Death Bringer sj-2

by Kate Pearce

  “You’re my partner. We’ve got each other’s backs, right?”

  “Right. My hotel or your apartment?”

  “Your hotel is closer.”

  “Then let’s go there, and I can get out of this glass-infested suit.”

  * * *

  This time Vadim parked and walked through the hotel lobby like a regular human being, one hand placed on the small of Ella’s back simply because he needed to touch her. He had a strange sense that he was being observed, but couldn’t see an obvious threat. If Adam was around, there was nothing he could do about it except remain vigilant. He wished he had more time to prepare. He’d done nothing to help Ella accept her newfound magical powers either. She might need them, if the future turned out to be as awful as he feared.

  “What’s up, Morosov? You’re like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “At least it made you pay attention. What’s going on in your head? What did you think of that dude looking like you?”

  “Can we wait until I’ve had my bath to discuss this?” He swiped his room key and the green light flickered on.

  “Holy cow!” Ella dropped to a crouch and brought out her weapon. “What happened in here?”

  His room was in chaos, drawers open, pillows ripped and his clothes strewn all over the floor... That wasn’t even the worst of it. Sitting on top of his clothes was Rossa, wings neatly folded behind his head like some heavenly angel. He was naked, apart from a few strategically placed white feathers, and as beautiful as ever.

  “Rossa! What the fuck?” Ella barged ahead of him and got straight in his cousin’s face. “Why did you do this?”

  Vadim shut the door. “Yes, why?”

  “I didn’t.” Rossa glanced around the disordered space as if he’d just noticed it. “Do you want me to make it all better?”

  “No, thanks.” Vadim came to stand beside Ella. “I’d rather do it myself when you’re gone.” He wanted to taste the magic, to see if it was the same. “What do you want?”

  “Just to tell you that there is a lot of interest in what you’ve been up to. Our grandmother wants you back, and your mother and father are arguing about it again.”

  “What’s new?”

  “It’s more intense than it’s been since you first left. I really think you’ll be forced back fairly soon.”

  “And how are they are going to manage that, when I’m mated and entitled to stay here?”

  “That’s right. You’re fucking her now, aren’t you?” Rossa grinned at Ella and smoothed down the feathers on his chest. “Remember, they’ll use whatever means possible.”

  Anger flooded Vadim’s veins, and black feathers swirled around and over Rossa’s head. He switched to Fae. “You can give them a message from me. If they lay one hand on my mate, I’ll make them pay for it in blood.”

  Rossa stopped smiling and waved at Ella. “‘Bye, gorgeous. Take care now.”

  Vadim took a deep, steadying breath and eyed the pile of clothes Rossa had been sitting on. Maybe he should get everything dry-cleaned or—better still—just destroyed. He’d like to destroy something. Preferably his cousin.

  “Rossa is infuriating. And why did you start speaking in tongues for the last bit? You sounded quite menacing.”

  “Threats always sound better in Fae.” Vadim picked up one of his shirts and shook it out. The scent of Otherworld magic entered his senses, and he knew exactly who’d been in his room. The question was why. With a flick of his hand, he restored the room to its usual clean state and went into the bathroom. Ella, of course, followed him.

  “Are you going to tell me what you said?”

  “I told him to fuck off.”

  “You always tell him to do that. So why did you speak in a language you knew I didn’t understand?”

  He loosened his tie and dropped it to the floor. “As I said, can I have my bath before the interrogation?”

  “It’s weird how you clam up whenever I ask you any questions, when you expect me to answer all yours immediately. I thought we were supposed to be in this together.” She pulled a towel off the rail and threw it hard at his chest. “Enjoy your stupid bath.”

  For once he didn’t have time to appreciate getting the upper hand. He was too bone weary to care. She didn’t want him protecting her, and she was already suspicious. And she was right to be so. Adam’s threat in the hospital had been far more specific than he’d let on to Ella. Because he was now mated, he was vulnerable. Every Fae knew that and wouldn’t hesitate to strike. He growled low in his throat and his fangs pierced his lower lip.

  But was Adam’s attempt to involve Vadim personally in his crimes due to ancient grudges or to something more recent? Blood ties were a tortuous and complex thing, especially for the long-lived Fae. He needed to think up a reasonable explanation before Ella got fed up waiting and either told Feehan the parts Vadim had left out, or worse, decided to tackle Adam and Otherworld herself.

  Eventually, he had to get out of the bath. He dried himself off, wrapped a towel around his hips and went back into the bedroom. Ella sat in a chair by the faux fireplace, boots kicked off and her feet curled up under her. If he wasn’t mistaken, she was now wearing one of his T-shirts. She looked tired, and her hair was coming out of its braid. He thought about fixing it for her, but instead took the chair opposite. She’d closed the drapes, and the nighttime roar of the city traffic was slightly muted.

  “Do you want me to show you that Fae trick for cleaning yourself up?”

  She blinked at him. “Are you suggesting I need to take another shower?”

  “If I teach you this spell, you won’t need to.”

  “Ever?”

  He leaned his head back against the chair and studied her. “That might be a stretch. Luckily, most Fae have an affinity for water.”

