He slid his fingers over my ring. It felt like more of a violation than if he’d grabbed my butt. “Will he seek vengeance for what I’m going to do to you, do you think? Can monsters really fall in love?”
“I don’t know,” I bit out through clenched teeth. “Why don’t you tell me?”
That earned me a grin just before he put the tip of his knife to my throat and then slid it slowly down to my chest right over my heart. “I was going to take my time, but you’re a bit of a wild card, I think. Best to get this over with.”
“Do it!” Dan urged him on.
I wouldn’t scream. I wouldn’t beg. I knew neither would do me any good. Fury rose up level with my terror and I kept my eyes open, blazing into those of the hunter—the one who would finally manage to kill me in the dark storm drains underneath Las Vegas. But first he’d had to tie me up to do it so I wouldn’t be able to fight back.
Some hunter.
I’m so sorry, Thierry, I thought. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to save you…or Victoria.
I braced myself for what he was about to do.
And then, with a loud crash, all the lights went out.
Chapter 12
Luckily, finding myself in pitch-black surroundings again didn’t mean I was dead.
It meant the flashlights had been smashed. I saw a shape move in the darkness, which would have been completely indiscernible to a human eye. Shane flew backward and away from me. Then there was the sound of the hunters’ heads smacking together and their bodies hitting the ground.
Total silence hung in the inky blackness for a good ten seconds while I tried to find my voice.
“See?” I said shakily. “I knew you wouldn’t abandon us.”
A low chuckle. “You didn’t really know that for sure.”
“No, you’re right. I didn’t.”
Charlotte flicked the light back on, but I figured she did it for my benefit, not hers.
“Holy cow!” Victoria exclaimed. “Who the hell are you?”
Six years old or 102, Victoria Corday was not the most tactful creature on the planet.
Charlotte’s black eyes tracked to her and her lips curved back into a chilling smile, showing off her sharp fangs. “A nightmare you’ll be having for weeks to come, little girl.”
“Stop messing around and untie us,” I snapped.
“I took out the hunters—you can untie yourselves.”
“Charlotte,” I snarled.
“Nice tone. Maybe you’ve learned something down here. Being pretty and polite will only get you so far.” She came toward me and crouched down. “There’s just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I didn’t do this because I like you. I did it for payment.”
“I would be happy to pay you for saving us in the nick of time. How much money do you want?”
“No, I’m thinking of something else.” Her black eyes moved to my left hand.
I tensed. “Don’t even think about it.”
Her grin widened. “Too late.” She yanked my engagement ring off me so hard it nearly broke my finger before she slid it onto her own. She admired it. “Pretty.”
There weren’t too many things I owned anymore that I really cherished. I’d found that possessions could be destroyed or taken away in a second, and the more you cared about them, the more it hurt to see them vanish.
My ring from Thierry was one of the few things I never wanted to lose. Ever. It wasn’t just a ring—it was a promise.
A promise that I was going to kick this chick’s butt as soon as I got loose.
“Untie me,” I said through clenched teeth.
“You betcha.” She reached around me and fiddled with the knots. “The silver burns a bit, doesn’t it?”
The moment I felt the tight ropes slacken, I burst forward and grabbed Charlotte by her shirt, slamming her against the concrete wall to our right.
“Thank you for saving my life,” I said as sweetly as possible. “I’d be happy to offer payment to you in another agreeable way. But give me my ring back. Now.”
She had the audacity to look amused. “Didn’t know you were a fighter.”
“I’m usually not.”
“Maybe that’s changing.”
“Maybe it is.” Maybe I was evolving and changing with the times. Becoming less of a potential victim and way more kick-ass.
It was a lovely thought.
“It’s good. The world is a tough one. Maybe you’ve been stuck in your bubble for a while wherever you came from, dealing with a couple hunters here and there. But out here in the real world things are way tougher than that. And when you’re faced with your darkest fear, you have to decide right then and there if you’re going to fight it or if you’re going to run away. You looked more like a runner to me.”
