Black Market Blood Read online

  Black Market Blood

  By Francis Gideon

  A New Canadiana Novel

  In a world where monsters are known to—and despised by—humanity, vampire Chaz Solomon hides in plain sight as a detective on the Toronto police force. But freedom from prejudice does nothing to alleviate his guilt over the lover he betrayed to gain his label of “normal.” He spends his days living a lie and his nights in a brothel, seeking company and black-market blood.

  When a serial killer preying on both vampires and sex workers leads Chaz and his department on a twisted chase through New Canadiana’s supernatural underground, one of the brothel employees, Sully, becomes the only person Chaz can trust. There’s much more to Sully than a pretty face, and he’s slowly breaching the walls around Chaz’s heart with his intelligence and kind nature.

  But as the body count rises and conspiracies come to light, the past Chaz has been trying to escape comes rushing back. Sully might accept Chaz as a vampire, but will he forgive Chaz’s other deceptions? And what will become of Chaz’s life if his secret is revealed? Before he can worry about a future with Sully, he’ll have to find the vengeful murderer threatening everything he cares about.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Part One: Saint Valentine

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part Two: Saint Jude

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Part Three: Saint Sebastian

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Part Four: Saint Therese

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Part Five: Saint Michael

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Epilogue

  More from Francis Gideon

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  About the Author

  By Francis Gideon

  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright

  For Travis

  Part One: Saint Valentine

  Chapter 1

  WHY DID everything need to start with a party?

  Chaz Solomon gripped his watered-down drink and lingered near the back of the Blue Supreme Bar. He was close enough to the speakers that he could hear the low bass of the shitty pop song on repeat. The music was out of character for a mostly cop bar and so were the lines of men and women in professional suits and jackets by the taps.

  A law conference? Maybe the upper management came out to celebrate? Chaz didn’t know and he didn’t like them hanging around. He felt as if his every last action was on display. It didn’t matter that he was a lead detective now, or that everyone else in the room was also Toronto law enforcement or a friend, because any kind of social gathering would still leave a bitter taste in his mouth. A party always meant endings instead of beginnings. And this one was shaping up to be worse than the last party he attended at Divine Interventions.

  Chaz shook his head, trying to keep those memories at bay. He wasn’t twenty-one anymore and being carted from court system to court system, from rehab to rehab, or from green-light bar to green-light bar. He was thirty-three now. When he drank, it wasn’t to the point of blackout. There was no need. As far as everyone was concerned, he was Chip MacDonald—not Chaz Solomon—and he was normal. A lonely, antisocial guy who smoked too much and only drank one kind of beer, without wavering, but he was normal. In Toronto, commonly known as The City of Monsters, everyone smoked to pass the time. And everyone in the city celebrated little victories. Like Jack Tanner, Chaz’s former detective partner, being promoted to the staff-inspector position of the 297 squad.

  Jack was across the room, a Hefeweizen beer in his hand and a broad grin on his face. That smile—the one that crinkled his eyes when he was happy—made him seem far less intimidating than he really was. He stood several inches taller than Chaz’s five-eight frame, and his broad shoulders were clad in a tight-fitting suit jacket that made his muscles appear much larger.

  Jack was also an incredible partner. He worked the long hours on the job but didn’t succumb to every last vice or a maudlin speech whenever they didn’t get their perp. Jack just bore it and said he’d come in more, stay later, and eventually “get the guy.” That attitude had earned him his promotion. Chaz was happy for him, really. He knew deep down he could never be a staff inspector, effectively acting as a captain, even if he put in just as many hours as Jack—or more. Chaz couldn’t command humans; he was better at slinking through alleyways and catching monsters just like himself.

  Jack let out a laugh. He was standing with the police commissioner, Danny Morgan. They clinked their glasses and continued to talk by conversing in each other’s ear. The music’s volume increased, and a tall man with olive skin and a leather jacket told the bartender to change the station.

  “I hate that fucking song,” he said. “The Unseen Answers are assholes. Change it.”

  After some delicate persuasion by the man’s date, the music switched to something decidedly more punk with kinetic beats and fast-spoken lyrics about family and honor. But it was still too loud. Chaz wouldn’t be surprised if the apartments above the bar sent in noise complaints that night. But since Blue Supreme Bar was owned by a former cop, and Jack Tanner was here, nothing would be done. Chaz resented that privileged position as much as he coveted it. When Chaz was released from Divine Interventions years ago with a clean bill of health, the easiest place for him to hide was in plain sight. Go into law enforcement. Put away people just like you. And they’ll never, ever know.

  Chaz hadn’t expected to make a friend in Jack, though, and now he felt the loss like a bruise. You haven’t lost him. Not entirely. He’s just your boss now. But Jack as a boss meant Chaz needed to find a new partner, and if he had to choose from any of the people in the room, he’d much rather work alone. Every single guy on the force but Jack or Chaz had brought a date. The women were tucked into tight red dresses and told to be silent. When one woman’s date was too into downing shots instead of paying attention to her, she left to sit at the bar. Another woman sat with her, and the two of them exchanged whispered conversations while passing drugs between them.

