by Sierra Dean
“If I were to give you Mayhew’s class list and ask you to circle the names of every girl you’d slept with, how many circles would be on that list?”
“A lot,” he admitted.
“What does the name Lucy Renard mean to you?”
There was a commotion behind the one-way mirror. Gabriel wouldn’t be able to hear it, but I could get the gist of it. Someone was freaking out because the name meant nothing to their investigation. Tyler’s even voice, muffled through the glass, was saying, “Let’s see where she’s going with this.”
“Lucy? What about Lucy? No. Not Lucy too.” He looked like he was going to be sick.
“Would her name have a circle around it?”
“What? No. Look, Lucy was a gifted student, a really smart girl, that’s why she was a freshman in a third-year class. Mayhew has a lot to deal with in class, and I think sometimes the top-notch students get overlooked because he has to deal with all the groupies.”
“So you had no physical relationship with Lucy.”
“No, I was mentoring her. I wanted to help her stand out more. She has a real future in medieval studies, with the right guidance. A good grade in Mayhew’s class would go a long way. I even set up a few meetings between them privately so she could get to know him and maybe he’d give her a grad school recommendation or something. I wanted to help her.”
“How noble.”
“Is she dead?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “But she’s missing.”
More uproar behind the glass. There was a full-on argument going on in there. My back was to the mirror, but I couldn’t help myself. I looked over my shoulder and gave my reflection a hard, unforgiving stare. I shouldn’t be able to hear them, but they might think they were being louder than they realized. It wasn’t a top-of-the-line mirror, after all. The fighting got quieter almost instantly.
Gabriel raked his fingers through his unwashed hair, leaving the dirty blond strands standing on end. His cuffs jingled with the trembling in his hands. For the life of me, I didn’t think he was guilty. Guilty of being a world-class prick, yes. A serial killer, though? It didn’t fit.
“Did you do it?”
“No.”
We’d already had this discussion, but I needed to have it again. I needed to hear it in his voice that he was innocent and I wasn’t wasting my time helping him.
“Can you think of anyone, anyone at all, who might have set you up for this?”
He cradled his head in his hands, shaking it from side to side. “Who would want to do something like this to another person? I think Misty had a boyfriend, but murdering three girls seems like overkill for getting back at the other man, doesn’t it?” He was talking to the table, no longer able to look me in the eyes.
“Gabriel, give me your hand.”
He complied without question, holding out his palm as if he was going to take my hand in his and we’d go strolling off into the sunset. I grabbed his wrist, pressing two of my fingers into his pulse point, and I stared him in the eyes.
“Tell me once and for all you didn’t kill anyone.”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” he repeated, and his pulse never jumped. He still stank of fear, but who could blame him for that?
There was one more thing I wanted to try, and doing it in front of a bunch of cops, especially Tyler, was risky as hell. But I’d never get to be alone with Gabriel, and if there was a snowball’s chance this might work, I had to do it. I’d been able to enthrall the fae guard at Caligula, but I was worried Gabriel might be a tougher nut to crack, mentally.
I squeezed Gabriel’s wrist a little harder and he winced, but when I pulled him closer he didn’t fight me. Resting my elbows on the table, I made sure our gazes were locked before I started to speak.
“You want to tell me the truth,” I commanded.
Gabriel looked puzzled, tilting his head to the side. “I am telling you the truth.”
Fuck, this wasn’t going to be as easy as saying, These are not the droids you are looking for.
“You want to tell me everything. Everything you know about the dead girls.”
Behind the mirror someone asked, “What the fuck is she doing?” Tyler shushed him.
Gabriel’s eyes took on a cloudy, distant look. “Okay,” he said and nodded.
“Was there any other connection between them?”
“Yes.”
“What was the other connection?” You had to be frustratingly specific when it came to the thrall. The mind was as malleable as Silly Putty, but once you had it in your hands, you had to show it where to go.
