“Yeah.” He peered around the edge of the room at the end of the hallway. “The smell is coming from in here.” He entered the room cautiously.
Nix followed him and looked around the room. Wealth screamed from every corner—expensive paintings, all askew, on the walls, built-in bookshelves with their contents mostly on the floor, and large, dark mahogany furniture including an antique pedestal desk with ornate carvings on the sides set in the center of the room. The thing was four feet deep and easily weighed at least three hundred pounds. She paused in front of it, glancing around the room. “There was a struggle here.” Squatting down, she looked over the floor lamp lying on its side, the glass globe in shatters. The base of the lamp was dented as if it had smashed into something.
Tobias walked around to the other side of the desk and stopped. “Yeah, and Will lost.”
“What?” She joined him and saw Braithwaite on the floor. Death had already begun to glaze his wide-open eyes. Blood had pooled around him on the wood-planked floor. Through the mess of his throat she caught a glimpse of bone and realized he’d nearly been decapitated.
“If we’d gotten here earlier…” Tobias scrubbed the back of his neck with his hand.
“His blood loss would have been too much for either of us to make any difference.” She put one hand on his arm. “He’s been nearly decapitated. It would have taken gallons of blood administered seconds after he sustained that wound for him to recover. I’m not even sure that would have done it, either.”
Tobias remained silent but she felt a slight push of pheromones her way. She looked away from Braithwaite and tried not to feel guilty for being so suspicious of him. Perhaps he really had been trying to do the right thing. “Well, it’s probably not a coincidence that Braithwaite called you, wanting to give you more information, and then ended up dead before he could.”
“Where murder’s involved, there’s no such thing as coincidence.” He squatted down beside the body, touching Braithwaite’s jaw, then sweeping his fingers over the vampire’s eyes to close them. “Rigor hasn’t even set in yet.” He glanced up at Nix. “He was most likely killed within the last hour.” He stood again and headed toward a corner of the room.
Nix could hear him sniffing as he moved. “What is it? What do you smell?” She started his way only to stop when he raised one hand.
He pointed to blood splatter on one of the bookshelves. “This is not Will’s blood.” Leaning closer, he inhaled. He stiffened and rage emanated from him in waves. “It’s him.”
“Him? Him who?” Nix caught her breath. “You mean…Natchook?” Her heart did a quick rat-a-tat behind her ribs. They’d suspected he was involved, but to actually end up with proof made it all seem surreal for a moment.
“I’d recognize that stench anywhere.” When Tobias glanced at Nix, she saw his pupils were completely dilated, giving his eyes that eerie, otherworldly look. “He’s been injured.” His jaw tightened, the muscles twitching. “I can’t tell how badly.”
She glanced at the desk. The drawers were open, the contents clearly rifled through. “He didn’t come here just to kill Braithwaite. He was looking for something.”
Tobias started toward the door. “I have to go after him. Now.” He pointed at the splatter he’d identified as Natchook’s blood. “That’s still fresh.”
“No. Tobias, stop!” When he paused at the door, looking over his shoulder at her, his entire stance one of supreme impatience, she hurried up to him. “We don’t know how many people Natchook had with him. You go off half-cocked, by yourself…” She looked away. “We have to see if there’s anything they missed here.”
Dante walked up to them, holstering his gun. “Upstairs is clear. So is the rest of the downstairs.” He looked back and forth between them. “If anybody cares.”
“You two can look through the house for evidence,” Tobias said, his voice a hard rasp. “I’m not going to let the bastard get away, not when I’m this close.”
“Looks like they went out the back door,” Dante said as he eased past Tobias. “There’s a blood smear on the kitchen island and a few drops leading out the back.”
“One of us should go with you,” Nix said.
“No.” Tobias held up one hand when she started to argue. “This is my fight. Not yours.” He walked up to her and put his fingers under her chin. He tipped her face up and planted a gentle kiss on her mouth. A good-bye kiss? Without giving her a chance to respond he left the room at a run.
