by Judy Teel
How well they could do that determined how powerful a practitioner they were. The fact that she'd spontaneously gotten a psychic hit off me told me a lot about her level of talent.
A practitioner this strong would be able to subdue a vampire. All she'd need would be someone to slit the vamp's throat while she kept him immobile.
"You're the one who's running the spells around this place," I said, stalling for time while I figured out my strategy. "Morrocroft is human exclusive. How'd you get the gig?"
"Experience has taught them that employing someone like me is the only way to keep less desirable paranormals at a distance. When a friend recommended me, I applied." She finished her scan of me and a focused intensity that hadn't been there before edged into her gaze.
"You're not what you seem," she murmured. She narrowed her eyes and their focus turned distant again, like a person trying to see something on the horizon. "Deeply hidden. Powerful. But just beyond reach...oh!"
She blinked and stared past me for a second, a look of dazed confusion on her face. After a minute, her expression cleared. "I'm sorry, did you say something?"
I considered responding with, you mean something like you might be strong, but you're kind of flaky? "Where were you last night between the hours of eleven and one, Ms. Billings?" I asked instead, wishing my gun wasn't half a mile away in a locked box.
"Creating the Cupid Spell." Concern flickered through her steady gaze. "Why?"
"Can anyone verify that?"
"Travis brought me the Tongkat Ali about this time last night, maybe closer to 9:30. He stayed while I processed the potion. He's the guard you met when you came in," she added when I gave her a questioning look. "The spell was for him."
Which meant they could easily be collaborating by being mutual witnesses for each other. "How long was he here?"
"Cupid Spells are very delicate. They require over four hours to properly infuse the ingredients."
If her story was true, then she was off the hook. Morrocroft was at least forty minutes from the location of the murder. But if her story was a cover, then there was a good chance I was having tea with last night's killer. A chill ran across the back of my neck.
"I'm sorry," Laiyla said, "but are you here about the information I tried to report to the Church or not?"
A little pressure might get some answers if she were guilty. "Lord Bellmonte gave me your name in connection with a murder investigation," I lied. "It involves a renegade vampire."
Her hand shot to her mouth, and her eyes widened. "Oh, no," she breathed. Agitation tightened her shoulders. "This is exactly—I'd hoped to prevent another one."
My stomach tensed and my hand reflexively jerked toward my empty holster. "What do you mean?"
"I was in New York at a conference about six months ago. A gentleman was giving a workshop on enhancing natural magical ability, which is impossible. I was intrigued."
"I thought practitioners worked on their craft constantly."
"Work on, yes. But you can't boost what nature gives you. It's there or it's not. Like a musician. The ability to perceive sound and layers of sound is inborn, but to build one's skill, one must study and practice."
"So this guy was full of crap?"
"His demonstrations were inconclusive and his methods morally questionable," she said, her gaze drifting to a space by my left shoulder as some memory played out in her mind.
Her attention slid back to me. Clasping her hands, she shook her head. "He was jeered off the stage. An unfair response, considering how young he was. I followed him, hoping to encourage him to consider pursuing a more wholesome direction in his practice."
She looked down at the floor. "I found him in an empty lecture room in a heated discussion with...something."
"Something what?"
"Well, himself I suppose." She met my gaze. "Yet there was...an energy. A feeling. Something dark. I retreated, of course, but I must have made some small noise because he looked at me just before I closed the door. His eyes were filled with a black nothingness like I've never seen before."
I rubbed my temples where a headache was starting up. "How can a nothingness be a something, um, ness?"
A frown touched her mouth. "A lack of soul, although even that isn't accurate. I don't know. As I said, I'd never seen anything like it. I hope I never do again."
"What was his name?" I was beginning to understand why the vamps had blown this woman off.
"If you're planning to question him, that would be difficult. He was found dead in his room the next morning. I heard from the hotel manager that it was an aneurism, but that never felt right."
"Why'd you go to the Church with this? Isn't it more coven business?"
Fear and worry saturated her gaze. "We'd been tracking a series of unreported vampire slayings for about a month. That's really why I was in New York. But after his death, they stopped."
The whole story sounded like a load of crap to me. I gave her my best understanding smile and rose to leave. My gut told me that she was hiding something, my brain had no idea what. She definitely had the strength to subdue a vampire if she put her mind to it. Which also meant that she was powerful enough to find plenty of uses for a boat load of vamp blood.
I needed to learn more before I went to Cooper and threw it in his face, but for the moment it looked like I had myself another suspect.
CHAPTER FOUR
I reclaimed my gun for the second time in the last eight hours and started the hike back to the hoverbus platform. Even with the longer days of summer, the night was well underway and inky black shadows stretched under the trees and shrubs that choked the edges of Morrocroft Farms Lane. It never took nature long to reclaim her territory once humans abandoned an area. The sidewalks on either side were not much more than broken chunks with grass and weeds shooting up out of them. The surface of the street under my boots was nothing but a cracked, pitted path of old asphalt.
Cooper was nowhere in sight, and I told myself that I was glad he'd finally taken the hint and found something else to do. I wondered if the vampire murders Laiyla had mentioned were connected with the venom trafficking case I suspected he was working on—that is, if her convoluted story hadn't been a complete fabrication. Next time I saw him, I'd have to pry information out of him to verify.
