Char followed the biker. “There’s a building here,” she said. “Santini can see it. Can’t you, Mr. Santini?”
“Sort of,” Santini answered.
Char noticed that Santini was now holding a very large gun. She wondered where upon his short, wiry frame he had concealed the weapon. She looked back at Haven. “You coming?”
“I don’t miss parties.” Haven shook his head as if to clear it, then slapped a palm against his temple. “What do you see, Santini?” he asked as he brought up the rear.
“Here’s the door,” Santini said.
Char chose to believe him rather than her eyes. Her confused senses showed her—nothing—a black slab of nothing edged in between two run-down warehouses. Seattle was one of the largest ports in the country. It was also a town with limited space due to its location between mountains and water. Economics and logic told her that Santini stood in front of the main door of a warehouse building. The metallic sound that came out of the darkness when he rattled the doorknob was a reassuring one.
She and Haven exchanged a quick glance. “Magic,” she told the monster hunter. “He isn’t as affected by it as we are.”
“Magic.” Haven gave her a long, hard look. His dark brown eyes appeared obsidian black to her. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Sweetheart, you and I are going to have a long talk when we’re out of here.”
“Definitely. But first—”
The roar of Santini firing his gun against the lock mechanism effectively drowned out Char’s voice. The unexpected, explosive sound also almost made her vamp out. She whirled away from Haven to hide any slight change in her appearance, but Haven’s attention was on his impetuous partner.
“That ought to set off a few alarm systems!”
“Then we better hurry,” was Santini’s buoyant response. He took a step back and kicked open the door Char couldn’t see. “Bless me, Father!” he shouted and moved inside the dark, his pistol held steadily before him in both hands.
“I think he must be blessed,” Char murmured quietly to Haven as they followed.
“He’s nuts.”
“Holy fool, then. Deep breath.” She grabbed his hand. “Let’s go.” What they stepped into was an utter void, blackness darker and colder than any arctic night.
“What the hell?”
“Just keep walking, even though you don’t feel your legs,” she advised Haven. She couldn’t feel his presence, even though she was sure he was beside her. She knew that his warm fingers were clasped around her cooler ones. She followed her own instruction to keep moving, though she wasn’t absolutely sure where her legs were, or the ground. Reminding herself that to her night did not in any way resemble this black emptiness helped. “Once we’re inside, we’ll be able to see.”
“You sound like you’re miles away.”
“Right beside you, Jebel.”
“Make sure you stay there.”
“Found a light switch,” Santini said from not two feet away.
Even as she jumped in surprise at Santini’s voice, Char went from being shrouded in absolute dark to having her senses flooded by bright, white light. She caught her breath, blind from the sudden dazzle, and stumbled forward. Haven grunted and lurched into her, and they caught each other and held on while the blinding light faded down to a bearable level.
Char noticed after they regained their balance that her hand was on his shoulder, his was on her waist. She scanned the room behind him. He looked past her shoulder. Several rows of overhead fluorescent lights gave off harsh light, but the room was still full of skittering shadows. Shadows she knew very well were her imagination.
“No one here,” she said.
“Don’t see anything,” Santini agreed. “Feels deserted.”
“You okay?” Haven asked. His hand was still on her waist.
“Fine. You?” Her hand moved down his arm.
“Fine.”
“You coming?” Santini asked them.
Char took a deliberate step away from Haven. “The magic’s on the outside,” she explained as the disorientation finally subsided completely. “Our senses, regular and extra crispy, work fine in here.”
“Makes sense. What do you think?” Haven asked his partner.
Santini pointed toward a metal staircase. “Place is only two stories. Offices upstairs. Nothing down here. Let’s have a look up there.”
“You stay here,” Haven told his partner. “Watch our backs.”
Santini grinned. “Fine. Have fun, kids.” He stepped back toward the center of the room. “See if I can find where the culties have scuttled off to.” His grin widened. “And maybe there’ll be some vampires in the basement.”
