Claim the Night. Rachel Lee

at the woman. “What’s your name?”

      “Terri. Theresa Black.”

      “Okay, Theresa Black, are you absolutely certain you’re telling me the truth?”

      “Why wouldn’t I?”

      “Because there could have been other reasons to stab this guy.”

      He smelled the indignation as much as he saw it. All right, she was telling the truth. She’d defended herself from an attacker.

      Chloe spoke. “You don’t have time.”

      “You’re always worried about my time,” he grumped at her.

      “Maybe because I don’t want to look for another job? You don’t have time tonight. There’s Garner. And other things.”

      Like he needed her to remind him.

      “Don’t have time for what?” Theresa asked.

      “Never mind,” he answered shortly. His inner clock was starting to tick more loudly, warning of dawn’s approach. He glanced at the clock on Chloe’s desk and saw he had less than two hours. Not enough to hunt down a man he knew nothing about.

      He looked at Chloe. “I want all the information on the guy who attacked her. Every detail. Right away.”

      “Yes, boss.”

      “Then you and I are taking her to the cops.”

      “Maybe Garner could …”

      He interrupted her with a look. “Garner? You’ve got to be kidding.”

      “Well, it was a thought. He’s got to learn sometime.”

      “Not today. Garner can turn the smallest task into an earth-shattering catastrophe. I don’t have time to clean up after him. No Garner.”

      “I don’t want to go to the cops,” Theresa said firmly. “That’ll just make things worse with Sam. And if they keep me too long, I’ll be late to work. I can’t afford that.”

      “Call in sick.” Jude had had enough. Another minute in the same room with this woman and he might revert. He rose. “If you don’t go to the police, if you go home or go to work instead, then I take no responsibility for anything that happens to you.”

      Turning, he walked into his office. Before he closed the door he heard Theresa say, “Is he always so harsh?”

      “Only when his night gets messed up.”

      Then he closed the door, leaving the problem of Theresa in the capable hands of Chloe, so he could face the much less capable hands of Garner.

      Garner lounged in the client chair facing Jude’s desk, one leg thrown over the arm. The instant Jude entered, however, he straightened up, putting both feet on the floor.

      Jude said nothing as he rounded the desk and took his own seat. Only then did he speak. “What the hell are you doing here, Garner?”

      The younger man shrugged. “I smelled the, ah, target.”

      “And?”

      “I smelled that same odor somewhere else, earlier today. On someone else.”

      At that Jude straightened a bit. “Victim?”

      Garner shook his head. He might still be new at all this, but he was sure of his innate instincts. “The oppression involves more than the one guy you found.”

      “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