Scared to Death: Book Five and a Half Supernatural Enforcers Agency Read online

  “Made it work?” she repeated disapprovingly. Given her parents’ lovey dovey relationship, she’d say it was much more than merely making it work.

  “Bad choice of words,” he said quickly.

  “Besides, it's different; you’re not Chad. You always make your own decisions and know your own mind – like you made up your mind to mate mom. You met her, decided you’d be good together and mated her. But this isn’t about you. You can’t make up Chad’s mind for him – he has to decide himself. And for that matter, you can’t make up mine either. You can’t tell women who to mate.”

  His huge brow furrowed as if this couldn’t possibly be true. “I told your mother to mate me.”

  “No, Daddy, she lets you think you did – she mated you because she, ugh, fancied the pants off you and wanted to be with you.”

  Sydney repressed a shudder. Never get drunk with your mother – it’s just not worth the barf-inducing truths she spills. Sydney could have gone to her grave not knowing that her dad nicknamed her mom’s boobs Sugar and Spice.

  For a moment he looked inordinately smug about his mate fancying him before his face clouded. “Chad’s a good rhino.”

  “I agree, but he’s good for someone else – and I wish him all the happiness in the world with that someone else. Now, I have to get back to work.”

  She pulled him down while standing on her tippy-toes for a peck on the cheek – he was six-foot-seven, and she hadn’t grown since she was fourteen.

  “I love you, Daddy, but stop meddling.”

  She scurried away before he could retort, waving at Chad as she went. He smiled and nodded, before returning his attention to his food – a large order that could rival her dad’s. Chad was a nice guy, but he needed someone different to her. He wasn’t exactly an idiot, but he was easygoing, and people sometimes took advantage of him in spite of all his muscles, and he needed someone tough who would tell him what to do and make him stand up for himself. Sydney didn’t even have the heart to get rid of the mouse in her apartment. She’d even named it and started leaving cheese out for it – she couldn’t bear it if Pickles starved! No, she needed someone completely different to Chad.

  Ideally, someone tall and good looking with oodles of power and didn’t take any crap from anyone and made her insides feel like mush and even looked good rocking a pair of oven mitts. Not that she had anyone in mind or anything. Heat pooled in her sex, and she bit her lip to stop an involuntary moan – walking down the street, she could easily get arrested for indecent moaning in a public place. But it was too much. Feeling his hard body pressed against hers had opened her eyes to a lot more dirty imaginings – even worse than last night. Lord, her previously dormant sex drive appeared to be working in overdrive. Down girl!

  *

  Kurt listened to eight voicemails from his mother suggesting various causes for his magical problems. Had he eaten asparagus lately, had he crossed a woman with one eye called Bertha, had he sneezed sixteen times in one day without throwing salt over his shoulder… He texted his mom back, not wanting to embroil himself in a conversation with her. No to all of her suggestions.

  Jeez, she really was trying hard to stop him from potentially mating a human.

  He knew his mom meant well… most of the time… some of the time… occasionally. But her attitude toward Sydney irritated him. So what if Sydney didn’t possess magic? Didn’t matter. She was a non-shifter born to a rhino, and by all accounts, she was the apple of his huge, muscular eye.

  Kurt had never actually dated a human. He’d always tended toward the supernatural – witches, shifters and one vampire – strangest date of his life. But Sydney was kind of supernatural by association – she still carried those big old rhino genes. Though thankfully her form was very much human. Kurt wasn’t saying that looks were everything, but he’d seen female rhinos, and they were built like particularly aggressive trucks. Sydney’s small, soft body was much more preferable.

  He was just about to go down to the technicians’ lab and remind himself just how pretty she was when Trina appeared out of nowhere. He almost flinched – she was damn creepy like that.

  “Hey, honey,” she said brightly.

  Kurt groaned. “Trina, don’t call me honey.”

