Demon's Kiss (8 page)

She was beautiful, in the most classic definition of the word.

“My name is Reaper,” the boss said, but when she reached out to shake his hand, he just stuck his into his pocket, ignoring her offer.

Seth thought he was a moron. Not liking physical contact was one thing—he'd already picked up on that quirk of Reaper's in the short time he'd spent with him. But to avoid the touch of a woman who looked like this one…well, hell, that wasn't quirky, that was just plain crazy.

“I'm Topaz,” she said. “We can sit, if you like.” She waved a hand toward a small sitting room, just off the foyer. They went in, each taking a comfortable spot.

Seth picked a love seat, in hopes she would sit beside him. She didn't. Reaper took a rocking chair near the gas fireplace, which Topaz turned on with the touch of a button. Roxy plunked down right on the stone hearth, probably cold. She should have said something when they were standing outside, Seth thought vaguely.

Topaz remained standing while Reaper spoke. “I don't want to keep you, so I'll come straight to the point. I've been hired by some of the elders of our kind to deal with a man called Gregor, who is leading the most notorious rogue gang we've ever come across. Jack of Hearts is reputed to be Gregor's right-hand man.”

She lifted her perfectly arched brows and studied his face. “And you're telling me this why?”

“You know him, this Jack of Hearts, correct?”

She shrugged. “I might.”

“It's rumored you were recently robbed of a great deal of money by your former lover. Since that seems to be this Jack's modus operandi, I thought it a pretty safe bet he was the one.” He shrugged. “How many vampire con men are there, after all?”

“They're all con men, in one way or another,” she muttered.

Reaper frowned.

“Okay. You're right. I admit it was Jack. And, yes, he was my lover. But how do you know I'll help you? What makes you think I won't rush off to warn him?”

Reaper smiled slowly. It wasn't a happy smile; it was a scary one. “I felt your reaction to hearing Jack's name. You don't want me to kill him in the process of taking out his boss. I figure I can bargain with you for his safety.”

She lifted her brows. “You're right,” she said. “I don't want you to kill him, but only because I want to do it myself.”

Seth had felt the rush of energy blasting from her at the mention of Jack's name, too. And while he wasn't as adept at reading other vamps as Reaper was, he'd always had a knack for reading people. He thought she was lying. It hadn't felt like a rush of murderous rage to him. It had felt like a rush of pain of the heartache variety, and an all-out effort to hold back a flood of tears.

She changed the subject. “So who are these two?” she asked.

“These are my…” Reaper hesitated, as if he couldn't quite think of the right word.

“Friends,” Seth filled in, sending Reaper a disgusted look and getting to his feet to offer his hand. “I'm Seth. I'm new to all this undead stuff.”

Topaz shook his hand and said, “You're kidding,” in the most sarcastic tone he could imagine. Hell, was it that obvious he was a newborn?

Then she turned to Roxy. “And you are…one of the Chosen, but…there's something different about you.”

“Roxy.” She didn't offer a hand, and didn't get up from her spot near the fire. “And everything about me is different.”

“What an odd little band,” Topaz said. Then she shrugged, as if that was all the consideration she was going to give to that subject.

“You were about to go somewhere,” Reaper said, with a glance at the luggage stacked near the front door.

“Yes. I was going to hunt Jack Heart down—and that's his name, by the way. Jack Heart. This Jack of Hearts nonsense is nothing but vanity. At any rate, I was going to hunt him down, get back the money he stole from me and then kill him. But I had no idea he was running with a pack of rogues.”

“So you know where he is, then?” Reaper asked.

She studied him, and took her time about answering. “I might.” She shrugged. “I must admit, I'm glad you came along when you did. I was walking into a dangerous situation without a clue it even existed. I could have been killed if I'd tried to get to him alone.”

She looked at Reaper, then at Seth and Roxy, and back at Reaper again. Seth could almost see the wheels turning in her mind. And then they seemed to click into place.

The slightly irritated, out-for-vengeance woman scorned melted away like the outer wax of a candle. Topaz smiled all of a sudden, and it was a huge, bright, entirely false smile that was enchanting all the same. Her eyes took on the sparkle and innocence one would expect to see in the eyes of the prom queen he had already mentally compared her to. The aura of being a dangerous predator might have never existed.

“But now I don't have to go alone.”

“Oh, no—” Reaper began, but she cut in immediately.

“I have to tell you, Reaper, this doesn't sound at all like Jack. He's no rogue. A total bastard, yes, but there's not a violent bone in his body. He's a con man. A lover, not a fighter.” She sent him a sheepish, almost shy look as she said it.

“That's good to know—possibly more than I need to know, in fact, but thank you all the same. However, you must understand this, Topaz. All I want from you is Jack's location. If you could just tell me where—”

She wasn't paying attention by this point, but was, instead, leaning past him to look out through the door and down the drive to the end, where they'd parked. And then she was speaking again, her tone so innocent that surely not even the most gullible man on earth would have bought into it. “Oh, look at that van! God, that is so
cute!
And there must be plenty of room. Sam, why don't you—”

“Seth,” he said. She blinked at him as if not understanding, so he clarified. “My name. It's Seth, not Sam.”

“Whatever. Be a doll and carry my bags out for me. Isn't the timing perfect? You don't even have to wait for me to get ready.” She clapped her hands together and turned her full-high-beam smile on Reaper again. “Here I am, all packed and ready to go, and you guys show up like a limo service or something. This is great.”

