by Jess Haines
Gavin finally looked down, breaking that fierce eye contact, and toyed with one of the cookies with now blunt, human fingernails. “I wish I could have been there for her. Could have taken her place so she wasn’t in the clutches of that . . . that monster.”
Though I had often thought as much of Royce, I didn’t think now was the time to contradict Gavin. He was clearly high-strung where vampires were concerned, so debating their merits when he had first addressed me as a vamp’s whore probably wasn’t going to get us anywhere.
And I’ll bet you thought I couldn’t be tactful when necessity dictated.
“She might be stuck for the time being, but she’s not suffering. He’s given her clothes, food, shelter, and schooling. I think she’ll be okay for now. Look, she even made these cookies we’re eating.”
I took another bite, this time dimly recognizing the taste of chocolate on my tongue. Gavin mechanically followed my lead, then shook his head and looked down at the confection in his hand. “Really? She made these?”
Nodding, I gestured for him to finish it off. He did so in silence, his brows moving around like he couldn’t decide whether he should have an expression of shock or scowl at the cookie. Most likely the idea that Royce might put Analie to work doing something productive had never occurred to him. Had I been in his place even a month or two ago, I might have thought the same.
The confusion eventually gave way to a scowl, but his eyes were misting up again. His manly-man persona was shattering under the weight of all that grief, I guess. “She was like a daughter to me. If I ever see Christoph or Ashi again, I’m going to kill them. When you go back to New York, you tell them that.”
Sara and I both nodded rapidly, leaning back in our chairs.
“Yeah. Tell them that. I’ll rip their throats out and eat their fucking soulless hearts.”
Cripes. His eyes were going gold, and his nails were starting to look distinctly talon-like again. Had to remember that I was here to redeem myself and not because I had a death wish.
“Gavin,” Sara said, her words coming out in a rush—anything to distract the werewolf who was barely holding control over his shapeshifting—“we’re really sorry about what happened to Analie but we’ll make sure she knows how much you miss her. Do you want us to bring anything back for her? A letter or something?”
That got him out of it. The hair bristling around his neck and jaw settled with an audible rustle, though his eyes remained a bright golden color. He muttered something I didn’t quite catch and pushed back from the table, then dug around in one of the kitchen drawers. Once he found a pen and notepad, he hunched over the counter, his back to us as he scribbled away.
It felt like it took forever. My stomach was doing uneasy flip-flops as I watched him. He didn’t do anything overtly ominous, but the words of wisdom that had been imparted to me by Arnold made me leery of trusting that he was going to let us out of here without doing something to make us pay for our freedom. Reminding myself that I was doing this on Analie’s behalf and to be less of a shit-stain of a human being wasn’t helping much. That thought seemed so very farfetched and out of place now that I was in the presence of a Goliath. His shirtless back was like a map to nowhere, traced out in a pattern of scars from battles long past.
Being around other werewolves hadn’t prepared me for this. He had no qualms with making a show of his Other nature. He’d very nearly shifted right on his front lawn. Maybe because he had mistaken me for something other than human.
Unless he thought by my scent that I wasn’t human anymore. Which was an unhappy thought I was going to stick with all that other crap in the back of my mind that I was not going to think about right then, like what my bills and credit must look like, and what my landlord might have done with the stuff in my apartment.
Analie damned well better appreciate this.
He turned back to us a few minutes later with a small stack of notepad paper, each page filled margin to margin with his scrawl. Shoving the papers at Sara, he looked back and forth between us.
“You’ll make sure she gets this?”
“Absolutely. We’ll put it in her hands as soon as we get back,” Sara promised.
“Good,” he replied. “If you don’t, and I find out about it later, I will hunt you both down. You understand?”
Sara’s eyes went wide and round, so you could see the whites all the way around.
