When Passion Lies: A Shadow Keepers Novel by J. K. Beck Read Free Book Online Page A

to draw from his rapidly depleting supply of patience. He hadn’t asked to be partnered with Everil, he begged a new assignment every chance he had, and yet they were still stuck together like glue.
    “A percipient daemon,” Gabriel said. “Get the images. Solve the crime. Ring any bells?”
    Two blinks of those oversized black eyes. “We have no percipient daemon on staff.”
    One. Two. Three
. Gabriel didn’t bother counting to ten. “Then you request a loan from another division. Never mind,” he snapped. “I’ll handle it.”
    “You do that,” Everil said with an officious nod. As if summoning a percipient was all his idea.
    He scurried away and Gabriel pulled out his phone. It took him all of three seconds to contact Koller and have him put the request in motion. With luck, the percipient would quickly conjure a wormhole and arrive within ten minutes. He knew of two currently working for the PEC: Armand Ylexi, who was stationed in Berlin, and Ryan Doyle, from Division 6 in L.A.
    By the time he ended the call, Everil was back, this time accompanied by a tall vampire with a scar cutting across his right cheek.
    “Says he came to Zermatt for a meeting with the victim,” Everil said. “Hasn’t told me his name yet, though.”
    “Lucius Dragos,” Gabriel said. Everil’s eyes went wide, and he took a step back. Dragos, Gabriel was happy to see, looked amused. “If you had a meeting planned, I’m guessing you can identify our victim? Save us a little time?”
    “I’ve never met the man in person, but he’d arranged a meeting with Tiberius at this spot,” Dragos said.
    “So where’s Tiberius?”
    “If you know who I am, you also know that I often stand in Tiberius’s stead.”
    “Fair enough. Who’s the guy?”
    “Cyrus Reinholt.”
    Gabriel shook his head. “Should I know him?”
    “Are you weren?”
    “Half human, half hellhound,” Gabriel said. Beside him, Everil’s pinched face had pulled into a frown.
    “No reason you’d know him, then. He’s weren, obviously. This was a preliminary meeting. He’d contacted Tiberius about acting as a possible intelligence resource.”
    “He offered to spy on Lihter?” Gabriel said. “Why?”
    “That was one of the questions I intended to ask him.”
    Gabriel nodded, then turned toward Everil. “This puts Lihter at the top of our suspect list.” Dragos was on the list, too, of course. At least until his story was confirmed. But Gabriel didn’t intend to mention that. “We’ll see if the percipient can give us anything else to work with.”
    “You’ve summoned a percipient?” Dragos asked. His expression shifted then, so slightly that Gabriel doubted anyone but himself noticed. But Dragos wasn’t happy with the idea of a percipient arriving. In fact, if Gabriel had to pin it, he’d say Dragos looked irritated. And that was interesting.
    “Should be here any minute,” Gabriel said, keeping his eyes on Dragos’s face.
    A pause, then, “Good thinking.”
    “But?”
    Now Dragos’s smile came easy. “Unless you want to deal with the inevitable consequences of the human Swiss police witnessing the arrival of a percipient daemon by wormhole, I suggest you clear away the humans.”
    “We’re working on that,” Gabriel said, shooting a sideways glance at Everil, who was in fact supposed to be working on that. “The PEC can take exclusive jurisdiction pursuant to our agreement with the Swiss Polizei. But it takes time. Unfortunately, we don’t have any vampires on staff. No one with any sort of persuasive abilities, actually, so there’s no easy way to convince the humans they have somewhere else they need to be.”
    Dragos nodded, obviously only half listening as he surveyed the scene.
    “But you’re a vampire …”
    Dragos turned, surprised. “I am.”
    “You’re here. You’re a vampire. And,” Gabriel added, taking a step toward him. “I’m sure you must want your informant’s killer caught as much as we at Division 12