Riley Jensen 07 - Deadly Desire Part 13

"What teenager are we talking about this time?" Jack said, confusion evident in his tone. I didn't have the vid-phone activated-I figured he didn't need to know that I'd slept most of the afternoon.

"The one I saw in the zombie's mind. The one the sorcerer who raised him was planning to kill next."

"You read the zombie's mind?" Surprise ran through Jack's voice.

"Well, no, because technically the zombie is dead and doesn't actually have a mind. I encountered the sorcerer in whatever it is that remains."

"You shouldn't have been able to do that."

I frowned. "Do what? Touch the sorcerer's thoughts and find out her intent?"

"No, delve down into the remains of a dead man's mind. Not even vampires can do that."

"Yeah, but vampires generally don't have my affinity for the dead." I paused. "Besides, it wasn't exactly easy and it left me really drained afterward."And if I shouldn't have been able to do it, then the dizziness I'd felt afterward wasn't Quinn taking too much blood, it was me doing the impossible. Again.

"That's beside the point." There was worry in his voice. "We'd better schedule some more testing."

I rolled my eyes. "We're testing every couple of months as it is. Surely that's enough?"

"Not if you're now able to read the minds of dead folks."

I resisted the urge to point out once again that I hadn't actually read the zombie's mind, and changed the topic instead. "So who is dead this time?"

"Another vampire, although it isn't one of the older ones."

"And not someone you knew?"

"Not personally, no, though I believe the council had him marked as one to watch, as he had gained a lot of money extremely fast."

I raised my eyebrows. "Why would that make him a person of interest to your council?"

"Because he certainly didn't acquire his wealth through any known legal route."

I grinned. "From what I hear, that's not exactly unusual among the vampire ranks." h.e.l.l, even Quinn had admitted to a brief life of crime.

"These days, we prefer not to draw such attention to ourselves. It doesn't reflect well on our image."

"Boss, you're never going to change humanity's opinion of vampires. It's too ingrained. Besides, it's a good evolutionary trait not to trust things that eat your kind."

"People once thought that vampires, werewolves, and other supernaturals would never be able to come out of the closet, too."

"That's not the point." Humans may have accepted our existence, but that didn't mean they had to like it. And many of them didn't. There might be laws in place to protect both sides of the fence, but that didn't stop problems from happening. And the Directorate wasn't always able to clean up the messes.

"I'm not getting into a debate about all this now," Jack said. "I need you to get over to the latest crime scene and see if you can scent the same things."

"So who is it this time?"

"Martin Sh.o.r.e. A two-hundred-year-old playboy with more money than brains, apparently."

"The council wouldn't have done this, would they? To head off a potential problem, that is?"

"No. They would have informed me if they were planning anything."

I raised my eyebrows and wondered just how many of the unsolved cases we had on our books were unsolved because they were actually looked after by the vamp council. A council I hadn't even known actually existed until recently, let alone know that Jack was in constant contact with.

"When was the body discovered?""About six. One of women he shared the apartment with came home and found his remains. I doubt she'll be able to give you much, but you might as well talk to her anyway."

"I will. And I'm going to send through the description of the teenager I saw in the zombie's mind. She's obviously next on the hit list, so we'll need to find and protect her." She might also be able to give a clue as to why the witch was sending the zombies after her. "Hopefully, you'll be able to track them down through license records or something."

"We'll give it a try. Cole and Mel's reports are through, too, if you ever want to make a reappearance in the office to read them."

"Boss, it's almost the full moon, and I'm afraid having me and Kade in the same small room is not a good idea."

"You've survived it before."

"Because the moon heat isn't always as strong as it is this time around." I probably wouldn't be kissing Kye if it was just a normal moon heat.

Probably being the operative word there.

Jack grunted. "The address has been sent through to your onboard. Get there fast."

I hung up and headed for the shower. Thirty minutes later I was pulling into the underground parking lot beneath the Eureka Tower, which had once been the world's tallest residential building. Of course, these days, ninety-two stories wasn't much to crow about, but it had been back then. And unlike many of the older buildings that dotted the city, the slim elegance of the Eureka's design still managed to catch the eye, as did its golden top, which still shone as bright as the sun on a summer day.

Martin Sh.o.r.e lived on the seventy-sixth floor, in one of the larger, and more expensive, apartments. The express elevator zoomed me straight up to the floor, leaving my stomach somewhere down on the lower levels. It stopped smoothly and gently, but even so, my nerves faltered. I'd never liked being in tall buildings, and that hadn't really changed with the advent of wings.

I could smell the blood as soon as I got out of the elevator. In the pristine whiteness of the foyer, the scent seemed to hang around like some gigantic cloud of doom.

I followed my nose and discovered Cole and his team hard at work.

"Don't you guys ever sleep?" I said, stopping several feet behind a kneeling Cole.

"Not lately we don't." His voice was little more than a tired growl. "Though if you could catch at least one of the murderers we're after, our lives would be much easier."

"If it was that easy to catch these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, they wouldn't need us guardians. You guys could do it."

My gaze went past him to the body slumped across a sofa. He was naked, his flesh almost as pale as the white leather couch.

He was also very hairless. His chest, his arms, even the top of his head-which lay at the base of the sofa like some forgotten ball-was as smooth as alabaster. It was creepy looking in death, and I very much doubted it would have been that attractive in life. But then, the Goth look was apparently making a comeback, so what did I know?

I flared my nostrils, sucking in and sorting through the differing scents, this time finding the touch of roses winding in between the scents of blood, death, and that intensely "wrong" scent that had been present before.

"It's definitely connected to the other two vamp murders," I said.

