The Darkest Kiss (Riley Jenson Guardian 6)

"Won't stop either of us from drinking it, though."

"Hell, no." He raised his cup in salute, brown eyes twinkling. "I did an Internet search, and the only thing I could come up with was a couple of Japanese legends."

"I'm guessing they didn't say how to kill this thing." Japanese myths rarely did, for some odd reason.

"No. But they did say that a bakeneko can change its shape into that of a human, and has been known to eat parts of its own mistress in order to shapeshift and take her place."

"Well, some of that criteria certainly fits."

"Yes. But why is it going after these men? Why would a cat - a real cat - want to destroy these people?"

"I don't know, but something has obviously set her off. We just have to try and find out what." I took a sip of coffee and studied the file for a moment. "I wonder if she actually belonged to any of the dead women?"

"Hard to say. She obviously knew the layout of that house pretty well - she ran straight to the open window when she was escaping us."

"Yeah, but I didn't see any cat trays or food bowls, which suggests she didn't actually belong there."

"You think she's a stray the women picked up?"

I smiled. "From what Dia said, the only thing these women pick up is men."

"So why the curiosity over who the cat belongs to?"

"I don't know. It's just a niggle."

He studied me for a moment, then said, "You know, there were food bowls in Cherry Barnes's kitchen."

"Then it might be worth chasing up with the neighbors to see if she had a black cat. Cherry Barnes had good reason to hate her fellow Trollops, so if it's her cat, maybe its seeking revenge on behalf of its dead mistress."

"Yeah, but Cherry wasn't killed by the cat, which means we have yet another murderer to deal with."

"It keeps the day from getting boring," I said lightly, and tossed the file back onto the desk. "Some of the Trollops are going to be at a fancy fund-raising shindig tonight. I'm going to head there and see what I can sniff out."

"You want company?"

"At five hundred dollars a ticket, she can go alone," Jack said, as he came into the room. His bald head positively gleamed under the light of the fluorescents. It looked for all the world like he'd been polishing it. "Besides, you're going to help to round up the other Trollops."

"I get all the fun jobs," Kade muttered.

"Dia gave me a list of their names," I said helpfully, and swallowed my smile as he gave me a dark look. I glanced at Jack and added, "And she assures me the fund-raiser is one of the cheaper ones, boss."

"Dia runs a multimillion-dollar empire. We scratch by on government funds. How's the shoulder?"

"Survivable."

"Good." He handed me a folder. "The report on Vinny Castillo. Thought you might like to see it."

I didn't, because I really wanted to have as little to do with her as possible. But that wasn't an option in my job - I dealt with vampires on a daily basis, and I had a feeling Vinny was going to feature in my life for a while yet.

And God, how I hated those little "feelings" of mine. Especially when they refused to provide any further information.

"We keeping an eye on her?"

"Yep. She's empire-building, no doubt about it." He poured himself a coffee and took a sip. Unlike Kade or me, he made no face. Maybe he preferred the nasty-tasting stuff. "Watch yourself around her. She has a taste for women, and I'm not entirely sure your shields will work against her sort of magnetism."

If our first meeting was anything to go by, he could be right. "Did you find any information on invisible vampires?"

"Not yet, but it's a big database, and unfortunately, not all the early stuff has been transcribed to computer."