She glanced at him and then away, her gaze focused on the files on the table next to her, pretending to study them. He could tell she wasn’t actually reading anything. Not unless she was captivated by a single word. Her eyes hadn’t moved even the tiniest bit, and there was no comprehension on her expressive face. Her thoughts were far away from whatever was in those files.
“It’s going to be a long few fucking days if we can’t even talk to each other,” he said, taunting her intentionally, trying to force a response. She didn’t react, didn’t give any indication she’d even heard him.
Lucifer stared a while longer, drinking in the sight of her, dismayed at the effect she still had on him. It was just like the first time he’d seen her, as if all of the intervening years and all of the lies had never happened. Eventually, his wounded heart—and maybe his ego—could take no more. He stood and crossed the aisle, pretending to need his own files from the leather bag he’d brought onboard. He didn’t actually need the documents; he had them all but memorized. But it was a good excuse to get up and move, and eventually to take a seat on the same side of the aircraft as Eleanor, one with several seats between them to serve as a barrier that kept him from seeing her every time he looked up.
With nothing else to do, and needing the distraction, he went over what he knew of the case, and contemplated how best to begin his search. Eleanor was a complication, but he wouldn’t let her get in the way of his hunt. Nothing got in the way of his hunts. It was part of what made him so effective. Once he was on the trail, he was single-minded, focused and committed. He lived and breathed his quarry, which, in this case, was Colin Murphy. Or the vampires who’d kidnapped him. Either one would do, since one would lead to the other. Colin Murphy took precedence, of course. Retrieving Sophia’s mate was critical to the defense of the Canadian Territory, and ultimately North America. They couldn’t permit a single European victory, not even the smallest foothold.
He bent his thoughts to what he already knew, which wasn’t much. Colin Murphy had been in Toronto, on a fact-finding mission for Sophia, in the aftermath of the European incursions against Raphael in the West and the traitor Anthony in the South. Lucifer had spent a lot of time in New Orleans, but had never met, or even seen, Anthony. He did know that Anthony had abandoned New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and moved to take over rule of the entire Southern territory, with a base in Houston. Granted, many of Anthony’s vampires had perished in the floods, but many had survived, too. And they could have used their master’s strength in the days and weeks after that disaster.
Lucifer had looked at Anthony’s abandonment, and his own Sire’s thoughtless cruelty, and he’d been grateful for whatever fate had put him in Aden’s path instead.
He stared out the jet’s window, the black sky a canvas for a time in his life that he hadn’t thought of in years. But apparently this was his night for memories. It must have been Eleanor. Seeing her alive after all this time had opened the vault door on events that he’d kept tightly hidden away—some because he still second-guessed himself despite the futility and intervening years, and some, like Eleanor, because the memories had been simply too painful.
But it wasn’t pain that stopped him from reliving his last days with the weakling who’d been his Sire. It was a sense that somehow he could have done it differently. Lucifer had been raised without a single male role model. His mother’s brothers had visited infrequently, and only long enough to voice their disapproval of his existence. His father had never been named—not in his hearing and not on his birth certificate. But his mother had made it clear that she thought he was the child of the devil himself—or at the very least, a minor demon—either one of whom had violated her virgin body in her sleep, stealing her innocence and leaving her with a devil child to raise. Lucifer’s nonna had curled her lip at such fanciful thoughts, saying it was only his mother trying to excuse her whoring ways in bedding a married man.
Lucifer smiled, amused as always by the choice that had left him. He was either the child of the devil, or the child of a whore.
In any event, he’d been raised with love and attention by his nonna, who’d instilled her version of a man’s code of honor. Foremost had been an obligation to honor and defend the women in his life. His gaze shifted automatically to where Eleanor sat at the back of the plane, staring out the window, no longer even pretending to read. He’d wanted nothing more than to take care of her, to shelter her against everything from the smallest inconvenience to the darkest evil. He’d failed in that, apparently far worse than he’d known, though it had taken him weeks of searching to discover the truth. Or at least what he’d thought was the truth back then. The knowledge hadn’t changed anything. Neither had killing the vampire who’d torn her away from him.
