Proof of Life (The Potentate of Atlanta Book 4) Page 2

  Midas was seducing me.

  And he was off to a damn fine start.

  Two

  Outside the air-conditioned bliss of the Faraday, the night fell on the right side of lukewarm. Midas and I skipped the Swyft fare and walked the five blocks to Choco-Loco with our fingers meshed and our arms swinging like we were two teens out with our first crushes.

  The city hummed around us, alive with traffic and voices and music, and I relaxed into the rare chance to spend time with him outside our jobs.

  “Do you smell that?”

  A few steps later, I sneezed into my elbow. “Smoke.”

  With the night off, we didn’t have to rush into action, but it still made me twitchy.

  “Call Bishop.” Midas, who knew me too well, slowed his pace. “You’ll feel better if you report it.”

  From there, Bishop could locate the origin and call the proper authorities.

  “We’re on a date.” I already had the phone in my hand. “He would call if…”

  An urgent flash lit up my display, and I groaned, letting my head fall back on my neck.

  “It’s okay.” Midas released me. “Answer it.”

  The number was as familiar as my reflection. “What’s up, Bish?”

  “We got problems.”

  “I was about to call you anyway.” I watched the blaze lighten the sky. “There’s a fire—”

  “Uh, yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t think you and lover boy are having that date night.”

  Fear spiked in my heart. “What’s burning?”

  “Choco-Loco.”

  Standing beside me, Midas had no trouble following the conversation. “Daaé?”

  There wasn’t much gwyllgi ears didn’t hear, which made cohabitation awkward to the extreme at times.

  “We were meeting Chef Daaé.” I started walking again. “Do you know if he was there? Or if he got out?”

  “An anonymous tipster called in the fire,” Bishop explained. “They didn’t give details.”

  “We’re almost there.” I picked up the pace. “I can see the flames.”

  “Daaé’s cell is going straight to voicemail,” Midas reported. “No one is answering at the restaurant.”

  “I’ve ferreted out a home number for him.” Bishop clacked a few keys in the background. “I’ll start there and work my way up, see if I can get a bead on him.”

  “Let me know what you find out.”

  Tucking the phone into my pocket, I broke into a sprint, and Midas kept pace with ease.

  Red and white lights strobed the night, bouncing off thick plumes, and sirens screamed bloody murder.

  Chef Daaé was a vampire, a Last Seed, who had dedicated his immortality to chocolate as an art form. He was a local celebrity in foodie circles, a humble genius, and an all-around swell guy according to what I had gleaned about him during the past year.

  The shadow I cast wilted as the potential ripple effects of the blaze on his sweet tooth hit Ambrose.

  Two gleaming fire engines skidded to a halt across the street, and I didn’t have to check the patches on the men pouring from them like militant ants—ick—to know Station Thirteen had arrived. As the unit responsible for responding to paranormal emergencies of the flaming-inferno variety, I wouldn’t have expected anyone else.

  Midas and I held our ground, our hands clenched in fists at our sides, giving them room to battle the fire.

  An ambulance arrived minutes later, and a local coven of paramedics checked with the men then trotted over to us.

  “Any injuries?” the young man asked. “Do you need medical assistance?”

  “No,” I answered for both of us. “We were on our way here for a date night when we saw the smoke.”

  A frown knit his brow. “Anyone else meeting you here?”

  “Chef Daaé,” Midas told him. “I booked him for a private lesson.”

  “Goddess,” he breathed. “Let’s hope he was running late.”

  “The crew just got here.” I admired their valiant battle. “Have they had time to check the entire building?”

  “Captain Gray says the place was empty.” The young man ruffled his hair. “This will change things.”

  Daaé was old, really old.

  A handful of ashes might be all that was left of him.

  “Wait for the police.” The man, who must be new if he didn’t recognize either of us, backed up a step. “They’ll want to talk to you.”

  Sentinels undercover with the Atlanta Police Department would respond, but they all knew me on sight.

