Blood Trouble

by Connie Suttle

  BLOOD TROUBLE

  God Wars Book 2

  CONNIE SUTTLE

  The author's contact information may be found at the end of this book.

  For Walter, Joe, Sarah S. and Lee D. Thank you.

  And for Brandy, Lisa, Dolly, Susan, Sharyn and Larry—you keep me going. Thanks!

  * * * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents portrayed within its pages are purely fictitious and a product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons (or vampires, werewolves, High Demons, Greater Demons, Lesser Demons, Larentii, shapeshifters, Ra'Ak, wizards, warlocks, witches, Saa Thalarr or gods) living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book, whole or in part, MAY NOT be copied or reproduced by mechanical means (including photocopying or the implementation of any type of storage or retrieval system), without the express written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Other books by Connie Suttle

  Blood Destiny Series

  Blood Wager

  Blood Passage

  Blood Sense

  Blood Domination

  Blood Royal

  Blood Queen

  Blood Rebellion

  Blood War

  Blood Redemption

  Blood Reunion

  Legend of the Ir'Indicti Series

  Bumble

  Shadowed

  Target

  Vendetta

  Destroyer

  High Demon Series

  Demon Lost

  Demon Revealed

  Demon's King

  Demon's Quest

  Demon's Revenge

  Demon's Dream

  The God Wars Series

  Blood Double

  Blood Trouble

  Blood Revolution*

  *Forthcoming

  Chapter 1

  Prologue:

  "There is one last thing you must do," a shining one informed Li'Neruh Rath.

  "What is that?" Li'Neruh Rath, Darkest Star in the High Demon language, bowed respectfully to the one before him.

  "You must explore humanoid sexuality. All facets of it."

  "Is that necessary?"

  "Yes. If you are to walk among them, you must act as they do. All of them. Not just those accepted as the norm, but those who may not be so readily accepted. You must understand all of it—their motivations, desires, passions, urges—everything."

  "But I have already done so many things. I have studied criminal behavior on countless worlds. Have engaged in wars, from the lowest to highest-ranking soldiers. Worked as a healer for those not only sick in body, but also in mind. What more do you want of me?"

  Li'Neruh wanted to shudder. Coming from the light as he had, and accepting the assignment to watch over the Dark Realm and its god had been a sacrifice. A very great sacrifice—for him. Before, he had no contact with the created races. After accepting the position, he'd been thrust among them without knowing them. He knew them now, from the best to the worst.

  "Li'Neruh, were you not promised a reward, should you accomplish this work?" The shining one shook his head—a very human gesture.

  "I was, but I took the assignment because I was asked and not for any reward you might offer."

  "Then it is my hope that your duty and obligation will be greatly rewarded, and that it will exceed your desires and expectations."

  "Where should I go, then, to experience these things?" Li'Neruh blinked as information filtered into his mind.

  * * *

  Breanne's Journal

  I always wanted to see San Francisco. Had never had an opportunity to go there—too many things stood in my way, least of all my appearance and disabilities. Today, I was seeing it from a distance on a cool, foggy morning in early August. The top of the Golden Gate Bridge was the only thing visible as I stood at a lookout in the Marin Headlands, on the other side of San Francisco Bay.

  I'd come to Earth in the past, hoping to get to my own past and Change What Was. Something prevented me from getting any closer than I had. Two years had passed since then. At the present, Lissa had been gone from the planet for two years—I'd arrived shortly after she was taken away by our shared sperm donor, and after discovering that I couldn't travel farther backward than that, I'd chosen San Francisco as my new home. Did the two events coincide, somehow—that she'd be gone almost the moment I showed up? I had no idea.

  Even after learning that I couldn't get to my past to change important parts of it, I'd decided to stay. Lissa had returned to Le-Ath Veronis; therefore, there was no need for me to remain. Gavin, I'm sure, was delighted to be without a vampire child, and there was little chance that any of them might come looking for me.