1993, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
LUCIFER WALKED THE streets of New Orleans for the third week in a row, searching for Eleanor. He no longer bothered to go by her apartment. It had been cleaned out. That frightened and puzzled him more than anything else. His first thought, when she’d disappeared, had been that she’d been abducted. She was a beautiful woman, and there was no shortage of men who would simply take what they wanted. But no matter how hard he tried to convince himself of that scenario, it didn’t add up. All of her things had been gone from her apartment. Not only her clothes and jewelry, but her personal possessions, the photographs of her family that she’d shared with him, her favorite books, and even the historical journal of her many times great-grandmother who’d been alive during this country’s civil war. Those things had no value to anyone but Eleanor.
The inevitable truth was shoving its way into his every thought, suffocating him until he could barely generate the energy to keep moving. Eleanor had left him, and he’d torn her room apart looking for a note, a message scrawled on a mirror, something, anything to explain why. He’d replayed every moment of their time together and found no hint of her unhappiness. Their last night together had been more loving than ever. He’d been ready to move her into his own, much larger, home, and even to trust her with the secret of his daytime sleeping location.
He needed answers. Why was she gone? Where would she go? And, above all, wherever she was, was she safe?
A familiar face caught his attention in the crowd. Derek Pratt. The vampire who’d been hustling Eleanor the night he’d first met her. The vampire who, Lucifer later discovered, had been after Eleanor for some weeks before that night. She’d rebuffed him every time, politely at first, and then with less subtlety. But Pratt had persisted. Until Lucifer had stepped in and, with a single look at the weaker vampire, driven him out of Eleanor’s life.
Pratt wasn’t looking at Lucifer with fear tonight. No, there was a smug satisfaction as he changed direction and made a point of crossing Lucifer’s path, only to stop directly in front of him.
Lucifer spared the lesser vampire a dismissive glance. “Move,” he said simply, and waited for his path to clear.
“Looking for someone?” Derek sneered.
Lucifer felt every muscle, every nerve in his body grow still and alert, ready to pounce. “Excuse me?” he asked softly.
“You’re wandering around lately like you’re lost . . . or like someone else is.” Derek laughed. “I thought maybe I could help.”
It took every ounce of restraint he possessed to refrain from slamming his fist into the bastard’s chest and squeezing his heart until he begged to tell Lucifer whatever he wanted to know. He was going to do it anyway, but not here, not in the middle of Bourbon Street. He struck with his power, a subtle command compelling Derek to follow him into a nearby alley, and at the same time plowed his fist into Derek’s gut with every ounce of strength in his vampire-enhanced body.
One woman shrieked a protest when Derek staggered against her, nearly knocking the drink from her hand. But most of the humans were too set on their own partying to notice. They simply gave the t
wo vampires a wide berth and kept going.
Once in the alley and away from human eyes, Lucifer wasted no time with niceties. He was far more powerful than Derek and had no trouble trapping him against the dirty wall, while at the same time gathering shadows to conceal them from the curious.
“Tell me what you know about Eleanor,” he ordered, not bothering with persuasion.
Derek tried to gather enough energy to spit at him, but Lucifer hadn’t left him enough control to do it properly, so the spittle only dripped down the bastard’s chin. He did manage a grin through bloodied teeth, before Lucifer twisted his power around the bastard’s heart and stroked the vital organ lightly. Just enough to remind Derek who it was that held his life in his hands.
“She’s gone,” Derek ground out.
Pain squeezed Lucifer’s heart and didn’t let go. “Dead?” he asked, trying to sound cool, and knowing he was failing.
The other vampire bared his teeth in something approaching a grin. Lucifer growled and tightened his grip on the creep’s heart, eliciting a grunt of real pain.
“She didn’t make it,” Derek gasped, then looked up as Lucifer’s fangs abruptly slid into view. “Not my fault. She was weak. Now, fuck off.”