  “Sure thing,” I assured him. “I’ll do that.”

  Once he crossed the street, Midas and I got comfortable. I wanted to talk to Gray before we left, get his unofficial opinion on what started the fire. I was also curious how good a lion shifter’s nose was on picking vampire ashes from other debris. As alpha of the Kingsman lions, the newest predatory shifter pack to call Atlanta home, he had keener senses than most.

  A buzz in my pocket had me fishing out my phone. “Any luck?”

  “The Daaé clan’s butler says the chef left for work at dusk,” Bishop said. “I confirmed the drop off with his usual driver. He gave me the names of Daaé’s four personal assistants. They’re witches, and they all answered their phones. The general consensus is Daaé prefers handling private bookings solo. He genuinely enjoys teaching, and he feels an audience intimidates his students.”

  After checking Midas had overheard the update, I told Bishop, “Thanks for doing the legwork.”

  “See if you can’t salvage tonight.” He exhaled slowly. “You two might not be going out for a while.”

  Doubtful Midas and I could rekindle the mood, I made appropriate noises and then ended the call.

  “I don’t like this,” Midas said at last, staring across the street, flames reflecting in his eyes.

  Wrapping my arms around his waist, I rested my head on his chest. “Neither do I.”

  “Four people, including Chef Daaé, knew I was bringing you here tonight.”

  “You heard Bishop.” I rubbed small circles at his spine with my thumbs. “He had assistants.”

  A high-end outfit like Choco-Loco would have kept schedules out the wazoo, particularly for their star chef and the handpicked assistants who orbited him like chocoholic moons. The chef and his assistants might have had the only copies, or they might have been available to management, or they might have been on an app or even an old-school bulletin board. There were endless possibilities, and none of them were helpful in narrowing down how this happened, tonight of all nights.

  About three hours after we arrived, the fire was quenched or had simply run its course, the building’s remains were smoldering, and a soot-smeared Captain Gray jogged across the road to greet us.

  “I understand you had a date night planned.” His grimace cut white lines through the grime on his cheeks. “That’s bad luck.”

  “It’s definitely something,” I agreed. “The paramedic told us the building was clear?”

  “No victims as far as we can tell.”

  A hit of relief spiked through me. “Does that include old-as-dirt vampires?”

  “Sadly not.” He wiped the sweat from his brow. “The cleaners are en route. They’re calling in a specialist to take samples and test them. It will be weeks before we have conclusive evidence either way.”

  As treasured as Last Seeds were by their clans, we would have an inkling if Chef Daaé had survived before dawn by way of frantic calls made to the Office of the Potentate of Atlanta, the OPA, if he didn’t come home once they realized who he was set to meet for a private lesson.

  Midas found his voice. “Arson?”

  “Looks that way.” Gray leaned in, mouth stretched thin. “Aubrey says it tastes a bit like the fire magic he consumed in the clearing.”

  So, the coven had reared its ugly head yet again, uncaring of the collateral damage. Why was I not surprised?

  “Thanks.” I stuck out my hand. “I appr
eciate the work you do.”

  “You too.” He shook it. “Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  With our plans for the night blown, I returned my attention to Midas, whose brow remained crinkled.

  Leaning back against him, I tipped my head onto his shoulder. “Do you think the coven is to blame?”

  The question jerked him to attention, and he focused on me. “We declared war on them.”

  We hadn’t made it official, the way the Society formally declared a blood feud, but yeah. We had carved out the hearts of six of their members and killed more than twice that. We had thrown down the gauntlet, picked it back up, and then smacked the taste out of their mouths with it.

  The coven had declared war on innocents first, and that I couldn’t ignore or forgive.

  With a screech of tires, four white vans pulled up to the curb in a neat row. Men and women dressed in outfits that greatly resembled flame-retardant footy pajamas poured out onto the sidewalk. A red-faced man, who I hadn’t seen since Bonnie Diaz had attempted to swallow him for barking orders at me, trundled across the street. Sweat dotted his balding pate, and dislike curled his lip.