A touch to my arm made me jump, and I banged my knees on the underside of the table. Grimacing and rubbing what would no doubt be a bruise later, I twisted around to face Jo-Jo, who was holding a grubby piece of thick, crayon-covered paper and looking up at me with wide golden eyes. There was something strange about these werewolves, even beyond the obvious. I had never heard of any type of Were pack where the children could show signs of their Other nature before hitting puberty.
Even so, his expression betrayed a fear and nervousness that tugged at my heartstrings. What must he have heard about vampires and the people who worked for them to look at me that way?
“Can you give this to Analie?” He held out the paper to me.
Gavin “ahem”-ed, and Jo-Jo tilted his head the other way, looking up at his caretaker. Gavin’s tone was all patience, even and steady, nothing like how he had addressed Sara or me. “What do we say?”
Jo-Jo had to think about it. “Please and thank you?”
“Not to me.”
Jo-Jo turned back to me and held up the paper, earnest and clearly worried that he’d offended us. “Please and thank you?” he repeated.
I had to suppress a laugh. Other or not, he was adorable. I took the paper and set it aside, then nudged my plate of cookies closer to him. “You’re welcome. Don’t worry; I’ll make sure she gets it. You want one, kid?”
His whole face lit up, and the gold flooded out of his eyes in a weird spiraling motion, like it was sinking down the drain of his pupils, to be replaced with a more natural pale blue color. He grabbed a handful and shoved a full one in his mouth.
“Manners, Jo-Jo.”
The kid choked a bit on the cookie and offered me another mumbled “thank you” before rushing off with the rest somewhere deeper into the house, a door slamming behind him.
Gavin smiled after the kid, the expression betraying a softness I was barely able to reconcile with the fearsome warrior who had very nearly given me a heart attack less than half an hour ago.
Then he reminded me why I should be scared when his heavy gaze slid back to meet mine again. The humorless grin, showing a row of pearly, pointy teeth, wasn’t needed for emphasis, but that didn’t stop him from showcasing growing fangs for our benefit. “You’ve done me a great favor by bringing me this. You’ll do me a bigger one by leaving now and staying out of Goliath territory for the rest of your stay. Yes?”
I gave him a jerky nod, pushing my chair back. Sara was far braver than I was, holding out a pleading hand.
“Please, before we go, have you heard anything about a necromancer in town?”
Gavin’s grin faded, replaced by a scowl. “Yes. We had to destroy quite a few of his creations before he realized we weren’t going to let him hide in our part of town. The stink of those abominations is still in the air just a few blocks from here. Why do you ask?”
Sara looked to me expectantly. Gavin soon did the same. He didn’t appear ready to tear my throat out just yet, but telling this werewolf we were working for vampires might get us eaten. Then again, we were bringing Analie his letter, so maybe he wouldn’t. Without a doubt, lying to him would be worse. From what I had gleaned from Chaz and Royce, most Others could smell a lie at ten paces. Also, he was the closest thing we had to a lead right now, and risking pissing him off was a bit better than upsetting the guy who was giving us a place to hide.
“Well,” I hedged, choosing my words carefully, “we have a client who is trying to find him. The guy’s been doing some bad stuff around town, and the person who hired us wants it to stop. If you can point us in the right direc
tion, you won’t ever have to deal with him again.”
“Let me guess. Your client is Clyde Seabreeze.”
There wasn’t any way around it. I nodded, bracing myself for his reaction.
He considered us, rubbing the stubble on his chin. The mixture of irritation and disgust was apparent, but he wasn’t as peeved as I had expected.
“I suppose it’s a little late to warn you ladies about putting your trust in, or working for, the Shadow Men. I want you to stay alive long enough to get my message to Analie. If you mess with a necromancer, that probably won’t happen.”
“Oh,” Sara said, “we’re not planning on tangling with him directly. We’re just supposed to find his hideout and let Clyde take care of the rest.”
Gavin growled, the sound a thick rumble that rattled the dishes on the table. “Don’t believe that for a minute. He’ll find a way to make you do his dirty work. They always do. You really think a leech is going to willingly put himself into spelling distance of a mage who controls the dead?”
