Free Companions by Susan Sizemore Page A

life mattered. And why the hell had she turned over the case to the Enforcer in the first place? She banged a fist against the steering wheel. She and Raleigh had taken the Page 37
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    call. It was their crime scene, their case. For some reason, she'd reacted like a vampire's pet blood donor instead of Detective Sergeant Crawford. The tendency to want to please and obey the master race that was built into the relationships the biters had with the bitees was really sick and disgusting and so damn hard to fight. Hard to even notice unless you worked very diligently at it. All the time.
    Selena sighed. Now that it was done, she didn't know whether taking the body to Ariel was the right thing to do or not. What she hated was that her reaction had been a knee-jerk protection of a community she wanted no part of, and that she had not understood her response until it was too late. They'd gotten her again, and she'd done it to herself. For better or worse, she'd let the initiative go. She tried not to think about it anymore on the rest of the drive home.
    Okay, I'll bite. Selena typed the E-mail message to DesertDog's ICQ. She was thankful she'd found him on this early in the evening and glad she'd exchanged instant messaging information with at least some of the chat group. DesertDog was just the person she wanted to talk to after a day spent making sure the corpse missing from the morgue wasn't traced back to her. She typed, What happened in Denver?
    Was there a chainsaw involved? she wondered. Were you? She considered asking but restrained herself and sent the message with only the one question.
    After a considerable wait, the other companion responded, One of Them was found dead in a downtown park. Sloppy job.
    How do you know about this?
    She'd checked with Denver Homicide, but there'd been no reports of heartless, headless corpses. She wondered if Steve knew about this. He'd said he was heading west. Again, there was a lot of lag time before DesertDog sent a reply.
    A friend told me.
    Your friend?
    Wait.
    Yes.
    Nighthawk clan?
    The loop members avoided direct questions about their own personal demons, but Selena was sick of generalities. Oddly enough, DesertDog answered immediately.
    Yes.
    So she wasn't the only pet person of an Enforcer in the dissident group. She was not surprised. Bet you're happy to get that off your chest, she wrote.
    Yours? Was DesertDog's answer.
    My chest?
    Be happy to talk about your chest, but I asked about your lover. Got a Nighthawk sucking on you?
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    Maybe he — or she — wasn't telling the truth. Maybe DesertDog was boasting about who his vampire was, or he was lying about a dead vampire in Denver. There were lots of maybes and plenty of reasons to hide facts in their tightly guarded little world. Their world. Not hers. Just because she didn't want to be a vampire and was ignored by her master didn't mean she didn't want to know what was going on.
    Curiosity made her a good detective.
    And killed cats.
    I'm a dog person, she told herself, remembering the time Steve had turned into a wolf, or at least made her think he'd turned into one. Selena typed, I'm not sure what mine is.
    How can a companion not be sure?
    Long story.
    I bet.
    Lef s return to the sloppily killed vampire. You know details?
    Head and heart cut out. Method was sound, but other stuff was stupid.
    Method?
    The critter was killed in a way I would have done it, but I didn't. I wouldn't have left the body out for anybody to find.
    Think some mortal's trying to expose the underneath world?
    Maybe.
    Or maybe it's one of them.
    Maybe.
    What do you think? Selena asked.
    Why do you want to know?
    She was glad he'd denied involvement in the crime — Was killing a vampire a crime? — before she asked. She didn't question his claim, not just yet. Should she tell DesertDog about