  “We have the area secure.” He yanked on padded gloves. “There’s no reason for you to be here.”

  “This is my city,” I told him. “That’s reason enough.”

  “Preliminary results will be uploaded into our database at our earliest convenience.” His jaw might be grinding, but he was being civil. Bonnie really left an impression on him. A giant white gwyllgi with equally huge white teeth had that effect on people. “Until such time as we have completed our investigation, I ask you to leave so that my team has the freedom to perform their duties to the best of their abilities.”

  The Daaé clan must have thrown their considerable political weight around to get the cleaners out here so fast and in such numbers.

  As much as this guy’s attitude annoyed me, he was playing nice, so I would return the favor.

  Pivoting on my heel, I started walking away from the chaotic scene, certain Midas would follow.

  “We’re banned from the crime scene, and Bishop has HQ in hand. Looks like the rest of our night is wide open.” I linked my arm through his when he caught up to me. “What do you want to do?”

  “Go home,” he said, defeated. “We can order in, watch a movie.”

  We had nothing to do and nowhere to be, and I didn’t want to waste the opportunity to spend time with Midas. We had put our lives on hold to cleanse Atlanta of the coven, and I refused to let shame eat him from the inside out for daring to take one night for himself. For us.

  “This isn’t your fault.” I jiggled his arm. “You know that, right?”

  His curt nod paid lip service to my reassurance, but I didn’t press. It wouldn’t do either of us any good.

  “You’re not getting out of taking me on a date.” I withdrew from him. “I hope you have a Plan B.”

  “Hadley…”

  “Come on.” I grabbed him by the wrist and tugged him after me. “I have an idea.”

  The late hour meant getting creative, but there were plenty of para-owned businesses in town who kept Society hours to accommodate their nocturnal clientele.

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  “No, I don’t.” I yanked harder. “But I want to have you to myself for a minute.”

  Preferably one when the world wasn’t burning down around our ears, but I would take what I could get.

  “We’re going to have guests soon,” I kept going, filling the quiet. “We’ll be stuck doing the tourist thing.”

  “We’ll make it work.” He exerted less pull against me. “Where are they staying?”

  “They still can’t decide,” I admitted. “Oh, the joys of traveling with family.”

  While I was excited to see Addie and Boaz, I had a case of nerves about my faux father visiting, and I was doing my best to ignore that my biological mother would be sharing the same zip code with me.

  “Let’s forget about them.” I skipped my gaze over the restaurant signs. “Let’s focus on us.”

  The reminder Midas didn’t know my whole truth was stamped on his face whenever I mentioned my family, but I had never told another soul about my mother. I wanted to tell him, but I didn’t know how, and I was afraid he would treat me differently once all the pieces clicked into place.

  Grier and Linus had witnessed her ambivalence toward me in my past life, but they didn’t have a concrete reason to dislike her.

  I could give them a metric ton of them, but not without that knowledge crushing me too.

  “Okay.” Sensing my mood, he leaned over and kissed my temple. “Us it is.”

  “I have an idea.” I stopped in front of him. “It’s not as great as yours, but it might do in a pinch.”

  Tilting his head, he glanced around us. “Do I get a hint?”

  “It involves food.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.” I bounced on my toes. “Are you in, or are you out?”

  “That sounds dangerously like a dare.”

  “I would never dare a gwyllgi.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” He took my hand and shook on it. “I’m in.”

  “Excellent.”

  Keeping hold of him, I dragged him through the rear door of another restaurant that spat us out into the kitchen. An old man with weathered brown skin who hunched to avoid his shoulders brushing the ceiling stirred sauce in a pot on the stove. His limbs creaked when he twisted to see who had joined him, and the green leaves of his hair stuck out from under his chef’s hat.

  “Hadley,” he rumbled, a smile curving the strips of bark that formed his lips. “Did you get turned around in the alley? The takeout window is up front.”

