That made her feel a little better... well not really. She still felt like crap. "Any idea who's behind it?"
"Apollites," he said dryly. "Big ones, with a few Daimons thrown in for fun."
"Har, har, Otto. I'm serious." Susan gripped the wheel tighter as she remembered the look on Jimmy's face in the shelter. "My friend Jimmy said to me earlier today that some of the police were working with the vampires. I thought he was nuts, but now I'm not so sure."
"That doesn't make sense, though. I can understand the Hollywood generation who fall for it, but cops? They have more sense than that."
"Unless someone higher up the food chain is sending them out. Think about it. I saw the list earlier. You guys have people all over the government. Why couldn't they?"
"For one thing, there's not as many of them who can walk in daylight."
"Yes, but there are a lot of cops on night shifts. How do you know they're not Apollites covering up the murders their people are committing?"
"Now that isn't unheard of. A lot of them do that. But this is more organized than that. They're not just Apollites and Daimons attacking. They have humans working with them."
"Which plays right into what Jimmy was saying. He told me that this ran high up. There has to be a human leading them."
Otto stroked his chin in thought. "What exactly did Jimmy know?"
Susan took a deep breath as she tried to remember everything. "It started a couple of years ago. He'd have these isolated incidents of college students or runaways who turned up missing. Every now and again, they'd even find a body. The cases would be solved, but he'd never see the reports. At first he didn't think anything about it. But a few months ago, they started getting more frequent, and that's when he became suspicious."
"Did you ever investigate it?"
Pain sliced through her. "No. I can't show my face at City Hall. I'd be laughed outside before I could even begin my research."
She met Otto's sympathetic glance in the mirror, but he made no comment. "Were the disappearances all in a certain area?"
"Ravenna. In and around the area where the Happy Hunting Ground is."
"That would make sense, wouldn't it?"
She nodded. "I think Jimmy was right. Someone fairly high up is interfering and helping the Daimons. Someone like the mayor, maybe."
Otto made a noise of disagreement. "He's too high up. He couldn't push that many members of the police department around without someone getting suspicious."
"Yeah, not to mention that it started before he took office." Susan chewed her lip as she considered more suspects. "What about the commissioner?"
"That's more a possibility. Or maybe a detective?"
"No, Jimmy said it went higher than that."
Otto nodded. "He'd be the one to know."
Her heart clenched remembering the fact that Jimmy couldn't tell her anything now.
Damn, if only she had a clue of some kind...
"There has to be a reason for this. Are you sure they've never attempted something like this before?"
"Positive. And in my mind, I can't imagine what would prompt a cop to help a vampire prey on other humans, especially a high ranking one."
"But it is happening."
Otto nodded. "Whatever's going on though, I'm thinking Cael needs to be replaced since he's obviously distracted and not paying attention to what the humans and Daimons are doing. "
She could understand that. "Is it normal for a Dark-Hunter to date an Apollite?"
"No. Hell, no. I've never heard of a Dark-Hunter hooking up with an Apollite before. The only time anything close to this has happened was with Wolf, and he wasn't technically a Dark-Hunter. He was just a human who got caught up in this by a Norse god. Dark-Hunters aren't supposed to date anyone at all. And marriage is strictly forbidden."