Lucifer’s rage became a physical thing, swelling until it threatened to swamp all of his senses, drowning out every sound but the pounding of his heart, dropping a bloody veil over his eyes until he could hardly see the leering asshole in front of him.
“You turned her?” he growled, his voice so guttural that the words were barely distinguishable.
“I told her it was your idea,” Pratt said, gurgling a laugh. “She was so sweet, and she cried so prettily. And, fuck, such a tight little—”
Lucifer didn’t hear anything else. Slamming his fist into Derek chest, he tore through skin and muscle and shattered ribs, until his fingers actually closed around the bastard’s beating heart. And then he squeezed until it was nothing but bloody mush, oozing through his fingers as he yanked it out of the gaping hole in his chest.
Derek’s eyes widened in shock in the instant before he died, as if he was honestly surprised at the outcome. As if he’d thought he could taunt Lucifer with what he’d done to Eleanor and walk away. As if Lucifer would ever have let him live after what he’d done.
He stood there, staring down at the greasy pile of dust, barely distinguishable from all of the other dirt in the narrow alley. He tried to feel some satisfaction, a sense of justice, if nothing else. But all he felt was empty. Eleanor was gone. Had she believed Derek when he’d told her that Lucifer wanted her made vampire? Did she know enough about vampire culture to know how unlikely that was? That even if he’d wanted her turned, he’d never have left it to any other vampire, much less one as weak and corrupt as Derek. But she didn’t know any of those things, and it was his fault. He’d sheltered her all this time, protected her from the raw truth of what it meant to be vampire.
She’d been his princess. His beautiful Eleanor. Now she was dead.
He sank to his haunches against the alley wall, and he wept.
Present Day, en route to Montreal, Quebec, Canada
LUCIFER BLINKED, AS memory faded and he was back on Aden’s luxurious jet, speeding to Montreal . . . with Eleanor, who wasn’t dead at all. Eleanor, who’d left him. The pain of losing her had faded over time, though it had always been there, lurking beneath the surface of his heart, just waiting for the flash of a pair of blue eyes, or the gleam of golden blond hair to bring it all roaring back, just as raw and fresh as if she’d been gone days instead of years.
He hadn’t believed Derek at first. He’d regretted killing the bastard before he could be sure of the truth. He’d searched for her for months afterward, making inquiries through his various connections up and down the rivers, but his efforts had come to nothing, and eventually he’d been forced to accept her death. Because what other explanation made sense? It sure as hell would have taken death to keep him away from her back then. And he’d been convinced that nothing but death would have kept her away from him.
Until tonight, when he’d seen her standing there on the tarmac. Every sense he’d possessed had been suddenly swamped by memories of Eleanor—the way she looked, her touch, her scent. Hell, the sweet, sweet taste of her, and not just her blood, but her skin, her mouth, and her delicious cunt, creaming all over his tongue when he’d brought her screaming to orgasm over and over again.
Fuck. And now he was hard as a rock.
He turned his thoughts back to the hunt, intentionally substituting the image of Colin Murphy—bloodied and beaten—in place of Eleanor’s pretty, pink lips. Pretty, pink lips. Yeah, that wasn’t helping.
He pulled out the still photo he’d captured and printed from the latest video, which Sophia had now turned over willingly. It appeared almost identical to previous images sent by Murphy’s kidnappers, in that the man was bound exactly the same and was wearing the same clothing, now shredded, but which every witness agreed he’d been wearing the last time anyone had seen him. He also appeared to have been beaten to within an inch of his life. The only changes day to day—and his captors made a point of sending Sophia a new dose of horror every day—were the locations of the cuts and bruises.
But while this latest image was almost identical to the others, for the first time there was a marked change. They’d moved the camera somewhat, pulling it back to reveal more of the room. It was a small change, probably not even intentional. Maybe it got bumped, or was in the way of something else. But intentional or not, the change provided a far more detailed view of the room where they were holding Murphy. It wasn’t a regular cell. Or at least not a modern one. The walls were rough and raw-looking, like an afterthought rather than a fully finished room. It was as if someone had slapped some plaster on an old, dirt-walled space and called it done. That didn’t tell him all that much by itself. Montreal was a relatively old city, after all.
