Several nods. I decided not to mention my suspicions about the source. As for letting the blond vampire go… I’d ask Nikolas first. After all, having an insider in this operation might help all of us prevent more murders.
The ex-celestial, though… that’s where I got stuck. If I reported him, the guild would storm this place down, and who knew what they’d do to the other vampires. But if not, he might turn under the cure’s influence like Alyson.
Then again, so might anyone here.
“Hang on,” I said to Alec. “One second. I want a word with you. I’m not reporting you, don’t worry.”
He hesitated, then followed me away from the trapdoor.
“The celestial guy was already here, right?” I asked in a low voice.
He nodded. “Yeah. Apparently he and the others were in contact.”
Definitely suspicious. “Okay. Can you keep an eye on him for me? He’s on the guild’s wanted list and might potentially draw them to you. It also sounds like he’s been involved with vampires for a while, behind the guild’s back.”
He nodded. “I’ve not been here long and I don’t really get how things work, but sure.”
“Give me your number.”
I typed it into my phone as he spoke, hoping I wasn’t making a mistake in letting them go. Because if I was, it wasn’t my own life at stake.
Chapter 9
“There you are,” said Rachel. “I was starting to think we’d need to blast the doors down.”
“No need.” I briefly summarised what I’d found. “The vamps are innocent, but they might be a danger to others,” I finished. “I’d put a watch on this place, but our priority should be finding who’s distributing the bloodstones and the cure. I have a bunch of names and addresses where the vamps were given both of them.”
“Then we’ll look into it,” said Nikolas. “We can’t let those vampires go unwatched. They’re breaking the humans’ laws, not to mention the celestials’, if those defences are anything to go by.”
“I volunteer,” said Rachel. “For some reason, it’s hard for me to blend in at vampire establishments, so I’m best off guarding this place instead.”
“You can change your appearance to mimic a vampire, right?” I asked.
“Technically, yes,” said Rachel. “But everyone always says I’m too cheerful.”
“You are,” said Nikolas. “Nobody can mimic vampires’ speed of attack, anyway.”
“But these vampire hubs are open to the public?” I asked. “Or do we have to tail them while they sneakily trade these bloodstones in alleys?”
“Possibly,” Nikolas said.
Rachel grinned, then she flickered around the edges, her appearance turning into that of a giant horned warlock.
“You’re pretending to be Javos?” I arched a brow. “Seriously?”
“Nobody will question why I’m here. They’ll think it’s official warlock business.”
She had a point. It was just weird to think of Rachel’s pink-haired hyperactive nature hidden behind the façade of our grumpy warlock leader. “If you’re sure.”
I led the way back to my car, waving goodbye to Rachel. “Hope she’ll be okay.”
“She will,” he said. “Bodyguard duty isn’t her strong suit, but she came prepared to deal with vampires.”
“So did I.” I tapped the stake inside my right sleeve. “Several times over. Unfortunately, all I found in there is a bunch of terrified people hiding from warlocks, celestials and the rest of the vampires. I have blond vamp dude’s number, anyway, so I can keep in contact that way.”
He looked at me. “You have his number?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s that or tell the celestials their runaway is hiding there, and I don’t fancy being in the middle of that shitstorm.”
Did it bother him that I’d given Alec my number? No way. Vamp dude was over five years younger than me, for a start. And that wasn’t the issue. The slightly more significant problem was that he hadn’t been forthright with me. If I wanted answers, I needed to channel every ounce of persuasive ability I’d honed while trying to get out of detention back when I’d been a novice celestial. I had no shortage of experience in that area, but getting answers from warlocks was like squeezing—well, blood from a bloodstone.
Once we were on the road, driving back to the warlocks’ place, I said, “The cure and the bloodstones—I’m starting to think they have the same source.” I risked a glance at Nikolas. His expression was impassive. “What do you think? Seems a weird coincidence that the cure works on the virus as well as vampirism.”
“That would depend on the nature of the cure itself,” he said. “Which we’ll find out in due time.”
“Assuming these addresses aren’t duds,” I added. “Which is possible. They were scared, and besides, this operation seems designed to throw everyone off the trace. Every vamp in there got the bloodstone and cure from a completely different location or person.”
“That suggests a collective is involved,” he said. “The more people there are, the easier it’ll be to track them down. They just need one weak link.”
“Unless they’re not operating from this dimension.” I paused to let my words sink in. “Have you considered that?”
“It’s a valid theory, but it has its problems,” he said. “For them to get hold of the cure from another dimension implies that a permanent link like a portal is established—which we would have detected by now.”
“We haven’t found the link yet, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. If the cure is manufactured against the demon venom in particular, the person making it would have up close and personal experience with its effects.”
“Right.” He nodded, still not looking pleased. “If Azurial himself isn’t involved, then he must have passed on the information to someone. And in order to travel through into this realm, there must be a portal set up on this side, too. But it takes a powerful warlock or demon to do that, and all of ours are accounted for.”
