Weaken the Knees (The Immortal World Book 6)

by Shannon A. Hiner

  Grumbling under his breath, Kaye rose with a sigh and motioned her to follow him into the exam room. She tailed him closely, too close. He stopped and she stepped on his heel. Swinging around with a growl, he met her eyes. Kaye wasn’t especially tall—in fact he was about half an inch shorter than Rene in her boots—but he affected danger well enough. Rene’d never actually heard of anyone getting that far under his skin. Figured she’d be the one.

  He didn’t say anything, just growled and squared his white lab-coated shoulders and stared her down.

  It was a testament to her own state of mind that she let him get away with it. “Sorry.” She held up her hands and took a step back.

  Kaye eyed her for another long second before turning back around and leading her to the back of the exam room. On a long metal table the shape of a human body was covered by a sheet. Donning plastic gloves, Kaye drew back the sheet and motioned her forward.

  “Don’t touch without gloves,” he said.

  “I don’t have any fingerprints on record, Kaye.”

  “My lab, my rules. You want to touch, you put on gloves.”

  Rene made a face and grabbed for the box on the opposite counter. Not that she wanted to touch the dead human body, but Kaye didn’t seem like he was above smacking her hand if she got grabby in the moment. Better just to be prepared. Walking around to the opposite side of the table, Rene peered down at the body.

  It was eerie, how it was Smart, but it really wasn’t. Without life animating the frame, without a soul filling the space between cells, it was just a body . . . an empty vessel. Many vampires and humans alike believed their kind to be without souls. Was this what vampires were like? It didn’t seem like it to her, but she was one. What if she couldn’t tell because of that? What if this is what they looked like to humans? Empty, reanimated frames of neither living nor rotting tissue.

  She shivered. If that was the case, she almost couldn’t blame them for wanting to hunt vampires.

  “So,” Kaye said. “What do you want to know?”

  “How he died.”

  “Ah, I haven’t performed the autopsy yet, obviously, but I developed a theory on the initial postmortem.” He held up a finger to motion her closer to the human’s head. Angling the chin up and away, Kaye pointed to a very small red dot on the human’s neck. Just over the artery. Only one mark, and not big enough to be a fang. Not that anyone had bitten him the night before . . . but still, good to know a vampire couldn’t be blamed too easily.

  “What is it?” Rene asked.

  Kaye shrugged one shoulder. “I’m waiting on the toxicology screens to finish. Once I know what was in his system when he died, I should be able to take my theory a few extra steps.”

  Time. Everything took time. Which meant patience. Something she was very much out of. “If you had to guess? Make a wild assumption?”

  His light brows rose. “Miss Kaplan, I do not make wild assumptions.”

  “What if I was holding a gun to your head?” For emphasis, she reached for the semi-automatic pistol holstered just behind her hip.

  Kaye straightened from the exam table and regarded her with narrowed eyes for a few long seconds before saying coldly, “I think it’s time you leave, Miss Kaplan.”

  Rene stared him down just as long before glancing back down at the dead human. With a sneer, she took her hand off the pistol and removed the plastic gloves from her hands. She dropped them on the human’s chest and shimmered out of the room.

  What had she been hoping for?

  She reappeared in her Salt Lake City apartment.

  Snapped neck? Bullet wound? Canine teeth marks? However he died, whoever killed him, it had been made to look like it was her fault. Her methods. She didn’t have time to wait for toxicology reports and autopsies. She needed answers now. She needed the person responsible now. If no one else could help, then she’d go back to the way everything had always worked best: by herself.

  She might be a monster, but dammit, she’d be a monster for the things she actually did. The only one who was going to drag her name through the mud was herself.

  Chapter 12

  “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” The American accent pulled Rene from scanning her surroundings and forced her to acknowledge the young vampire standing in front of her. Just over six feet tall with messy brown hair and the warmest brown eyes she’d ever seen, he was dressed smartly in a black and white tux. He smiled down at her from his superior height with an easy grin and the kind of hopeful optimism she was more likely to attribute to a human rather than a vampire. But vampire he was, if that glint of fang and lack of heartbeat were any indication.

