"Sometimes they're impossible."
She nodded. "People are complicated. Emotions are complicated. Explain to me how you can both love and hate someone at the same time."
"Odi et Amo."
She frowned. "What?"
"It's an ancient Latin poem written by Catullus. 'I Love and I Hate.' It talks about that very thing. He wrote it for a woman he both adored and despised."
"Yeah, see? That's just wrong, isn't it? Shouldn't you love or hate, but not both at the same time?"
"But you and Jesse don't hate each other."
"No, we never have. And for that I'm grate fill. It's not easy living with someone day in and day out without wanting to strangle them. But Jesse, he never really annoys me." She sliced the sandwiches and put them on plates.
Xypher watched the way her hands moved while she worked. There was so much grace to her. So much beauty. He'd always been clumsy. But not her.
As she reached for a bag of potato chips, her phone rang. She glanced at it before she answered. "Hey, Tate. What's up?" She handed the potato chips to Xypher. "All right, we'll be right there." She shut the phone,
"Another murder?" He didn't really have to ask since he'd heard their discussion through the phone.
She nodded. "How many people will a Dimme kill?"
"Honestly? She's been remarkably circumspect."
Simone was aghast. "How can you say that? This is the third body."
Xypher shrugged. "They were created to be indiscriminate killers. The fact that there're not bodies piling up everywhere is a miracle."
"Are you sure it's a Dimme, then?"
"The guy who died-I'd bet my life on it. Gloria . . . maybe, maybe not."
Simone considered that. If the Dimme hadn't killed Gloria, then who did? No, it had to be the same killer. She didn't want to even consider the fact that there might be more of them out there. "We need to get to the latest victim. Grab the sandwiches and we'll eat them in the car."
He did, and they quickly grabbed their coats and left the house.
Simone cursed as she realized she didn't have a car . . .
They'd left it on Toulouse when they'd gone to Liza's store.
She was turning toward Xypher when she caught something strange on the wind. It was a light musky scent . . . Unfamiliar to her. Lifting her head, she inhaled deeply trying to identify it, then cringed at what she'd done. "I'm not part dog now, am I?"
Xypher laughed. "No, but your olfactory glands, like everything else, are more sensitive. You can smell in a wider spectrum than you've ever known before. For that reason, you might want to avoid Bourbon Street."
"Thanks. There for a minute, I was aft aid I was going to turn into some land of crotch-sniffing lunatic."
He slicked his breath in sharply. "You know that's the quickest hard-on I think I've ever gotten."
Simone paused as she realized that she could actually feel that painful heaviness in his groin.
"Yes," he said, his voice an octave deeper, "That's normal, too."
"I'm not sure I'm liking this newfound me."
"Trust me, baby. You're going to like demon sex a whole lot more than human. I can show you things that will make your head spin like Linda Blair."
She gave him an indignant look. "That's not the way to get into my pants, Xypher, Ew! Bad imagery,"
Before Xypher could answer, the scent intensified. Simone turned to see a tall, blond man in his early twenties coming toward them. Something about his features reminded her of Dev from Sanctuary.
"Lycanthrope." The word came out as a low growl.
Xypher nodded. "Demons have an unnatural dislike for each other. It can be overcome, but it's not easy. Were-Hunters are an offshoot from their Daimon cousins, which is why you're feeling that burst of adrenaline mat makes you want to attack him. It's your instinct providing you with an extra boost in the event you have to fight."
The man stopped as he caught sight of them. He cocked his head as if he could sense them the same way they could sense him.
"Peltier?" Xypher called.
He came over to them slowly, sizing them up with each step. "Kyle. I'm their youngest."
Xypher narrowed his gaze on him. "What are you doing here?"
"I was visiting a friend."
Xypher wasn't so sure about that. But then, suspicion was his middle name. "You're a Katagari in human form during daylight hours . . . how is that-" He stopped as he understood.
The Katagaria were animals who could take human form, During the daylight, they, especially while they were as young as this whelp, were relegated to their animal forms until the sun set.
Kyle Peltier was more than what he seemed.
"It was nice meeting you, Kyle," Xypher said curtly. "Give Carson our best."
"Will do," Kyle said before he headed across the street to where a Ninja motorcycle waited. He hopped on and took off without looking back.
"What aren't you telling me?" Simone asked.
"I'm not sure. It's a strange feeling ..." But he couldn't place it. Truthfully, it felt like the Dimme, but that didn't make sense. If the Dimme was anything like her gallu cousins, she'd be looking for a dark place to rest during daylight hours. Not out here in open housing and she definitely wouldn't be near a Katagari.
As soon as the Dimme caught that scent, she'd be Funning. He shook his head to clear it. He had to be imagining things.
Pushing those thoughts aside, he turned to Simone. "Okay, I have all my powers intact. I don't know where we're going, but you do, right?"
"Yes."
Good. He was about to show her how to transport through the cosmos with her powers. Hopefully, they wouldn't end up in Alaska. "Think of the place we're going. Picture it perfectly in your mind."
She did.
Xypher wrapped his arms around her and closed his eyes. An instant later, they were in the shadows of an alleyway. He heard the police talking among themselves, saw the photographer and Tate moving around a covered body.
He glanced around to make sure they wouldn't be seen before he solidified them.
A slow smile spread over her face. "Will I be able to do that on my own?"
"Most of it you'll be able to do. But it will take a lot of practice. And be careful doing it. Sometimes your clothes don't follow with you."
Her face paled. "That would be unbelievably bad."
"For you, yes. For me? I'm all for skinny-flashing." He raked her with a hot stare that actually lit her blood.
But she wouldn't let him know that.
Grinning wickedly, he handed her a sandwich, then headed toward Tate who looked up at them from the body.
Tate frowned at their food. "Eating at a crime scene?"
Grimacing at the blood spatter on the walls around them and the gore on the street, she handed her sandwich back to Xypher. "I'm not."
Tate gaped. "Wow, you're finally squeamish. I never knew you had it in you."
Simone was surprised, too. She'd always prided herself on not getting sick at a crime scene. But the smell of dried blood was rank in her nostrils. The color of it was a deeper shade than normal. It was almost like she could taste the blood and that made her extremely queasy.