Cause of Death: Unnatural (The Cause of Death Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

don't you?
You know what he'll do to you if he thinks..."
    "If he thinks what, Jarek?" said
Em. "That dear old Alina and I have been plotting to overthrow his rule by
raising an army of fan dancers and bar tenders? Don't be an idiot, lover. Use
your head. Alina and I have been trying to kill each other for how many hundred
years now?"
    Em relaxed. She had him now. She could feel
his energies unwinding, his thoughts curling out to hers in the way they used
to do when they both wielded the power of her father's court.
    "Alina turned up a few weeks ago,"
she said. "I've been watching her to see what she'll do, see just how deep
she'll dig herself. It's been amusing. Have you seen her lately? I was going to
call to you - give her just enough leash and
then..."
    Em looked up to see Jarek smiling. This time
the smile was in his eyes and well as his lips. There was   affection there too, and a hint of all
the fun they'd ever had.
    "Will you come home to witness her
punishment, my dear?" Jarek said, reaching out to brush her hair from her
eyes.
    Em grinned back at him. "I might,"
she said, playfully. "If you promise to make it worth my
while."
    Jarek's form spun into smoke and curled all
around Em. She could feel his mind pushing at hers, his dark energy pulsing
around her willing her to join him in a different field of existence. Em tilted
her head back and allowed a part of her energy to spiral into the void where
her kind usually lived. Jarek was waiting there as he always had. Their two
beings twisted around each other in the old, familiar patterns. It felt so good , so right, thought Em. She had missed him, just as she
had missed the Family, her father, her life in the darkness.
    Jarek tugged a little harder, pulling her
completely into nothingness. Together their energies entwined and exploded out
of the room, out of the apartment, across the streets and buildings of the
cities and over the thousands of mortals who lived and breathed beneath them.
They flashed across the land, Emilia and Jarek, one entity, feeling and testing
their old powers, the strengths in each other, their potential, their every heart's desire.
    Jarek trolled around inside her mind,
grinning at the notion of forensics, smirking at Robert, laughing at Nick. Jennifer, her friends, her favorite foods, her toothpaste, yoga
classes. He brushed by her memories of the club, and playfully, she
pulled his mind away. No need for him to go there, she thought.
    Em felt around inside Jarek's thoughts.
Memories of lovers since her, politics at her father's hall, the orgies of a
recent cull, the precision of Jarek's mind, his
determination, his ambition. It was a thrill to be with him again, a dark,
guilty pleasure to be so carefree in her own form
again.
    But she stopped. There was a noise, far, far
away. It was a familiar sound, but for a second she couldn't figure out what it
meant.
    Her cell phone was ringing.
    She snapped back into her body, coming down
from her higher energy field with a jerk that threw her head back. Beside her
Jarek's black smoke coalesced into human form with a decidedly irritated
expression on his face.
    "What?" he said, impatiently.
    Em ignored him and answered the phone. She
realized she was relieved to hear it ring. She'd gone too far with Jarek just
then.
    It was Robert.
    "Sorry to spoil your evening Em,"
he said. "Four bodies. You're never going to
guess where."
    Em shook her head to clear the last remaining
affects of her fling with Jarek. She needed to concentrate. A
crime scene. Work. Four
victims.
    "Where?"
she said.
    "The club," said Robert. "The
burlesque club we only left a few hours ago. I can't believe it myself."
    "I'll be there," said Em.
"Will you call Nick, or shall I?"
    When she hung up she looked back at Jarek and
smiled a tight lipped smile. He growled.
    "Thanks for the ride, lover," Em
said, "but mama has to work now."
    She was angry at herself for letting Jarek
pull her back into her old life so quickly. She hadn't even