“Screw it.” He reached for the bottle at the next stoplight. He took a long pull and decided that maybe all he really needed was to get laid.
Chapter 8
CHAR DID NOT know where she was. She did know two things with certainty. One, that the night was colder than it ought to be on some streets, made no sense. The second was the identity of the woman standing behind her.
Char stopped hugging herself in the effort to get warm and turned to face Della. Krystalle’s companion had changed a lot in the last few years. Blue eyes looked out of an unlined, dark-skinned face, but her heavy black hair was now peppered with white and cut buzz short. The mortal woman who had been slender to the point of anorexia ten years ago was now rounded and curved, gone from elegant to earthy. Her age showed in her eyes more than in the gray-streaked hair. Della wouldn’t start to show mortal age for a long, long time. That was one of the benefits of being a long-time companion, even a lost and abandoned one. Della carried Krystalle’s blood in her, still enhancing the psychic gifts she was born with.
Della held herself with a wary pride where Char expected haughty disdain as they looked into each other’s eyes. Char had lied when she’d told Helene Bourbon that she’d only heard of Della. For a while Krystalle and Jimmy had shared a nest. Krystalle had a roving eye and hadn’t tried too hard to control her companion. Della had been jealous and had made life hell for everybody in the nest. Char hadn’t lived in the nest, but she’d been more than delighted when Jimmy decided to get his own place and had her come live with him.
“You’re thinking about the old soap opera,” Della said after a few tense moments. There was a smile on her face but not in her extraordinary eyes. She waved her hands. “Water under the bridge, Hunter.” She gestured toward an open doorway. “Come in out of the cold.”
How did Della know she was an Enforcer? Char wasn’t exactly wearing a sign.
“I know too much of everything.” Della tapped her forehead and laughed softly as Char looked around. “Street’s empty of everyone but you and me. Come inside and have a hot meal.” She gestured again. “You look like you need it.” She laughed. It was a rich, warm sound. Warmth had been very alien to the companion Char remembered. Della wagged a finger under Char’s nose. “As long as you don’t eat any of my guests, that is.”
Della was right about the street being deserted. There were only the two of them on the broken concrete sidewalk. This was not a good neighborhood. Subdued noise and warm light spilled out from the open door in an otherwise blank-faced brick building, but there was no one within hearing distance. Char recalled passing a bar that was open a few blocks back. Now she was in a warehouse area not far from the water, but whether she was closer to Lake Union or Elliot Bay she wasn’t sure. She didn’t remember where she’d parked her car. Somewhere along the line, she’d gotten completely lost, thoroughly disoriented, and ended up in the one place she hadn’t intended to go.
“You’re confused,” Della said and took Char by the arm. “Come inside.”
“This is a homeless shelter,” Char said, remembering what Della did these days.
“Then you’ll feel right at home, won’t you?”
Char almost pulled away, but there was no barb in Della’s question. Well, not much of one. Sympathy far outweighed the sting in the words. “I—we—need privacy. To talk.”
“You,” Della said firmly. “Need a hot meal and a bit of company. Spend too much time alone and you get weird when you’re crazy like we are.”
“We aren’t crazy.”
“Do you have a cat?”
“What?”
“Bet you have a cat you talk to just to hear the sound of your own voice.”
“I have a cat,” Char answered without meaning to, “because a stray jumped in my window and won’t go away.”
“But you still have a cat instead of a lover,” Della answered with a wide grin. “And now you’re blushing and I think your claws are starting to grow.”
Char knew Della for a tease but had never known her to be caring with it. “You have changed.”
“You should talk.” The humor went out of Della after she spoke. She stood very still, blinked back tears, then tugged on Char’s arm again. “Inside, Hunter. It’s cold out here.”
It was cold, all right, but not as cold as some of the places Char’d been this evening. This street was empty. Char looked up and down the blocks that stretched away under too-dim streetlamps. Empty, yes, but not devoid of—
Something.