  “For as long as we live,” Rene said, “I am quite frankly shocked that no one has come up with a better lead in than that ridiculous cliché. Allow me to hasten your embarrassment: I do not know you, we have never met, and I’m not likely interested in doing so now. I believe on the north end of the hall there are some impressionable young less-than-one-hundreds who would do your ego a lot more good.”

  Rather than shrink away like so many before him, the handsome young vampire grinned. “The record shop. In Pittsburgh. You’re there every Tuesday night.”

  How in the hell did he know that? Rene stared at him harder. Peeled away the suit mentally. Jeans. T-shirt. Military jacket. General Lee’s sagging nuts . . . it was the same vampire who kept trying to get her attention at the record shop. He cleaned up nice. She had to start shopping elsewhere.

  “And who is this?” Tanner’s voice came from behind her left shoulder.

  “My stalker, apparently.”

  The other vampire turned his wide smile on Tanner and held out his hand. “William Rynquist Mathew Risqueen.”

  “Ahh, God . . .” A Risqueen. That explained so much.

  Both of the males ignored her as they shook hands and Tanner returned, “Tanner Covington Luke Fraccas.”

  She waited for the Risqueen’s face to sour at the name “Fraccas,” but his smile didn’t falter as he turned to Rene expectantly. Raising her eyebrows, she remained silent. Her name was none of his business.

  Tanner cleared his throat quietly.

  Rene sighed, rolling her eyes. “Rene Kaplan Tanner Fraccas.”

  “Enchanted, I’m sure.” William Rynquist winked at her. “Very nice meeting you both. Until next time.”

  He walked away before she could assure him there would not be a next time. She was finding a new record shop, and would never show her face in Pittsburgh again. Glancing back over her shoulder, she found Tanner smiling. “What?”

  “I do believe that young man is quite taken with you.”

  “First of all, he’s at least a hundred and fifty years old. Second, he’s not taking me anywhere this century.”

  “’Haps not,” Tanner said, side-eyeing her with what she greatly feared was fatherly delight. For the second time that night, she was denied the last word as he wandered off mid-sentence. “But you didn’t say ‘never.’”

  ∞∞∞

  He passed by out of curiosity. He lingered because the light was on.

  Will stood across the street and stared up at the apartment building Stephen Smart staked out every night the week before. This was the first time the light had been on. Was it coincidence? The first night Smart wouldn’t be able to watch, and the light was on . . . It didn’t seem like a coincidence. After noticing the faint glow from behind the curtains, Will walked around the entire building to find there were three exits: a fire escape on the backside of the building facing a narrow alley, a side door near the inner stairway that also let out into the alley, and the front door currently being guarded by a mild-mannered looking doorman. Every escape route would lead the person inside right past Will.

  It wasn’t his new assignment, but Will knew in his bones whoever Smart had been watching was important to piecing together the mystery of the Venor. It had to be related. It had to be central.

  He made the call, aware that if Rene found out she’d pro
bably take his head off at the kneecaps. But she wasn’t thinking clearly, that much was obvious. He’d only tell her if he found something. Otherwise he’d keep quiet about it, and move on to the real assignment in a couple of hours. What if Smart had been watching Mirsad? Or someone who knew the mysterious investor?

  Rene’s shuddering form resurfaced in his mind as he remembered her face when Mirsad spoke. As if she heard the voice of Satan himself calling her soul. Much as he didn’t want to admit it, Will knew she was slipping. Badly. Whatever was going on with her, whatever her past held, this assignment was stripping her raw and turning her inside out. He wished she would lean on him, but knew she never would.

  The light went out above. Will straightened. He was out of sight of the doorman. Mild-mannered looking or not, the broad human watched the door and the surrounding area like a hawk. He must be well paid, and well-liked by the tenants. Loyalty like that could only be the result of dedication and reward.

