Cause of Death: Unnatural

She knew he was there the second she turned the key in the lock.

Her apartment wasn't empty. She knew it, and he knew she knew it too. She didn't bother turning on the lights. There was an orange glow coming through the window from the street light outside her building. She heard Robert's car drive away and a siren in the distance. She heard a breath, and felt the air move softly, slipping under a piece of paper on her hall table and wafting it to the floor.

A shadow slinked from the corner of her kitchen into the dark space at the end of the hall.

The human in Em sensed his hunger and his violence and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. The vampire in Em sensed his hunger too, and sneered at his weakness.

Em let out a long slow breath and pushed it against the roof of her mouth so it felt like a growl. The shadow in the hall coalesced into a black cat shape and hissed at her.

Em rolled her eyes and smothered a laugh. Always up for sparring, that one, even when he was on her father's business. Whatever that was this time.

"Okay, enough's enough," sighed Em. "Come on out."

The cat crouched down low, then pounced directly at Em. In midair the cat seemed to fall apart into black smoke and swirl for a moment. The mass of smoke grew larger and solidified into the shape of a man standing taller than Em and so close to her there was barely an eyelash between them.

He had black hair, dark eyes, a pale face and a long black coat that swept the floor. There was just the right amount of muscle in those shoulders to fill out the coat. Underneath there was a black silk shirt unbuttoned at the collar. On his face there was a scar that ran down his cheek to his jaw, but aside from that his complexion was smooth. Beautiful. A little clichéd perhaps, thought Em, but stylish. He always chose this form, at first anyway. He knew she liked it.

He stared at her, his eyes inches from hers.

Em blew a piece of hair out of her face and directly into his eyes. He stepped back with a satisfying fit of blinking.

Em allowed herself a smile and turned back to locking the door behind her.

Jarek was here. Her father was lord of the clan, but Jarek was his commander in chief. And Em's one time lover. Powerful, ruthless, lethal and irresistible.

Em's smile slid a little as she wondered why he was here.

Em walked down the hall to the kitchen but stopped as Jarek stood to block her way. Again they were nose to nose. Em froze. She felt Jarek breathe in. She saw the corners of his mouth turn up in a long, slow smile. He tilted his head to gaze down at her body. The dress she'd worn to the burlesque club was short, revealing. He raised a hand and with the backs of his fingers brushed away the collar of her coat revealing more of her throat. The hand moved again and a finger, cold as ice, trailed its way down her chest to the neckline of her dress. His smile grew broader.

Em let go of her hold on her body's matter and mass. She spun into smoke as quickly has he had, and walked directly through him. It was like swimming in fog. Jarek's dark energy had none of the human touches hers had. He was cold to the core.

She pulled her frame back together on the other side, and walked into her kitchen. She switched on a light.

Jarek snarled and spun around.

"What are you doing here, lover"? she asked.

Jarek's form flickered a little, as if he was having trouble holding it in. A few wisps of black smoke curled around his hair - for a moment his eyes blacked out.

Em grinned. "Temper," she said. "What did you expect? Two hundred years of silence and then you break into my apartment."

Jarek watched her for a moment, then followed her into the kitchen. He prowled around it restlessly, poking at the fruit bowl, fingering the knives in their wooden block, frowning at the toaster. Em pulled some painkillers from the cupboard over the microwave and popped a handful through their foil wraps.

Jarek exploded with impatience.

"What are you doing here, Em?" he said. "What is all this... this...? Do you like this human stuff? What are you doing hanging around people? Why are you doing this?"

A dart of his dark energy shot out of his mind and flew at hers. It was a surprise attack, designed to cut through her defences and open up her thoughts to him. But Em knew Jarek of old. She shrugged off his thrust as simply as if she was brushing away a leaf that had fallen on her shoulder. She'd always been a match for Jarek, no matter what he did. It was something she didn't even need to think about. While others were powerless in the face of Jarek's mastery of dark energy, Em was like a mirror. It infuriated him, and excited him.

Em snorted. "Is this what you came here for? This old argument? Jarek, we've been over this a thousand times. I like it here. I like humans."