She shook her head. “What am I missing?” She looked at Della. “What’s wrong with me?”
“You’re the hunter,” Della said, amiable expression going suddenly sly. Her body went stiff, her voice turned familiarly cold. “You figure it out.”
Char bit back the impulse to say that this was the Della she remembered. Della had been through a lot and had survived better than most. Char knew that if she’d lost Jimmy Bluecorn—
“Well, you didn’t!” Della dropped her hand from Char’s arm. “You’ve got it all. I have nothing!” She glared at Char as she wiped away angry tears.
“You’re alive.” Char grabbed the former companion’s shoulder. She kept her voice very low as she added, “And I know why.”
“But I didn’t think he’d kill her!”
“You knew very well what he would do. You like to pretend now that you didn’t.” Char hated the coldness in her own voice. She was appalled that she could be so callous. Well, honest, actually, but honest words could hurt. She liked to think of herself as more diplomatic than this. She eased the tightness of her grip but didn’t let Della go. Her demeanor was a great deal gentler when she told Della, “You did the right thing when you told the Enforcers about the child abuse ring. You didn’t know so many strigoi were involved. Your help saved innocent lives.”
“Like Danny’s?” Della asked. Then she laughed. And when she stopped laughing, she was different again, back to the woman who invited a vampire in out of a cold night and offered her a free meal. “It’s Thanksgiving,” she said. “We always have food donations to spare on the holidays.”
Char didn’t hesitate any longer. She managed a stiff smile for the woman. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
The first thing Char noticed was the smell of lemon-scented cleanser when she stepped into the entryway of the shelter. The room held a desk with an ancient Macintosh computer, a number of battered chairs, plastic shelving, and battered filing cabinets. The furniture in this room was old and scarred and nothing matched, but there was an air of comfort to the place. Maybe it was the colorful scattering of afghans and quilts on the chairs, or the play area with buckets of used plastic toys set up in one corner, or the warm blue and yellow tint of the walls. Char didn’t know what made the place seem homey. She had never been in a shelter of any sort before and hadn’t known what to expect of a place that took in the addled, desperate, and addicted.
“Most of my people have jobs,” Della told her as Char followed the former companion down a long hallway toward the rear of the building.
“Really?” Char heard a murmur of voices in the distance and the sound of rattling dishes. She could smell turkey, cigarette smoke, and about forty mortals.
They passed a succession of brightly painted doors along the way. Crayon and watercolor drawings decorated the walls between the rooms. Della answered, “Really. Not all homeless people are stoners and crazies. Some women who come here with their children have two jobs and still can’t make ends meet, so they have to sleep here. Those aren’t the regulars, though. Those are the ones who get on their feet eventually and find somewhere they can afford to live. The regulars.” She stopped and turned to face Char, speaking quietly, though they were alone in the hallway. “There’s some hopeless, shiftless, useless pieces of shit that wander in and out of here. Some have been leaving and not coming back lately.”
But did that have anything to do with vampires? Char wondered. “Transients have a way of disappearing.”
“I don’t need to be reminded about the facts of my world, Charlotte.”
“Of course not. But—”
“Hush.” Della’s expression went from hard and not quite sane to warm and welcoming again. “Dinner first. We’ll talk later.” She opened the door at the end of the corridor and led Char into a large, crowded dining room.
It was late enough that most people were finished with the meal. Some lingered over pumpkin pie and coffee at a couple of long tables. Some were in the kitchen area cleaning up. A large group of women and children were gathered in front of a television on one side of the dining room. A haze of cigarette smoke curled up from the people at the tables, but no one but Char seemed disturbed by it.