I hadn’t thought of that. Now that Gavin mentioned it, I wasn’t going to be able to stop thinking about it, either.
Shit.
“Normally I would say to hell with the Shadow Men, but I have the feeling this mage is even worse. This probably won’t help much, but check the towns along the 210 freeway between Sylmar and Sunland. Pay attention to the more rural, back-road homes up in the hills. There’s a stench that follows him, and he might be trying to hide it. If you have a Shadow Man with you, he or she will probably be able to scent it out once you’re in the right area.”
This was far more than I had been expecting. “Thank you so much, Gavin. For everything.” I held out my hand, offering a parting shake, but he looked at it like I was trying to give him a dead rat. My cheeks burned with embarrassment, but I was determined not to let his rudeness get to me. Much. “We’ll make sure Analie gets your letters.”
He gave us a sparse nod, then hooked a thumb in the direction of the front door. “I’m sure you two can see yourselves out.”
Man. And he’d reminded Jo-Jo of his manners.
Sara and I had a lot to think about on our way to Jimmy Thrane’s place.
Chapter 15
“Ma’am, I really don’t think we should be here.”
“Your objection is duly noted,” I said, not bothering to look back over my shoulder at Trinity. This time she had decided to leave the car to follow us into the alley that was supposed to lead to the entrance to this Thrane guy’s hideout.
Trinity had an expression of pure shock on her face when she saw Sara and me walking back from Gavin’s place. We could see her bulging eyes and open mouth through the windshield. She honestly must have expected us to die or end up held hostage or something once we set foot on Goliath territory. I didn’t know whether to find her reaction funny or take it as an insult.
By the time we’d reached the car, she had gotten a handle on her surprise and wrangled her expression into something more neutral. Then, once we told her we wanted her to take us to Thrane’s place, she had barked out a laugh.
“You two are insane. First the Goliaths, now that ridiculous pretender? Do you have any idea how crazy that guy is?”
Sara huffed, folding her arms. “Do you have any idea how crazy it is that we’re being asked to find where this necromancer is hiding without the help of police or other authorities to track him down? Stop judging our methods and let us do our job. You have a better idea of where we should be looking? We’re all ears.”
Trinity shook her head and started driving, not saying a thing.
Even if she was of the opinion that Thrane was nuttier than a fruitcake, it didn’t deter me. I had been dealing with more than enough weirdos since I had arrived in Los Angeles. The addition of a few more didn’t seem like such a big deal.
Clyde might have thought he was the Master of All He Sees and Then Some, but the reality was that he couldn’t be everywhere at once, and to have a slice of land in the middle of what was supposed to be his Valley—territory—whatever—belonging to another vampire meant that he didn’t have as tight a grip on his holdings as he would have liked us to believe. Plus, three of the attacks had taken place on the borders between Thrane’s and Clyde’s territories, which meant that Thrane might know which way the necromancer went, might have seen something useful, or maybe would be willing to help us if he was also losing people.
Granted, now that we’d stopped in front of what— according to Trinity’s sarcastic explanation—was supposed to be Thrane’s base of operation, I could see why Clyde had appeared more annoyed than worried when he mentioned the “Master” of this borderline slice of land between Burbank and Glendale. The neighborhood, though not as nice as the one where Gavin lived, or as nasty as that armpit in Sun Valley we’d stopped in, wasn’t real impressive, mainly small businesses sandwiched between apartments and old houses.
At first I thought Trinity must have been kidding. The place was nothing more than a run-down sports bar with dirty windows that obscured a dimly seen television mounted in the corner. There was a sign above the nearly deserted bar proclaiming they had a weeknight special on Budweiser and hot wings. Tucked away in a dark alcove on the side of the building was the door Trinity said led to Thrane’s hideout. It was so narrow that I would have mistaken it for the location of the building’s circuit breakers.
