Riley Jensen 07 - Deadly Desire Part 18

I reached the landing and stopped. Shadows filled the upper hallway, but nothing waited within. Four doors led off this corridor-three to the left, and one to the right, beyond the stairwell.

I went through the first doorway low, dropping to one knee, laser held at the ready as I scanned the room. It was a bedroom, and smelled more like Jacques than Joe. Not that he would have been using the bed. Vampires didn't actually need to sleep, even during the day. They just needed to keep out of direct sunlight, which is why vamps made good guards in these sorts of situations-as long as you kept them fed. Otherwise, snacking on the neck of the person they were supposed to be protecting became something of an issue.

I moved back out into the hall and into the next room. Another bedroom, and one that smelled like Joe. He wasn't here though, and neither was the source of the evil I was still sensing.

Which left two rooms.

Two rooms with their doors opposite each other.

I didn't like it, even though I couldn't sense anything living in either of those rooms. I couldn't sense anything dead, either, though I sure as h.e.l.l was smelling it.

And the magic-it was much stronger here. It burned across my skin-a foul thing that made me want to take a shower and wash the sensation away.

Something waited in one of those two rooms. Something that had evil on its mind.

For all of two seconds I thought about firing the laser through the walls into both rooms, doing a sweep, and killing whatever waited in either of them. But I had no idea where Joe was-if he was still alive, that is-and until I did know, I couldn't risk anything that might kill him. And a random laser shot would certainly do that.

I flared my nostrils again and sucked in the scents surrounding me, but there was just no sorting through the sheer depths of evil and decay that filled the air. So it was a fifty-fifty proposition that I'd choose the wrong room, no matter which way I went.

I paused for a second longer, then went left, choosing what looked like the bathroom over the bedroom. I went low and fast, rolling through the doorway and coming up on one knee, the laser aimed and ready to fire. Nothing attacked me. In fact, no one was even in the room... or was there?

Feeling something, I looked up. A hatchway sat above the basin, and there were fresh fingerprints etched into the dust. Someone had moved it recently.

A street kid desperate to escape the newly risen dead, perhaps?

I stepped toward the basin, and in that moment, as the rush of an oncoming wind stirred the hairs along the back of my neck, realized I'd picked the wrong room.

I spun, but before I could fire, the zombie threw something at me. I ducked automatically, and felt a quick flash of amus.e.m.e.nt as it turned out to be nothing more than dust.

Then the thick cloud settled around me, clogging my eyes and catching in my throat, making me cough violently, and the amus.e.m.e.nt died.

Because it smelled foul.

As foul as the thing before me.

As foul as the magic evident near Jacques.

The zombie lurched forward and grabbed my hand, its dead flesh surprisingly strong as it wrested the laser from fingers that were somehow half numb.

In fact, all of me was tingling, my muscles feeling spongy. It was the strangest sensation, like half of me wanted to sleep and the other half was fighting it.

The laser got thrown-clattering to the floor somewhere in the hall-then there were dead fingers around my neck and fetid breath on my face. Through the tears streaming from my eyes, I could see the grin stretching his rotting flesh. Could feel the force of the woman behind it.

The b.i.t.c.h thought she and her creature had me.

How little she knew.

I raised my arms and knocked the zombie's hands away from my throat, then pushed him, as hard as I could, out the door. He stumbled backward, arms flailing as he tried to catch his balance, bits of flesh and G.o.d knows what else flying free as he hit the door frame and went down.

I twisted around, quickly turning on the tap and splashing water over my face. The burning eased a little, and though my eyes were still streaming, I could at least see a little better. Behind me, the zombie was scrambling to his feet. I ran at him, at the last moment launching in the air, hitting him hard in the chest, my boot heel sinking into rotting flesh, but the force of my leap enough to send him sprawling back against the wall. As I hit the floor and rolled back to my feet, there was a wet-sounding thump. I looked up to see the zombie sliding down the wall, leaving bits of hair and flesh and other things dribbling down the wall after him.

But he was still moving, still trying to attack.

Still being controlled by the sorceress.

I looked around and saw my laser in the corner. I ran for it, quickly grabbing it as the zombie's footsteps echoed behind me. I swung and fired without really looking, sweeping across the creature's legs and dropping him like a wet sponge.

It didn't stop him.

He simply crawled after me.I raised the laser to hit him again, but didn't pull the trigger. This time I attacked psychically, diving deep down, into the darkness that had once been this thing's mind, once again feeling nothing more than the chill of death and a decaying emptiness.