“Call for help if there are.” Haven jerked a thumb. He drew a pistol from inside his jacket. “Let’s go upstairs, sweetheart.”
Char bit her tongue and followed one step behind him up the stairs. Calling her sweetheart wasn’t the worst thing Haven could do, but it still set her teeth on edge. Setting a vampire’s teeth on edge was not a wise move. Oh, well, he could certainly be behaving worse, and he was a dead man anyway, so being offended was pointless.
The building was eerily quiet, the air still, smelling of old blood. Blood and remnants of sexual energy.
Please, please, please, she thought. Don’t let there be any bodies up here.
Char tried to temper the excitement and dread that lit her. Haven didn’t sense it, but she knew they were about to enter a vampire nursery.
She took a deep breath to calm herself as they reached the hall at the top of the stairs. The musty reek that filled her senses drove out awareness of her own kind. In fact, it very nearly made her choke. She fought down a cough. She didn’t know why she hadn’t gagged the instant she stepped through the warehouse entrance. She made some noise, and the mortal whirled to face her.
“What have you got?” Haven asked.
“Demon,” she answered automatically. Only after she spoke did Char wonder at his easy acceptance of her extra senses and her easy response to that acceptance.
He pulled her into an empty office and closed the door. She could see him clearly in the darkness and figured he must have extremely good night vision for a mortal.
“What about werewolves?” Haven asked.
“What about them?”
“Can you sense them?”
Char shrugged. “Don’t know. I’ve never met one.”
“And you’ve met demons?”
“I’m not on a first-name basis with any, no.” Char chuckled. “I’ve never met any demons, but I know the scent,” she explained in case he didn’t realize she was joking. “I do a lot of research on the supernatural. I’ve handled demon artifacts. Demons leave a very distinct psychic signature. They stink,” she elaborated.
“And our boy Danny’s involved with a demon?”
There was a stern note of finality in his rough voice. This man was already prepared to execute Daniel at the first opportunity. Now she’d just given him another reason to kill the kid she was trying to help.
“We don’t know anything about Daniel’s involvement. However, if you want to kill the demon, feel free to. . .to. . .”
“Charlotte?” He passed his hand in front of her face. “You in there, sweetheart?”
She blinked. “Feel free to kill the demon.” She spoke slowly and flatly, almost tasting each word as it came out of her mouth. “Feel free to kill the demon,” she repeated, and a ripple of delight went through her. She focused on Haven, smiling at him, thinking, I could kiss you! She said, “You can kill demons.”
He was looking at her suspiciously. “It’s been known to happen.”
“Good.” She patted him on the shoulder. “Good.”
Of course! Haven would kill the demon for her. That wasn’t against the Law. And then she’d kill Haven before he had a chance to do any harm to Daniel. It was an elegant solution; it solved both her problems. It was a nasty, disgusting, cynical way to use the mortal, but her job was to protect S
trigoi interests.
She turned her back and opened the office door. “I think we should continue, Mr. Haven.”
Her sudden change of mood wasn’t lost on Haven. It was like a cold wind had blown through the room. She’d been calling him Jebel. Suddenly it was back to being formal, to putting mental distance between them. It’d been a wild night with this girl so far. One second he thought she wanted to seduce him, the next help him, the next pump him for information. The next, he wanted to seduce her, but that was his mood swings not hers. It wasn’t like he trusted her or thought her part of his team, but. . .
“Shit,” he muttered. She was right. Besides, anyone in their line of work was crazy, anyway. Mood swings were normal. He followed her back into the hall. He didn’t ask the demon-sniffing Charlotte McCairn where the enemy was.
He began to feel it as he led the way cautiously from one empty room to the next. There were signs that people had come and gone and left their refuse behind. There was a litter of empty fast-food containers, lots of other human junk, but there was plenty of other litter as well. An emotional mess had been left behind, too. He wasn’t sure how he was picking it up, but the residue of what people who’d been here had experienced was very real to him. It was like there was this part of his brain that had always been tuned in to a radio station, and the volume control had recently been cranked up to the max. This wasn’t the time to ask his new witchy friend if she knew what was happening to him.