I caught a whisper of sound behind me and a tingle ran down my spine. I stopped, the muscles along my back tensing. "Cooper, you moron. If you're trying to sneak up on me, I'm going to shoot you." To prove my point, I reached down and flipped the strap off my gun with my thumb.
The woods crowding against the street went suddenly quiet, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I'd just cleared my gun of the holster when something bolted from the woods, crashed into me and slammed me into the asphalt. My weapon clattered across the street and bounced off the broken curb on the other side while my brain registered gleaming fangs and the hideously distorted face of a vampire.
Instinctively, I latched onto his throat with both hands and pushed as he bore down on me. Black, soulless eyes locked with mine and fear sliced like a cold knife across my stomach. Vamp eyes retained their human color even when their feeding aspect manifested. The eyes focused on my face were solid black, blank eyes, not even filled with madness.
Horror crackled through my body like static. A counter pulse of searing energy streamed into my chest and through my arms as adrenaline pumped into my blood. My hands seemed to glow in the watery light of the half moon, and I dug my fingers into the monster's throat, fighting to keep him from my neck.
From the corner of my eye, something black and low to the ground shot from the underbrush. I had a moment to register the open jaws and gleaming teeth of a wolf before it launched itself at my stomach.
Like a freight train, another wolf burst from behind me, a blend of silver and black like the moonlight and shadows streaking the pavement. It knocked the black wolf off course and the two animals tangled into snarling, snapping madness as they tumbled ou
t of my field of vision.
The vamp pushed closer, his open mouth now inches from my neck. I struggled to shove him off of me with the desperate wildness of prey that knows it's about to die. He clamped his hands on my shoulders and squeezed.
Jabbing pain burst from my joints as he squeezed hard and pressed me into the rough surface of the old street. I gritted my teeth against the anguish and dug my nails into his neck, praying that the pressure would slow him. At the very least, I might be able to cut off the blood supply to his brain and gain some advantage.
I heard one of the wolves behind me give a sharp yelp of pain and surprise just as my left shoulder popped. A jolt of excruciating pain exploded into me. I lost feeling in the arm and my grip gave out. The vamp struck, its fangs puncturing the muscle where my neck and shoulder met.
Time slowed as my senses sharpened, making me acutely aware of the chilling sting of his teeth as they slid into my flesh, and the warm trail of blood as it dripped down my neck. I fought to hold onto the points of agony in my body as the first wave of ecstasy hit me.
I could feel his throat contracting against my collar bone as he swallowed my blood. I knew the venom sacs in the roof of his mouth now pumped anti-coagulant and venom through his hollow fangs and into the wound, quickening the feeding while subduing the victim. With my last shred of determination, I grabbed his throat and willed him to die.
Another wave of bliss spread over me, dulling my pain, making me feel warm and softly happy. As I realized that I'd failed, my body went limp and my senses spiraled gently down into peaceful darkness.
I didn't care about anything anymore...not even dying.
* * *
I came to lying under a bush, surprised as hell that I was alive.
As I rolled out from under the thick tangle of cedar-scented branches, a sharp wave of dizziness and nausea convinced me that the dirt might be a good place to relax for a moment. After a few minutes of controlled breathing, the world stopped spinning. I noticed that my left shoulder was back in the socket and had settled into nothing more than a grumpy ache. My Browning was back in its holster, and my neck hurt like the devil. When I touched the spot to determine the damage, I discovered the presence of a med patch.
I remembered the silver and black wolf and suspected who my hit and run rescuer and medic had been. I didn't like the idea of being in debt to anyone, but I wasn't quite so stubborn that I didn't feel grateful to still be in one piece. Fortunately, I didn't have time to dwell on it too much.
About five feet from me on the sidewalk was a large blood stain that looked black in the crystalline light of a newborn morning. No insane Were lay sprawled beside it, which meant he'd been killed and his body disposed of, or retrieved and carted away. Both solutions were good as far as I was concerned. The vampire had either run off with daylight coming, or more likely was dead.
The blood all over the sidewalk, and all over me was the problem on my mind at the moment. If I didn't get moving soon, life would become unpleasantly inconvenient. Once daylight fully hit, someone was bound to come along, and I didn't want to be there when they did. The last thing I needed was a wasted day filling out paperwork at the precinct.
I willed my stomach to behave and rolled over. Wincing, I leveraged myself into a sitting position. The broken, pothole-filled street was empty, so I stiffly turned to the left to make sure the forest was just as deserted. After everything else, the headless body crumpled at the base of a tree about six yards away hardly phased me at all.
With careful deliberation, I climbed to my feet and stumbled over to it. I immediately recognized the denim work shirt of the vamp who'd attacked me. I stared at the chewed up neck and wondered where the head had gotten to. A quick scan of the area turned up a gloppy mess on another tree and the crushed head in the weeds below it. Yuck.
Since no scanner was sensitive enough to get an ID from a corpse, I did a quick search of its pockets, looking for a clue to the guy's identity. They were empty.