  She pouted in a very unflattering way. He didn’t like women who pouted. In fact, he didn’t think anyone should pout over the age of seven. Anyone under that age could get away with it by being cute. Kids could get away with a lot because of the cuteness factor. Take burps and farts – they were laughable and cute in toddlers, but gross in middle-aged men.

  “We aren’t together, Trina. We broke up over a year ago.”

  Trina folded her arms. “I don’t accept.”

  “Look, I… what do you mean you don’t accept?” Kurt looked at her askance.

  “I don’t accept that we’ve broken up, and we can’t break up unless we both agree to it. It has to be a mutual agreement.”

  “What? That’s not true at all!” And also not the maddest thing she’d ever said.

  The pout deepened. “Where are you going?”

  “Down to the technicians’ lab.”

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you had a bit of a crush on that idiot tech girl.” Trina sniggered and dismissed the thought immediately.

  Kurt rolled his eyes. “I’m going down there,” he said slowly and with exaggeration to make sure she actually got it. Of course, she might have taken him a little more seriously if he wasn’t rocking a pair of oven mitts decorated with pictures of lobsters. “You stay here. We are not together. Clear?”

  Trina smiled coldly. “I suppose I can trust you to be careful down there, just try not to make anything blow up.”

  Panic started to set in that Trina really wasn't listening to him, and all the lights up and down the corridor started flashing. “We’re not together, you understand that, right?”

  “I’ll see you later… honey.”

  “I mean it! Trina!” She blew him a kiss as she sauntered away. “Damnit!”

  *

  “Ah, what are these for?” asked Kurt, trying hopelessly to see his own temples.

  “They’re electrodes - I just want to see your reactions to a few questions. I want to monitor your magical responses.”

  Sydney smiled at him and stood in front of him to move the pads around a little. He gave her a crooked smile, and she couldn’t help the blush.

  “How has your magic been behaving?”

  Kurt shifted uneasily. “No change.”

  “Any more ideas on what’s causing your… ah, performance issues?”

  “Performance issues?” he spluttered. “I’ll have you know I can get my magic to work over and over!”

  Sydney’s brow creased. “Umm, is that good?”

  “Let’s move on, shall we?” he asked, a little embarrassed. “Ah, what got you interested in inventing machines?”

  She shrugged. “I think it first started with my Betty’s Beautiful Baking Oven when I was eight. I wanted to cook a pineapple upside down pudding for my mom, and I was disappointed that it was taking so long to cook. I mean it was basically just a bright bulb in the thing. So, I decided to see if there was anything I could do with it.”

  “What happened?”

  Sydney pursed her lips. “I blew up our tree house.”

  Kurt’s eyebrows shot up his head. “Wow!”

  “Yeah, my dad was annoyed but relieved I wasn’t in there at the time.”

  “Lucky no one got hurt.”

  “Oh, my four brothers were in there, but they were fine – hard heads.”

  Kurt chuckled. “That’s a lot of brothers.”

  “Yep, all rhinos if you can believe it.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “You don’t seem surprised,” she said while giving the electrode one last adjustment.

  “I already knew.”

  “How?” Her hand hovered next to his head.

  He hesitated slightly, before he said,
“I might have asked around about you after we met yesterday.”

  Warmth started blossoming through her body. “You did? Why?”

  Kurt took hold of her hovering hand, and he looked up at her through hooded eyes. “You don’t know why?”

  “Ah…”

  Cutter and Avery chose that moment to storm in.

  “What the snickerdoodles are you doing?” demanded the wolf shifter.

  Sydney whipped her hand away from his and took two steps back, resisting the urge to tell the two of them to bugger off. Kurt surveyed the wolf and lion shifters through narrowed eyes.

  “Perfect timing,” Kurt muttered angrily, and Sydney wondered at it, although she was still wondering at his behavior altogether.

  Surely he was only down there to help her in her ongoing studies into witchcraft. Wouldn’t any male witch allow themself to be studied in the interest in science? Oh… oh! He liked her! The hot, popular guy liked nerdy, little her! It was opposite day!

  Her shortness of breath, pebbled nipples and warm, flushed cheeks would all agree that she felt the same way too.

