Page 39 of Brimstone Bound
‘That’s not what it sounds like to me!’
‘Sit down,’ she repeated, her expression returning to its usual hard-nosed professional facade, ‘and I’ll explain.’
I did as I was told like a recalcitrant child. I’d hear her out – but I wanted some fucking answers.
She unbuttoned her jacket and leaned back in her chair. ‘I’m sure it didn’t take you long to work out what things are really like in Supe Squad. The government has been decreasing funding for decades, but if we lose the last control we have over the supes then that will be it. We’ll never gain it back – not without a fight.’
Lukas didn’t look happy. ‘Control is not the word I’d have used.’
She waved a hand at him dismissively. ‘You know what I mean.’ She sighed. ‘DC Brown has been negotiating on our behalf with both the vampires and the werewolves. We want to keep a hand in their affairs – after all, nobody knows what’s around the corner. Our involvement makes the public at large feel better about the supes’ existence, and helps us to maintain peace.’
‘From what I understand,’ I said, ‘a police presence is neither required nor desired.’
‘That’s what we keep saying,’ Lukas said. ‘However, we also wish to expand. We find the current limits placed on our kind constricting. For example, we can only turn one in every thousand applicants. We are virtually ghetto-ised and prohibited from trading outside our area. All supes are seeking to ease some of those unfair restrictions placed on our kind.’
‘Unfair restrictions? We can’t let you turn every Tom, Dick or Harry who shows up at your door into a vampire,’ Barnes returned. Despite her obvious irritation at vamp methods, I had the sense that she was holding herself back out of some strange deference to Lukas. Perhaps DSI Barnes was actually afraid of vampires.
‘It is not a process we take lightly,’ he growled at her. ‘You know that. Neither is it a case of biting someone and suddenly they’re a vampire. It takes weeks. The vampires we turn become part of our family. Even without the restrictions, very few would make the cut.’
‘It’s not just about that. We can’t allow you to grow your wealth to such a point that you have a stranglehold over the country. You take enough blood from us as it is!’
‘All our blood comes from willing participants,’ Lukas said. ‘And you know very well that we only need to sup once a month to survive.’
‘You live twice as long as the average human. That’s a lot of months.’
Lukas looked calm, but I sensed that inside he was seething. ‘Vampires are not the only ones seeking concessions. The wolves want to expand into another pack, turn more humans and make better use of the countryside.’
‘Which is all very well,’ Barnes snapped, ‘until the next full moon when they lose control and end up killing innocent farmers! Regardless of its failings in recent years, Supe Squad exists for a reason!’
‘Supe Squad is all but superfluous,’ he shot back. ‘As you know.’
I held up my hands. ‘This is all very well and good,’ I said. It looked like this argument could go on for hours. ‘But what exactly does it have to do with me?’
Barnes calmed down slightly. ‘DC Brown would have acknowledged that he had a somewhat laissez-faire approach to his job. But he was approaching retirement and he wasn’t … enthusiastic about giving it up. His wife died not too long ago, and he feared losing himself to the loneliness of old age. We had agreed that he would insinuate himself more into the supes’ day-to-day lives. In return, we’d delay his retirement and try to find a second Supe Squad detective to continue the process alongside him. One new detective to begin with, then the plan is to introduce more.’
She glanced at Lucas. ‘It has to be someone who both the vampires and werewolves can accept. I acknowledge that many of the police officers who’ve worked out of Supe Squad have been less than … effective. We’ve been searching for a detective who is willing to learn, and has the potential to grow into the job, but who won’t let their head be turned by what the supes have to offer. Someone who won’t take any shit.’
I met her eyes. ‘Me,’ I said flatly.
‘You are our opening gambit. You meet our skill requirements and, as a trainee, you haven’t got the baggage that other detectives might carry.’ She leaned forward. ‘Please understand that you’d never beforcedinto taking a position at Supe Squad. The plan was that we would discuss it with you at the end of your rotation. If you found the notion distasteful, we would never mention it again. There are plenty more trainees where you came from.’
I frowned. ‘You should have explained this to me at the start.’
‘If we had, your attitude would have been different. We need someone who is completely unbiased.’
‘Well,’ I remarked, ‘you won’t find a much more unbiased police officer than a dead one. Good work.’
DSI Barnes winced. Lukas was unmoved, however. ‘Very few vampires, werewolves or humans know what’s been going on, or that the Metropolitan Police are seeking a more active role. If Brown was murdered because some supe is unhappy about the police wanting to involve themselves more in our lives, the killer wouldn’t have tried to mask his death as an accident. They would have made it as bloody as possible in order to make a point.’
‘Mydeath was pretty damned bloody,’ I said. ‘And I think that killing two Supe Squad police officers in one night would be more than enough to scare off any others from wanting to work there.’
‘I don’t believe that’s why you were murdered,’ Lukas said, grinding his teeth. ‘Either of you. It might be hard for you to understand what it’s like to be a supernatural, but I’ve been doing this for a long time. We don’t care about subtleties. We don’t send coded messages. We don’t have to. The motive for the killings is something completely separate.’
I think that he believed that but, until I had proof to the contrary, I was withholding my judgment.
‘But you do think it was a supe who did this?’ Barnes asked.
His answer was terse. ‘Yes.’
