Claim the Night. Rachel Lee

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      “Hell.”

      Garner leaned forward, a little too eagerly. “Look, I know you think I’m too untrained to help at all. I still haven’t figured out how you think I’m going to get trained if you keep me out of all the action. But even you know how good my gift is. And I’m telling you, this is no minor infestation. I bet if I keep moving around town, I’ll find others.”

      It was possible, entirely too possible. Such things had happened before, and when they did they invariably signaled a huge problem right around the corner.

      “We need to stop it before there are five of them,” Garner said. As if Jude didn’t already know. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. “I followed the guy home. We can find him here.”

      Jude caved, just a little. Reaching into his desk he pulled out a container of pushpins. “Put it on the map.” The map of the city that was tacked to one wall. The red pin already there indicated the target he’d been after tonight.

      Garner seemed pleased to be allowed to do even this much. Jude, remembering other times when Garner’s attempts to help had proved more problematic than anything, wondered once again what he was going to do with this young man before the kid got himself into serious trouble. The dead kind of trouble.

      Garner marked the spot with a blue pin and returned to his seat. “I can help,” he said again.

      Jude leaned forward resting on his elbows. “Here’s how it’s going to be, Garner.”

      The kid’s face brightened hopefully.

      “You’re going to do a sweep. Start at dawn. Cover as much of the city as you can and report back here at sunset. I need to know how many cases we have.”

      Garner nodded. “Absolutely.”

      “The more there are of them, the faster I need to work. Clear? And you’re not going to get in the way, and you’re not going to do anything stupid. You’re just going to report back.”

      Garner’s hope appeared to be tempered with a touch of disappointment, but he nodded again. “I can do that.”

      Jude tapped the desk with a fingertip to emphasize his point. “You are not ready to deal with these guys. Are we clear on that? If they catch on to you, you run the risk of infestation or possession yourself. So you’re going to prove to me that you know how to be very cautious, understood?”

      “And if I do?”

      Jude sighed, knowing there was no way out of this. If the infestation was spreading, he might not be able to keep up without help from someone who could hunt during daylight hours. “If you prove that you can follow orders exactly, I’ll think about the next step in your training.”

      “Thanks, Jude!” Garner leapt up, having won at last. Or so he thought.

      Jude knew better. Garner had no idea of the realities of the world he was trying to enter. No idea at all.

      But when Garner opened the door of Jude’s office, the scent of Theresa Black wafted in. God. Jude almost banged his head on his desk. A screwed-up night, and now the most enticing morsel he’d encountered in at least fifty years was out there in his extra room, close enough to …

      No.

      He forced himself to look at the wall map, but two pins did not a pattern make, and he knew he was fooling himself, thinking he could gain a thing by pondering two locations.

      Sometimes he hated his belated development of a conscience. Sometimes he hated his self-imposed exile.

      It was several centuries too late to start thinking that he could use a hobby of some kind to fill hours.

      Damn, he hated it when a night got messed up.

      A couple of minutes later, Jude stood just inside his office, the door ajar, listening. He knew he was being a damn fool, maybe a double-damned fool, but that woman’s scent kept drawing him.

      “Your boss is a strange man.”

      Jude smelled Chloe bristle, heard it in her voice. Despite all the instincts that were urging him to walk in there and take what he wanted, he had to smile faintly. Chloe couldn’t have been more protective of him if she’d been his own mother. In fact, come to think of it, his own mother hadn’t cared that much.

      Chloe said, “That’s a nice thing to say about a guy who just saved your life.”

      “I didn’t mean it that way. Just that he’s … different.”

      “We’re all different in some way. Jude gets pretty intense when he’s working a tough case.”

      “Okay.” Theresa sighed. “Sorry. But Jude is a little, well, overwhelming. It was kind of weird the way he made those guys leave. And then he moved so fast!”

      Chloe responded easily, even as her fingers typed rapidly at the keyboard, no doubt researching Terri’s assailant. “He’s a sprinter. Or was.”

      Good lie, Chloe. Sometimes he thought Chloe would lie under oath to protect him. He hoped they never had to find out.

      “I guess that would explain it.”

      “You need to talk?”

      “I’m just trying to absorb it all.” Theresa laughed uneasily. “I moved from one near rape to another in a matter of a few minutes, then your avenger boss came out of nowhere and cowed those guys as if … as if by magic.”

      “It’s his confidence,” Chloe said. “Most cowards won’t take on a man who knows he can take them out.”

      “Really? There were four of them.” And she sounded awfully dubious. He couldn’t blame her.

      “And Jude knows all the martial arts. He’d have had them all flat on their faces before you could blink.”

      “Oh.” Theresa didn’t sound as if she quite believed it.

      Well, not all the martial arts, Jude thought, mildly amused. His inhuman speed had a lot to do with it.

      “Look,” Chloe said after a minute, “you don’t have to worry about Jude. I’ve worked with him for four years now, and I can promise you he’s one of the good guys.”

      “That’s good to know.”

      “Yeah, he has his moods. He can get impatient. He hates it when his night gets messed up. He even gets crabby and short-tempered at times. You know, like the rest of us.”

      At that Theresa gave a small laugh. “Okay. It’s just … I’m sorry. He’s your boss and you like him.”

      “Just what?”

      “Well, somehow he feels different. I can’t explain it.”

      “He is different,” Chloe said. “If this were a comic book, he’d probably be one of the super-heroes.”

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