by Connie Hall
“Our backup,” he said.
“You could have told me.” She was actually glad they weren’t alone. She hadn’t looked forward to going into that tunnel with a bunch of hungry, angry vamps ready to pounce on the people who had set their food supply free. When Takala thought about the humans lucky enough to have gotten free, it started her wondering how many others died like that, and how many other human restaurants they had hidden in Paris alone.
“You’re on a—”
“Need-to-know basis.” She finished his sentence. “Hey, either I’m in or out. What’s it gonna be?”
“Looks as if I have no choice but to let you in,” he said.
“Okay. I’m going to ask a question, and I’d like a straight answer.”
“Very well.”
“How many feeding warrens do you think Laeyar may have in Paris?”
“Hard to tell. Depends on how large a family he has to support. It could be one or more.”
“So he could be feeding an army.”
“Yes.”
Takala saw the victims again, and fear ground through her gut. “Do you know Laeyar?”
“We have a history.”
Takala didn’t like the sound of Striker’s voice when he’d spoken. There were so many shadows and shades of darkness looming below the words. “Why was he feeding this serpent shifter?”
“Using him for his own gain, no doubt. I’ve had recent reports of brothel owners in Paris disappearing. One was even attacked in his bed, claiming it was a monstrous snake.”
“So he was a hired killer?”
“Probably.”
“You think he worked for Laeyar or Raithe?”
“I am hoping both.”
“You think Laeyar will lead you to Raithe?”
“Nothing will be that easy when it comes to finding Raithe. I’ve hunted him for hundreds of years. He covers his tracks and evades me at every turn. I have no expectations that Laeyar is in Raithe’s inner circle, for he allows very few into his confidence, and, if he does, he eventually kills them. So, to answer your question, no, but Laeyar might have information or know someone who is in contact with Raithe.”
Takala lapsed into silence and listened to the road noise strumming loud in her ears. She hadn’t broached this subject yet, and since Lilly was caught between them, she needed an answer. “Why are you so obsessed with finding Raithe? I know it’s got to be more than a State Department warrant. This thing is soul deep with you, isn’t it?”
Striker’s mouth hardened, and his cheeks looked deeper than usual. He wouldn’t look at her, his gaze glued to the road. “I have never told anyone other than my priest.”
“Your what?”
“Father Sean O’Malley is a great friend.”
“He hears your confession?” Takala couldn’t imagine any of the priests she knew hearing a vampire’s confession. They’d probably die of a heart attack if one walked into their parish.
“Actually, we go to lunch on Fridays in the District, and we talk. It is a form of confession.”
“How did you meet?”
“Interesting happenstance, that. He was a vampire hunter, and I spared his life. He was so shaken by my act of mercy, that a vampire could actually show compassion, he became a priest. I got an invitation to his ordination, and we’ve been friends since. His church is half a block from the B.O.S.P. office.”
A vampire and a priest, friends? “You astound me,” she said, meaning it.
“We are not all bloodthirsty villains as the Hollywood producers would have you believe.” He cocked a brow at her.
“Sometimes I wonder if they are vampires.”
“Some are.”
“Like who?”
“State secret.” His lips parted in a slow, easy smile that held just enough guarded secrecy to maintain his enigmatic mystique.
“Does one of them have a last name that starts with a T?”
He nodded.
“Hah, I knew it.” She realized he had skillfully managed to not tell her about Raithe, and she said, “So, Father O’Malley hears your confession. Do you have a lot to confess?”
“I try not to.”
“But don’t you have to drink human blood to live?”
“I drink freeze-dried blood that my lab provides. The base comes from slaughterhouses.”
“Can’t you drink from a human without killing them?”
His expression darkened. “I can, but I won’t. Everything I’ve worked so hard to destroy inside me will be reborn. Once I taste fresh human blood…” His voice trailed off, and he seemed lost in a memory of doing just that.
“You won’t be able to control yourself, is that what you’re telling me?”
He nodded.
“You’re stronger than that.”
He turned to look at her now, the purple in his eyes artful and depthless and hiding a stoic ruthlessness that seemed to be buried within him. She wouldn’t want to be the main course at his table.
“You don’t know what I can become,” he said, a warm touch of warning riding just below the surface of his voice. “I hope you never see it.”
Takala felt a shiver chill her to the bone. She couldn’t begin to imagine a vampire with his strength turning into a bloodthirsty killer. She wanted to believe he wasn’t capable of giving in to his true nature, that he was just trying to scare her, but now she could see a possibility that he was just being honest. Still, she wasn’t about to give up so easily on him, not as easily as he was willing to give up on himself.
“But you’ve gone years without drinking human blood.”
“It is not easy. The cravings are still there.” His gaze swept her, and it was avaricious and predatory and visceral, and she knew she was seeing a hint of what he could become.
She remembered how he had had to leave Laeyar’s den after seeing the blood, how he’d mentioned her blood and kissed her hand. A tremor tore through her chest, and her breath caught in her throat, and the image of him in her dreams crashed back into her mind, his fangs extended, blood trickling from them, fighting his power to sway her. She leaned back in her seat, struggling to control her pounding heart.