But the sorceress lay in the deeper recesses, and she was whispering words of command and hate. Kill it, kill it, it doesn't deserve to live, kill it...

It? I obviously wasn't an "it," but I let it go as I wrapped a psychic rope around her presence and pulled it tight.

Shock rolled through the darkness, and then she was fighting, struggling, like a mad thing. A fierce ache formed behind my eyes as I fought to hold her, and the sweat already rolling down my cheek became a river.

"Tell me who you are," I said, both out loud and within. "Tell me why you're doing this."

Even as I said it, I attacked her, trying to rip past her shields and grab the answers. But it was taking all my strength to hold her, and I just didn't have enough left to break her shields.

She didn't answer, just continued to struggle. Then something grabbed my leg and yanked me hard. I yelped as I went down, my b.u.t.t hitting the floor hard and sending pain jarring up my spine. My control over the sorceress snapped, and she was gone instantly, leaving her creature to carry out her last command-attacking me.

I kicked out with a boot heel, squashing his nose back into his rotting flesh, then rolled away, climbing to one knee and firing the laser, cutting off his head with one swift slice. Without the remnants of his brain and the orders planted within it, the creature stopped moving. I don't think he was dead, as such, but I didn't think he was dangerous anymore.

I stepped over him, the tingling in my legs once again evident now that the adrenaline from the attack was fading. I had no idea what it was, though it obviously was designed to stop me somehow. And if that stuff had been used on Jacques and the other victims, then maybe that explained why they hadn't put up much of a fight before they were hacked to pieces.

Though why had it only partially affected me? What was so different about me that I'd been able to fight back and the others hadn't?

There was only one reason I could think of. I was half vampire, while the other were all full-bloods. A powder designed solely to stop them probably wouldn't work on me the exact same way, thanks to my werewolf heritage.

Of course, I wouldn't know for sure if I was right until I talked to the magi, but I very much suspected I was on the proper track. It was the only thing that made sense.

I walked back to the end of the hallway and checked the remaining bedroom. Nothing and no one else was there. I moved back into the bathroom and stood on the edge of the bath, shoving the hatchway cover to one side. "Joe, are you up there?"

No answer came, but that didn't surprise me. Any kid with half a brain wouldn't come out of hiding on first hearing a familiar voice. Especially after what he'd just witnessed.

"Joe, it really is me." I grabbed my badge and held it up into the hole. "Here's my ID."

There was no response for several seconds, then came a shuffle of movement, and suddenly the scent of man and fear wafted down through the hatchway. It was Joe, all right.

"Are those things dead?" he asked.

"Yes." Although technically they probably weren't. Not until the magi came in and removed whatever spell the sorceress had used to raise them.

"They killed Jacques.""I know. You coming down?"

A pale face appeared briefly in the hatchway, and the tension lining his bright eyes eased a little when he saw that it really was me. His feet replaced his face, and he slithered through the hole and dropped to the floor.

"I couldn't help him," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I just couldn't."

He wasn't meeting my eyes and his expression was a mix of defiance and guilt.

"Jacques was here to protect you, not the other way around. He died in that duty. It's not your fault or your responsibility.

Besides, if you hadn't hidden, you might be dead right alongside him."

He shivered and rubbed his arms. "Are those the things that killed Kaz?"

"The same sort of creatures, yes." I touched his back and guided him out the door. He hesitated the moment he saw the zombie, then squared his shoulders and continued on, stepping over the creature like it was something he saw every day.

From downstairs came the sound of soft steps. I touched Joe on the shoulder to stop him, then slipped past him to the small landing halfway down.

I needn't have worried. It was Cole and his team.

"What have we got this time?" He'd stopped in the hallway, his gaze on the living room rather than on me.

"Jacques and one zombie are in the living room, and there's a decapitated zombie upstairs. Both creatures will probably need Marg's magic touch before they can be put back into the ground. We also have more dust-and I discovered what it does."

"Oh? Do tell."

"It freezes vampires."

"That makes events at the crime scenes more logical." He looked beyond me. "Who's that?"

"Joe, the kid we're protecting. I'm about to take him back to the Directorate."

"Really?" Joe said, his voice containing an edge of excitement as his face appeared over the railing.

"It's not that interesting," Cole said dryly.

"It is when I'm there," I said with a grin.

He snorted and glanced at his team. "We'd better get moving, boys. The bulls.h.i.t meter is starting to run a little high in this hallway."

Cole and Dobbs walked into the living room. Dusty remained near the door and began setting up a crime-scene monitor. I glanced up at Joe. "Let's go."