She tried not to cough or glare at the smokers. Della pointed at an empty table near the entrance, and Char sat down to wait while Della went into the kitchen. Char practiced putting up a mental barrier to keep her presence inconspicuous, but no one paid her any mind anyway, so she decided she was overreacting and quit it. Maybe no one was curious about her, but she was always interested in what was going on around her. She suspected she eavesdropped on strangers in public places because she was no good at making contact with them. She hated to think she was that pathetic and told herself she was studying mortal behavior—and in this case looking for suspects or some sign of what was going on in this town that might involve the missing nestling.
And there was definitely something wrong. That she couldn’t feel it or define it left her cold and frightened. It left her feeling like there were holes in her head—and who knew what might leak out if they weren’t plugged with some answers. She’d gotten lost in her hometown, Char remembered with a shudder as she waited for Della. It was not possible, but it had happened.
“What’s going on?” Char asked after Della set a heaping plate and glass of milk in front of her and took a seat on the opposite side of the table.
“You used to say please and thank you, Char-lotte.”
“Stop calling me that! And thank you,” Char added, almost automatically. She was even more hungry than she was polite, so Char the Enforcer set about eating Thanksgiving dinner provided by charity in a homeless shelter while a mentally disturbed companion looked on with folded hands and a benign smile. Char was not used to surreal these days, even though surreal came with the territory. People who grew fangs and liked blood with their sex really should not be too freaked by anything the universe threw their way.
“You’ve been out of the loop, Char—”
“Don’t say it.”
“Almost as much as I have,” Della finished. “Things don’t stop being bizarre unless you live in the weird every night.”
This—advice?—made a certain twisted sense to Char, even though she resented Della reading her mood and thoughts so well. “I’ve never lived in the weird, as you put it.”
“I remember.” Della gave her a look of pure hatred. “Jimmy kept you sheltered.” There was nothing benign in her smile anymore. “Jimmy’s gone now.”
Char was tempted to taunt back that at least Jimmy Bluecorn wasn’t dead, but she wasn’t that unkind. And talking about their equally lost vampire lovers would only hurt them both. “Tell me about your missing people,” she said. “You think they were killed?”
“Throwaways always getting killed. Drugs kill ‘em. Drink. Weather and accidents and violence.”
“Your people, though.” Char looked around furtively. The other people in the room were giving them plenty of space for private conversation. She supposed you learned how to give and get privacy in such a communal world, but Char still settled for euphemism in this room full of mortals. “They went into the night?”
Della laughed. “I haven’t heard that term in a while. Haven’t heard anything from the community—until somebody decided to use me to find her lost cub.”
“But did you decide to help?” Char pushed her empty plate aside and leaned across the table to grasp Della’s wrists. “Why send those news clippings? What about your missing people?”
“Some of the ones who didn’t come back should have.”
“You think they were killed?”
Della nodded, shook her head, and shrugged.
Char almost screamed at the futility of trying to hold a conversation with this woman. She shouldn’t have come to Della. Then again, she hadn’t consciously come to Della. She recalled setting out to check the city on her own . . . then she was here.
“What’s wrong with the city?”
Della smiled in a most disturbing fashion. “You feel it. Places you can’t go.” She touched her forehead. “More holes in your head than there should be.”
Char considered a moment before answering. “It’s what I don’t feel that’s . . . bothering me.” She almost said scaring but remembered in time that Enforcers weren’t scared of anything.
Della’s smile turned to laughter. She said, “Magic’s in the air.”
Char formed a question, but someone across the room caught her attention before she could speak. Her gaze shifted from Della to the small, compactly built man who had just stepped away from one of the groups. He was dark-haired, his saturnine features enhanced by a goatee. A black T-shirt showed off muscular arms covered in colorful tattoos. He picked up a battered jacket and slipped into it while Char watched.
“I know that man,” Char said. She just didn’t know where she knew him from. “Who is that?” she asked Della.
Della barely glanced the man’s way. “Been sniffing around. Undercover something, but he doesn’t smell like a cop.” She looked at him directly this time and smiled a slow, thoughtful smile. “Got the gift, though.”