“Are you absolutely certain?” I asked. “Because Azurial managed to get the vamps to set one up fairly easily. Through demonglass. We never did find the piece that went missing at the guild. They denied knowing about it, but someone must have put it there.” Or stolen it.
No demon had got into the celestial guild, and the glass had gone missing immediately after Azurial’s failed attack, along with the evidence—on Gav’s phone. Of course, it might just as easily have been the guild covering their tracks, but I had to wonder.
I thought of the girl locked up there, a victim of a force nobody understood. If it’d been the bite that’d turned her, then she was liable to kill again. As was Damian, too, reduced to living with real vampires rather than staying with the celestials.
The guild had failed a lot of people. The most recent victims weren’t the half of it.
I slowed as we reached the warlocks’ headquarters, pulling into a parking space. “Are we going to Pandemonium, then? Because this might be urgent.”
“I can ask,” he said, “but I’ve told you I don’t make the rules.”
“Except in the shadow realm.” The words slipped out before I could stop them, and he raised an eyebrow.
“Where did that come from?” he asked. “What exactly did the arch-demon say to you?”
“I can add two and two. You’re probably more powerful than Javos is, yet you do everything he says. You must be getting something out of the deal. But in that realm, anything goes, right?”
“I respect Javos’s authority as all warlocks in this city do,” he said tightly. “It’s a necessity to keep the peace with the celestials, the human authorities, and the other preternaturals. As you rightly said, however, in the shadow realm as any nether realm… anything goes.” He leaned over to look me in the eyes, and my breath caught as the scent of brimstone filled my senses, along with a hint of the power he could unleash at will on any opponent. I was no closer to understanding his limits than before, nor the shadow realm itse
lf. He and his brother might share similar magic and even the same alluring nature, but his gaze was all heat.
I’d had my fill of danger as a celestial, yet I craved more. Impatience burned in my blood, the desire to explore my demon side—tempered by the memories of Rory’s and Gav’s deaths, of Fiona’s kidnapping, and the chaos the fire dimension had wrought in my life.
I pulled back a little, my hand seeking the door release, and there was a hint of disappointment in his eyes as though I’d failed some kind of test.
“You people get a kick out of being cryptic, don’t you?” I said. “Themedes said you’d spoken to him about me, too. I’m not keen on people gossiping behind my back, to be honest.”
“That’s what’s bothering you?” He raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t talk about you, or even your magic—no more than he already knew, anyway. I was trying to pry information from him about where your power might have come from. If he’d told me anything useful, I’d have passed on the information.”
Hmm. So either he was trying to turn me on Nikolas—or it actually was Zadok who spoke to him.
“Themedes can’t escape that room,” he added. “I’m surprised he’s lasted so long without his power, though arch-demons tend to be resilient.”
“So they all die, eventually?” I asked.
“Some live for longer, others expire.” He shrugged. “Their offspring aren’t afforded the same extended lifespan. I can’t say I know why that is. But regardless, no demigod is to be underestimated, Azurial included. In any case, the vampires are our priority until we have more information.”
“Sure. But even if we play by the rules and don’t contact that dimension until we have evidence, the enemy doesn’t care. Rules don’t matter to them. And if we want to outdo them…”
He leaned in close, his breath tickling my neck. “I’d like nothing more than to unleash the limits of my power on those murderous vermin, make no mistake, Devi. And if it comes to it, I’ll do exactly that. But not before.”
My demon mark tingled at his presence, craving the darkness of his magic. Maybe there was some lust in there, too, but the demon part of me would always be drawn to him for that reason alone.
Nikolas pulled away. “Let’s see if these vampires’ contacts give us any answers.”
You’re not off the hook yet. Whether his brother knew anything relevant or not, his secrets were all tied up with the demon dimensions. Pandemonium included.
Javos was in the office, yelling orders into the phone to what sounded like three people at once. He barked at Nikolas and me that we were to look into the addresses and names the vampires had given me as though it’d been his idea, not mine, and returned to ordering people around.
As it turned out, most of the addresses were dead ends. Others were public places not frequented by many vampires during the day. As for the names, they’d presumably been aliases. I spent several hours running Internet searches on each name or address, trying to connect them to an actual person. Nikolas hovered behind me, making the occasional comment, and searching his own files. He seemed calm, but I knew that was a front. And if we did find the enemy… why did I get the feeling that they wanted us to find them? I mean, flooding the whole market with those bloodstones was bound to attract the wrong kind of attention. Add in the very public attack on the bar yesterday, and all was clear—there was an attention-seeker at the heart of this. Someone who craved the chaos they’d unleashed. Demon, warlock, or human, who knew.
“This one’s a real address,” I said, leaning against the cushioned back of the office chair. I’d been driving Nikolas mad for the last twenty minutes by wheeling it back and forth from the desk and spinning around between searches, but nothing would solve my boredom more than disrupting a vampire nest.