  Chaz sighed. He had to squash the urge to arrest them. Tonight was a party. And parties were not for being arrested.

  Chaz swallowed the last of his beer. He placed the stein on the bar and turned toward the front. A clock right above the doorway stated it was eleven at night. He’d stayed long enough. He’d wanted to get to midnight, but he supposed he needed to be kinder to himself.

  More officers and their dates pushed their way through the entrance. Chaz looked away when he recognized a couple of the women from Artie’s house, his heart hammering. He ducked into the bathroom instead of going to coat check.

  The bathroom was empty. There was a long crack in the mirror, runnin
g from the top left corner all the way to the center. Chaz pressed his finger against the crack and saw that his reflected finger matched up. Not a two-way mirror.

  All vampire lore—really, all monster lore—that said it was impossible to have a reflection was wrong. Because most monsters started their lives as humans (some with dormant genes that would turn them, others who deliberately turned themselves, or some who were forcibly turned), they were able to make reflections. True monsters—those from myths and legends that came to life without being born from a womb—were the only exceptions to this rule. Most people didn’t believe in those types of monsters. Even Chaz, who had seen a lot since becoming a vamp and even more in his years as a cop, had a healthy amount of skepticism.

  Two-way mirrors, though—like the kind the police used to interrogate suspects—were another story. They weren’t true mirrors but windows, and they ended up giving all supernatural creatures a faint halo. Few humans had ever realized this. Chaz hadn’t until he was halfway through his police training and discovered his “aura” (as the students called it) wasn’t a trick of the light but something inside him. It helped him when he interrogated monster suspects since he knew what to look for and could use it against them. For the most part, however, Chaz’s transfer and rise to detective was done to make sure he never had to be in the interrogation room too long.

  Jack was better at getting confessions, anyway.

  Chaz sighed. He ran the water and splashed some on his face. He peered into the mirror and displayed one of his incisors, which was starting to crown into a visible fang. Even if he didn’t need to feed, sometimes thinking of blood made his teeth transform, like a mouth filling with saliva at the sight of a donut. Chaz pressed his lips together tightly—trying not to cut his lip in the process—and counted to ten.

  I’m better than this. I can control myself.

  After another count to ten, his teeth calmed down—like a dieter’s mouth going dry when the donut was replaced with carrot sticks. Chaz took a few sobering breaths before opening his eyes and examining his reflection in the mirror, only to spot Jack in the glass behind him.

  “Gah! How long have you been standing there?”

  “Not long. You feeling okay?”

  “Yes. Just that you scared me half to death. Don’t do that.”

  “Sorry.” Jack’s smile split his face. “I guess I’ll have to hone those spy-like instincts, right? I can’t exactly plan sneak attacks anymore in my new position.”

  “No. You have to be the face of the force now. But why are you treating me like a perp?” Chaz’s voice came out sharper than he meant it. He knew Jack hadn’t seen his teeth, but the close call made his skin bristle with fear and adrenaline.

  “Hey, man,” Jack said. “You’re one of the best cops I know. Interrogating you like this is nothing personal—except that it’s a crime if you miss this cake.”

  After a moment Chaz chuckled. “That was bad, man. Worse than your normal dad jokes.”

  “It was pretty bad, yeah.” Jack rubbed his hand over his chin, as if he was trying to think of even more ways to make Chaz groan. “I should try better. You know, make sure I have the right number of puns for this job. My entire environment has changed, so I’ll need to adjust.”

  “Well, you’ll be cracking up all the admin staff in no time, I’m sure. And I’ll miss not hearing them when we’re on patrol. I hope you know that.”

  “I do. Remember when we broke up that domestic dispute between two werewolves in full-on mating heat?”

  “And you told them to stop fucking like rabbits?” Chaz said, remembering the incident clearly due to how often Jack brought it up. “And they got super offended by the comparison and nearly took you out?”

  “Yeah!” Jack grinned even wider. “Could have made a bad joke about it being the dog days of summer but had to cross my species metaphors. Oh well. You know, it’s gonna suck not having you around as a partner.”

  Chaz flinched at the double entendre. Jack shouldn’t know—no one should know—and Chaz calmed as soon as he realized Jack was expressing genuine emotion. Not jokes, not teasing. For once he wasn’t trying to be the sarcastic dad of the police force.

  “Yeah, this does suck. I think I’d rather work alone. You or bust.”

  “Come on. You need someone to watch your back. You’ll always need a partner.”

  “Who’s gonna watch yours?”

  “I have an entire team now. Then there’s Anna.”

