much trust as taking care of a problem. He never leaves an important problem alone, no matter the risk to him.”
Then Chloe rose. “Feel up to seeing if the flashlight comes through anywhere on the window?”
The tea had helped, and the feeling of being hungover had begun to fade. Only as she was rising did she notice that some of her own fresh clothes were neatly folded on the chair beside Chloe’s desk. “Where did those come from?”
“Damien brought them along with you last night. We have a shower you can use before you change.” Chloe sniffed. “Only took me five years to get Jude to put in a water heater.”
“That long?”
“Jude doesn’t feel the icy water. Or did Damien neglect to tell you they don’t feel temperature?”
“He mentioned it. I just hadn’t extrapolated.”
“Trust me, it extrapolates to showers, as well. I used to find every excuse to go home to shower, and it wasn’t easy in the middle of a fast-moving case.”
The blackout curtain proved to need only one more tack, largely because it was so much bigger than the window that it did a really good job.
Now it was night inside even though it was broad daylight outside.
Chloe brought out some bagels she had purchased on her way in along with some smoked salmon and cream cheese. Caro realized she was famished and helped herself liberally. “What kinds of wards does Jude use?” she asked.
“The kind he grew up with—holy water and sanctified oils. Sometimes he has me put up my own wards.”