Then the very real stench hit him strong enough to make him gag, and that stopped him from worrying about invisible magic crap. “Oh, God!”
“Yes. Moloch, I believe. Stand back, please, Mr. Haven, and let a professional work.”
Her voice was cool and crisp and full of confidence. Haven responded, even though he didn’t have any idea what she meant. He stood back, prepared to cover her, and let Charlotte McCairn open the door.
He was pissed as hell about his reaction by the time the door was open. He pushed her aside on an angry rush of adrenaline.
“No!”
He heard her shout. Then the room went up in a ball of blue fire. She screamed. And the blue fire turned into pure hell.
Chapter 15
“IDIOT,” CHAR COMPLAINED. For a moment, she wasn’t sure if she was referring to herself or Jebel Haven. Then she muttered, “Protective idiot,” and decided that she must be referring to the mortal. He’d pushed her aside and taken the full blast of the booby trap himself. She’d been aware that there was a spell waiting to be triggered when the door was opened. She’d been about to attempt a counterspell. Haven got in the way.
“Idiot.” Kind of sweet, though, his being chivalrous and all. “Idiot,” she repeated once more, and this time she was referring to herself.
She was lying on something lumpy in the cold, dark room. It was warm and had a heartbeat. “Haven.” She touched him on the throat. Pulse was normal. She considered breaking his neck while she had the chance, then rolled off him and got to her feet.
She left Haven where he lay and cautiously approached the inner sanctum once more. Better to have a proper look around without the mortal. She paused at the threshold, closed her eyes, and made sure the malevolent magic had all dissipated in one single blast. She wondered if the spell would have killed Haven if she hadn’t been there to deflect the shock. Or maybe he was too tough and mean to be killed by a someone else’s evil thoughts.
She put Haven out of her mind for the moment, nodded in acknowledgment that the spell was dissipated, and reached around the door frame to find the light switch. She braced herself for what she would see and stepped inside. Only to breathe a sigh of relief to discover that there was no physical evidence to accompany the psychic residue that haunted the room. The residue was bad enough, and her head was already muzzy from the magical booby trap. Still, it was good not to see bloodstained walls and rotting corpses littering this cave of decadence and dark magic.
The room was large and bare, empty but for some chairs and a queen-size bed pushed into the farthest corner. She moved forward reluctantly to examine the bed. The sheets were stained and filthy—and bloodstained. Only a few rusty spots, though, telltale evidence of vampire sexual activity. No one had been murdered in this bed. Daniel was not guilty of that. She hoped and prayed.
She wasn’t sure of the young vampire’s exact age, but his hunting instinct shouldn’t have kicked in yet. Its first need would be for love, always, to touch, caress, hold, connect. Blood was for mating. The taste for flesh and fear came later.
“And it can be controlled,” she murmured aloud. She felt like she was apologizing to a million casualties in this room where death had taken place. But the deaths here could not be laid at Daniel’s door. There was a demon, a sorcerer, and possibly mortal accomplices committing multiple murders. She was pretty sure she knew why.
She also hoped they’d left a psychic trail when they took Daniel and vacated this warehouse. But if there was one, there was no way she could sense it tonight.
Not with this headache.
Char wasn’t only feeling halfway to psychically burned out, she hurt physically as well. She needed a good day’s sleep, a very large meal, and lots and lots of caffeine before she was ready to take up the trail again. Okay, so she was a superhero, but she was new on the job. If she thought Daniel’s life was in any danger from the jokers holding him, she might not let herself consider resting, but she figured the last thing they were going to do was harm their ticket to eternal life.