What mattered for Lucifer’s hunt, however, was that Montreal had an extensive underground city. The tourist brochures all said it was modern and well-lit, but, as always, Lucifer had done his homework. The underground tunnels were designed to connect the several buildings of the so-called central business district, and were also fully integrated with the metro’s more than 40 miles of underground train tracks. And where there were train tracks, there were maintenance tunnels, and all sorts of subterranean passageways where one might hide a prisoner.
“Have you ever been to Montreal?” He spun his seat around—one of the benefits of private jet travel—and called down the aisle to Eleanor.
She jumped, her pretty blue eyes blinking at him in confusion, as though suddenly reminded she wasn’t alone. That was flattering. “What?” she asked.
Lucifer scowled, not used to being so easily dismissed, especially by a woman. “Montreal,” he said sourly. “Have you ever been there?”
“Of course. I’ve accompanied Sophia there several times. Quite a few vampires live there.”
He cocked his head curiously. “How many?”
Eleanor shrugged, as if she didn’t know, but Lucifer doubted that was true. Sophia sure as hell knew, and Eleanor seemed to be her closest bodyguard. Sophia might not have told her directly, but bodyguards overheard things. And Eleanor was smart as hell. She’d take it all in, and remember it.
“How many, Elle?” he pressed.
She shrugged again. “The greater city of Montreal, the metropolis so to speak, has very nearly four million residents.”
“And?”
She narrowed her eyes in irritation. “A few thousand vampires. Maybe three thousand,” she clarified at his look of impatience. “What does it matter?”
It was Lucifer’s turn to shrug. “Just curious,” he said, more to irritate her than anything else. Her big eyes sparked with anger, before she managed to shutter the reaction. He swallo
wed a smile. “Actually, I’m trying to get a feel for the city. That’s a lot of vamps. No way Sophia has even met most of them, much less secured a formal oath of loyalty.”
“You’re right about that,” she admitted. “The distances make it difficult. Vancouver’s her home city, and we’re fairly secure there, but she’s had to trust Toronto and Montreal, and even Quebec City, to surrogates.”
“Who?”
Eleanor made a face. “For the most part, it was Darren Yamanaka. He was Lucien’s lieutenant, and Sophia’s main competition for the territory once Lucien was dead.”
“Obviously, he lost. How’d he take that?”
“Not well, but she gave him Toronto as a consolation prize, and over the last year, he’s taken over Montreal and Quebec City by default. He’s a decent administrator, and he seemed to accept his lot after that.”
“Seemed,” he repeated in sudden understanding. “Has anyone heard from Darren lately?”
Her lips twisted into a grimace. “Not since the kidnapping.”
“Wait. I thought Sophia didn’t know who’d taken Murphy,” he said sharply, a little pissed that no one had shared this bit of information with him.
“We don’t know. It could be Darren. Colin certainly would have been in touch with him in the city. It just seems . . . I don’t know . . . out of character. Darren’s probably still carrying a grudge against Sophia, but he’s not bold enough to plan something like this. Maybe he played a part, but there has to be someone else driving him forward.”
Lucifer took that in, then asked, “Is Darren Sophia’s lieutenant?”
She shrugged. “In a manner of speaking. He has the title, but no power. Sophia’s never trusted him. For all practical purposes, Colin’s her main advisor and her lieutenant.”
Well, that was a mistake. Lucifer kept that thought to himself, figuring Eleanor wouldn’t welcome any criticism of Sophia. But it wasn’t much of a stretch to see how the decision to favor a human, even a mate, would create some serious resentment among a territory’s vampires. It was one thing for a lord to treat his mate as a favored advisor; some of them brought real skills to the table, not to mention connections. Hell, Lucas Donlon’s mate was a fucking FBI agent. But no human, no matter how smart or intuitive, could understand vampires as well as one of their own.
Lucifer (Vampires in America: The Vampire Wars Book 11) Page 5