  “Nelson said you found something weird,” prompted Avery while Kurt and Cutter tried to out-glare the other.

  “It might be nothing,” said Sydney apologetically.

  “Get on with it,” rumbled Cutter.

  Kurt opened his mouth to object, but Sydney quickly explained. “Dr. Powers found an odd substance on the skin of both of our victims.”

  “Really?” said Avery, “he never said anything.”

  Sydney rolled a shoulder. “Well, he only saw it after I put the victim under my magical detecting light.”

  Kurt’s lips quirked. “Magical detecting light? So not the magical detecting device.”

  Self-consciously, she looked at the ground as everyone stared at her with rapt attention. “It’s similar, but ah, it’s kind of like a UV light.” She was very bad at naming things.

  Cutter growled lightly. “Humph, good idea.”

  She blinked at him a few times, enjoying the compliment before Kurt nudged her and gave her a look of kindly encouragement.

  “So, ah, we found it, and I’ve been trying to analyze it, but so far all I’ve been able to identify is patchouli and lemongrass. Plus I can already smell them, and they don’t mean anything to me.” Magic distorted the properties of ingredients, and generally someone who had magic needed to identify them. “I have sent a sample upstairs to the witches’ lab for testing – hopefully, they can work out what’s going on with it. The fact that it turned up under my light suggests it is magical in some way.”

  Kurt rubbed his jaw. “Could be remnants of a potion, but I can’t say off the top of my head what uses lemongrass and patchouli. It’s not a combination I’ve heard of, but then a lot of witches perfect their own recipes.”

  “Glorified chefs,” rumbled Cutter.

  “I checked the clothes Hank was wearing, and I also managed to find the substance on them, too – all over them. But they weren’t on the pajamas Derek was wearing. So I tested the clothes he was wearing the night before – his Halloween costume - and it was all over them.” Sydney pointed to a table containing a prison inmate costume – Derek’s – and the Frankenstein monster costume that Hank had been wearing – now covered in his blood.

  Cutter nodded. “The victims were friends and went to the same Halloween party. Whatever… happened, must have happened there.”

  “Are there any other victims?” asked Sydney, her forehead crinkling with worry. It was her job to investigate the scenes of crimes, but couldn’t the crimes be gentler ones like… okay, so maybe no crime was gentle, but she hated murder.

  “Not yet,” replied Avery, “we’ve been trying to ascertain who was at the party and talk to them, but we haven’t been able to get hold of the couple who hosted the party yet. Nobody knows where they are.”

  “Do you think they’re to blame for this?” asked Kurt.

  “Maybe,” grunted Cutter. “But if they’re fleeing, they left behind all their stuff – didn’t even pack a suitcase.”

  “Their house is still in a mess from the Halloween party, and they didn’t show up for work,” said Avery. “But we did find a sort of guest list for the party, so we’re trying to get through everyone on it.”

  Sydney chewed her cheek. “The substance might be nothing.”

  “Or it might be what caused them to act like fruit loops,” grumbled Cutter.

  He stomped over to the Halloween costumes, pulled on some gloves and picked them up, gingerly inhaling and then sneezing.

  Avery joined him. “What does it smell of?”

  “Nothing. Can’t get a thing other than patchouli and lemongrass.”

  That was saying something – the wolf was like a bloodhound.

  Avery followed suit and sniffed the costumes too. “Me neither.”

  Cutter harrumphed in agreement before turning to Sydney. “We need to use your magical UV whatever.”

  Sydney nodded emphatically. “Of course.”

  “We’ll use it when we check out the other guests.”

  Cutter sneezed again, and Avery followed.

  “Allergies?” quipped Kurt.

  The wolf growled and left with the grace of a hurricane. Avery smiled and gratefully took the magical light with her.

  Kurt gave Sydney a wolfish grin. “Now where were we?”

  *

  “This is… nice?”

  Kurt chuckled. “Was that a question?”