She waited. She knew this wasn't why he was here. She guessed it would have something to do with Alina. Her father had probably learned Alina was here and sent Jarek to bring her home. If that was the case, both her father and Jarek would want to know why Em hadn't told them his runaway wife was hiding out in her city. They'd want to know if Em was sheltering Alina.

To tell the truth, she hadn't known Alina was in the city. These headaches had masked her usual ability to feel out the dark energies around her. The pounding in her head had been going on for week or so now, maybe even three. Had Alina been down at the harborside all that time? What else had Em missed in that time?

One thing she did know, she certainly wasn't going to explain that little weakness to the second most powerful vampire in existence.

Jarek seemed to relax a little. He'd smiled when she'd thrown back his attack at him. "Just like old times," he'd said, and he'd reached over to the fruit bowl to select a plum.

"It's a nice town you have here," he said casually, all the silent challenges of the last few minutes seemingly forgotten. "Love the view. The locals look friendly." He gave her a pointed look and arched an eyebrow in the direction Robert's car had taken.

Em swirled her glass of water and downed her painkillers. Funny, her head wasn't as bad now.

"So what do you do here, Emilia?"

"I have a job," she said bluntly.

Jarek gave a short bark of laughter. "A job?" he said incredulously. "You are working for a human? For money?" His lips curled into a sneer. "Oh, that is too much, even for you. The Lady Emilia, slaving for a mortal in one of their crowded stinking cities, living alone in an empty apartment, and..." he laughed as a look of realization crossed his face, "... and screwing the boss!"

He crossed the space between them and took the glass out of her hand. "What would daddy say?"

"What do you want, Jarek?" Em said angrily.

Jarek's face turned expressionless, like a blind covering a window. Em had seen that look before, thousands of times, usually when Jarek was at his most vicious. She braced herself for whatever was coming.

"Alina is here," he said, plainly, and then he purred, "and you knew."

Em ignored the threat in his voice and the promise of violence in his eyes. She smiled and leaned in to kiss the scar on his cheek. He stiffened and his head tilted away from her ever so slightly. Good, thought Em.

"Of course I knew," she said injecting what she hoped was just the right amount of scorn into her tone. "She's opened a club down by the harbor, though you probably know that. And she's been terribly naughty. She's made herself a whole host of vampires - her own little entourage."

"And she's been killing, outside of cull protocols," said Jarek.

"Well, yes of course she has," said Em. "Who doesn't?" She shrugged. "You'd like her little club, Jarek. Some of her followers are just your style."

Jarek was still fingering the plum he'd taken from the fruit bowl. "You know what the lord will do to her, 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 put up the slightest resistance. What a tart, what a tramp, she berated herself.

She bustled together her phone, her handbag and then looked down at her dress. She ran into her room and tore off her coat and her dress. Jarek's black smoke flashed past her and her reformed lying down on her bed, propped up on one elbow. He looked amused, but resigned.

"Your master calls and you run," he said. "How endearing. Now if I could only get you to obey me in that manner."

"Shut up, Jarek," said Em pulling on jeans and a sweater. "There's something else killing down near the harbor, and it's not Alina. Haven't you noticed it? It's not one of the Family, it's not one of the other clans either. I don't know what it is."

Jarek sat up and looked suddenly interested. "You don't know what it is?" he exclaimed, "But that's your gift, that's what you do. You know everyone, everything." He sounded intrigued.

"Tell me about it," said Em. "And whatever it is, it's been giving me the most vicious headaches."

Jarek's eyebrows shot up again.

"I think it's just killed again, down near Alina's club. No, Jarek, no," she said, as Jarek stood up and rippled with a fierce black energy. "I think Alina might have something to do with it, but I also think she's scared. If you spook Alina, we might lose our chance of finding out whatever this thing is."

He grunted.

"You mean you want me to sit here like a good boy, while you dash off and have all the fun," he said grumpily.

"Yes. Yes, that's exactly what I want you to," said Em, heading back out into the kitchen to grab her bag. "You might fix me some dinner while you're waiting. And there's a vacuum cleaner in the cupboard," she yelled over her shoulder as she headed out the door.

As she closed the door to her apartment, it flew out of her hand as if a storm had blown it and slammed with noise loud enough to wake the dead. A flicker of darkness punched her hard in the stomach, then brushed up past her face like a caress.

"Bitch," it whispered.

Em grinned.