  And I made good use of it to get my grabby hands on his epic pies whenever the craving struck me.

  “I have a huge favor to ask.” I clasped my hands in front of me. “Pleeease.”

  “A favor?” Knotty eyes fixed on me, he chided me. “After I haven’t seen you in weeks?”

  “Sadly,” I confessed, the Choco-Loco blaze fresh in my mind, “business has been booming.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” He turned slowly, his rootling feet long and thin. “What would you ask of me?”

  Twisting my sneaker on the tile, I pressed my clasped hands to my chest. “Teach us to make pizza?”

  The us made him curious enough to rake his gaze over Midas. “This is your boyfriend?”

  “Her mate.” Midas touched the small of my back. “I’m Midas Kinase.”

  “Kinase.” The buds near his hairline unfurled, glossy and bright. “Tisdale’s boy?”

  Finding a genuine smile, Midas aimed it at the chef. “You know Mom?”

  “Your mother and I are of an age.” His grin exposed the dark age rings striping his teeth. “And her pack keeps me in business.” He made a slight bow. “I’m Fergus Crann.”

  “Is that a yes?” I wheedled. “We wanted to do something special for a date night.”

  “I would have loaned you my Seanan even without the heir apparent.” He checked on his sauce. “I hope that will suffice?”

  “Thank you.” I blew him a kiss that flushed his cheeks a muddy brown. “You’re the best.”

  “Wait for her in the small kitchen.” He turned back to his stove. “She’ll be along shortly.”

  Hand in hand, we did as we were told. The small kitchen was the one original to the building. Fergus loved the old brick pizza oven and refused to part with it, so it was more decorative than anything these days. He kept it operational for parties where people, like us, wanted to learn how to make their own pie the right way.

  Midas pulled out a chair at an empty table for me. “How do you know Fergus?”

  “You’d be surprised how many trees are sentient.” I kicked the leg of the chair opposite me, and it popped out for him. “Then again, being gwyllgi, maybe you wouldn’t.”

>   “We’re taught to respect nature, but that doesn’t mean nature gives up all its secrets to us.”

  That wasn’t an answer, but just because he was part fae didn’t mean he had taken everyone’s measure.

  “There were two kids tying firecrackers to a cat’s tail then lighting them last Fourth of July.” Humans, both of them. “The cat was understandably terrified and shot up a tree to escape them. His fur had caught fire, and it was a dry summer, so the tree wasn’t far behind.”

  A growl built in Midas’s throat, sympathy for the cat and the tree.

  “It happened in Centennial Olympic Park, and I got lucky. I was able to dig a few large cups out of the trash to fill with fountain water. The cat didn’t appreciate my efforts, or the trip to the vet’s office, but what can you do?” I was amazed the scratches from the experience didn’t scar. “Anyway, I saved the tree, and Fergus paid me a visit the next day with an offer of free pizza for life.”

  “I have noticed you eat a lot of pizza…”

  “I’ll have you know, even at my lowest, I didn’t take him up on the offer.”

  Interest brought him in closer. “Why not?”

  “I was doing my job.” I rubbed my thumb across the glossy table. “No perks required.”

  “She saved the grove,” Seanan told Midas as she joined us. “One wrong move from that cat, and the whole stand of trees would have gone up in smoke. Most weren’t sentient, but we would have lost three elders who are meditating.”

  Behind my hand, I explained to Midas, “That means sleeping as a tree for a decade or two.”

  “It’s not a bad gig, honestly.” She anchored her hands on her hips. “I’m looking forward to my time.”

  From what I could tell, Seanan was a sapling compared to Fergus. Her skin was a warm brown, so were her eyes and her hair, but she wore a human glamour in front of customers that made it impossible to guess her true appearance. “When will that be?”

  “Two centuries, give or take.” She winked. “They make us earn our vacations around here.”

  While she built up the fire, Midas and I helped two of the waitstaff carry in the supplies for our lesson.