  “Okay, how d’you do it?”

  “It’s quite easy. You picture the thing you want to clean up and say these words, geilan dah.”

  “Gay Linda?”

  “Gey-ei-landah.” He repeated slowly. “If you forget to brush your hair one morning. You could fix the problem while you were driving to work without taking your hands off the steering wheel—not that doing that seems to bother you much anyway.”

  She sat forward. “Are you saying my hair is a mess?”

  “I’m not saying anything. I’m just giving you an example.”

  “Fine. I should’ve known cleaning things would be your favorite spell.” She sighed and closed her eyes. As he watched, her hair magically rearranged itself into two neat shining braids.

  “Did it work?”

  “Yes.” His smile was enough to have her running to the mirror.

  “I look like a Swedish tourist.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.”

  She returned to her seat, fingering one of her braids. “Now, if you’ve finished prevaricating, do you want to tell me what’s really going on?”

  “I think I’ve told you most of it.”

  “Bullshit, Morosov. I know how your devious Fae mind works. Even if I can’t quite access all the important bits, I can still sense when you’re hiding things from me.”

  She could?

  Damn.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Perhaps it was time for the truth. “That you need to be on your guard, and that I would prefer it if we stayed together at all times.”

  She wrapped her arms around her drawn-up knees and rested her chin on them. “You’re afraid for me?”

  “You’re my mate. Otherworld knows that. You will be used against me.”

  “Do you think I’d let myself be used?”

  “Not intentionally.”

  “Well, thanks for that, at least.” She considered him for a long moment. “What can I do to make myself less vulnerable?”

  “You’re taking this much better than I thought you would.”

  She shrugged. “Otherworld is
your world. I’m a liability for you there. I don’t want to be one, so I’d like to improve our odds.”

  “I appreciate that. With my magic, you aren’t without power. You just need to learn how to use it.”

  “Can you teach me?”

  “Not in time.” He grimaced. “I fear that someone will come after me fairly soon.”

  “And when you say after you, you really mean after me, don’t you?”

  “You heard what Rossa said. Otherworld is interested in us.”

  “That’s right, he did say that. Why are your parents fighting over you?”

  “I’m something of a divisive force. The maternal line wants me back in Otherworld to carry out its wishes, and my father wishes me in hell.” He held her gaze. “I’ll do everything in my power to prevent you from being taken.”

  “I know that.”

  “It would also be better if you didn’t go to Otherworld in the near future.”

  “Got it. Not that I want to go back to Merton ever again. I’ll send Sam to pick up the photos tomorrow.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s been a horrible day, and tomorrow isn’t going to be any easier. How on earth are we supposed to know what kind of victim Adam will choose next?”

  “Going by his previous behavior, it will be close by, and fairly soon.”

  She shivered. “Somehow this feels really personal.” She glanced up at him. “Do you feel that too?”

  “Yes.”

  Because it was.

  He’d tangled with the sect in the past many times. But he wasn’t in a position to reveal that to Ella yet. He hoped he never had to. It was going to be difficult to keep her safe while trying to solve his issues with Adam.

  “Is there anything else you want to ask me?”

  She uncurled her legs and stretched. “Loads, but I can’t think straight.”

  “Then shall we go to bed?”

  “Sure.”

  Her smile made him forget sleep and immediately think of sex. He rose to his feet and held out his hand, and she took it. He instantly felt better, more connected and safer. His mother always insisted that love was a cage. He could feel it all around him now, but somehow it was less frightening than he had imagined. If only Ella could see it that way too. But then how would she survive his inevitable death? He followed her into bed and held her close. Perhaps she was right not to allow anyone near her—especially him.

  Chapter Seven

  “What the hell’s that?”

  Ella looked up as Sam and Rich manhandled another desk in through her office door and dumped it right next to hers.

  “It’s for Vad.” Sam beamed at her. “Now that he’s your official partner, he, like, needs his own space.”

  “So do I,” Ella muttered as the object of her ire sauntered through the door. “There isn’t enough room for two of us in here.”

  “We can make room.”

  He pointed out exactly where he wanted the desk to be placed, and Sam and Rich obligingly moved it into position for him.

  “I’ll get your desktop and set it up for you. It won’t take a minute.”

  “Thanks, guys.” Vadim patted Rich on the back. “I appreciate it.”

  She gave up the attempt to work and watched as a parade of boxes and office equipment joined the desk and its smiling owner. Her phone rang and she let it go to voice mail. There was no way she’d be able to hear a thing, with the racket they were making. She tried to study the list she was compiling, but that proved impossible too. Eventually she looked up.

  “Have you finished yet?”

  Vadim gave her a charming smile. He looked remarkably well for a man who’d been covered in glass the previous day. She wondered if the cleanup spell he’d taught her worked on bumps and bruises...

  “It can, but you have to be careful, or else you could overdo the power of the spell and end up looking like you’ve had plastic surgery or something.”

  “Thanks for the clarification. Now get out of my head.”

  Rich set up Vadim’s desktop computer and phone line while Sam sat in his chair and spun himself around in circles.

  Ella looked up again. “Don’t you have somewhere else you need to be, Sam?”