“Idiots.” She rubbed the back of her neck. Idiots or not, they’d slowed her down tonight and escaped for the moment. Her fault for having approached Daniel’s companion the night before. She wondered if the scrawny weirdo even knew he was a companion. But wondering didn’t do her any good right now. She checked her watch. Time to pack it in before she keeled over and spent the day passed out in this den of iniquity.
Speaking of people who had no doubt spent time in dens of iniquity . . .
She turned around and marched out of the room. She squatted beside the unconscious man and shook his shoulder. “Mr. Haven?”
Nothing.
She checked his pulse again. Somewhat to her disappointment, he was very much alive. Maybe she could leave him here. But who knew how long he’d be out? The Angel’s Children or whatever they called themselves might come back to finish moving the furniture before he woke up. Haven could end up their next human sacrifice. That would solve one of Char’s problems, but it wouldn’t help her dispose of the demon or find out how much the FBI knew about Haven’s vampire-killing crusade. She was going to have to take him with her, wasn’t she?
She stood, picked Haven up, and slung him over her shoulder. His weight didn’t bother her, but he was a big man and she was a medium-sized woman. Carrying him through the second-floor offices and down the metal stairs wasn’t hard, but it was awkward.
She didn’t remember Santini until she was in the main area of the warehouse. Not that remembering him did any good, because when she left Haven on the cold concrete floor and went in search of his partner, the man was nowhere to be found. She finally came back to retrieve Haven and headed for the door. She was going to assume Santini was safe, and if he wasn’t safe, it was his own fault.
She wished he was there to help her through the dark barrier before the doorway, but she’d negotiated it once before, she did it again. It wasn’t quite so terrifying the second time.
Haven finally started to come around by the time she had him stuffed into the passenger seat of her car. She was getting ready to start the car engine. He grunted. She checked her watch again. She wondered if he’d be able to drive if she took him back to his Jeep. Doubtful. Would it be her fault if he was mugged if she simply dumped him by his vehicle? Which might not happen. He could wake up in the daylight, which was not an option for her.
Maybe she could get him back to his hotel. He moaned. She shook him and asked him where he was staying. He mumbled an answer that had airport in it. She swor
e and put the car in gear.
It looked like she was going to have to take him home with her.
“Where am I?”
“Go back to sleep, Mr. Haven.”
Haven’s head hit the couch arm again—this was the second time he’d almost come awake—and his mouth opened slightly. His body went slack, and his arm slid down toward the floor. He hadn’t opened his eyes this time. Char took that as a good sign.
Char stood in the doorway between the bedroom and living room and shook her head at the sight of Jebel Haven, vampire hunter. Getting him into the condo had been relatively easy, but keeping him neutralized while she slept the day away . . .
“I’m an idiot.” She shook her head again. “This time, stay asleep,” she told him, whispering into his mind as persuasively as she knew how. “ ’Cause I have to go to bed now. We need our sleep.”
“Bed,” he said, and rolled over. It was a wonder he didn’t fall off the couch. He tucked his hands beneath his cheek and smiled. She would have expected him to look innocent in his sleep, or perhaps a bit foolish. He was smirking, and he didn’t look any less dangerous.
She shook her head again and left him where he was so she could get ready for bed.
This was possibly the stupidest thing she’d ever done, she told the image in the bathroom mirror as she brushed her teeth. Char knew she was too softhearted when she ought to be stern, commanding, and ruthless. Bringing even an unconscious vampire hunter home was probably against some official rule. It certainly bore no relation to common sense. It was enough to make her wish that she at least owned a pair of handcuffs. He was a victim of a nasty psychic bombing, she reminded herself. He wasn’t likely to regain coherence for many hours, even if he did wake up. And he wasn’t likely to wake up. Really.
Char repeated this to herself several times while she hurriedly washed up, got undressed, and pulled on the T-shirt she used as a nightgown. She almost believed it by the time she opened the bathroom door.
To find Jebel Haven sprawled on his back across the queen-size sleigh bed.
Laws of the Blood 2: Partners Page 12