  Sydney shook her head and looked around the club where she wouldn’t normally dare venture. Predominantly, it was a club for witches, but there were quite a few vampires there and some humans accompanying witches.

  “We can go somewhere else if you want.”

  “No, no, this is fine.”

  Kurt asked her out after work, and too surprised to do anything else, she squeaked, which he took as a yes. Not that she would have said no. Even if she weren't embarrassingly aroused by him, she wouldn’t have been able to let him down.

  Sydney tried to sip at her mojito and narrowly escaped choking. When he asked her what she wanted, it was the only grown up drink she could think of – the one her best friend Tara always asked for. Sydney was more of a soda girl.

  Kurt gave her a look of concern, and she tried to smile in a way that said, I’m having a great time. She really wasn’t.

  She put her palms under her thighs, trying to stop the sweating. It was an interesting club – bright and bubbly might be the best description. With low, pink couches and people running around creating bubbles.

  Good-looking men and women swanned around wearing tight and often very few items of clothing and throwing curious looks in her direction. Sydney glanced down at her sensible shoes, corduroy skirt, shapeless shirt, and cardigan and pondered whether she should have gone home to change.

  Into what asked a voice in her head. Her entire wardrobe was full of baggy clothes and more than an average share of corduroy. She’d never given her clothing any thought before, but seeing a bunch of lithe witches flaunting around in barely-there slips of dresses was perhaps giving her second thoughts.

  Perhaps there was something she could do to improve her appearance. She’d never used it before, but she was carrying make-up in her purse. Something Tara gave her a couple of years ago – thinking she’d start getting interested in boys.

  Well, buckle up because she was interested!

  “So, why’d you join the SEA?” he asked, completely at ease in the horrifyingly pink club.

  “Could you just excuse me for one moment?”

  Kurt rose as she did. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

  “I just need to tinkle – go to the ladies!” she quickly corrected.

  Sydney made her escape trying not to ignite in embarrassment. In the bathroom, she waited patiently for a mirror to let up – thankfully everyone in the club was too beautiful to need to spend longer than a couple of moments checking their make-up, it was always perfec
t.

  Then, she set to work. Not too much, just the eyes and the lips were going to be enhanced. She started with a bit of mascara. Her hand shook as she peered into the mirror and belatedly realized that perhaps she needed a little practice. Sydney yelped as she stabbed herself in the eye.

  “Darn it!”

  A couple of women sniggered, but she was too blind to see them. She rubbed her eye and let out a ‘no’ as her contact lens popped out and promptly fell down the drain.

  “Double darn it!”

  Could she manage with just one working eye?

  *

  Kurt was about ready to send out a rescue team. Maybe this wasn’t the best place to bring Sydney; she looked more uncomfortable than if he’d taken her to a meat processing plant. He was keen to explore his attraction to Sydney, and just acted the same way he always did on dates, not thinking that Sydney wasn’t like the usual witches he dated.

  He worried for a moment that she’d run away in the middle of the date and his magic – which had been behaving until that moment – made her mojito drink explode out of her glass like a geyser.

  “Shit!”

  He tried to mop up the mess.

  “Oh, what happened?” trilled Sydney.

  “Little accident with your drink,” he admitted gruffly.

  Sydney nodded in understanding. “Your magic?”

  “I’m afraid so,” he sighed. “I ruined your drink, and it went all over your seat.”

  “No matter.” She actually looked a little happy about that.

  He sank back into his seat and patted the dry spot next to him, considering that maybe spilling the drink wasn’t such a bad move after all. “Sit here.”

  Sydney’s eyes widened slightly and she lowered herself onto the couch, taking great pains not to touch him. Her aura waved uncertainly around her.

  She stared at him expectantly for a few moments before he chuckled.

  “I’m being rude, do you want another mojito?”

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  “I thought I just…”

  “I meant about my glasses.” Sydney tapped the wide rims.

  “What? They’re glasses. I figured your eyes were tired from your contacts.”

  Sydney gave him a quizzical look. “You don’t find them off-putting?”