  He stopped spinning. “Not really, I was just waiting to tell you that Mr. Feehan wants us all in the conference room at eleven.”

  “Thanks. Maybe you could let Morosov try out his chair now?”

  “Oh, sure, dude.” Sam leaped to his feet and then swayed. “Man, I’m like, so dizzy right now.”

  Ella forced herself not to state the obvious and merely observed his unsteady progress out through the door.

  “Idiot,” she remarked.

  “Me?”

  “No. Sam. He’s such a kid.”

  “Lucky him.” Vadim had already assembled his half of the room into something that would feature on the front cover of Office Weekly, if such a magazine existed. For some reason, the space didn’t seem to have shrunk too much after all. “Did you make any progress tracing Adam?”

  “Not much. You?”

  He checked his watch. “It’s almost eleven. There’s no point in repeating myself when we’re just about to step into a meeting.”

  “Even for me?”

  He held the door open for her. “This time there’s only one version to tell.”

  Sam and Liz were laughing and comparing notes about the last wolf-pack party they’d both attended. Rich sipped his coffee and Feehan looked up as they entered.

  “Good, let’s get on, shall we?”

  He added a couple of photos of Brad Dailey to the board. The pictures had obviously been taken after his death.

  “Dude, that’s weird.” Sam sat up straighter. “His face is, like, beautiful. Like a mask.”

  “Which is exactly what it is.” Ella agreed. “Even though he ripped it up before he died, Morosov and I reckoned, as it doesn’t really belong to him, it didn’t suffer the physical trauma of his death and reverted back to being perfect.”

  “That’s creepy.” Liz shivered. “It reminds me of that story with the guy with the picture in the attic that aged while he stayed young.”

  “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “It makes you wonder what’s happening to Brad’s real face right now, doesn’t it?” Feehan mused. “Or if that face even exists anymore. What else do we have?”

  Ella held up her hand. “I’ve been attempting to trace Adam through the various conference-registration sites and hotels, but so far no luck.”

  “That’s hardly surprising. How about you, Vadim?”

  “Nothing here, either. I doubt our killer attended anything in the city at all this week.”

  Feehan’s face fell. “Darn it. What else do we have?’

  “Well, we have the security tape of ‘Doctor Vadim’ bespelling Delia and then going into Brad’s room.” Liz said. “By the way, how are we going to stop the hospital authorities from seeing that and immediately assuming he is the killer?”

  “Simple, we just don’t give them the tape back until we’ve found the real murderer.” Ella snapped.

  Liz blinked at her. “There’s no need to be so defensive. I’m not accusing your partner of anything.”

  Aware that everyone was staring at her, Ella subsided into her chair.

  “I do have some more evidence for us to look at.” Liz glanced at Sam. “We got the before-and-after pictures of the last three victims from Otherworld.”

  She opened a large brown envelope and spread the pictures out on the conference table.

  “They all ended up with fair hair, which is the opposite of what we’ve seen with Brad.”

  Sam put his finger on the closest picture. “And they all retain perfect features, even after killing themselves.”

  Ella contemplated the horrific differences between the happy faces of the “before” pictures and the death masks of the “after” ones. It was damned unsettling.

  �
��Should we assume Adam is going for three blonds this time?”

  “Seems likely.”

  Everyone looked at Liz and Ella.

  Liz tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s okay, we’ll be careful.”

  “You’ll need to be,” Vadim said. “Even though you’re half-Fae, you still need to be protected. I’m sure Doug and the wolf pack can take care of that for you.”

  “They will, but I’ll be extra vigilant, I promise you.”

  “I’m all human,” Ella noted.

  “But I’m your partner, Ms. Walsh, and I don’t intend to let you out of my sight.”

  The sincerity and purpose in his eyes was intense. Damn, he might as well be down on his knees proposing to her. No one would believe there wasn’t something going on between them now.

  “Um, thanks.” She dropped her gaze and fiddled with her pen.

  “We can’t exactly protect all of the blonds in the San Francisco Bay Area from one man when we have no description of him, can we?” Feehan’s shoulders slumped.

  “He’ll choose someone close.”

  Feehan turned to Vadim. “You sound very sure of that.”

  “The last three victims lived within ten miles of each other. I should imagine Adam has already decided on his next victim.”

  “I think you know more than you are letting on, Vadim.” Liz turned to face him. “I sense a connection between you and this Adam in my Fae-Web.”

  A muscle flicked in Vadim’s cheek. “I suspect Adam is connected to one of my family bloodlines. Unfortunately, I can’t help that.”

  “You could if you asked your Otherworld family for more information.”

  “I’m not friends with anyone in my family. I left Otherworld on extremely bad terms.”

  Ella held her breath as Liz continued to stare at her partner. What was her friend seeing, and how would it affect the rest of the team’s ability to trust Vadim? She didn’t dare say anything else in case she put her big foot in it and made things worse. A thought occurred to her.

  “Couldn’t you ask Rossa?”

  “No.”

  Fine, he wasn’t interested in listening to her. She folded her arms across her chest and pretended to concentrate on the photos. There were two men and one woman. Was that significant too?