He grunted and tried to pull his hand back. With his teeth grinding together and a sheen of fresh sweat wetting his forehead, it was obvious he was fighting against something. But he hadn’t resisted me up until now, so why with this question?
Something in Gabriel’s mind was trying to stop him from answering me.
“Tell me,” I demanded.
A small moan escaped his throat, and then he said, “Mayhew.”
“They were all in Mayhew’s class. We know that.” Why would he struggle against telling me that?
“No.” He shook his head. “They were all Mayhew’s.”
My fingers twitched, and I almost dropped his wrist. Holding it normally wasn’t necessary to keep him under the thrall, but he was being tough. I also liked to know his pulse was still steady.
“What do you mean they were all his?”
“His favorites. His lovers.”
I remembered my time in Oliver Mayhew’s small office. The easy, casual way he’d spoken to me. The underlying intimacy of his proximity. How beguiling the presence of such an unusual man had been. Was he really having affairs with his students? It wasn’t that hard to believe.
“How do you know?”
“Because we shared.”
Then I did drop his hand, disgusted, and broke eye contact. He shook, as if awakening from a bad dream. “Sorry, did you ask something?”
My repulsion faded, replaced by a cold trickle of dread. Gabriel’s reaction to coming out of the thrall was so like my own when I had lost an hour of my night I was shocked I hadn’t made the connection before. Because I was immune to the vampire thrall, I never considered it as a possible reason for my lapse, but what if there was something else like it, something non-vampiric, with the same impact?
There was a knock on the door, and he and I both turned as Tyler stepped in. “Are you finished here, Miss McQueen?”
“I sure as hell hope so.”
Chapter Eighteen
I knew all too well I would have to go visit Oliver Mayhew again, but the night was still in its juvenile phase, and I expected the good professor would be keeping late office hours. He did have all those young, nubile minds to nurture, after all.
My queasiness over the knowledge that Gabriel and Mayhew had shared the women in their class hadn’t abated. This was not the Gabriel Holbrook I’d known. And what did it mean, they shared the girls? Did Gabriel test their willingness and then direct Mayhew towards the easy pickings, or did Mayhew pass his sloppy seconds on to Gabriel?
Either way it was disgusting, and I was in no hurry to be in close quarters with Mayhew again. Instead I had a fact-gathering mission in mind. I’d checked the girls’ files when Tyler had shown them to me and confirmed the whereabouts of their bodies. Misty and Angie were both in the Medical Examiner’s office, and it stood to reason Trish would still be there as well.
If I was going to walk into a city building without any sort of official documentation, I couldn’t do it alone. I was going to need help, preferably of the vampiric variety, and for once my initial reaction wasn’t to call Holden. As much as I wanted the vampire on my side with this, I was going to have to be careful how often I called on him for non-council help. Rebecca ordering him to assist me was one thing. Problem was, Holden had a bad habit of demanding quid pro quo when I asked him for favors.
I’d already promised him something over
Christmas he hadn’t yet called me on. It was only a matter of time before he made me pay the piper, and it would mean spending a night with him. We hadn’t gone over the finer points of what that meant, but I had a pretty good idea.
Instead I was going to go to Brigit. She was a bubbly, buxom blonde and often proved helpful when a distraction was called for. Better yet, she had proven to be naturally gifted with the thrall. She was also my vampire ward, and with my power level it meant she was bound, on some level, to obey me. The bond would be stronger if I’d actually sired her, but worked well enough to serve my purposes.
It was also unlikely Bri would ask me to sleep with her as recompense for the night ahead, so she had one up on Holden there.
The walk from the 76th Precinct to Brigit’s apartment in Chelsea was long and cold. February was proving to be abnormally chilly in the city this year, with temperatures in the low twenties almost every day and dipping into the teens overnight. For a coastal city like New York, it was freakish enough to drive the average citizen indoors. What remained were the barren, frost-tinged streets of a massive city, seemingly stripped of all life.
