I frowned. “Why would he do that?”
“Because he’s an asshole? I don’t know.”
There had to be a better reason. Victor was an asshole, on that I agreed. But he had never ruined someone without reason.
“What happens when a kitchen gets condemned like this?”
He waved his knife around. “In our case, the FDA came in with the CDC hot on their tails.”
“For Hep A?” My eyes widened. “Seems like overkill, don’t you think?”
He grunted. “Not for a restaurant like this one. Lots of patrons with lots of money. Money greases wheels, if you haven’t noticed.”
Whatever had been hidden here was probably long gone, but I drew in a deep breath and held the air, tasting it. “Let me see the freezers.”
“They’ve been shut off. They aren’t cold.”
“So?”
“They were cleaned, but they still smell funky.”
Now that was interesting. “Take me.”
Chef boy led the way further into the kitchen. I had to hand it to Victor. Even his cooking staff knew how to obey orders.
“Here.” He pointed at a pair of large steel doors propped open. I grabbed his arm and shoved him ahead of me. “Hey, don’t!”
“Little late for that,” I said. I didn’t even have to take a deep breath when I stepped into the doorway of the freezer. The smell of blood permeated every crevice. I tightened my hold on chef boy. “How long ago did they clean it up?”
“A few days,” he whispered.
“Where are all the vamps?”
He shook his head. “Gone. They disappeared when Victor did.”
So before the CDC came in, someone had professionally cleaned out all the blood Victor used to keep in here. His head chef had taken the blame, and no one would be the wiser about what had really gone on at Amore Sangre.
The ding of a timer going off whipped me around. A heavy billow of gas rolled over me. “The lines have slipped...can you fix this?” I asked.
I dragged him with me, hoping he could do something. He started to blubber. “I can’t live without my cooking.”
Oh. Fuck.
I dropped his arm and sprinted through the kitchen as the fumes spread. One glance at the stove and the blue flames licking at the bottom of the four pots he had going told me all I needed to know.
Time was not on my side. The fumes caught the blue flames and a brilliant flash popped up behind me.
The hiss of flames nipped at my heels, the heat spurring me forward. I was out the main doors by the time the first boom rocked the building. The elevator door opened on my left, beckoning me, as three demon dogs burst out of the stairwell to my right. They carried a scent I knew as well as my own.
Calvin.
I had no time to consider what it meant.
Elevator it was. I stepped in and hit the button to close the doors repeatedly. They closed, but not before one of the demon dogs leapt through them. It hit me in the back, scrabbling and clawing at my side, then reaching down and clawing through my pants and into the flesh of my thigh. I twisted, then flipped us over so I was positioned over it, sitting on it, then yanked a silver stake from the top of my boot and slammed it through the dog’s left eye socket. It whimpered, gave a full body twitch and went still.
A second boom rocked the building and the elevator shuddered. I jumped up and pushed the escape hatch open over my head. Above me, the world was nothing but flames two floors above me. The elevator lurched to a stop, swaying in place.
“Seriously?” What was it with these particular death traps and me lately?
A chunk of burning metal dropped toward me. I jerked back into the elevator as it bounced off the top of the tiny hanging box, and the whole contraption groaned. I pulled myself up through the hatch. There was only one choice—I had to get to another floor and work my way down. The cables above me groaned, and two of them snapped, slicing through the air. I leapt to the side and hooked my fingers onto the doorway above my head as the remaining cables gave way and the elevator plummeted down the shaft.
I pulled myself up to the edge of the doors and pried them open. The racket was almost unbearable to my sensitive ears—sirens blared in the distance, and there were continued smaller booms from above. Which was my only excuse for not seeing him until I was all the way through the door.
Calvin stared down at me. “Are you okay?”
I put my hand in his and blinked several times. No. Not Calvin, but a young human who could have passed for his brother. The same hair color, eyes, and build. I tightened my grip on his hand as hunger surged through me.
Had he been left here to toy with my emotions?
“Come with me.” I tugged him and he followed, falling under my thrall so swiftly I knew he’d been used before. Most people fought the urge to obey. He just got in line and did as I commanded.
We worked our way to the stairs and started the long climb down, conspicuously free of demon dogs. The firefighters had just arrived by the time we reached the bottom floor. I paused and put a hand on the lead man. “Don’t go up yet. Let it burn.”
His eyes fogged. “Don’t go up yet.”
“No. Stay here.”
It was the only thing I could do to keep the humans safe not only from the fire, but from the demon dogs up there. They couldn’t handle doors on their own, which meant someone had helped them. Rachel would have wanted me to at least try to keep the men safe.
I walked away, my new pet trailing behind me. After a while, he jogged to catch up to my side. “Where are we going?”
I didn’t answer, not wanting to know him for anything other than what he was. Food.
Three blocks down, I stopped and ducked into an alley. The Calvin lookalike smiled at me and tipped his head to the side. I took the invitation and yanked him to me, burying my fangs deeply into his neck. He moaned and wrapped his arms around my waist. The hair, the smell of Calvin still buried deeply in my mind, the intense need for blood, the sensations Ivan had aroused.
