I sighed. Fuck, had I ever fallen hard for him. Like, lost myself in a well of love hard. And before I knew, I was drowning. Living only for him. It was pathetic. Especially when he had started pulling away. Playing games. I’d gotten desperate. It was embarrassing. I’d given him too much power over me. And boy, had he used it. I wanted to say that it was just his immaturity—we were young after all—but there’d always been something mean about Wyatt, an edge that he used in the most sensitive spots. It was amazing that I’d loved him at all. We can’t help it though, can we? Falling in love. Sometimes it just happens, even with the wrong people.
I had wanted to die when he’d found Ally. It was like daggers piercing my flesh, nicking vital organs, each and every time he declared his love for her. Making sure I heard. Forcing me to watch their romance. Never telling me what I had done. What had made him walk away. It took me a long time to harden up. To pretend not to care. I’d gotten there, though, somehow, and was moving on with my life. And then my sisters died and I’d broken. It was all I could take.
I was still surprised I hadn’t actually killed myself. It had been that bad. As was the depression and self-loathing that lasted for years after. I hated so profoundly that no one was safe from my scorn.
Wyatt shifted his sunglasses to the top of his head when he entered the room and handed me the tray. “So what’s the plan?”
I gulped back my emotions, forcing those old feelings down. Yep, he was dangerous for me. I needed to remember that. I did not want to go back to what I had been. Sex had happened. A moment of weakness. Twice. It had been good. That was it. No strings attached. Not even the dangling ones that I so loved to chase.
“Thanks.” I grabbed the breakfast sandwich Wyatt offered me and slowly began to unwrap it, not feeling remotely hungry all of a sudden, but knowing I needed to eat. “Well, I’ve got an address, last one on the list from Billy. The Sunset Hotel. But I didn’t feel any trace of her yesterday at any of the other locations. It might be a waste of time.”
Wyatt scarfed down his entire sandwich in a few bites and started on a second. “Unless she starts using her powers, you’re not going to be able to track her.”
I absently took a sip of my coffee. The bitter taste rolled along my tongue and made me cringe. “Which is another thing that doesn’t make sense. I was hitting den after den yesterday. You’d think I’d have picked up a trace of her at some point. The only way I wouldn’t is if she isn’t there, or she hasn’t been using her powers for some reason. Maybe Billy’s information is wrong.”
“Or just a step behind.” Wyatt frowned. “She’d go where her connections are. At least while she’s trying to put a plan in place. Maybe she hasn’t topped up her powers yet?”
I shook my head. “There’s no way she’d go this long without a top up. Drake said there’s an addiction that goes along with the magic. She’s got to be power hungry at the rate and intensity that she uses her magic.” I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe she’s learned to control it somehow.”
“Well, maybe she has topped up. Maybe another witch is dead, but Ivana and her partner are doing a better job at getting rid of the body. You know, so that they don’t attract any more attention. She’s probably conserving her powers.”
I nodded. What he was saying made perfect sense, but it also shone a light on something I’d overlooked up until that point. “I wonder what would happen if she’s completely drained of her powers. Like, would she be just as easy to kill as a regular Strix? Would she be just as vulnerable as any other nightwalker?”
“Could be. It’s a good theory.”
I nodded again. “Yeah, the trick is going to be trying to get Ivana and her partner to use up their powers until they’re too weak to protect themselves and hope that I’m right.”
“Well, it would explain why she hasn’t been using any spells lately. Why drain yourself unnecessarily, right?”
“She’s attacked me twice already because I underestimated her. I’m not doing that again. And I’m sure she’s figured out that I can track her spells.” I shrugged. Being a tracker was like being Bigfoot. Everyone had heard of one but no one could actually say they had ever seen one. Trackers were rare but the stories floated around nonetheless, giving power to the myth, especially among witches. “It’s possible that she’s not only conserving energy but also trying to prevent me from finding her too easily. I think she likes the hunt. She wants to find me.”
Wyatt motioned toward the door and I followed him out. “Okay, so let’s assume that she knows you’re a tracker. She also knows that you can cast spells as well as find her if she casts. So, where does that put us in terms of advantages?”
He opened the passenger door for me, but I paused before getting in. “I don’t know. If my theory is right, then not only should we be able to find her, but if we can keep her on the defensive, we could drain her and then kill her. Hell, if we can keep her on the offensive, who cares? As long as she is casting.”
Wyatt pursed his lips as silence fell around us, both of us thinking of the possibilities of such an encounter.
“Of course, there’s one really big problem to all of this.” I sighed as I slid into the seat. Wyatt came around to his side and got in. “Well, two actually.”
Wyatt glanced over at me, a frown etched on his brow as he shoved the key into the ignition and turned it. The truck roared to life.
“One, we have no idea just how powerful she is. You know, whether or not she’s fed recently. And two…” I moved my fingers to tap my neck. “I’m a walking blood bank for her. If she subdues me, and gets my blood again, you’re dead.”
A slow, wicked smile crept across Wyatt’s face, erasing the frown that had been there moments before. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”
I gulped, that old familiar feeling of a stomach plummet made me squirm. Uh oh. Wyatt and his fucking secrets.