Interesting, Char thought. She didn’t think she’d ever met the wiry, tattooed man, but she definitely knew him from somewhere. Was he the one who’d shot her? She hadn’t gotten a good look at her assailant in the clearing. And she knew what Della meant about his demeanor.
Char released her hold on Della’s wrists. She closed her eyes and looked around the room with more than mortal senses. The place was heavy with despondency and fear under a fragile overlay of contentment caused by a huge meal and a bit of holiday spirit. Individual sparks of consciousness blended into the overall aura in the place. The bearded man’s aura stood out in this emotional mélange, a spark of awareness that was different and guarded, but he didn’t feel like the man in the clearing. It was his face, not his mental signature that was familiar. Still, he was an outsider among this pack of victims.
“Wolf hiding among the sheep,” Char murmured and received a slight nod from Della when she opened her eyes. “A woman died last night. Is he the murderer?”
“You are the Hunter. You tell me.”
Char did not give herself the luxury of taking offense.
Nor did she take the time for more of this question-and-answer game with the lost companion. The man walked past the table where she sat and out the door. Della’s gaze followed him thoughtfully, the loneliness naked in her eyes. Char gave the former companion a last glance but dared not offer sympathy. She got up and followed the familiar stranger out. She’d have a little talk with him outside.
But the man moved fast, and she moved too cautiously. He was already out of sight around the corner by the time she reached the street. Out of sight, perhaps, but Char had other senses to follow him with, even in this landscape full of blank spots and psychic craters.
Chapter 9
“I SMELL A vampire.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
The Disciple watched the Demon leap in front of the Prophet and thrust his fanged snout into his face. “This nose isn’t ridiculous.”
The Disciple was tempted to laugh for the first time in years, but he kept quiet and backed away from where the pair faced off in the center of the room.
The Disciple was surprised when the Prophet did not rise to the perfect opportunity to insult the Demon. Instead, the Prophet put his hand on what passed for the Demon’s shoulder. “Your para
noia is understandable, but we’re safe. There are no vampires in Seattle. That’s why we picked Seattle, if you’ll recall. Everything will be all right. Everything is fine.”
The Demon clearly didn’t know what to make of the Prophet’s mild show of concern. “There’s a vampire nearby. I feel it in my bones.”
The Prophet pointed toward the bed, where the Angel was occupied with two lovers. “Of course you smell a vampire. The little monster stinks up all of creation when he’s in heat.”
The Disciple hated to hear the Angel spoken of like that, but he held his tongue—or the Demon might hold it for him, before swallowing it. The Disciple’s guts clenched painfully as a vivid image of the Demon’s eating habits flashed through his head.
“Maybe you’re right,” the Demon said. “Maybe not. Doesn’t matter to me,” he added.
The Prophet rubbed his jaw, his expression sour. “No. It wouldn’t.” He turned the same sour expression on the Disciple. “You’re not much use, are you?”
The Disciple turned his gaze humbly from the Demon and the Prophet. He caught sight of the Vessel, passed out on the floor, still holding the empty wine bottle. He’d been unconscious for a long time now. The Disciple suspected the Vessel was just avoiding facing the anger of the Demon and the Prophet because they’d come back empty-handed the night before.
“I asked you a question.”
The Disciple offered no excuses for not having found a suitable victim for the sacrifice. “I’m not much use,” the Disciple answered.
“Not here, you’re not.” The Prophet pointed to the door. “Get out there and hunt.”
The Disciple didn’t bother mentioning that he knew the streets would be practically deserted tonight. He didn’t bother begging to spend more time in the presence of the Angel. The Angel was using the slaves tonight, anyway, oblivious to the needs of the Disciple. He had failed his task last night; he deserved to have the Angel’s love turned away. He might fail tonight. He said, “I will try.” He gave one last, longing glance at the Angel on the bed, then hurried from the sanctuary.
Laws of the Blood 2: Partners Page 7