  I'd been a convenience—somebody to fill a void left by the Vampire Queen. If I'd stayed, even with the power and abilities I held, I'd likely be stuck in a tiny office again, transferring funds for this group or that individual until somebody ordered me to go do something they couldn't accomplish on their own. My personal purgatory, after becoming vampire that is, seemed to be eternal life as a lowly public servant. I'm sure there was a joke there, I just wasn't in any mood to solve the punchline.

  In the two years I'd been on Earth, I'd accomplished many things, but the first of those things had been using power to create an identity so I'd fit in again. I now had a Social Security number, an address, and anything else I might need to survive as a human. I just wasn't human. Not anymore. Well, that wasn't completely true. I'd always been a quarter Karathian witch, an eighth Elemaiyan, half human and another eighth I didn't want to guess at.

  The second thing I'd done was buy a lottery ticket with a dollar I found on the street near Fisherman's Wharf. It had been soggy and ragged, that dollar, but it had been accepted after I'd filled out the numbers for the next lottery drawing.

  Yes, it was probably cheating, but I figured cosmic karma ought to kick in somewhere. I'd won four hundred million and took the cash option, netting nearly two hundred million after taxes. I'd also done something I always wanted to do after renting an apartment with my newfound wealth—I hired an attorney and set up an anonymous charitable foundation, placing a priority on helping children.

  The next thing I'd done (so as not to be completely bored), was to volunteer for Mercy Crossings, a charity that arranged for health professionals and volunteers to help wherever needed, and usually it was in the poorest and most vulnerable places on Earth.

  The Director of Mercy Crossings had been skeptical at first, when I walked into his office in Los Angeles nearly two years before, asking to volunteer. I had no medical career and absolutely no credentials. What I did have was an understanding of and the ability to speak any language on the globe. I also had compulsion and employed it on several occasions to deal with this despot or that warlord, in order to clear a path for the needed personnel and supplies. Mercy Crossings had certainly benefited from my volunteering.

  The last thing I'd done, and this I'd done for my own peace of mind, was to promise myself not to read anyone unless there was no other choice. I'd be happier and it would give anyone I encountered an even playing field—they'd be judged as everyone else saw them and not by their past, which only I might see. Things were so much better that way.

  Sighing and hunching my shoulders against the early morning cold, I misted back to San Francisco and stood in line at my favorite coffee shop to get a latte. While I was walking back to my one-bedroom apartment, which lay on the second floor above an empty storefront, I saw Hank Bell for the first time.

  He drove a green Chevy truck that shuddered as it died when he parked it on the street in front of my apartment. I'll admit I blinked at him when he exited the truck, before deciding that it was rude to gape.

&nb
sp; Was he handsome? Handsome couldn't come close to Hank Bell. Handsome would have to take the very back seat on a very long train to Hank Bell's strikingly beautiful features. Without glancing in my direction even once, he strode purposely toward the rather large crate a delivery crew had left in front of the empty shop's door.

  I'd slowed my steps so I could watch him for a few seconds longer before searching for the key to unlock the door leading to my upstairs apartment, and noticed that he was checking his watch. Then, I listened as he cursed under his breath.

  "Fuck, shit and damn," he muttered. I shouldn't have heard. With a vampire's sharp hearing, I heard every word.

  "Need help?" I asked, pulling the apartment key from my purse.

  Jerking his head up in a startled fashion, he blinked as if noticing me for the first time.

  "Where did you come from?" he asked.

  "Texas."

  "After that," he grumped sarcastically.

  "From the coffee shop." I held up my latte cup.

  "I'd kill for coffee, right now. And then I'd kill my partner, for not being here to help with this fucking safe."

  "Do you think that safe is going anywhere?" I lifted an eyebrow. "It probably weighs a ton. Literally."

  "At least a thousand pounds," he agreed, raking fingers through dark-as-sin hair.