  After a few minutes, the doorman hurried to open the door to release an oddly familiar looking female shape. She was half a head taller but incredibly slight next to the doorman’s bar-bouncer physique. A few words were shared and then she was walking down the street with a familiar feline prowl. William stared, aghast, as his eyes traveled from the stiletto black boots to black leggings, maroon tank top and black leather motorcycle jacket.

  For one moment he convinced himself she’d broken in to do her own investigation, but then the interaction with the doorman came back. He knew her. She knew him.

  The irate confrontation from a few nights before came back to Will. In this very alley she accosted him. Caring only for why he’d been watching this particular apartment complex. Not what Smart had been up to, not what he might have discovered. Why he was here.

  She was the one Smart was watching.

  It was her home.

  Will leaned back against the brick wall and watched her predatory stride down the sidewalk, hands stuffed in her pockets and head down. A panther scenting prey.

  What the hell was going on? She’d never tell him. Will closed his eyes and leaned forward to rest his hands on his knees for a few seconds. Not looking at her cleared his mind slightly. The objective remained the same. The person who lived in that apartment was connected, somehow, some way. That was looking even more likely as he remembered that she’d gone after Smart first, and the human had known she would come, was prepared.

  When he opened his eyes, Will knew what he had to do.

  ∞∞∞

  The temptation of answers outweighed the very real possibility that Will might be at the humans’ meeting place.

  After leaving her apartment, Rene walked to Stephen Smart’s townhouse to find the place wiped clean. Only the remnants of a boring human life remained. No sign existed indicating he was a wannabe vampire slayer by night.

  Having found nothing of note or help, the last place Rene could think to go was the meeting place. Stalking across town, she didn’t take the most direct route. Rene imagined herself into the mind and body of Stephen Smart. How would he try to lose someone? Which unnecessary turns would he take? What stores might he visit on the way?

  She should have debriefed Will more thoroughly before interrogating the human. She’d been too much in the moment, too obsessed with tearing the human’s mind open and learning everything she needed. Rene had forgotten that sometimes the more you knew, the easier it was to open a person up and scoop out their real secrets. A lesson hard learned, it went down even rougher the second time over.

  Taking the circuitous route, she arrived at the meeting place half an hour after leaving Smart’s home. Rene approached from the same direction he had only two nights before. The street musicians weren’t out this evening. No one was on the sidewalk, in fact. Had they been planted there as a diversion? Maybe she’d try to track them next.

  She slipped through the hidden door silently, marveling at the ingenuity of it. The wall cut away on one side and overlapped to hide the opening, forming a short open-air hall before bringing her to the actual door. The entry, as she well knew, would be invisible from most angles except that which she approached from. The door was locked, but it didn’t protest against her quick jog of the handle. She hadn’t even used a tenth of her strength.

  If Will was there, he hadn’t used this door. Maybe she’d luck out and he wouldn’t be inside. Perhaps he was already done with his search, or he’d decided to quit her little team and run whimpering back to Angela Estrada.

  This assignment ought to be enough to finally rid her of him. Twenty-something years of trying to shake the Risqueen, and all she’d needed was to try—really try—to impress Hadrian Catane. Apparently Will’s stomach was too weak to handle a truly ruthless vampire. Her shoulders shook with the ghost of laughter. Estrada had nothing on her. Rene would officially be named the Queen Bitch of Ruthless. The smile twisting her lips didn’t feel good. There was no pleasure, only the sour sting of victory in it.

  A sound deep within the building brought Rene’s head back up, helped her push aside the morose victory speech she’d been halfway through composing. Still work to be done. Not quite time to take her bow.

