When A Gargoyle Investigates Read online

  His eyes snapped to her face, and she almost flinched, but in spite of her embarrassment, she met his gaze.

  “You mean…” Did she have the same restless feeling inside her in his presence?

  “Yes. I mean, just speaking scientifically of course – out of purely academic interest. Nothing more,” she hastily added.

  “Of course,” he replied uncertainly. “Well, gargoyles are part human, and mating between the two species is feasible.”

  “Oh.”

  It was neither an excited ‘oh’ nor a scoff of an ‘oh’ – it was merely a non-committal ‘oh.’ He waited to see if she wished to add anything to her ‘oh’ but nothing was forthcoming.

  “I must leave,” he muttered, finding himself somewhat disappointed by that.

  “Yes,” she agreed blandly.

  Melissa removed her hand and licked her lips. “So, tomorrow then, yes?”

  “Yes,” he agreed. He hesitated at the window, but before he could do or say anything ridiculous, he was through it and soaring through the air.

  Gracchus needed to hunt something. He couldn’t kill it – maimed animals may lead right back to him, but the hunt might be enough to quench the strange feeling inside him.

  He liked Melissa; there was no denying that. But she was human and merely inquisitive about his kind – there was nothing more to it than that. Perhaps he found her form pleasing, maybe too pleasing… But coupling with her was out of the question. He did not think humans could be quite so carefree as gargoyles about who they took to their beds, and he did not want to hurt her in any way. As for mating, that was now out of the question for Gracchus. He had a mate, and he lost her, and now, he must end his days alone.

  Nine

  Melissa yawned into her coffee. Yes, she was tired. Yes, she was having trouble keeping her eyelids open. Yes, she had barely got any sleep because of her nocturnal visitor. Yes, she was happier than she had been since… well, she didn’t know when. She was always a generally happy person. It wasn’t like she had anything to complain about really – she grew up in a lovely family and had a good job. Okay, her mom was bossy and interfering, but Melissa knew it came from a place of love. A crazy place of love, but a place of love nonetheless. So yeah, she was happy all the time, but she just happened to be happier than usual because of him – the gargoyle.

  He had diligently answered all her questions, and she was thrilled to have learned so much, to have found out so much about them. She couldn’t wait to see him again. He was so easy to talk to. She had to pinch herself every few minutes to make sure she wasn’t dreaming – he was almost too good to be true. Honestly, he was the stuff of dreams. Maybe not most girls’ dreams, but certainly the stuff of her dreams.

  She had already formulated more questions. She was sure the gargoyle she saw as a child wasn’t green. Maybe gargoyles could be any color. Wow – maybe there was a pink one! Though, she personally considered that the emerald green of Gracchus’ skin was lovely. He was like a work of art.

  Melissa remembered the way he had looked at her – those deep, dark green eyes watching her like she was the most fascinating person in the world. Maybe he didn’t know many humans, but even that thought wouldn’t diminish her joy.

  So, despite her sleepiness, she was raring to go. It was a shame the same couldn’t be said for Colt.

  She flicked her eyes over at him. His face was set in grim lines, and he had barely grunted a few words at her that morning. He had been even pricklier than Curtis – no offense Curtis. Not that she minded – there were some days out of the month when she wasn’t much fun to be around.

  Melissa pressed her lips together and tried to read the e-mail about the three-headed dog over and over. She might have been raring to go, but all she could think about was Gracchus and gargoyles.

  She remembered what he had said – that humans and gargoyles could mate. She didn’t know what came over her when she asked that, but she had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach, a strange fluttering and it seemed important that she ask. Though, how did he know that they could mate? Her eyes narrowed. Had he already mated with a human? The idea that he had annoyed her more than it probably should.

  Colt suddenly grunted loudly and looked up at the door.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  But she didn’t have to wait to find out. Two seconds later, Detective Simpsons and his partner – Detective Forgettable – pushed through the door.