  "You can leave it there and I'll buy you coffee. I doubt wandering gangs or packs of criminals will come by and haul it away while you're gone. They'll get a hernia."

  "I really want to get it inside, then I need to make a list of supplies to fix the place up. The goal is to open in three months." Dark eyes blinked in my direction.

  "This place has been empty the whole time I've lived over it," I pointed out. "And that's nearly two years. I doubt it's going anywhere, either."

  "I got a really good deal on it, because it's been available so long," he said, drumming his fingers on the crate's top.

  "I can help you get the safe inside, I think," I offered. Yes, all this was so out of character for me, but something drew me to this man, and I sure couldn't explain any of it. I was tempted to read him, too, but squashed that thought quickly.

  "You think you can?" He was finally giving me his full attention, but as it was cold out, I'd dressed in a bulky sweater and jacket and he probably thought I was a short, humanoid roly-poly.

  "Yeah. I think I can," I nodded before setting my latte beside the stairwell door. I felt bad that I couldn't tell him I was vampire and could haul the stupid safe inside his new store without batting an eye.

  "Well," he sounded indecisive.

  "Give it a try," I said. "Who knows? Stranger things have probably happened."

  "Probably," he raked long, well-shaped fingers through his hair again. Honestly, he needed to stop that. I was watching those fingers much too closely as it was.

  "Let me unlock the door." He pushed back the metal security gate first, then squeezed into the narrow space left between the door and the crated safe before putting a key in the lock and opening the door with a wooden scrape. Looked like the door would have to be replaced, along with a lot of other things.

  Holding back the majority of my strength, I worked with him as we scooted the heavy crate first this way and then that, to shove it through the door. Once it was inside far enough, he studied it with a critical eye before hauling out a cellphone and punching in a number. It rang three times before someone picked up.

  "Paul?" he said when someone—a sleepy someone—answered.

  "Yeah? Hank?"

  "Yes, it's Hank. Where the fuck are you?"

  "Late night, man. Look, I'll be there in an hour." The call ended.

  "Well, I'll just go, then." I edged toward the door as Hank looked ready to explode. Anger frightened me. Had, for a very long time.

  "You're not buying coffee?" Hank asked.

  "What? Oh, yeah. Coffee. The Lean Bean is a block down." I pointed vaguely in the proper direction.

  "Come on. I'll be mad later."

  "You can do that? Be mad later? Dang, why didn't I think of that?" I said before I thought. He grinned. I wanted to gape. If I'd thought he looked good before, it just got ramped up a few thousand notches.

  "Hank Bell," he stuck out a hand and officially introduced himself.

  "Breanne Hayworth." My hand was engulfed in his as we shook. Yes, I'd taken my old last name. I'd just never had proper ID before. I wasn't supposed to be on anybody's radar in the past—by design.

  "This is good coffee," Hank said later, after we'd chosen a tiny table at The Lean Bean. The fog was lifting outside, with occasional patches of sunlight shining through. We were just outside the Castro District in San Francisco, and if you were curious—or even if you weren't—you might see just about anything there. "I wasn't sure we were going to get that safe moved, but you're tougher than I thought." Hank broke into my thoughts.

  "You know, I get that a lot," I agreed, shucking my jacket. It was warmer inside the coffee shop, and I sure didn't want to start sweating while staring at Hank. More than I already was, anyway.

  "Paul and I decided last year we wanted to open our own club, but it took a while to put the financing together," Hank said, sipping more coffee. He'd asked for a caramel mocha, and it smelled almost as good as he did.

  "What did you do before?" I asked. He didn't wear a ring and only wore a plain white T under a leather jacket.

  "Paramedic. Quit last week after I signed the paperwork. Paul is supposed to pay for the renovations on the bar, so I made the down payment and signed my name on the papers."

  "Was Paul a paramedic, too?"