I couldn’t control myself, but to be honest, I wasn’t even sure I tried. I drank the lookalike all the way down. His death was a heady rush, the final beats of his heart the strongest, the last of his blood the richest and most vital. I ripped my mouth from his neck and tipped my head back, breathing hard.
My entire body was sensitized to the world, the humans around me, the feel of the wind along the back of my neck. I breathed out as the new vampire in my arms stirred. “Thank you, I’ve wanted this for so long. I thought I would never be turned after the other vampires left.”
He tightened his hold on me, as if to pull me into a hug.
I hadn’t given him my own blood, which meant he’d had vamp blood before. I’d found him in Victor’s club, so that shouldn’t have been a surprise. Instead it was a disappointment.
I pulled my silver stake out and rammed it into his heart. “You’re welcome.”
CHAPTER 10
RACHEL
I opened the envelope and dumped the contents onto the table. Several photos and a piece of paper. The photos were of a nondescript building in what appeared to be a desert.
One focused on an entrance with two armed soldiers standing guard. It was hard to see their faces, but the uniforms looked U.S. Army. On the back of one photo were numbers. 30.5 N 47.816 E. Latitude and longitude coordinates. I suspected Hades had just confirmed that the facility in Derrick’s notes was indeed where we needed to go. I opened the folded paper next and read a cryptic phrase.
What you found will not be what it was.
What the hell did that mean?
There wasn’t time to think about it, though. I needed to follow Hades and find out where he went.
I burst out the front door, searching the shadows across the street where Ivan was supposed to be hiding. My phone vibrated in my jeans pocket, and I pulled it out to read the screen.
I’m following the mad scientist. Meet back up with you later.
Should I leave Iv
an to it? It wasn’t like I had much choice, not that I was happy about it. Hades had practically disappeared into the shadows. Sure, I had an initial fifty-fifty chance of going in the right direction to start, but he could have turned down any number of alleyways. And yet…how did Ivan know where to meet us later? Lea had told me to meet her where we’d met Sean the other night. Why would Ivan know where that was?
I didn’t trust the werewolf. That was probably grounded in the fact I no longer trusted men in general, but the timing of his appearance was a little too suspect. Even if he arranged for us to meet with the werewolves, it could be a trap. And for a brief moment, I wondered if Lea’s judgment of him could be trusted. I’d seen how he affected her. I knew firsthand how a man could make a woman behave like an idiot.
Never again.
I headed back to the subway station, pulling the jacket hood over my head. A light drizzle began to fall, which helped hide my face. I doubted anyone was looking for me here—I hadn’t been followed by anyone resembling the government drones who’d chased us in Midtown—but it couldn’t hurt to be too careful.
I headed down the steps to the station, my mind reeling with the Rubik’s cube of how to get into Iraq. We couldn’t just hop on a plane from New York to Baghdad. Even if flights were available, we’d never get an official visa. We’d have to take a more indirect route, and Turkey was probably our best bet.
We could fly into Istanbul, take a smaller flight to Diyarbakir, and then take a taxi across the border into Zakho, Iraq. I’d made that trip several times in my last years as a war reporter. I just needed to make sure it was still a viable route. And I’d have to reach out to my contacts to get under-the-table visas. There were a lot of variables in play, but we needed to get to that facility. I’d tunnel underground if it came to it.
The subway platform was quiet, making it simultaneously easy to notice if someone was following me and creepy as hell when a man descended the stairs from the opposite end of the platform. He waited at the other end, keeping his attention on the tunnel. He wore jeans, boots, and a leather jacket. His hair was in need of a trim, but his beard was very close cut. In fact, it looked more like a five o’clock shadow had been given a few days to grow. There was something about him that set me on edge, but I couldn’t figure out what. Was he human?
I had to laugh at that one. Until a couple of weeks ago, I only would have asked that question while drunk.
The train pulled in and no one got off, so I headed toward a middle car, keeping my eye on the man as he boarded toward the front, not even giving me a glance.
I really was paranoid.
Paranoid enough that I didn’t sit in a seat even though there were several empty ones around me. I hung onto the pole instead, keeping my gaze on the doors while casting furtive sideways glances. The only thing of interest was a couple in the throes of a hot and heavy makeout session to my left. That was good. The few people around them looked uncomfortable, which gave me a good excuse for standing out of their PDA zone.
I had to change trains to get to the vacant hotel. The next three stops were uneventful, so I started to let my guard down when I boarded the next train, ready for a longer trip.
I was still too edgy to sit, so I was standing and staring at the doors when something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. The man from the first platform was several feet in front of me, a purposeful look in his eye. I turned to run, but he grabbed my hand and pulled me to his chest. “There you are, baby. I told you the front car,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear, then lowered his mouth to my ear. “You’re being tailed.”
“No shit. You’re proof enough of that,” I snarled, my hands on his chest, prepared to push him away. Two things stopped me: One, he was holding me in a vise grip with his arm, and two, if he was right, I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself. But now I was worried. Had these supposed tails seen me meet Hades?