“I frightened you.” He seemed a little too pleased with himself.
“You didn’t,” she lied.
“Why is your heart thumping like you just ran a mile?”
“Would you please stop listening to my organs? It’s creeping me out.”
They said nothing else to each other, and Takala realized he’d managed to dodge her question about his revenge issues with Raithe. Later, she promised herself.
“So, do you date?” As soon as the words left her mouth she regretted them. It was something you asked a guy in high school, and it sounded so personal and prying.
“Not for a couple hundred years.”
“Wow, a long time to be alone.” She couldn’t imagine living such an isolated life, not needing the touch and adoration of another soul, living so long that you became emotionally isolated from everyone. She felt her heart going out to him. There was something so solitary and depressing about it.
“When you dated, did you prefer humans or vampires?” She didn’t know why his mating habits interested her, but they did.
“Female vampires. They do not easily become emotionally involved and expect nothing from you.”
“You think human women are too clingy?”
“Let’s just say they demand more than I can give them.”
The coldness in his words made her shiver; then she felt the car slowing and glanced up to see they were pulling into a parking space near the subway entrance. She was so lost in Striker’s private life, she hadn’t realized they were this close.
A steady stream of people moved up and down the stairs, the rush-hour pedestrians in a hurry to make it home. When Takala thought of the dark tunnel and what could be waiting for them, she didn’t know if that frightened her half as much as the vampire sitting next to her.
Chapter 14
Seconds later, Striker touched her arm and said, “Stay here.” His gaze held hers for a few moments, as if he’d brook no opposition.
Why wasn’t he trying to glamour her? Then he answered her question.
“So you will trust me, I’m not using my telepathy on you. I am asking you to do the wise thing and stay here.” There was an open honesty and respect in his manner that surprised her.
She found herself nodding. “Okay,” she said.
After a long assessing glance, he left.
She looked in the rearview mirror and couldn’t see his reflection. She carefully glanced over her shoulder and found him.
He was meeting with four people, three guys and a woman. They were dressed casually, like the average Joe on the street, but their skin was pale and pasty in the streetlamp lights. Vampires. Agents she’d never seen before. She guessed he had hundreds stashed around France.
He’d left the key in the ignition, and she rolled down a back window and tried to hear what they were saying. She caught snippets.
“It could be dangerous,” Striker said. “Lion, you guard Miss Rainwater.”
A tall, thin guy with a bloodhound face and a crew cut nodded and glanced Takala’s way.
She quickly straightened and looked ahead and felt a little betrayed and manipulated. So he hadn’t believed she would keep her word at all. What a smooth operator. That bit about not using his powers on her was priceless.
“The rest of you, follow me.”
They disappeared in a flash of spiraling shadows; then the sidewalk was empty save for Lion. He took up a stance, leaning next to a brick building, his gaze on the car. She saw he was dressed like a biker, with studs on his black leather jacket, holey-kneed jeans with frayed bottoms, and thick combat boots.
Takala fumed at Striker’s underhanded tricks, and that was when chaos erupted.
She heard thumps and grunts. One quick glance behind her, and she saw Lion getting attacked by four vampires.
In a second, she was out the door.
That was when someone grabbed her collar. Then her neck was in a headlock. Takala wasn’t going down without a fight. She stomped on a big foot, then elbowed the person, throwing them over her head and down onto the car.
She glimpsed the big hairy face of a vampire. He was huge, big as a tree trunk, with no neck. All muscle. And she could tell by the snarl on his fanged mouth that he wasn’t used to having his ass kicked by a human female.
He leapt at her again, flying through the air, his vampire body seeming weightless. He crashed into Takala, and they both went down.
She pounded his face, going at him with both fists.
He rolled on top of her, pinning her arms.
She jerked up her legs, captured his neck between her ankles and pulled down with all her strength.
He came up and off her.
A square kick to the gut.
He careened back through the air, hitting the brick building.
Takala felt another attacker behind her, going for her arms.
Then another on her legs. She went down.
“Get the bitch! Watch out, she’s strong as an ox.”
Someone else piled on her. They flipped her like a fish out of water. Her face and stomach slammed against the pavement. Then three of the vampires grabbed her arms, legs and neck. Something wrapped around her wrists and ankles; then she moved so fast her head hurt.
She had the presence of mind to dig her nails into her palm and let the blood drip from her hand. But the velocity at which she moved was too much for her atoms. She felt as if her body was going to explode. Then she lost consciousness.
Striker knew something was wrong. The tunnel was empty. In the periphery of his mind, he had kept track of Takala’s heartbeat. Now it was pounding and becoming hard to hear.
“Come with me.” Striker reached the car in seconds. The door was open, the light still burning on the inside.
He ran to Lion and shook him. He roused and looked dazed. “What happened?” Striker asked.
“Laeyar has her. I tried to protect her. There were too many.”
Striker felt his chest tightening, fear pulsing through his veins. Laeyar would kill her. “I want her found. Span out. Find her!”
At the deadly quiet in his voice, his agents disappeared. Striker started searching, too, his fear building by the second. She wouldn’t last a minute with that honey-scented blood of hers.