  Chaz chuckled. Anna was one of Jack’s many, many cats. His wallet had at least three photos of his cats at all times. Chaz could only imagine what his office would look like in a week. Cats and fake-mouse toys everywhere. Chaz battled away a vision of Jack with a cat in his lap, stroking it like a Bond villain as he worried about crime stats.

  “I’m finding you a new partner, though. One I will carefully select from a number of applicants.”

  “Yeah? We’re that desperate for people we’re going outside the force?”

  Jack nodded sullenly. “We’re… kind of losing all our best and brightest. Either to monsters or, well, themselves.”

  Chaz’s jaw went tight. The week before, two beat cops had lost it in a raid against the Chaos Cartel. One was taken down by some kind of beast that Katja, the pathologist, was still working to identify, while the other ate his gun the next day. It wasn’t the first case like it either.

  “But nevertheless,” Jack said, “we have a lot of applicants. Being The City of Monsters does have its perks. We’re good for cops who like a challenge.”

  “Well, I trust you. What kind of cake are we talking about here?”

  “Coconut. With chocolate frosting.”

  “Really now?”

  “Ah, yeah. It was recommended by some of the new applicants. I put a question about cake as the last question on the interview. Just so they know it’s a serious workplace. They should be here, you know, very soon. I took the best ones from the interview and invited them. You never really know who someone is until you see them at a party and with a beer.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. That’s how I realized you only drink porter beer because, apparently, the drink’s a meal replacement. Who knew, right?”

  Chaz laughed. He rehashed his worn lines. “Porters who worked on the trains all day often came back to their lodgings starving and needing a drink but too tired to eat much. So the bartenders developed a beer that was basically a meal replacement. It’s where the term for porterhouse steak comes from too.”

  “See? Genius. So you should mingle in the crowd and see if you can find someone who dazzles you with random knowledge. Or just someone you like.”

  “I’ll consider it. Just give me a couple minutes?” Chaz gestured to the stalls, though he didn’t have to go. Jack nodded right away, understanding.

  “See you out there. Be sure to pick up a drink on me too.”

  “Will do. Thanks!”

  Chaz waited until the sounds of Jack’s footsteps blurred with the music outside the bathroom. He sighed again, hating how crappy he felt. Beyond the sting of Jack’s leaving, his body was lethargic, as if he’d just woken up after a long sleep. The alcohol? Maybe. He touched his neck, his chest, and his inner thighs to see how his blood and heart rate were doing. Slow but not at desperate levels. He’d just fed a few days ago, but maybe stress made him lose whatever nutrients were in the blood. It was too hard to tell, and it wasn’t like there were health magazines targeted toward vamps. All information like that, monsters found out underground and from each other. And Chaz couldn’t spend too much time underground as anything but a police officer, not without drawing attention.

  Chaz flushed one of the toilets for good measure before leaving the bathroom. The bar’s occupancy had doubled in the ten minutes he’d been gone. Chaz couldn’t see Jack or even anyone familiar from foot patrol. Just faces and faces that all seemed to blur together like some Edvard Munch painting. Chaz was rooted to his spot in the hallway between the
bar and the bathroom, completely unsure where to go next.

  Do I really want cake that badly? He considered hanging around and trying to find a new partner but decided against it. It would only make him that much sadder if he happened to find someone and Jack didn’t pick them. Because Jack had final say, and as much as Chaz wanted to believe in his good choices, the man had decided on coconut cake when the clear answer was always red velvet.

  Chaz turned around and headed toward coat check. No one was manning the station, so he slipped through the half door unnoticed. Many coats were flopped over a chair, forgotten and disorganized. Chaz tried to find the number he’d been given, but it was pointless. After scanning the rows and not finding his coat, he started to go through the large pile. Of course he had to wear brown today. Everyone wore the same fucking jacket on the goddamn police force and—

  Someone rang the bell on the desk, making Chaz jump. He turned around and stopped dead in his tracks. Oh.

  The man who stared back at him looked exactly like Nat Wyatt. The Nat Wyatt. The one he’d met at Divine Interventions and then sold out to his brother Atticus so Chaz could have some type of normal life again. Nat the firestarter with gray eyes and dark blond, almost brown hair. He stood behind the counter wearing a suit jacket over a T-shirt. A band T-shirt. Wow. This had to be Nat.

  When Chaz said nothing, Nat tilted his head, assessing him. “Are you the coat check?”

  “Um.” Chaz glanced around him, realizing he was in the middle of the pile. He stared back at Nat, who didn’t seem to recognize him. Had Chaz changed so much? He had a few days’ growth of stubble and his hair was shorter, but his brown skin and dark eyes were still the same. His face was still the same. Everything was… except on paper, he was normal.

  “Are you okay?” Nat furrowed his brows. “You seem like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Nat?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Nathanael Wyatt.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know who you’re talking about.” Nat’s brows seemed permanently furrowed, as if he really didn’t recognize Chaz—or just didn’t want to engage. “Have you mistaken me for someone else?”