“I don’t think they saw you meet your contact at the diner. You seemed to pick them up here in the station.”
I gasped as I looked up at him. Did this asshole have mind-reading abilities?
He gave me a cocky grin, but his eyes were full of warning. “I know more about you than you think.”
“Just what every girl wants to hear.”
He chuckled softly, then leaned in closer, his tone turning serious. “You’re playing a dangerous game here, Rachel.”
He knew my name. Shit. But then again, I’d been on TV earlier that evening. A report like that was bound to set all the crazies loose. “I’m a big girl. I know how to take care of myself.”
“Are you trusting the right people?”
That gave me pause. What exactly did he know? “Is there someone I shouldn’t be trusting?”
His breath blew warm against my ear, sending a chill down my back. “The supernatural world is not to be trusted. They don’t like to be outed. I hope you have a plan.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Is that who’s following me right now? Someone from the supernatural world?” Shit. I needed to get some silver stakes pronto. I could handle humans, but I was no physical match for vampires. While Lea had said there weren’t many of them, it made sense they might try to eliminate me for speaking out about their world.
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. You’re right to stay with her for now, but don’t trust her for a minute.”
He knew about Lea, and he believed in the supernatural world. Which meant he saw me as a pawn in this game. If he was warning me, that meant I was currently serving some purpose for him. “What’s your stake in this?”
“I don’t think you’re adequately prepared to handle the mess you’ve created.”
“You think I should back off?” I asked in belligerence.
“No, you’re exactly where you need to be, but you aren’t ready to defend yourself.”
He was right and it pissed me off. But there hadn’t exactly been time for a visit to the anti-supernatural protection store. If there even was one.
His hand cupped my cheek and tilted my head up to face him. I sucked in a breath as I stared into his intense brown eyes, my hold on his jacket beginning to loosen in anticipation.
I felt something several inches long and most likely made of leather slip into the back waistband of my jeans.
I stiffened, but before I could jerk away, his arm tightened. He whispered, still staring into my eyes, “I need you to stay alive, Rachel Sambrook. Can you do that for me?” The intensity in his gaze almost made me believe he gave a shit about me.
Almost.
I pushed on his chest, but his hold didn’t slip an inch. “Why the fuck should I believe you care about me?”
The train was slowing down, and the speaker overhead announced the next station.
He grinned, but it wasn’t the cocky expression I halfway expected. It was just the barest lift of the corners of his mouth. The intensity in his dark brown irises mesmerized me. Pinned in his gaze, I didn’t put up a protest as his face lowered, his lips lightly skimming mine.
I froze as his warm breath fanned across my cheek, his kiss growing bolder. My fingers dug into his jacket in an effort to remain upright as the train came to a stop.
The doors opened and I felt movement to my side as someone boarded the train, but this man’s mouth had me spellbound, blocking out everything and everyone around me except for him.
His head lifted and determination filled his eyes, before they softened. “Don’t worry, pet. You will see me soon enough.”
Then he shoved me hard, throwing me out of the train car. I landed on my side as the doors shut.
I saw him through the car windows, knife in his hand, facing two men. As the train pulled away, they rushed him, and the way he defended himself led me to believe he could hold his own.
Something poked the top of my ass cheek. I reached back and pulled out a six-inch-long leather case with a silver handle sticking out the top. I pulled it free, gasping at the sleek sil
ver blade. There was no doubt it was designed for killing supernatural creatures. The question was, why had he really given it to me?
CHAPTER 11
LEA
I crouched in the second floor window of the broken-down hotel. This was where we’d met Sean, where he’d done his damnedest to convince Rachel I was the bad guy and he could be trusted. Turned out he was wrong, a mistake that had cost him his life.
Rachel was below me, pacing from one end of the blown-out room to the other. She hadn’t seen me yet, and I’d decided to watch her to see if anyone followed her into the abandoned hotel.
Her hands went to her lower back, paused, then fluttered up to her lips.
“Son of a bitch,” she muttered, never slowing her steps.
Interesting. An image of Ivan kissing her sent a shot of pure adrenaline through my system that shocked the shit out of me. There was no way she would have let him kiss her. But then, where was he? I’d told him to watch over her.
I waited another full minute. Though I told myself it was to make sure we were safe, the real reason was that I was pissed at Ivan for being missing.
And more pissed at the thought of him kissing Rachel. I drew in a slow breath. No, I was not going there. Ivan was a werewolf—lecherous, dangerous and unpredictable. I had no reason to be surprised he hadn’t followed through with my command.
I pushed off the window ledge and dropped to the floor, deliberately landing on a stack of wood. It clattered away from me and Rachel spun around, whipping out a six-inch silver stake. I couldn’t help my eyes from widening. There was no way Ivan had given her that.
“Good reflexes.”
The stake was a replica of mine, right down to the length of the handle. A Cazador’s weapon. Even more interesting. I didn’t ask her about it, I didn’t need to. There were very few people who would have access to silver stakes.
Replica (The Blood Borne Series Book 2) Page 6