"This is going to be cool," he said, bouncing down the stairs.

"Yeah," I said, and hoped like h.e.l.l Jack thought so.

Jack didn't. Neither did Sal, who ended up with the task of keeping the teenager in line and safe. Although if the kid wasn't safe in a building filled with guardians, then he wasn't going to be safe anywhere.

"You know I don't like civilians down here," Jack said, tossing something my way as he walked back into the day shift's office area.

"I didn't have much other choice, boss." I caught the item with my free hand. It turned out to be a bracelet of twined rope and what looked like dried leaves of some variety. My fingers tingled at contact with it, but it was a cleaner, safer-feeling magic than whatever the sorceress was using. "This from Marg and her team?"

"Yep. The kid will be given one, too. If there's any residual tracking magic left on you, this should stop it."

I slipped it over my left wrist, then handed him the sweater I'd been wearing. "You might want to give them this. The zombie threw some sort of dust at me when he first appeared, and I suspect it was designed to immobilize vampires. I think my werewolf half saved me from the full effects of it."

He took the bundled-up sweater carefully. "If that's true, then it explains why no one has fought back."

"Certainly does." I walked across to my desk and sat down. "Did Marg say anything about how these people are getting in and out of these places?"

"She suspects the killer is using some form of transport magic to get in, but there hasn't been enough of it remaining at any of the sites for her to track down the type of spell being used."

"b.u.mmer."

"Yeah." He glanced at his watch. "It's full moon for you tonight, isn't it?"

"Certainly is." And Rhoan, Liander, and I all planned to head up to Macedon and the strip of land Dia's clone brother, Misha, had left me when he'd died. It was huge and wild, and just about perfect for werewolves to run free without the worry of upsetting or spooking anyone.

Jack grunted. "It's useless trying to get much more out of you today, then. Finish up here, then go home." He half turned away, then stopped. "What are your dancing skills like?"

"I'm a werewolf," I said dryly. "Dancing is my life."

"Not that sort of dancing. Regular dancing, no s.e.x involved."

"Where's the fun in that?" I grinned as his expression darkened. "I do the regular dancing pretty darn good, too."

"Good enough to be employed at a men's club?"

I hesitated. Having never been inside a men's club, I didn't actually know what sort of dancing went on in there. "I know someone who can give me a few pointers."

"Good. Arrange it. You might have to go undercover at the club if Kade doesn't sniff out anything tonight." He turned and left the room.

I signed into my computer and checked the results of the two searches. It turned out that neither of the women who owned Meinhardt's had either a police or a Directorate record, but interestingly enough, there were at least a dozen unsolved vampire murders in each state over the time they'd owned their business.

Another coincidence?Given that these murders had happened in five other states already, I'd have to say coincidence was very unlikely. I copied the results through to Jack, then rang Ben to ask if one of his girls could give me a lesson in the finer art of strip-club dancing. I jotted down her name and address, then finished my coffee in several gulps and headed out the door.

Liander and Rhoan were both waiting for me when I got home. Rhoan's hair had been shaved for his undercover job, and his baldness was something of a shock. Oddly enough, it did actually suit him-he had a good-shaped head for being bald.

We headed up to Macedon, getting there just as the sun was setting. We stripped as the darkness swept in, bringing with it the heat of the full moon that hadn't yet risen. It tingled across my body-a power that would not be denied and would not be controlled on this one night. It swept us from human form to wolf in one surge, and with a howl in our throats and the earth between our paws, we ran. Embracing the night, embracing what we were, enjoying the freedom and the fun of running and hunting.

With dawn came exhaustion and our human forms, so we snuggled up beside each other and slept.

A ringing cell phone woke me some hours later. Liander made a groaning noise of acknowledgment but didn't seem inclined to answer it, and Rhoan was still snoring.

I rolled onto my back, shivering a little as the coldness of the morning hit newly exposed skin, then climbed to my feet and stumbled across to the pile of clothes, sorting through them until I found my jeans and the phone within them.

"Yeah?" I said, rubbing my eyes and looking up at the blue sky. The position of the sun said it had to be at least ten.

"Do you feel like breakfast after your moonlit adventures?" Quinn said, his voice so warm it sent a delicious tingle running through my body.

"Certainly do. But we're up at Macedon-"

"Which has a lovely little cafe that serves not only fabulous coffee, but a breakfast big enough to satisfy even the hungriest of werewolves," he said. "Get dressed. I'll be there in five."