“I do like to jog a little. Burns calories.”
“I’m not giving the ring back.”
“Oh, believe me. You are.”
She shook her head. “Finders, keepers—”
Just as I was maneuvering to hold her in place with one hand and grab the ring back off her finger with the other, she managed to twist around so she had me pinned against the wall instead. She was strong—stronger than she looked. By a whole lot.
“—losers, weepers,” she finished, and then launched me over her shoulder like a discarded banana peel. I landed hard on my back fifteen feet away, the wind knocked out of me. I gasped for breath while I stared up at the dark ceiling. As soon as I could, I scrambled to my feet and spun around, searching for her.
She was gone.
And so was my ring.
I let out a strangled scream and fought the tears of frustration stinging my eyes.
“Nice try,” Victoria said.
I stared off into the blackness. I had no idea what direction she’d gone or how fast she could run. “Yeah, if nice means pathetic.”
“Sometimes it does, puppy.”
“Don’t call me that anymore,” I growled.
That shut her up for a moment. “Um…are you going to untie me before these two hunters wake up? Please?”
That much I could accomplish successfully. First I grabbed the garlic dart gun lying on the ground and tossed it into my gaping open purse next to where I’d been tied up. I had no idea what I might need it for, but one less dart gun in a hunter’s hands was a good thing. Then I stepped over the unconscious hunters like human-sized land mines and as I did, I searched for that special sense of mine that had told me the guy on the street was dead. These guys weren’t. They were still breathing. It half surprised me that Charlotte didn’t want to add murder to her list today as well as theft. As far as I was concerned, that vampire’s morals weren’t much better than the serial killer’s.
I would have paid her. I would have paid her lots for her help. I knew I would have died if she hadn’t come back. But she didn’t have to steal my damn ring. I ran my hand under my nose as I sniffed while forcing myself to work on Victoria’s ropes. The silver in them burned my fingers as I loosened them enough for her to slip out. I rubbed my hands together and tried not to look down at my naked finger. I hadn’t taken the ring off once since Thierry had first given it to me three months ago. I’d grown very accustomed to the comforting weight of it.
“You okay?” Victoria asked quietly. It surprised me that there was no sarcasm or edge to her words this time.
“I’m alive,” I replied as I zipped up my purse and threw it over my shoulder. “And so are you. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
She surprised me again as she reached for my hand. I let her take it, reminding myself that she was just a kid. And, despite her semitough exterior, this might have been the closest brush with death she’d ever had.
Damn, there it was. My instinctive need to protect things that were smaller and weaker and more scared than me. At the moment, that was Victoria.
I think we both could have used a shot of whiskey at this point. I’d pass on any cigarettes.
Hand in hand, we moved toward the stairs, going up them until they changed, turned into rickety wooden ones that led to a door about four stories up. I turned the handle and pushed it open.
Surprisingly, it was some sort of public place. Being around a group of people after spending who knew how much time down in that dark storm drain felt like a huge relief. The door closed and clicked shut behind us.
Which was around the moment I realized exactly where we were.
The storm drain stairs had led up into the hunter bar. And we were currently surrounded by about fifty hunters of varying shapes and sizes.
Crap.
“You were right.” Victoria squeezed my hand so tightly that it actually hurt. “You are a magnet for trouble. I think you’re a whole fridge door full of them.”
I reached for the door again only to find it had locked behind us.
I braced myself for the attack…any second now….
But no attack came.
Nobody even paid any attention to us, other than a random surprised glance here and there to find a bedraggled brunette and a cute blond kid suddenly in their midst.
They hadn’t guessed what we were. Not yet, anyway. I mean, what sane vampire would ever knowingly stroll right through the middle of a hunter bar?
Well, me. My common sense had improved some over the months, but my sanity had always been a bit of a question mark.