She heard the back door slam and scowled. Was that it? The way he acted, their relationship might be over as soon as it had begun. And to chase after him now would mean potentially losing valuable evidence. She had a job to do and had to trust, for the moment, that he could take care of himself. If they lived through this, she was going to kick his butt later for ditching her. “What did the rest of the house look like?” she asked Dante, trying to ignore the way her lips still tingled from that brief kiss.
“Pristine.” He walked into the room and surveyed the damage. “Maybe they already found what they were looking for.”
“Maybe.” She studied the desk. From the power cord lying on the desk, it appeared a computer had been hooked up on there. “Looks like they took his laptop. It seems to me if he had something he really wanted to hide, he wouldn’t have kept it on his computer or in a drawer.” The council certainly hadn’t kept any important, incriminating evidence in that file room. She grew warm just thinking about their tryst at headquarters.
“What’re you thinking?”
She hoped he wasn’t asking what had made her face flush. Pointing to the desk, she said, “I’m thinking that Braithwaite was a vampire with vampire strength. He could lift a three-hundred-pound desk with no effort at all. If he wanted to keep something secret, what better place to hide it? Help me with this.” She went to one edge of the desk. When Dante positioned himself at the other edge, she said, “Flip it on its front.”
Dante managed his side but Nix struggled with hers. “Set it down,” she told him.
“I guess Tobias should’ve stuck around.”
“We can do this. Just give me a minute.” Nix closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She hadn’t called up the full power of her demon on purpose in almost five years, not since Tobias had left her. It easily bubbled to the surface whenever her emotions were high and she spent countless hours fighting it back down. But now, now she needed the additional strength that going demon would bring.
She reached deep inside and searched out the burning that was a constant part of her. She relaxed her control and gave a moan as the fire overtook her. Her skin felt aflame, her gut churned and roiled. Her horn buds erupted from her forehead. With a flex of her fingers she opened her eyes. “Let’s try again,” she said.
“Wow.”
She gave Dante a second to adjust to her new image, then said, “Come on, let’s do this.”
They flipped the desk to its front, the remaining items on the top spilling to the floor, and she gave a cry of elation. Reaching over, she pulled a taped manila envelope from beneath the base of the desk. “See?”
“Well, aren’t you the clever one?” Dante leaned his hip against the desk. “So was Braithwaite, apparently.”
She opened the envelope and peered inside, then held it over the bottom of one of the desk’s pedestals. Several folded papers and a flash drive fell out. She picked up the small drive and looked at Dante. Already she could feel the demon receding. “Do you suppose this is Rinda’s?”
He took it and slipped it into his jeans pocket. “We’ll find out as soon as we can get to a computer.”
“Yeah, you can do your computer mojo magic.” She unfolded one of the papers. “These look like blueprints of some sort.”
“Schematics,” Dante said. “May I?” He held out his hand. She gave him the drawing, and he studied it more closely. “I’m no engineer, but this looks like a radio transmitter.” He pointed to one specific area.
“How do you know?” She l
eaned in to get a better look.
“I’ve done some messing around with ham radios.” He didn’t look up from the schematics. “This here, it kind of looks like a variable frequency oscillator, this might be whatever they’ve constructed to open a mini rift.” He handed the paper back to Nix.
She looked at the other documents. “More of the same,” she murmured. She folded them all up, smaller than before, and tucked them into the back pocket of her jeans. “We’ll need to get these to an expert. Someone we can trust.”
Dante nodded.
She blew out a breath. “All right, then. Let’s go after Tobias.” And if he knew what was good for him, he’d better be all right.
Chapter Sixteen
As Nix and Dante went through the back gate of the property, they both drew their weapons. Dante pulled a small flashlight from his jacket pocket and flicked it on. He shone it on the ground, lighting their way.