It made it hard to miss the vampire peeling across 30th Street like a bat out of hell. Vampires moved so fast it was usually impossible for human eyes to see them if they ran at full tilt. At best, a streak of color and displaced air would be the only indication something had passed you. In this case, something had hobbled the vampire badly enough it was running at a mere marathon pace.
What the fuck?
I sped up my walk until I was at the corner of the street, then looked in the direction the vampire had come from. My well-honed fight instincts saved me in time. I stepped back an instant before Shane Hewitt collided with me. He staggered to a halt, panting, his hands braced on his thighs as he tried to regain his breath.
This was why humans made terrible rogue hunters.
In that moment, I missed my old job like a severed limb.
“Tri…bunal…Leader.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Skip the officials. What’s going on?”
“Rogue.”
“Obviously, thanks. Who?” We’d issued so many warrants the week before it was hard to keep track of the outstanding ones.
“Jason…Kani…kos…”
Oh God, The Greek. It would take Hewitt all night to puff the name out.
“How long have you been chasing him?”
“Since…Lexington…and…23rd.”
“Why is he limping?”
“Shot…him.”
“You know the head usually works better than the leg, right?”
Shane didn’t have a reply. Instead he lifted his head and glowered at me. Another expression like that and I’d start thinking he was taking notes from Juan Carlos.
“Want some help?”
For a moment he looked insulted, then a wave of harsh coughing tumbled out of his lungs, and he nodded. “I’d appreciate it.”
I didn’t wait for a more formal invitation. My SIG was out of the shoulder holster and the safety flicked off before he’d finished saying “it”. The gun felt cold in the winter air, its metal body warming under my grip. God, it was nice to have a reason to use it again.
I was also glad I’d opted for my good riding boots tonight. Knee-high black leather with a thick black sole and no heel to speak of, they weren’t the most fashionable shoes in my warehouse, but they were perfect for running and could handle a little ass-kicking on the side. I didn’t wait to see if Shane would be able to keep up. The vampire was already well ahead of us, and only the gunshot wound would keep him slow enough for me to catch. Once he’d forced the bullet out, it might be days before we found him again.
Considering we’d issued a warrant on The Greek because he had a penchant for eating whole families, I didn’t want to see him live out another night in my city.
Running felt good, freeing. Being able to chase something fed both of my natures. The wolf loved the hunt, the vampire loved the speed. Both aspects loved the kill, so finding the vampire would feed me on a very base level. As a predator, it would sate my appetite long enough I could continue to keep up the human façade I fought so hard to project.
Ahead, a car alarm began to wail.
Shane was still at least a block behind me, but kudos to him for continuing the hunt. This was his job, after all, and as much as I wished it were me out here instead of him, he was going to have to learn how to handle these matters on his own. If I could teach him a little tonight, all the better.
When I got even with the car, its alarm continued to scream while its lights flashed and the horn honked and honked. Car alarms were the devil’s alarm clock. I wanted to shoot the damned thing in the hood and put it out of its misery, but I’d learned the hard way a long time ago, being a bounty hunter didn’t give you a free license for property destruction.
Shane caught up to me, wheezing but not doubled over this time. I hadn’t broken a sweat.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I cooed.
“He’s probably halfway to Jersey by now,” Shane added.
But he wasn’t. I could smell fresh blood with a strong vampire taint to it. Not only was the vampire no longer running, he was lying in wait for us. Too bad he’d tried to hide behind an alarmed vehicle.
“If you play nice, I’m in a position to help you.” I wasn’t used to promising aid instead of dealing out threats. It felt strange. Not that I had any intention of helping The Greek, but as long as I didn’t make anything official, he didn’t need to know I was full of shit.