  Melissa raised an eyebrow. Maybe Colt could hear them coming, but she didn’t hear a thing. Perhaps he just had a sixth sense for jerks.

  Simpson sneered as he gave their office a distasteful look. “This where they keep the freak department? Seems about right for you two.”

  His forgettable partner let out a sycophantic little laugh. Colt virtually bared his teeth. Melissa almost thought he was going to bark at the detectives and chase them out of the room.

  “May we help you with something?” asked Melissa, flashing a serene smile in his direction.

  Even Simpson couldn’t irritate her that day.

  The man humphed at her and waved a file in her direction. “Here.”

  Melissa took at and gave him a questioning look. It was the file for the murder – the crime scene they visited the day before. “Why are you…”

  “The case is yours,” grumbled Simpson. “Consider it a gift.”

  “And it’s not even my birthday,” quipped Melissa. “I thought it was an animal attack.”

  Simpson let out a sound of disapproval. “Our lab can’t match the hair to any known animal.”

  Melissa glanced at Colt, but he was too busy giving Simpson a hard glare to notice.

  “So,” continued Simpson, “since we already have half a dozen open cases, the case is yours.”

  He didn’t sound thrilled, so she had to guess he was given the order to hand it over by his captain. Simpson nodded at his partner, who placed a box on the floor.

  “Evidence,” he explained.

  Melissa nodded.

  Simpson curled his lip at Colt, but when he looked at Melissa again, he might almost have softened.

  “Give me a call if you have any questions,” he said to Melissa and Melissa alone in an extremely slimy voice.

  “Will do.”

  Colt slowly got to his feet.

  “I’d be happy to help you,” Simpson oozed.

  “Time to go,” rumbled Colt.

  Melissa blinked as Colt just seemed to be getting bigger and bigger. Was it a trick of the light? She swore he wasn’t that big before. Judging by the worry flitting across Simpson’s face, he noticed it too.

  He braved a wink at Melissa, but he was out of the office as quickly as possible.

  “That was unexpected,” murmured Melissa as she leafed through the file.

  “Guy’s a dick,” seethed Colt. His hands were curled into fists, and he was actually shaking a little. “Did you see the way he was looking at you?”

  “Hey,” she said soothingly, surprised at his reaction on her behalf, “it’s no big deal. He’s a perv. Ignore him – I do.”

  Colt grunted, but he didn’t seem to be calming down.

  “You know what,” she said, closing the file, “let’s get some lunch.”

  *

  Colt was mildly more relaxed at the restaurant, though his irritation and lousy mood still seemed to linger. Though, that didn’t stop him from wolfing down three cheeseburgers and four portions of fries. She’d never met anyone who could eat as much. Actually, scratch that – she had. Gracchus could easily out-eat him.

  The delivery guy thought she had made a mistake in her take out order the previous night. He knew her well – she ordered orange chicken and egg fried rice all the time. Usually, the only variation came when she decided to order a few egg rolls as well. But, the previous night, on Gracchus’ advice, she had ordered six portions of orange chicken and five portions of egg fried rice – chicken was more important than rice apparently. While she had s
truggled to finish one portion, Gracchus had happily acted as a vacuum where the rest of the food was concerned. A smile touched her lips. She supposed those muscles took a lot of feeding to stay quite so big and bulging…

  Her daze was interrupted as the waitress appeared to top up their ice teas. She flashed a flirty look at Colt, but he was too grumpy to pay her any mind.

  Melissa had brought the case file with her and was idly reading the details, while wiping away bits of salsa that dripped on it.

  “My best guess is a werewolf,” she said, feeling a kindling of excitement about the case.

  She always enjoyed her work, but since meeting Gracchus, she kind of felt even more enthused about it.

  “You know the hair was probably just cross-contaminated,” he groused.

  Melissa looked up in surprise at the first sentence he had graced her with during the whole lunch.

  She put the case file down and popped a nacho into her mouth, considering what he said.

  “Why wouldn’t the cops just hang onto it then?”