Even though he was no longer in sight, Tobias wasn’t hard to track. He’d left a wake of pheromones a smell-impaired hound dog could follow. But more disturbing, the blood trail left by Natchook was equally easy to follow.
Within fifteen minutes Dante had taken off his jacket and had it slung over one arm. Neither one of them was dressed for a hike, but they couldn’t let Tobias go off on his own to face his enemy. For one thing, Tobias wasn’t thinking clearly and so was at a disadvantage. For another, from what she’d heard, Natchook tended to surround himself with people willing to martyr themselves for the cause, whatever it might be.
Tobias, as strong as he was, could very well be outmanned.
She pressed her lips together and picked up the pace. Already she might be too late. If anything happened to him…
“Nix?” Dante kept pace with her, his gaze darting around their surroundings. His eyes reflected his concern that they were fast approaching the outskirts of town and soon would be heading up the White Tank Mountains. “Something wrong?”
“Natchook rarely travels alone” was all she said.
“Damn it.” Dante’s voice was low, his epithet heartfelt. He was quick; she knew he realized the danger Tobias was in. The peril they all were in.
Another twenty minutes and they had left civilization behind. There wasn’t much of anything except sand and scrub. The lights of town were far behind them, only Dante’s small flashlight and a sky full of stars lighted their way. The moon provided some light but kept ducking behind clouds.
They reached a rocky area and scrambled over it, taking care where they placed their hands and feet. Rattlers could be sleeping among the rocks. Neither one of them wanted or could afford to be bitten.
Nix stopped, taking a deep breath. She’d lost the blood trail. And Tobias’s pheromone scent. Her heart, already pounding from exertion, began banging against her ribs. “Damn it!”
Dante looked at her. “What?”
“I’ve lost the scent.”
“What?” He glanced around. “How could you lose the scent?”
She scowled. “It’s not like I’m a hound dog, Dante. My nose isn’t nearly as good as a werewolf’s, or a vampire’s for that matter.” She spread her hands. “The blood trail ends here. And Tobias must have scaled his pheromones back so far I can’t smell them anymore.”
“He can do that?”
“When he wants to.” She remembered the waves of pheromones he’d given off at that first crime scene and how she’d told him to ramp it down. He hadn’t paid her any attention then. Now when she wanted him to be putting off a chemical trail he didn’t. A coyote howled, the sound lonely and sad. It seeped into her soul, heightening her fear. She couldn’t stop the shiver that sliced down her spine.
“Somebody just walk over your grave?” Dante asked.
“Don’t say that.” Nix had to pick up the trail again. Tobias needed them. “Give me a minute.” She walked in an ever-widening circle, bending now and then to look at the rocks, but mostly sniffing the air, trying to grab on to something, anything. After a few minutes she paused. “Oh, hell. I don’t know what I’m doing.” She looked at Dante. In the darkness she could only see the outline of his body. “I’m not a tracker. I have no idea which way to go.”
“Let’s split up.” He walked over to her. “You go that way, I’ll go this way,” he said with a gesture. “One of us at least might stumble on to Tobias and be some help.”
“We don’t even…” She broke off and held up one hand.
“What?”
“I thought I heard something.” When he started to talk again she shushed him. Male voices drifted to her on the wind.
“Well?” Dante leaned close and whispered. “What is it?”
She turned her head to one side, then the other, trying to gauge where the voices came from. It was only because of her demon abilities that she could hear them. From what she could tell they were at least a quarter of a mile away. “Men talking,” she said just as quietly. She pointed to the right. “From that direction. I think.”
“You need to be sure, Nix. If we head off in the wrong direction…”
“I know. We’d be too far away to help Tobias…if we aren’t already too late.” She took a few steps toward the sound but the voices faded away. She stopped. After a few seconds they began talking so she started up again, Dante right beside her. She glanced at him.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s just… Thank you for treating me like a professional, Dante.”
His brows dipped. “How else would I treat you, Nix? You’re not some little woman who needs to be tucked up safe at home.” His expression was that of the serious warrior she knew he could be. “There’s no one else I would want watching my back.”
