Moon Sworn (Riley Jenson Guardian 9)

"Riley," he said. "We've just installed a scrambler program onto your cell phone, so hopefully that'll stop the scanners from picking up any information until we get a new number. What's happened?"

"I cornered Surrey and he wasn't happy,"

"Meaning he's dead." It wasn't a question, and in so many different ways that was disturbing. The worst being the fact that Jack had no doubt that I would shoot to kill, and that certainty was the one thing I'd wanted to avoid.

I desperately wanted him to have doubts. Needed him to have doubts, for my own peace of mind if nothing else.

"Surrey's soul rose and I questioned him. It appears he hired a hit man through an ad in the local paper. The clipping was in his wallet - "

"You recorded your search?" he interrupted. "Cole's very particular about that."

And I'd been told off enough times by him to do it automatically nowadays. "It's already on its way to you, though you might want to warn him he'll also find my prints in the van. I now need to trace the phone number I found." I reached for the ad and read out the number. "I might as well go investigate it if we can pin down a location."

"Hang on." He plonked the phone down, then murmured something to whoever was in the main office with him. Papers shuffled, then he came back online. "The labs just came back with the latest test results.">It took a few minutes, but gradually the chill of death began to infuse the air. Wispy strands of smoke began to rise from his body, the tendrils gathering several feet above his flesh until they'd formed a ghostly, almost humanlike figure that had no features. He didn't swirl as so many other souls did, but I felt the sharp tug of him sucking at my energy.

You lied, he said, his voice far clearer, stronger, than was usual for the dead. But maybe that was merely a result of the freshness of his demise. Usually I didn't arrive on the scene until at least an hour afterward.

"Anyone who shoots at a guardian needs to be prepared. We don't often miss." Although I could have, if I'd just taken a moment to think rather than react. It would have been better to interrogate his live body rather than his dead one.

But I didn't kill anyone, he said. His anger and fear swirled around me, through me, in a bitter, vengeful cloud.

It was the same bitterness I'd tasted in the park.

"If you didn't kill Johnson, then why were your prints found in the van? And why was your scent at the murder scene?"

He just sat there, a pulsing cloud of conflicting emotions. And he didn't seem more inclined to talk in this form than he had when flesh.

"If you want to move on and find peace, you'd better talk to me, Mr. Surrey."

I had no idea if it actually worked that way, but I was betting he didn't, either.

He stirred, sending a tendril of smoke swirling outward from his main form. The energy flowing from my body increased sharply, and pain stabbed through me. Obviously, I needed more recovery time between souls.

The bastard deserved what he got, he spat. He killed my family. Tortured them.

"He went to prison for his crimes - "

Hah, Surrey retorted. Twenty-five years for my wife and her daughter. Does that seem fair to you?

"That's not - "

Yeah, yeah, you bastards all stick together. Well, I don't regret my actions. He deserved it. I can move on in peace now, knowing he can't do that to anyone else.

"But you didn't actually do anything, did you, Mr. Surrey?" It was a guess on my part, but a pretty certain one. Surrey might be a vampire, but he didn't seem to have the balls for torture. Sure, he'd had no compunction about shooting at me, but I think that was more fear and panic than courage.

His sullenness swirled around me. The pain of him sucking at my strength was growing, as was the dull ache behind my left eye.

No, he said eventually. I hired someone.

"Tell me who."

I never knew his name and he never got out of that stupid costume he was wearing.

"The demon costume?"

His smoky form moved, which I took as assent. Maybe he'd forgotten he no longer had flesh.

"How did you get in contact with him, then?"