“Which one?” Nikolas looked up from his phone screen.
“Mather’s. Vampire bar. It’s a real place. Of course, it’ll be closed during the day. These transactions will only take place after sundown.”
“Naturally,” he said. “Given our current tensions, going in person would be risky business.”
“Yeah, well. Going into a demon dimension is risky business.” And then some. Considering there might be a demigod or worse involved, the vampire bar seemed a safer bet.
“This vampire place… it strictly vampires only?” he asked.
“Sounds like some of them bring their human blood slaves.” I grimaced. It was a common enough practise, and hell, most humans enjoyed the sensation of having their blood drained. Vampire venom was made to be intoxicating in that way.
“Rachel will be able to safely get in, right?” I asked Nikolas. “It’s not ideal, but she’s the only one of us who can blend in amongst them.”
“Not if they hear her heartbeat,” Nikolas said. “Their enhanced senses will see through her disguise. The same if you or I went in there. They know one of their own by sight.”
“Then can’t you do your mind-trick on them? It works on vamps, right?”
“Technically, yes, but keeping a whole room distracted would take all of my focus, preventing me from anticipating a potential attacker.”
“Look, we don’t actually have to go into to the bar, right?” I asked. “These bloodstone trades might not be blatant. I’d say we wait outside and see if we notice anyone acting suspiciously. Drunken vamps aren’t the most subtle of creatures. You can divert passers-by. If all else fails, I can always persuade my little friend in the warehouse to come along as an accessory.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Accessory?”
“Well, technically I’d be the accessory,” I amended. “Unless you’d like to volunteer.”
“No,” he said tightly. “You mean to say you’d pretend to be a helpless human? Are you sure you can pull that off?”
“I can try.”
He frowned. “If there’s a definite link to the bloodstones, we should be going for a more direct approach.”
“We’ve been breaking doors down and trying to arrest people for weeks, while this has been going on right in front of us,” I said. “I think it’s time to try something more subtle. Believe me, it’s not my first choice.”
He nodded. “No, I suppose not. If you’re convinced you can fool a room of vampires into thinking you’re helpless, then we might stand a chance of cornering them. However, if they don’t fall for the act—or if they decide to take a bite out of their defenceless human—then we might have an issue.”
“You know I have a built-in anti-vamp switch, right?” I waved my left hand. “It’ll be fine.”
I didn’t believe we’d get through this without a conflict, but I was sick of running in circles while demons laughed at us behind the scenes. If the vamps were really working with demons, then they’d get what was coming to them.
Chapter 10
Music pulsed in the air, a drumbeat that pounded through my body as we walked to the bar. With that racket in the background, you wouldn’t think vampires would be able to hear my heartbeat, but vamp hearing was apparently weirdly selective. Including the blond vampire hanging onto my arm. I’d worn flats instead of heels and was still taller than him, but since vamps usually looked younger than their actual age, hopefully the others would assume he was actually a century old.
I’d put on full makeup and actually dressed up, in a strappy top and skirt, trying to underplay the fact that I was expecting a fight. Stakes were concealed on my thighs and arms, under my jacket, but I grinned stupidly up at the blond vampire, pretending to be a love-struck lackey. Vampire venom had an intoxicating effect on humans, making them crave more at the expense of safety and common sense. Nikolas and Rachel walked further behind, the former using his mind-control ability on everyone within reach to make them forget seeing him. Rachel was disguised as a young female vampire, but considering Nikolas looked so much more intimidating than she did, he’d never make a convincing human blood slave.
“What are we doing?” Alec muttered in my ear. “Things get pretty heated in there.
You don’t want me to bite you, right?”
“You can try, but it won’t be much fun for either of us. I’m mostly immune to the venom, and I don’t think my blood tastes particularly nice.” I kept a dopey expression on my face while I spoke. “Just keep it casual. Get in there, find this dealer woman—you know the description—and let me take care of the rest.”
The air thumped with music, drowning any other sound. Vamps drank bloody cocktails and lounged on leather sofas. Humans sat amongst them, too, usually two or three per table. They wore skimpy clothing, revealing the bite marks on their necks and collarbones, and had doting expressions. One girl draped herself around a male vampire, neck bared, an expression of ecstasy on her face as he plunged his fangs into her skin. A ruby droplet of blood splashed onto her collarbone. The vampire licked it off. I fought the urge to gag, even knowing what this place was like. The humans held no objections, but a vamp with little self-control could easily accidentally kill one of their pets. The coppery smell of blood in the air drove them into a frenzy, and there was some shoving in the corner, two vamps squaring up over possession of a blood slave. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to scan the room once, twice, searching for the female vampire from the description.
There she is. She had silky black hair, with lipstick the same colour as the humans’ blood. And her fangs were buried in a human girl’s neck. The girl writhed and moaned against her, completely under her spell. I poked Alec in the arm, but he apparently didn’t take a hint.
Celestial Fire (Celestial Marked Book 2) Page 9