“Just passing through,” I said casually as we started walking toward the exit. I didn’t dare show even a glimpse of fang. No smiling allowed—which wasn’t all that difficult to manage at the moment.
The door wasn’t far away, really. And the two hunters downstairs were still unconscious. For now.
One foot in front of the other. Had to keep walking. Sunlight was ahead. Freedom was beyond. We’d recharge and reassess; then I’d figure out what my next move would be.
But then someone stepped out in front of me, blocking my path. I stared directly into his black T-shirt-clad chest.
“Sarah?” he said with surprise. “I don’t really think this is the right place for you, sweetheart.”
My eyes widened and I looked up at his face to see the very hunter I’d put my neck on the line to find today.
“Duncan,” I managed.
He was grinning, but I couldn’t say it was all that friendly. Looked more like the smile of an amused predator. “How on earth did you even get in here?”
He wasn’t immediately sounding the alarms. I hoped that was a good sign. “Magical powers.”
“You’re funny. No idea what a cute little thing like you is doing with Thierry, but maybe he has a side he doesn’t show anyone else. Am I right? Does he have a soft underbelly I just don’t know about?”
Letting on that Thierry was anything but the stone-cold, emotionless master vampire he appeared to be to most people was not in his best interest. Or mine, for that matter. “Nope. He’s a total hard-ass, through and through. He’ll kill you as soon as look at you. He just tolerates me because he lost a bet.”
Victoria had my hand clutched in hers so tightly I was certain it was literally changing the shape of it. Soon I would have one good hand and one bloody stump. She tugged on my arm. “Sarah?”
Well, if nothing else, severe stress and trauma had made her use my real name for a change. Miracles do happen.
And I wasn’t letting any other miracles like the one right in front of me escape just because I was freaking out inside. “I need to talk to you, Duncan. Um, away from here would be a good start.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I’ll pay.”
“This must be my lucky day.”
Mine too, maybe. In more ways than one.
He kept that grin on his face, and it filled me with more hope. While Duncan’s expression was filled with greed, it was a greed that would lead me to the answers I needed to help Thierry. I knew it.
“I want to know who hired you to kill Bernard,” I asked him, point-blank. I flicked a look at the door, wishing I was on the other side of it right now. “Somebody did, didn’t they?”
“They sure did,” he confirmed. “Went down a bit differently than planned, though. One of my best kills ever, I think. Did you see the look on everybody’s face before that enforcer started wiping their memories? If he hadn’t been so damn busy, I might not have been able to slip out of there.”
Markus was able to wipe the witnesses’ memories? How could he do something like that?
No time to ask right now, so I filed that away for later.
“How did it go differently than planned?” I pressed. “And who hired you? I need answers.”
“To save that hard-ass who tolerates you because of a bet?”
“Maybe I’m the one with the soft spot, not him.”
He leered at me. “You and Thierry, huh? I guess you’re his soft spot now, aren’t you? Interesting.”
I really didn’t like this guy, but I needed him. “Talk to me, Duncan. Please. I said I’d pay.”
“Oh, you bet your sweet little ass you will. You pay me enough and I’d be happy to tell you every last detail you need to save your fiancé’s life.”
I hated hoping. A lot of the time, hope was a big, shiny, colorful bow that did its best to hide nothing but an empty box underneath. Duncan was saying everything I wanted to hear right now. Everything except the real answers I desperately needed.
It seemed as if I now required a bank machine. Stat.
“Okay, then let’s go,” I said firmly. “I’ll get you the money and you can get me my answers.”
“Lead the way, sweetheart.”
Money talks.
I was counting on that being Duncan’s rather nasty personal philosophy. He hadn’t raised the alarm that two vampires were smack-dab in the middle of this Vegas hunter bar. He just grinned at the thought of money, ready to sell out whoever hired him at the first flash of green.
I could totally work with that.