“The jobs I’ve been doing for the Council? Vamp hunting. Strix motherfuckers beware. I’m pretty good at it too.” He smiled wickedly. “That and you haven’t met Bessy yet.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Who’s Bessy?” It was my turn to frown at him.
Wyatt chuckled as he drove onto the freeway. “Bessy is my secret weapon. A design I’ve been tinkering with for a few years.” He shrugged. “Finally got it the way I want. I’ll show you when we get there.”
“Okay.” I sighed as I turned to face the window. “So you’re some bad-ass vampire slayer? I can’t say I’m totally relieved, Wyatt. What if she’s super-charged on witch blood? We’ve already experienced her power once. You and I both know those explosions that destroyed my condo are not little mini spells that can go ignored. They take major power and a lot of skill to master.”
And vamp killer or not, we can’t even dream of competing with that kind of magic.
Wyatt smiled reassuringly. “You’re forgetting something.”
I cocked an eyebrow in his direction.
“First of all, she missed us, so she might be able to conjure the spell, but she certainly needs some work in directing it.”
Leave it to Wyatt to point out the flaws in Ivana’s casting abilities, even with his bound and unavailable.
“So she can’t throw.” I pursed my lips, not fully buying his logic. It would have only taken one hit, even a sideswipe of those blasts to kill us the other day. Whether her aim was perfect or not, if she was welding that kind of power, eventually she’d hit her mark.
“And secondly, if she tries to hit us again she’ll play right into our hands. Those blasts are whoppers. She’ll use up her magic quick and we’ll be laughing. We just have to make sure we steer clear that’s all. Remember dodge ball?”
I snorted. Sure, a fun game of deadly dodge ball. “You’ve made your point. I still don’t think the odds are in our favor, though.”
We fell into a heavy silence after that. I
didn’t know what was preoccupying his thoughts, but mine were circling around the past few days and everything that had happened. Half a million hardly seemed worth what I’d gone through already in my attempts to get Ivana. Even so, here I was, gunning for her even though we were on the cusp of a possible war. And it wasn’t like I could prevent that from happening either. Warn the human authorities? Yeah, even Billy and the Union knew that would amount to nothing. Supernatural creatures didn’t exist except for in fiction and movies.
I felt like I was barreling toward disaster, with Ivana, with the war, with Wyatt even. On a train that was about to jump the track. What was driving me? Recklessness? Most certainly. That had always been one of my flaws. Along with pride, the need for revenge, stubbornness.
I glanced over at Wyatt. I’d gotten satisfaction from sleeping with him. Winning him back at least for a night. It had given me a sense of vengeance in some way. Fucked up but true.
And Ivana, she’d attacked me. Made things personal. And there was no way I’d let that stand. Whether I killed her quickly or slowly…either way, I would kill her. That was the only kind of justice I was interested in.
We pulled into the hotel parking lot about an hour later and did two circuits before parking near the back of the building. I wasn’t familiar with The Sunset Hotel, but it looked as unassuming as most vampire haunts. Dirty, what used to be white-washed stucco walls now tinged gray, flat, faded pink roof, two floors with a balcony lining the second. There was a main office located at the north end with a couple of broken windows patched up with duct tape, and a fading sign with a big half sun sinking into the horizon. Nothing to make it stand out in this area—that was for sure.
“So what’s the plan?” I shielded my eyes against the morning sun as I scanned the widows that marked the hotel office. Even with the truck’s window down, I couldn’t feel a trace of Ivana’s magic.
“Well it certainly looks ominous.” He motioned to the broken security cameras on either side of the office, both hanging loosely from their cables like they’d committed suicide. “Not suspicious at all. God, humans have got to be some of the most idiotically naive…oh never mind.”
I rolled my eyes. “Easy there, you’re letting your bigotry show.”
I eyed the bright morning sun, normally a symbol of safety when hunting vampires. Today, not so much. Wyatt might have been confident that this would all go our way, but I wasn’t so sure.
I sucked in a deep breath, slowly letting it go as I slapped my hands down on my knees. “Well, let’s get this party going. I’m tired of sitting around.”
Wyatt reached into the back seat and pulled out his weapons bag. “I’m sure you’ll want to load yourself up.”
“Sharing weapons? Very cool. Thanks.”
I unzipped his bag and began to rummage through. I still had my blades, throwing knives, but he had some pretty cool looking weapons, like mini-wooden stakes. I’d never seen anything like them before. These stakes were smaller than the usual, only about six inches or so, cone shaped with deadly sharp points and a flat tail end. I could tell right away they’d make great throwing weapons. Not that great for hand to hand combat, but I didn’t intend on getting too close to Ivana or her partner.
I snagged a few of them and slid them into my pockets. “Vampire hunter, huh?”
“Yep.” Wyatt leaned over me and quickly pulled out what he needed. “I’m going to grab Bessy from the back.”
I paused and checked the knives sheathed at my calf before adding a couple more from Wyatt’s stock. I wasn’t going in with anything less than an arsenal. “Should I go into the office and ask about any new customers? How will we know where they are?”
