Logan (Chosen Champions #1) - Macy Blake Page 0,22
Understood?”
So not only was the detective fae, but he knew exactly what both Randy and Logan were. Interesting.
“Yes, Detective.” Randy turned. His expression grew angry for a split second before he hid it.
Gideon shared a look with Logan, asking for instruction. Logan honestly wasn’t sure what to do. He’d never actually encountered a fae cop before.
“With me,” Logan said, softly enough only Gideon could hear. “Fae.”
Gideon adjusted his stance slightly, giving himself the ability to see the widest area around them without seeming too obvious about it.
“Aleron is on the way,” the oracle said in his ear. “I’m watching from the camera at your six. Do you want more backup?”
Logan clenched his hand into a fist at his thigh, signaling his answer: no, he didn’t.
“Understood. I’ll put Coal on standby in case that changes.”
The detective approached. As with all the fae, he kept his emotions in check, but he couldn’t hide his scent. Logan could have smelled his fury a mile away. At least they had that emotion in common at the moment. Hopefully, it would help.
“Who are you?” the detective asked. He hissed the words, but they weren’t said disrespectfully.
“Alpha Logan Moore.” Logan kept his tone light in an effort to keep the fae from becoming even more defensive.
“I am Jamal, James Alfred in the human world.”
They sized each other up for a moment. “What’s a fae warrior doing as a detective in the human realm?”
“I was banished for twenty-five years for pissing off my queen. I got bored.”
Logan smirked. “Sucks for you. Let me guess, your sentence was almost up?”
“I had a year left before I could return to my realm. That opportunity is now gone, since the veil between the realms is closed. Now that manners are out of the way, you want to explain to me why a wolf and a vampire are all over my crime scene?”
“We got a tip,” Logan said.
“From whom?”
Logan simply smiled.
“Should I call Solomon?” Gideon asked quietly.
Jamal took a step back at the casual invocation of the hellhound alpha’s name. Of course, they had no plans to call him, but the implication would be that they were assisting Solomon and were at the bar investigating the attack at his request. How else would they know something was wrong, after all?
“Nice save,” the oracle said.
Jamal recovered his composure quickly. “There’s no need to call the alpha. What did you find?”
Logan kept his voice calm and steady. “Nothing. I scented something sickeningly sweet. Experience told me to look for an incubus or succubus, but we only found the one girl. We clearly interrupted its attack, and while we got her help, the creature escaped.”
“There were more than you two here?”
Logan nodded but wasn’t willing to reveal details about the rest of his team. “We searched but found nothing. I don’t know how it managed to get out of the bar without us finding it, or how we missed the fact that it simply went down the street and found another victim.”
“We had the entrance and exit covered,” Gideon explained. “It shouldn’t have gotten past us.”
“Not all of them,” Jamal said. “Come with me.”
They followed him into the bar, where he went into the back and the door marked Employees Only. The same door Logan had found Ashley leaning against the night before.
Inside was a small storage area that led to the back exit. Logan had already checked the area. But Jamal didn’t head to the exit Logan knew about. Instead, he went to a large metal door at the side of the room.
“A freezer?” Logan asked. What the hell did a freezer have to do with anything?
“Shared by both bars. They’re owned by the same person.”
“Fuck.”
Jamal opened the freezer door. It passed through to a door at the other side.
“How could it have known that?” Gideon asked.
“That’s what I want to know. I’m going to go question—” Jamal paused and glanced at his notes. “—Ashley Wilson, the victim you helped. I want to know what she remembers. We need a description of this thing if we have any hope of stopping it.”
“Did you check the cameras?” Logan asked.
Jamal arched a brow. “You think I’m new at this?”
“No insult intended, Detective. I’m frustrated.”
“Tell me about it. If we have an incubus or a succubus on the loose… well, considering what happened to our second victim last night, we need to find this thing. As you may know, fae creatures lose power the longer they remain in the human realm.”