“I don’t think—”
I shushed Shane by placing my fingers over his mouth. His lips were dry and his breath came out hot against my hand. He didn’t argue again. I sniffed the air, a gesture more attuned to my werewolf half than my vampire one, but it did the trick. The scent of blood was stronger up ahead. It had to be fresh blood, because once blood aged I had a hard time picking up on it. This was so ripe it might as well have been an open vein in front of my nose.
Creeping forward with Shane at my side, I came up next to the car where the smell was the strongest. A smear of crimson stained the door handle. If we’d been chasing a human, his breath would have fogged up the glass inside, but there were no other signs of life inside the car.
Shane reached for the door, his gun drawn, but I stopped him.
“This doesn’t feel right,” I said.
“What’s wrong?”
I stepped back, pulling him with me, and a second later the answer flattened us both to the ground. Injured or not, this vampire wasn’t planning to go down without a fight. He’d smeared his blood around the car, then hidden across the street and waited.
Clever bastard.
Fear and pain had gnawed away at him, and now that he had us down he was going for the kill, no questions asked. His fangs were out and his eyes had given over to the oily black of a blood-frenzied vampire. My own survival instinct kicked in, and my face shifted to mirror his own, fangs springing forth so fast I nicked the skin of my lip.
Shane was gawking at me with wide-eyed terror. He’d seen me week after week at the Council, sitting next to Sig, but until now he clearly hadn’t thought of me as a real threat. It’s amazing how far a pair of fangs will go to convince someone you mean business.
Sadly, they did nothing to faze the vampire on top of me who was gunning for my throat.
“A little help,” I grumbled.
Pinned to the street, I couldn’t get my gun angled for a good shot. Shane staggered to his feet, fumbling for his own weapon. I wondered—not for the first time—how he’d lasted as long as he had up to this point without being killed. Maybe it was a little performance anxiety, having to show his skills in front of his boss.
I didn’t care as long as he helped get the massive, three-hundred-pound, feta-scented vampire off my chest. I kneed The Greek in the groin, but either his testicles were so unimpressive I missed them, or he was so deep in his frenzy he hadn’t felt the attack.
“Shane, any time now.”
Snapping out of his shock, Shane raised his own weapon and fired without hesitation. The bullet glanced off the vampire’s shoulder and bit into the asphalt beside my head. That was a little too close for comfort. My pulse kicked up, and my anxiety blossomed. I needed to get this meaty man-mountain off me in a hurry, before Shane’s next shot took me out.
I pushed at the wriggling mound on top of me, but the vampire was made of hard, immobile fat. He didn’t budge. Snarling, he dove for my neck again, my hammering pulse an obvious target for his predatory instinct. I slammed my palm into his nose, shattering the bridge backwards. If I’d hit it at a better angle, I could have driven the bone into his skull. It would have killed a human and dazed a vampire. Instead he kept coming for me; the only difference was now I was covered in his blood.
Shane fired again, and the vampire jerked. He’d scored a direct hit, but not anywhere lethal.
My survival instinct kicked up a notch, and the street turned a hazy red color as my eyes lost their focus and my senses shifted away from the human and into something different. My arm hurt, which made no sense since the vampire hadn’t bitten me, and it being pinned between us shouldn’t cause me pain. The bones adjusted, realigning themselves. It felt like my hand was being broken and put back together.
I cried out in pain and shoved all of my frustration, hurt and rage into the stomach of the vampire.
He stopped fighting and fell backwards.
When the red cleared from my eyes, I could see him clearly. He was sitting in the middle of the street with his stomach split open in a series of ragged red lines. They looked like claw marks. His hand was pressed against them, and when he pulled back to stare at his bloodstained fingers, the rips on his stomach sagged, then tore, spilling his entrails all over the asphalt.
What?
I clambered to my feet and yanked the gun out of Shane’s hand, firing the remainder of the clip into the stunned vampire’s head. When the crater of his skull was reduced to a fine pulp of pink mist and his body sagged to the ground with no hope of rising again, only then did I look down at my own arm to assess the damage.