It was a good thing he felt that way, because her demon tendencies were about to be let out to whoop some vampire ass and he was going to have front row seats.
A scream pierced the air. Dante swore. “Even I heard that.”
“This way,” Nix said, and took off at a run.
She heard Dante’s pounding footsteps behind her. The beam from his flashlight bounced over the rocky ground as he ran. They went down the side of a narrow wash, their feet sliding on the loose dirt. Once they’d scrambled up the other side, they slowed. A slight breeze lifted Nix’s hair off her neck and brought with it the scent of vampires.
Not one or two. Several.
Her pulse quickened. She brought her gun up, clasping her left hand around her right to support the weapon, and adjusted her stance to be able to deal with the recoil when she pulled the trigger. Bullets might not kill a vamp, but they could sure as hell slow one down long enough for her to finish him off with her blade. She moved forward cautiously, staying alert to where Dante was so she wouldn’t shoot him by accident.
Another few steps and she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She spun to face the threat, her pulse taking off like a rocket engine. One of the largest vampires she’d ever seen barreled toward her, fangs bared, hands outstretched. She fired three rounds, each catching him in the upper chest. He flinched, blood streaming from his wounds, but kept right on coming.
She heard more gunshots coming from the direction where she’d last seen Dante. She hoped he had better luck than she’d had with her weapon.
Tobias was nowhere in sight, but she could hear him now, his voice low but urgent. She focused on the vamp heading her way and told herself that if Tobias was gabbing with someone he was in no immediate jeopardy. Not like she was. A quick glance showed her Dante was holding his own, so for the moment she forced the worry about him out of her mind.
Another vampire headed toward her. She fired until she was out of bullets. He fell to the ground, groaning. The first vamp, shirt front bloodied, came toward her, arms outstretched, reaching, grasping. Holstering her gun, she prepared herself for close combat. She slid her knife from its scabbard and held it at her side. Her breath came quick between parted lips. Adrenaline raced through her bloodstream, her vision yellowed as her inner demon began making itse
lf known. She backed up and then took a few running steps forward, launching herself feetfirst at the vamp.
She caught him in the chest, her feet thudding against the bullet wounds. He roared with pain as he went down, Nix on top of him. She slashed across his throat, then rolled out of his reach and bounced to her feet. The trick now was to stay out of his reach while he bled out.
She took a breath. Damn it. She recognized that smell! This was the bastard that had been leaving a demon scent at each of the crime scenes. Which meant… Either he’d been making out with a demon right before they’d happened on him, which she thought pretty unlikely, or else the son of a bitch had been dining on demons. That would explain why there’d been a demon scent at each scene, familiar but somehow different. The demon blood having mingled with his own had for a short time subtly altered his scent.
The second vamp rose to his feet and lunged for her. She ducked under his arm and shoved him as she went behind him. With a quick glance she saw Dante straight behind her vamp, fighting his own battle. He had wounded the vampire he fought, but he was still at a disadvantage.
As much as she’d like to help him, she had her own six-and-a-half-foot problem to take care of. And he was coming at her again. This time, as she tried to dodge him, he latched his fingers onto her hair and held fast. She couldn’t contain a yelp of pain. He laughed and hauled her back against him, wrapping his free arm around her waist. “Looks like I got you now, girly. Game’s over.”
When they had their fangs on display some vampires could talk and sound menacing, and others…not so much. This guy’s lisp was so pronounced he sounded like a girly-man. He was the pot calling the kettle black. And she was tired of it. No more Ms. Nice Guy from her.
“Don’t call me girly,” she ground out. Knowing she needed an edge, she actively summoned her demon side, letting it burst into a full, glorious explosion of strength. Everything became tinged in yellow, her insides burned with rage. Her horn buds popped, and for once she welcomed the pain that accompanied the stretching of the skin on her forehead.
Kiss of the Vampire Page 23