  "Yeah. He's still working, but he's supposed to turn in his notice today so we can get started on the building this weekend." It was Friday, so they'd be working on it pretty quick. "What do you do?" he asked, sipping more of his drink.

  "I'm in between assignments. I volunteer for Mercy Crossings."

  "You don't hold an eight-to-five?"

  "No. At the moment, I can afford not to." I studied my paper cup, which was nearly empty, instead of meeting his gaze.

  "What do you do in between, then?"

  "I run most mornings. I read a lot. Do a little traveling." I did, I just didn't use conventional methods to do it. I'd been in places I'd never thought I'd go, because I could fold there and back.

  "How far? Running, that is?"

  "Usually five miles or so. It lets me clear my head."

  "Your head needs clearing?"

  "Yeah. It's more cluttered than the warehouse in Raiders of the Lost Ark."

  "How cluttered was that?" he chewed a plastic stir-stick he'd grabbed from the condiment bar and grinned.

  "Dang, don't you ever go to movies? You could fit Pluto inside that warehouse. Not the dog, the planet."

  "I heard Pluto wasn't a planet anymore."

  "It's a dwarf planet. Are you a planet racist? You don't consider dwarf planets to be real planets?"

  "I didn't say that. I'm sure Pluto is still a card-carrying celestial body in the solar system, but it can't get on some of the rides at theme parks because it's not tall enough."

  "Are you saying that Pluto can't get into R-rated movies unless it's accompanied by Jupiter or Saturn? Is that what you're saying?"

  "I'm saying it can order off the dwarf planet menu at any restaurant. That's all I'm saying." His grin had widened, and dark eyes gleamed wickedly at me. Any other woman would probably have swooned where she sat. Me? I wanted to turn into a puddle of helpless goo. I think he could have asked for the Moon right then, and I would have handed it and all the other moons and planets (including the dwarf one) right over.

  His cellphone rang, breaking the moment and the mood. His partner, Paul was on the phone. "Look, Hank," he began, "I'm having second thoughts. Jorge wants to move in with me and well, I don't think I can do this. Sorry." Paul hung up while Hank stood and cursed.

  * * *

  "How much?" I asked. Yeah, I was probably setting myself up for real trouble, but Hank had
been silent after his initial bout of quiet cursing, and we now made the short walk back to the shop and my apartment over it without speaking. Until I'd broken the silence, anyway.

  "What?" It took a few seconds for him to turn toward me.

  "How much? To renovate the shop?"

  "Probably fifty grand, with us—me—doing all the labor." Dark eyes raked my face, as if he were attempting to determine my reason for asking.

  "I have a lawyer. How much of an interest in the business will I have if I put up that money? I can do minor stuff, too, to help out."

  Hank blinked for a moment before replying. "Paul was getting a third," he sighed. "Look, you don't have to worry about me. I'm a stranger, and most people don't have that kind of money lying around."

  "I can do it," I shrugged. After all, if this turned sour, there was always compulsion. I was hoping things would work out, although I'd only just met him.

  "How about this—you take a fourth interest, and I pay half back," Hank countered my offer.

  "Is that what you want?" I looked up at him—he was more than a foot taller than I was.

  "I don't have a choice. I put everything I had into the down payment, and there'll be no business if I can't renovate."

  "Then I'll have my lawyer draw up a contract."

  We spent most of the afternoon in Terry Johnston's office, hammering out a simple contract with a payment schedule after the business—a nightclub—opened.

  I wrote a check from my personal account for fifty thousand and handed it to Hank.

  "Thanks. What are you doing tomorrow morning—around seven?" Hank stuffed the check in his wallet as he asked the question.

  "Getting back from a run, usually."

  "Meet me downstairs afterward, and we can make a list of what we need."

  "All right. I've never really renovated anything, so this will be a learning experience."

  "Exactly."

  * * *

  "The power signature was detected in two different time periods, and neither registered long enough to track it properly." The lieutenant reported the findings to his superior.