The sound of a car coming down the road from Morrocroft sent me scurrying for cover. Hard-working citizens eager to help was not something I wanted to deal with at the moment. From the cover of the overgrown grass and weeds at the edge of the woods I watched as an old Ford minivan rattled past. Behind the tinted windows, I could see the driver earnestly gulping down coffee from a large travel mug, oblivious in her hurry to get to work. I let out a relieved breath as the van sped past and disappeared down the road.
I waited a moment longer, listening for the approach of more early commuters as the deep orange glow of coming morning seeped into the sky. The events of the last two days sank into my bones with the rising sun and my exhaustion deepened.
There was no way to know how much of my blood the vamp had sucked out before he'd lost his head over it, or how much of his venom I'd been exposed to. That plus my various aches and pains were taking their toll on my ability to think straight. Falling into my own bed and sleeping for a week sounded like a good immediate plan.
The vampire's body began to hiss and pop as the first rays of the sun hit it, cooking it from the inside out. The process was disgusting, and I had no interest in witnessing it. I knew that in the end nothing would be left, even the fine, rusty powder would blow away as the day wore on.
I headed back to the road and slogged toward Colony and the hoverbus platform. Let whoever found the traces of blood from the fight wonder what had happened, I had better things to do; like figuring out who had the power to sic a Were and a vamp on me.
The image of cold, soulless eyes staring down at me flashed through my mind and sent a chill down my back. I remembered what Laiyla had said about the eyes of the guy at the hotel...a nothingness...a lack of soul.
Was she responsible for the attack? A strong enough enslavement spell might explain the bizarre circumstance of the two species working together. Normally vamps and Weres cooperated only never. Something about my interview with Laiyla must have alarmed her enough to decide that I was a serious threat. I wished I knew what.
I rubbed my sore shoulder, glad to see the hoverbus platform coming into view as the sky brightened. My mind churned over everything that I knew about the case, but nothing useful rose to the surface. There had to be something I was missing.
But what?
* * *
The next night I was back at Morrocroft Farms Lane. I'd awakened just before sunset with Wizard curled against me and knowing exactly what I needed to do. I'd eaten, packed water and a few snacks plus a couple of items I might need, and then headed out of town.
In the light of my flashlight, I examined the area where I'd been attacked. Nothing remained except a small amount of damage on the bark of the pine tree where the vamp's head had been fast-pitched. Everything else had been cleared away, even the blood stains. Someone knew how to be thorough.
No calls had gone out about the wounded Were or the dead vamp, and I'd checked several times. I wondered who had a high interest in a hush up.
Bellmonte and his team were an obvious choice and fully capable of both an attack and a cover-up. Except they would've met the sun before recruiting a Were. Plus, if the vamps wanted me taken out, I'd have been dead before I knew what hit me. If the Weres were behind it, I would have seen the wolf but no vampire would have been within twenty miles of it.
Laiyla was the key to the attack, I felt sure of it. It would have been impossible for her to have pulled something like that together so quickly, but someone associated with her might have. If there was another player on the field, I wanted to know about it.
When I found out that Laiyla led a novice group of practitioners every Sunday night at the Athena coven's center, I knew I had my in. Tonight was the night, and if I could get over the electric, barbed wire wall, snooping around Laiyla's place while she was gone would be a piece of cake.
I crossed the street to the patch of trees and underbrush on the other side. Clipping my flashlight to the utility belt I'd strapped on, I took out my gun and stepp
ed into the deeper shadows a few feet from the road.
I set my weapon to discharge bullets and moved an extra clip to my front pocket. If I got attacked again, I planned to shoot first and worry about survivors later.
The narrow forest that ran up to the wall on this side of the neighborhood was quiet. Clouds had wandered in over Charlotte that afternoon and now blanketed the half moon, muting its light into a thin glow that filtered through the leaves and branches of the trees. Around me, the forest grew silent.
My grip tightened on my Browning. Quiet woods were never a good sign. Big, bad things tended to inspire little bad things to run and hide.
I slid from tree to tree, my senses alert. Some very unpleasant creatures fed on magic, and the power level that Laiyla had chugging around the compound was certain to attract some of them. Blocked from entering, their frustration and hunger would lead them to roam.
The quicker I got up and over the wall, the better for my health. I crept toward the wall and was disappointed to see that the trees and plants had been cleared in a strip about six feet deep along the entire length. Apparently I wasn't the only one who'd thought that climbing a tree and hiking over would be a nice, easy way in. I listened closely to the silence around me and a shiver ran down my back. On to plan two, and fast.
With my left hand, I unclipped the discharger I'd brought with me, one of the experimental gadgets my friend Falcon liked to create. Falcon was two years younger than me, skinny and mostly legs and arms, with just enough of a crush on me to be endearing. He ran his uncle's shop, aptly named Magical Gadgets and Bits, and was a genius inventor of the unusual and occasionally illegal creation. My Browning was some of his handiwork.
The device he'd put together a couple months ago was based on an old TV remote he'd found at the dump. One end had been cut back and three thick wires ran across it: red, green and purple.
I aimed the wired end of the disrupter at the top of the fence and—