  Colt shrugged and grasped the case file, frowning as he flicked through it.

  “Because it’s probably unsolvable and it looks better for them to hand it over, and for us not to solve it.”

  Melissa considered there was probably something to that. Her department – or their department now – did get lumbered with quite a lot of cases that were only mildly weird, but nobody wanted them because they were unsolvable. It was probably the benefit of working in the weird department – no one really expected any results from them. They were there, they investigated, but no one expected them to prove that any supernatural creatures actually existed.

  Until a couple of nights ago, she never had actually proved for real that any did either. Now she had managed to prove gargoyles exist… sort of… by total accident. Not that she needed any proof to believe – she always knew they were real, even before witnessing a gargoyle as a kid.

  “Why do you work in our department if you don’t believe?” said Melissa, eyeing him curiously.

  Their department was considered career suicide – no one would work there unless they were true believers, or if they had done something seriously wrong. Her mind raced as she considered the options about Colt. Given his rugged good looks, a sex scandal wouldn’t surprise her…

  Colt leaned back and actually managed a half-smile – a miracle considering his mood all day. “Who says I don’t believe?”

  “You’re just very keen to debunk this crime and make it human,” she said, smiling at him.

  She didn’t mind him being cynical. He was a lot more pleasant about it than Simpson, or half the FBI agents in their building.

  Colt rolled a broad shoulder. “It would be easier if it was human.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “How can we slap cuffs on a mermaid or bigfoot?” he chuckled.

  “Seems unlikely it would be a mermaid,” she said gravely.

  “You know what I mean.”

  Melissa ran a finger around the rim of her glass. “Can I ask you something?”

  He grunted that she could.

  “Why did you join this department?”

  “The supernatural interests me, and I’m good at debunking,” he replied.

  “Oh lord, you’re a Scully, which makes me Mulder.” Colt laughed. “Though I never had a sibling who was abducted by aliens, but I prayed for it every day as a kid.”

  Colt quirked an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

  Melissa rolled her eyes. “I have three super annoying brothers, so yeah.”

  “Super annoying?”

  “Yeah, I’d go so far as to say super duper annoying, being the only girl was not easy.”

  “I can imagine.”

  It started badly, and only got worse as they got older – sharing a bathroom with three teenage brothers was a horror show. She couldn’t wait to get away to college. She insisted on living in the dorms in spite of her mother’s begging.

  “What about you, any siblings?”

  He hesitated for a shade of a second. “A brother.”

  “Does he live back in Arizona?”

  Colt almost winced. “Not right now,” he said, and she swore he was trying to avoid the question, hence the reason he immediately tried to change the subject away from siblings. “I’m a good fit for our department. Our bosses don’t actually want us to prove monsters exist. Far too messy. They just want us to prove they don’t.” His cheek twitched in amusement, but she might almost think a hint of bitterness entered his tone. “They want the monsters to hide in the shadows – where they belong.”

  “Oh.”

  She hadn’t really thought about it that way before. But Gracchus was hiding, wasn’t he? She knew for a fact other people wouldn’t be quite so pleased to meet him as she was, and her insides churned.

  Colt shrugged and raised a hand to the waitress to order some more fries.

  “So, I think we need to talk to the witness again.”

  She raised her eyes to his. “Hmmm?”

  Colt tapped the case file.

  “Oh right, yes, sure.”

  Maybe now that she had time to calm down, their sole witness might be a little more helpful.

  Ten

  Melissa was engrossed in her case notes when Gracchus arrived. Almost too engrossed, but no, when she heard the tapping on the window, she leaped to attention and smiled as he carefully made his way into her living room.

  “Hello,” she breathed, smiling at him.

  “Good evening, Melissa,” he replied in his deep, silky voice.

  She quivered a little and flushed.

  “Come in, come in,” she urged and then scowled at her cats as they ran to him and started rubbing against his legs. Cheetara was the first to get to him, flicking her tail at Melissa in a haughty way.