Wyatt reached into his pocket and pulled out another amulet, this one a dark stone. It pulsed with a strong magic—a signature I didn’t recognize. “I’ve got it covered.”
I laughed and nodded. “How many of those do you have?”
“Enough to get by.” He slid out of the truck and moved to the back. I felt him jump up onto the bed of the truck so I shoved his weapon bag off my lap and got out as well. He pulled a compact weapon from its case and rested it across his forearm.
“That’s it?” My tone was incredulous. I walked around to meet him and he jumped down from the back. “That’s Bessy?”
Wyatt frowned while he stroked his weapon. “You don’t even know what you’re looking at, do you?”
I tilted my head. “No, can’t say that I do.” I motioned up and down its length. “It looks like a primitive kind of gun or something.”
“Well, let me enlighten you.” He tilted Bessy up and unlatched the arms of the bow and locked them into place, then turned the mechanism that cocked the string. “This is a pistol crossbow, with a twist.” He pulled a cartridge from his pocket and slipped it into its sheath. It clicked as it locked in. “I’ve rigged it with a rapid fire, multi-loading release.” He pushed a button on the side and moved the crossbow up to his eye line. “And it’s got a heart sensor, totally technologically improved. I can hit a Strix’s heart from fifty feet away without even aiming properly. Just got to zero in on the chest and this bad-boy will do the rest.”
I nodded. That was impressive. And I thought I’d seen everything. But considering I usually didn’t hunt vampires, I guessed there were a lot of weapons out there that I’d never encountered before. Maybe it was a good thing almost all of my weapons had been destroyed. I could go shopping for some new goodies. “Cool. And it fires?”
A slow smile spread over Wyatt’s face when he lowered the weapon to rest on his hip. “It fires wooden stakes, miniaturized of course, and made from one-hundred percent Balsa, the strongest and lightest fucking wood on the planet, but it packs a powerful punch. They’re big enough to sever the arteries and dislodge the heart. On a Dhampir, it would majorly slow them down, pierce the heart and they’re out of commission for a while. On a Strix, this good old girl is lethal. Vampire dust.”
I lowered my gaze back to the weapon. Wyatt had lost his powers and gained mad skills as a vampire hunter. Most witches would have given up, taken a desk job, stayed out of trouble. Wyatt, not so much. He was a take life by the balls kinda guy. Righting the wrongs inflicted on the innocent. He sounded like a proficient hunter and I’d seen him smoke vamps with my own eyes.
Why was I surprised? He’d been a pro at spells. He’d be a pro at hunting vamps, of course.
I stroked Bessy with a tentative touch. “So when do I get to use it? Or do I get to use it?”
Wyatt narrowed his eyes. “Well, we’ll see. Maybe if you’re good I’ll let you give her a try.”
I moved to his side, creeping up on my tiptoes so that I could brush his ear lobe with my tongue. “What kind of good are we talking about?”
Wyatt cleared his throat as I pulled away. “That’s up for negotiation.”
Chapter Nineteen
I was nervous, anxious, tense and itching for a fight.
“You okay?” Wyatt cocked an eyebrow in my direction as we continued toward the back of the building.
I forced myself to swallow and nodded. “Yeah, just thinking about our odds.”
I expected a jab, the usual Wyatt banter but nothing came. I glanced over at him.
“I’m relying on that anger of yours.” His lips curled up into a grin and he winked. “Relax, Kali, we don’t even know if she’s here.”
I scanned the exterior of the building. The hotel was two stories, large and rectangular. A balcony lined the second floor and, from what I could tell, every room had at least one window.
“Not the best location for a Strix is it?” I pointed to the windows that clearly had no blinds or coverings to speak of.
Wyatt shrugged. “There might be some underground rooms. Just give me a few minutes to try to zone in on them.” He held up the amulet, dangling it from a chain.
I nodded and closed my eyes,
sending out a tracking spell to see if Ivana had used any magic in the past little while. A moment later, with a frustrated sigh, I opened my eyes again. Nothing. Not a trace.
I felt like Ivana was playing with me. Teasing me to her. Could she know I was there? Possibly. Could this be a trap? From what I’d seen already? Oh, yeah. Was it possible she wasn’t even there? Also a yes.
I followed Wyatt as he started moving toward the left of the building. Everything was so quiet that I was sure the hotel manager or some workers had to have noticed our arrival.
I glanced into the office through the bank of windows and saw the counter unmanned and the room empty. Probably hiding, waiting for the fight to begin. Hell, if two strangers came into my parking lot waving around a crossbow and some stakes, I’d take cover too. This wasn’t exactly the type of neighborhood where they would call the cops…not until after the dust had settled, anyway.
Wyatt motioned for me to move to the right when he crept around the corner of the building. I followed a few feet behind and stopped short of barreling right into his back when he abruptly froze. Wyatt had zoned in on one bank of rooms. Three in total, all with blackout curtains.
Okay, so maybe this was a vampire den after all.
I pulled one of Wyatt’s stakes from my pocket, drawing power into the hand that held it. Double trouble. I needed to nail her quickly and put an end to any possibility of one of her power blasts hitting us.
The Dark War: The Dark War, Book 1 Page 12