  Flexing her fists, Rene unclipped her gun from its holster and slid closer to the wall. The hall was dark, and she was dressed in black, no problem. She’d just have to be careful not to shoot Will. Maybe. Maybe she’d wing him just for being annoying. Rene slid through the halls like a wraith, silent as death. After clearing every corner, she pressed her back to the wall once more and breathed a silent prayer of relief. Back in this building, Rene imagined she could hear that voice again. The one that sounded like two hundred and fifty years ago. It made her feel human and vulnerable in a way nothing else could. Would she meet Mirsad tonight? Would she come face to face with the specter of her past?

  If only she’d braved a look at him a few nights before. She might have been able to put the idea from her mind. Lay that particular ghost back to rest. Instead, the face from her daymares floated behind her eyes. His voice skidded down her spine and pooled at her ankles, threatening to stick her feet to the floor and prevent her from moving forward.

  She moved deeper into the building, urging her body to ignore the turmoil of her mind. Maybe she’d imagined that noise earlier. Nothing moved within, no voices sounded, not even a flicker of light or ripple in the shadows. Rounding another corner, Rene once again found herself in the center room where the humans had gathered. It was lit by security lights, which only served to cast deep shadows and an eerie yellow glow throughout the room. Slowly, she lowered her gun and moved between the chairs.

  Her thighs brushed the backs of them, one scraped slightly against the linoleum floor. The sound echoed through the room. She winced and froze. No movement or sound greeted her clumsiness. She huffed a sigh and stepped more carefully. Reaching the back of the room where she and Will had hidden a few nights before, Rene checked her grip on the pistol.

  Thank God her palms didn’t sweat.

  She stepped past the half wall and looked both ways down the hall. Nothing. She hesitated only a moment before turning right. Farther into the belly of the building.

  A heavy step. A harsh breath. Directly behind her.

  Rene swung around, aiming in half a second and firing in the next half. Four rounds squeezed out of the gun in rapid succession, finding their mark and knocking the creature to the ground. A man-sized shape fell into the chairs and the racket of them filled the room, echoing through the building. Her victim lay shuddering on the ground, the heavy silver bullets holding it there.

  A lump formed in her throat. He was about the right size, right build.

  “Oh God,” she whispered. “Will?”

  ∞∞∞

  Gunfire sounded and it hit Will like a punch to the gut. He staggered for only a moment before he was sprinting through the halls toward it. Toward her. He found Rene standing over a body, her gun shaking as she stared down at it with terror in her eyes.

 
; “Rene?”

  She gasped and turned, pulling the gun back up with both hands and leveling it at his forehead. He ducked behind the wall half a second before two rounds whizzed past to bury themselves in the wall behind him.

  “Son of a bitch, Rene!” Will shouted. “It’s me!”

  A choking sound, was that . . . no, it couldn’t have been. A sob?

  “Will?” Her voice strangled by some emotion he’d never heard there.

  “Yes, Will,” he called back, still miffed at being on the receiving end of her bullets. Barbed words were one thing, bullets were a whole other. “May I come out, or are you still hell-bent on shooting me?”

  A few seconds passed. Was that her breathing he heard? Deep, shaking breaths. It couldn’t be, yet . . . who else?

  “Rene?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I didn’t ask if you were fine.” He peered around the edge of the wall. “I asked if you were going to shoot me.”

  “Not yet,” she growled.

  Will couldn’t help the quick grin. There she was. He slid around the corner fully and approached with caution. Rene knelt next to a body, using her cell phone as a flashlight to illuminate her victim’s face.

  “Do you recognize him?” she asked.

  “No, do you?”

  With a brisk shake of her head, she stood again. “Smell that?”

  “Werewolf.” Will tilted his head at the dead man. A dead werewolf. Fully clothed and without a weapon on his person. “He attacked you? In human form?”

  “Why are you saying that like a question?” She reloaded her gun, avoiding his eyes.

  Because it didn’t add up. Not that a dead werewolf was a problem. In fact, on a normal day it would have been a good thing. But that was now two dead beings that might have been able to give them more information on what exactly the Venor were up to. Two dead beings, killed by Rene. Before they’d given up any information. Rene, who the Venor were watching, and who was acting more and more strangely the longer the investigation went on.