  In order to get some alone time with him, she had to lock all her cats in her bedroom the previous evening. Cheetara whined for an hour, but there was no way they were going to make any progress with her questions with Cheetara trying to hog all his attention.

  Gracchus bent down and rubbed the ears of each cat in turn. “They are affectionate creatures.”

  “Yes,” she murmured in agreement. More affectionate to him than her she thought in mild amusement. It was funny really. Cheetara started purring in an obscenely loud way, and Melissa decided it was time to put a stop to that.

  She brushed the protesting Cheetara aside. “I have some Pollo Rojo and rice for dinner. Would you like some?”

  Her mom had been in her apartment while she was at work. She cleaned a little, threw out some of Melissa’s oldest underwear, replaced it with some new sturdy granny panties, and filled the refrigerator full of food. Despite all evidence to the contrary, her mom was sure that Melissa wasn’t eating correctly and stacked her fridge full of all sorts of delicious and calorific foods. Pollo Rojo was Melissa’s favorite.

  Gracchus gave her a polite look of interest. “What is this, ah, poyo rolo? I do not believe I have eaten it before.”

  Melissa smiled. “Pollo Rojo. It’s basically just chicken in tomato and chili sauce. But it’s my mom’s secret recipe, so she puts something special in it that no one else is allowed to know about. It’s delicious.”

  His lips twitched. “Then I am very much looking forward to eating it.”

  Melissa giggled. Such manners! “Are all gargoyles as polite as you?”

  Gracchus’ expression darkened. “No.”

  She cocked her head to one side, waiting to see if he would elaborate, but he merely plucked Tigra off the floor and walked over to the couch, settling the cat on his chest. Cheetara huffed her way past Melissa, and settled herself on his chest too – there was plenty of chest space to go around. Lion-O batted at Gracchus’ tail, while Panthro and Kevin curled around his feet.

  “Okidoke, I’ll get our food.”

  She hurriedly piled two plates high and rushed it back to him along with several cans of diet coke.

>   “What is all this?” asked Gracchus, peering at the various case paraphernalia littering her coffee table.

  “Oh, just a case I’m – we’re working on.”

  Melissa put the tray down and started trying to gather the file together.

  “We?”

  He looked up curiously.

  “Oh yeah, my new partner, Colt.”

  Gracchus grunted, and she passed him a plate of food.

  “Thank you,” he murmured. But rather than attacking the food as he had the previous evening, he merely looked at her uncertainly.

  “The pictures appear to be… grisly.”

  “Murders don’t tend to be pretty.”

  Gracchus furrowed his brow in disapproval. “Your job seems dangerous.”

  She smiled at his concern. “Honestly, it rarely even veers into dangerous territory. Most of the time I’m wandering around fields inspecting crop circles.”

  “Crop circles?”

  Melissa tinkled with laughter at his confused expression. She skipped over to the window to close the drapes. “Yeah, it’s this whole thing where… ah…”

  Shit.

  “Something is wrong,” growled Gracchus. He leaped to his feet and bounded over to her, dislodging five unhappy cats in the process.

  He grasped both her arms in a firm grip. “Melissa,” he rumbled lowly. “Whatever danger you face, I will protect you with my life.”

  “Oh, my!” As she stared into those earnest green eyes, she believed him and may have giggled a little at the unexpected feeling of delight flooding her. But…

  “You can’t protect me from this.”

  He looked almost hurt, and she hastened to add, “No one can protect me from this. I just saw my mother’s car pull up outside my building. I suggest you hide and save yourself!”

  *

  “Why are you so nervous?”

  “Mom, I’m not nervous, I just have a lot of work to do.”

  “Are you hiding something?”

  “Mom…”

  Gracchus listened vaguely to the conversation from his place in the spare bedroom, but it all seemed to be variations on the same theme. Melissa’s mother was quite vociferous in all the ways that Melissa was living her life wrong. Melissa just sighed and grumbled.