Takala woke to the stench of moldy sewer and filth and something wet gliding along her palm. She opened her eyes and knocked whatever was licking her hand away.
She saw a female vampire’s head fly back from the blow, her long black greasy hair billowing out around her body. She looked about thirteen and snarled at Takala, rubbing her mouth. She spoke something in French, then shot Takala the finger.
“Likewise.” Takala felt the heavy manacles that shackled her wrists and the tiny wound she had made in her palm so Striker could track her. So that’s what the teenage vamp had been licking. Takala closed the wounded palm tightly and glanced around her.
She was in some kind of basement, the dampness making her shiver. Plumbing pipes hissed overhead. Candles in empty glass jars burned around the dingy room. Caskets were stuffed up between the pipes, supported by metal fittings. Then she spotted Square Face, the brute who had attacked her near the car. He sat on an old empty keg, holding court, two female vampires hanging on either side of his wide shoulders. His bloodshot eyes had a bland, empty look, as if they’d never had much in them.
His female companions were twins, about thirty, brunettes covered in snarled dreadlocks. They wore glowing black lipstick and eyeliner, both stark against their pasty faces. Another male vamp, short and squatty and half the size of Square Face, reclined on a pipe. He had the number 666 tattooed on his forehead. All eyes were centered on Takala and the young vamp who crept toward her again.
Takala said, “I hope one of you speaks English, because I’m gonna hurt your little pet here if she tries that again.”
Square Face snapped an order at the girl, and she hissed like a cat and backed away into the shadows. The nicer side of vampires. Takala found herself comparing Striker to these cretins. He seemed much more evolved and refined, yet in his own way just as deadly.
“You make threats when my family is hungry,” Square Face said in broken English.
“That’s not my problem.” Takala added more bravado to her words than she felt.
He jammed a finger at her. “You raided their pantry, and you dare be flippant about it?”
“You were torturing and killing people. Should I have just stood back and let it continue?”
“You meddle with a vampire’s food source and you quickly learn that you are on the dinner plate.” He chuckled, a deadly, threatening sound.
His voice crawled along her skin like tiny spider legs. Panic clenched her gut.
He sniffed the air. “And, might I add, your blood smells sweet as candy, mademoiselle. It’ll be my pleasure to rip you open and let them feed. What are you? Not totally human, I think—not with that strength.” He raised his nose and breathed her in again.
Right now she was scared, but she couldn’t say that. “I’m human with a little extra muscle thrown in. Nothing special.” She turned the conversation. “You must be Laeyar.” She tried to sound in awe, while fear chewed at her insides.
He seemed flattered and bowed. He couldn’t manage a bow with all the tight flesh at his middle, so it was more of a deep head nod. “At your service, mademoiselle.” He rubbed the full brown beard on his face.
“I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Pray, what have you heard?”
“That you’re the man to see if I wish to get in contact with Raithe,” Takala said.
Laeyar laughed. “I’m the only one he will see.”
“Then you’re truly special,” she said, pandering to his ego, wondering if he was lying. If she were Raithe, she would want nothing to do with someone like him
. But even cretins had their uses, she guessed. Still, it felt like he was lying. He seemed the type who liked to blow his own horn.
An unexpected cunning ember showed in his eyes, a hint of intelligence glowing there as if he had finally figured out the compliment. “What business do you have with him?”
“That’s my concern.”
“You tell me, or you don’t ever see him.” He looked stubbornly at her like a bull that wouldn’t move.
He’d taken the bait. He’d demand more information. She said, “All right, I’ll tell you. I wish to exchange Striker Dark’s life for Lilly Smith.” Takala had no intention of that, but she knew it might be a good lure.
When she mentioned Striker, Laeyar tried to hide the flicker of concern in his eyes. Then they turned almost calculating. “You’re one of his agents. Why would you suddenly betray him?”
“First of all, I’m not one of his agents.”
“You’re with him.” He shot her an accusatory glance.
“I was Lilly’s bodyguard. Then we got separated because Raithe’s men wanted her dead. Nightwalker is only helping me keep Lilly safe.”
“You would betray Nightwalker when he gives you and this Lilly Smith protection. You are either a fool or very cunning. I just haven’t figured out which.” He turned back to 666 and asked, “Who is Lilly Smith?”
“A flesh peddler for Raithe.”
Flesh peddler sounded horrid coming from the vampire’s mouth, but Takala knew that could have been Lilly’s cover.
Laeyar shifted his gaze to Takala. “What is she to you?”
“A good friend,” Takala said, unwilling to let go of her secret. “I only want her to be safe.”
Laeyar laughed, showing his wide tongue. “Then I pity you for having such misspent loyalty.”
“What do you mean?”
He only laughed louder, a rolling belly laugh.
Takala wanted to kick him in the gut. She shifted her gaze to the girl. She didn’t like the way she was slinking toward her like a rat, that insatiable glare in her eyes.
“It doesn’t matter,” Laeyar said. “I’m not introducing you to Raithe. Do you think me ignorant enough to take you right beneath Nightwalker’s nose, only to let you go so you can see Raithe, or worse, report back to Nightwalker?”