Cole glanced at me. "You can smell the same scents?""Yeah." I nodded toward the piece of china he held in one hand. "You found something?"

"A thumb print. It probably belongs to those who live here, but we might get lucky for a change."

I snorted. The chances of us getting lucky right now were about as good as the chances of me ever having kids. "Where's the girlfriend?"

"Second bedroom down the corridor," Cole said, returning his attention to the broken vase. "Her name is Anna."

"Ta." I turned and headed that way. The first bedroom was obviously Sh.o.r.e's. In was masculine in design-all brown leather, dark wood, and a bed that came complete with black satin sheets. Why anyone would prefer them over Egyptian cotton I'll never know. I knew from experience that everything just slid around too much on satin.

I paused to smell the room. That "wrong" scent was stronger in here, just as it had been in the bedrooms of the other victims. It had to be a clue. We just had to find the key.

I continued. The second bedroom was definitely more feminine. The walls were a very pale gray, and the furnishing a mix of white leather and linen, with hot pink accents.

A thin, pale young woman with fiery red hair and large b.r.e.a.s.t.s looked up as I entered, her blue eyes red rimmed and mouth trembling. "I don't know anything," she said. "I really don't."

"Anna?" When she nodded, I couldn't help adding, "How old are you?"

"Seventeen." She sniffed. "Almost eighteen."

I was betting her eighteenth was farther away than what she was admitting. h.e.l.l, I'd be surprised if she was even seventeen. She just didn't look it, despite the almost weary light in her eyes.

I sat down on the white cane chair nearest to the bed, then reached out psychically and lightly linked to her mind. Not so much to read it-not exactly, anyway-just enough to tell whether her vampire had placed her under some sort of geas. After all, she was human and young, and while the age of consent was sixteen, vampires weren't legally allowed to have a relationship with anyone under the age of eighteen.

Not that it ever stopped them.

Sifting through the layers of her mind did indeed reveal a male imprint, so he'd definitely been messing with her thought processes. Which meant she'd have to go to the Directorate for deprogramming. I might be strong enough to do it myself, but it wasn't something I actually knew how to do. I could control or read minds right up there with the best of them, but undoing the damage others had done was work for a specialist. And that wasn't me.

But I'd been right about one thing-she wasn't seventeen. She was barely even sixteen.

"How long have you been living here?" I asked.

She sniffed and wiped a pale hand across her nose. "Nine months. He treated me very nicely."

He'd have to, given she was underage when they first became lovers. The vampire community might look the other way when it came to s.e.x and youngsters, but only for as long as there was nothing that could draw attention to themselves or their community. A mistreated underage lover would certainly do that. "And you were lovers?"

"Of course. Me and Mandi both were."

"And is Mandi also human?"She nodded. "Her room is the next one along."

"But she wasn't with you when you found the body?"

"No." A sob broke through. She squeezed her eyes shut, but tears leaked out regardless. "How could someone do that to him?

Why would someone do that to him?"

"That's what we're trying to find out," I said softly. I reached across and took her hand in mine. Her flesh was cool, the tips of her fingers almost blue. It made me want to ask just how often Sh.o.r.e had been feeding off her. "Were you and Mandi his only lovers?"

She shook her head. "We couldn't be. He had a voracious appet.i.te."

Most vampires did, I thought with an inner smile. But some of us were more capable of handling the situation than others. "Can you remember seeing anyone new in the last few days? Anyone who you thought acted strangely?"

"No. I mean... He had new lovers all the time, but there was no one I'd consider strange."

"But how many of those new lovers appeared within the last week?"

She frowned. "Maybe two? There was a Rita, and I think the other one's name was Vicki. Vicki Keely, actually. Marty introduced her to us. She was young."

I frowned. "How young?"

She shrugged. "Maybe fifteen, sixteen? She looked nervous, too. Like she didn't want to be there."

Which suggested she wasn't under any sort of vampire "persuasion," because second thoughts wouldn't have shown. "If we brought in an artist, would you be able to give us an image of them both?"

She nodded. I squeezed her hand, then released it and sat back in the chair. "Do you know where he met the two women?"

She shrugged. "Probably at one of the strip clubs. He used to enjoy going to those."

Her tone suggested she didn't approve and again a smile twitched my mouth. Humans had such strange ideas when it came to s.e.x. I mean, here she was, barely legal, knowingly sharing her vampire lover with other women, and yet she turns up her nose at him visiting strip clubs? What was with that? "Do you know which ones?"

"No. I'm not able to get into them for another couple of years."

She might be under a geas, but it wasn't as complete as her vampire had presumed, because the legal age for getting into strip clubs was eighteen.

"So he never mentioned a favorite?"

She frowned. "There was one. Man Hard, or something like that."

"Man Hard? Really?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I told you, I never really listened when he was going on about the clubs."

"So did he ever bring home women from those clubs?"

"The strippers? Yeah, a couple of times. He seemed to like them showing us how to strip. Like we don't know how to take clothes off or something."

"Compared to a professional stripper, you probably don't."

Her blue gaze flashed up to mine. "I strip better than any of them b.i.t.c.hes did. And I was built better."

I resisted the urge to tell her there was more to life than b.o.o.bs and stripping, and said, "So, did either of the last women he bought home strip for you all?"

"No. He just shuffled them into the bedroom, like. One of them was a screamer, though."

I barely managed to contain my smile. "Which one was she?"

"Vicki. The reluctant one."

Who obviously wasn't so reluctant in the end. "And she worked at Man Hard?"

"I think that's where he met her, yes."

Then Vicki from Man Hard would need to be talked to-though whether she or the club was the connection or not was anyone's guess. "And there's nothing else you can tell me?"

"I don't think so."