This was going to happen. This was what I’d been looking for all day and it had practically fallen into my lap. I was going to prove Thierry’s innocence and make Mr. Enforcer leave him alone. For once, something was easy. For once, I wasn’t a magnet for trouble. I’d walked right through the lions’ den and found that one of the lions was willing to help me get out of here in one hopeful piece. For a price.
I should have known it wouldn’t last.
A shadow loomed at the entrance just as we’d reached it. A large, fierce-looking man in leather and chains whose dark eyes flashed with anger. For a split second, I froze because I thought he was looking at me and Victoria. But he wasn’t. He was looking just past us at the hunter standing behind us.
“Duncan Keller!” he bellowed. “You son of a bitch!”
“Uh-oh,” Duncan said.
I turned to face him. “Who is that?”
His attention wasn’t on me. “Just the husband of a woman I’ve been sleeping with. This shouldn’t take long. Just give me a minute to deal with this.”
Victoria’s grip on my hand increased, if that was even possible, as the other man stormed toward Duncan and grabbed him by the front of his shirt.
“Attila,” Duncan began, “I can explain.”
The guy’s name was Attila?
That did not bode well.
“Couldn’t keep your hands to yourself, could you, Keller?” Attila growled. “You should have. I’ve forgiven her indiscretions too many times, but not this time. I thought we were friends, and you’d do this behind my back? It’s over!”
The entire bar had turned to watch the confrontation with varying degrees of interest and amusement. No one seemed the least bit concerned, even when Attila shoved Duncan back. The other hunter slammed into a table, sending beer glasses and plates crashing to the ground.
“Duncan!” I yelled as he got to his feet. But instead of backing away and apologizing profusely for what he’d done, he attacked. Fists flew and in a few moments those witnessing the fight were placing
bets and cheering their choices on as if this had suddenly turned into a steel cage match.
Victoria tugged on my hand as a beer bottle smashed on the wall dangerously close to where we were standing. “We should leave.”
“Not yet. I can’t leave—he’s going to help me!”
Attila’s face was bleeding from being repeatedly smashed with Duncan’s fist, but he wasn’t backing down, either. He finally got the upper hand, grabbing hold of Duncan and raising him up above his head, wrestler-style, and then slamming him down hard on top of the ratty-looking pool table in the far corner. Duncan scrambled for his wooden stake—a decent weapon when fighting vampire or human—but he didn’t have a chance to use it to defend himself. Attila had snatched the pool cue from another hunter’s grip and—
“Just remember, Keller,” he bellowed. “You brought this on yourself!”
I covered Victoria’s eyes as he brought the pool cue down, pointy end first, at Duncan’s chest.
Duncan’s attention flicked to me before his eyes glazed over.
I sensed the moment his heart stopped beating and his life left the building.
My hope hitched a ride right along with it.
Chapter 13
We didn’t stick around. The damage had been done.
My mind reeled from what just happened. All so fast. We’d been close—I’d been close. Duncan was going to talk to me, with a little monetary coaxing. He would have told me who hired him to kill Bernard. Thierry would have been proven innocent—I mean, as soon as I got Markus to believe it. The point was, it would have been a step in the right direction instead of scrambling to keep my footing on this slippery slope.
I hated this. Every direction I turned just led to more failure and the day was fading fast. It was late afternoon by now—almost five o’clock. We’d been unconscious in the tunnels longer than I thought we were. That garlic dart had been extremely potent.
I sighed shakily. “I don’t know what to do now.”
“Give up,” Victoria said.
“Excuse me?”
“Sometimes you need to know when to quit. I wanted to figure it out, too, but it’s not looking like that’s possible.” She had her hand on her hip and was looking at her little pink cell phone. “The hunter’s dead and so’s your chance to clear sourpuss’s name. I’d take the hint if I were you. Besides, how long’s he been alive? Hundreds of years? I’d bet he’s done lots of bad stuff in his life way worse than what happened to Bernard. Maybe he deserves this.”
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