Sara and I approached the place together, wrinkling our noses at the padlocked Dumpster only a few yards away from the entrance to the vampire’s hideout. This was nothing like the splendor I had seen vampires use to sequester themselves from humanity’s prying eyes. If I hadn’t gotten a nod in the affirmative when I gave Trinity a dubious look over my shoulder, I never would have guessed that Thrane lived here. It was either a terrifically clever front, or terribly sad.
Sara stepped aside, and I knocked lightly on the door. A muffled voice came from the other side. “Password? ”
Nonplussed, I looked at Trinity, who shrugged. Confused, I said, “I . . . don’t know?”
“Close enough.”
The door—was that piled-on insulation held on with duct tape?—opened, revealing a guy wearing track pants and a T-shirt slung over his shoulder. His skin was frightfully pale, and his hairy stomach protruded a bit over the top of his pants. He grinned broadly at Sara and me, flashing fangs. “Ladies, ladies, ladies! Call me Mac-daddy.” He paused, then added thoughtfully, “Actually, if you’re here to see me, you can call me anything you want.”
Sara and I both hastily stepped back—probably a bit too quickly, considering the tragic look of disappointment that crossed his features—before a pleasant, feminine voice called out from the shadows behind him. “Mac, who is it? Get out of the damn door and let them in.”
He got out of the way, disappearing into the dark. This was no more reassuring. Particularly as a third voice called out to us, this time another woman. “Are you just going to stand there all night?”
Terrifying as the thought of walking into that dark pit was, we weren’t going to accomplish anything by standing in the alley. Sara fell into step behind me as I marched with what I hoped was a brave and dangerous expression into the vampire den.
If I’d thought the outside was bad, the inside was . . . bad.
A set of narrow, rickety wooden stairs sans railing led down about four feet into a cramped, narrow basement with a high ceiling. Fluorescent track lighting made everything take on a sickly, dim color. Someone had salvaged a large strip of puke-orange shag carpeting and laid it down on the bare concrete in the center of the room. The walls were beige and covered with posters, and there was a bulletin board that, at a glance, contained charming announcements like “Jason is a fag” scrawled in heavy permanent marker on scraps of paper between the job postings and concert flyers.
Though my own furniture in my apartment—cripes, did I still have anything of my own anymore? My landlord had probably dumped all of my crap out on the street by now. Ahem, back on trac
k—though my own furniture was or had been of Ikea-level quality, it looked like the mismatched couches and chairs in this sprawling basement lair had gone a few rounds with their local Salvation Army store.
And lost.
Miserably.
The vampires didn’t look much better.
Some wore jeans and T-shirts. Some wore stuff straight out of a Goth fashion magazine. One wore a pizza delivery shirt and cap, obviously either just coming from or leaving for a job.
Now I understood why Clyde was so obviously disgusted when he mentioned this Jimmy guy.
“Mr. Thrane?” I asked the room in general, not sure which one of the vampires to address. There wasn’t much of a structure to this pack of misfits that I could pick up. The stuffy, musty scent and strangely echoic quality of the space, added to the cold due to the lack of body heat from the vampires, gave the impression of being at the bottom of a grave.
A frat boy’s grave, maybe, but a grave, nonetheless.
The vampire lounging on the couch in the back nodded, touching the brim of his top hat. It was the only article of clothing he had on that was in good repair. Once he moved his hand, I could see a tattoo or something under one of his eyes.
“Ma’am. Might I ask why you’re calling on us this fine evening?”
Well, at least he was polite. Sara, who had the look of rigid, forced politeness she often assumed when dealing with a client who made her uncomfortable, introduced us.
“Mr. Thrane, my name is Sara Halloway, and this is Shiarra Waynest, my business partner. We’re private investigators. We wanted to ask for your help and see if you might have any information that might lead us to a resolution of some difficulties for a client.”
“Wow, right on. Real private investigators?”