She played the spoiled, rich airhead well. But Seth saw right through it. She'd revealed her truer nature when they'd first arrived—when she'd threatened to kill them if they came any closer. This friendly, bubbly ditz routine was for the birds.

“We are
not
taking you with us,” Reaper said, using his darkest, most bone-chilling tone.

Thank God, Seth thought. Reaper wasn't falling for it, either.

Topaz's false smile died. Her brows lowered. Her eyes grew dark and dangerous, and in that instant the transformation was so complete that Seth half expected a ghostly wind to start blowing through her hair as lightning flashed behind her. “Oh, yes, you are,” she said. And her tone was every bit as chilling as Reaper's had been, and every bit as sincere. “Because I am
not
going to tell you where he is. I'll give you directions as we go. If you want to find Jack and this gang he allegedly runs with, you're stuck with me.”

Seth grinned then. He couldn't help it. The prom queen had Reaper over a barrel, and she wasn't one bit afraid of him. He had to like that. And he wondered how long it had been since Reaper had come across so damn many people he couldn't bully with his nasty-ass temper and big bad routine.

Reaper glanced his way, and he wiped the grin off his face in a hurry, but not before it had been seen. Seth sent a quick glance Roxy's way, just to see if he could tell what she thought about all this. She was studying Topaz as if trying to figure her out. Seth couldn't tell if she admired the woman's moxy or hated her guts.

Roxy met his eyes, read his questions and shrugged almost imperceptibly before returning her attention to Reaper. “We're wasting time,” she said. “Raphael, I don't see that we have a choice. And standing here arguing isn't going to do any good. You can see she's not going to change her mind.”

“Absolutely not,” Reaper said.

Seth tugged his Noisy Cricket out of his pocket. “Here,” he said, handing it to Topaz. “You're gonna need this.”

Topaz took it from him, a tiny gun just the right size for her small hand. “What for?”

“We'll explain later.” Seth scooped up half her bags and started trudging toward the van.

Topaz picked up the smallest of the bags, a tiny pink suitcase about one foot square, and carried that. Roxy followed, carrying nothing. She would be damned, Seth thought, before she would wait on a woman who was capable of waiting on herself. A few minutes later, the three of them were in the van and looking back toward the house.

Reaper was still standing in the open doors, blinking at them in disbelief.

“Grab those last two bags, would you, hon?” Topaz called. “And lock up on your way out.” She looked at Seth, who had retaken his seat up front after stashing her bags. “Do you mind terribly, Steve? I get carsick in the back, so I'm going to have to insist on riding shotgun.”

She was turning up those eyes again. “It's Seth,” he said. “And you can quit the sweet-shallow-princess bit, Topaz. It won't work on me.” But he got out and climbed into the next set of seats, as Roxy sent him a look that said, “Gee, thanks.”

“That's funny,” Topaz said as she stepped through the center aisle into the front to take his former spot. “It
seems
to be working just fine.” She blew him a kiss, lips smiling, eyes warning, then glanced through the windshield.

He looked, too. Reaper was still standing by the house.

“Give him ten minutes,” Seth said. “If he hasn't surrendered by then, we can just shoot his ass for practice.”

Roxy slapped her thigh and laughed out loud, then blew the horn, which made a loud
Ooo-gaaa
sound that almost shocked Seth right out of his seat. “Come on, Raphael!” she shouted through her open window. “Get that tight ass into gear. We don't have all night.”

“N
ow, once you've consciously closed your mind to entry by anyone,” Reaper said, “you can, very carefully, direct a message to one particular person at a time. It takes practice. But you just put their face in your mind, think of them, and then think the words you want to say to them.”

Reaper was in the fourth row, all the way in the back. Seth was sitting in the second row, with his eyes closed. Learning to block his thoughts from those he didn't want in on them was, at least, a way to pass the time. They were still heading in the right direction; he sensed that. But his patience was wearing thin. He hadn't dreamed about the redhead or felt that connection with her in far too long now, and it worried him.

“Try it, Seth,” Reaper encouraged. “You've got the blocking down. I haven't been able to read your thoughts for at least ten miles now, and that's important. Now try sending a message to Topaz, but not to me.”

Seth licked his lips, kept his eyes closed, brought Topaz's face into his mind's eye and thought about how hot she was, and tried to come up with a message to send to her.

“Got it,” Topaz said.

Seth's eyes popped open. “But I didn't think anything yet.”

“Uh, yeah, you did. And can I just say, in your dreams, Sol.”

He frowned. “It's Seth. And I didn't—”

Reaper glanced at him and nodded once. “I got it, too, kid.”

“Damn. I swear to God, I didn't think anything. Not on purpose, anyway.”

“Right,” Topaz said. “Roxy, we need to get off at the next exit.”

Roxy followed the instructions, just as she'd been doing all along. She took the exit, made it to the stop sign at the end of the ramp, and sat there waiting.

“Well, this is it,” Topaz said.

Roxy was still waiting. She turned in her seat, looked sideways at Topaz with a look of ever-thinning patience, and said, “What do you mean, this is it?
This
is an off ramp.”

“
This
is all I know.”

Roxy made a circular motion with one hand. “More, please.”

Sighing, Topaz looked behind her, to Seth and then Reaper. “All I know is that Jack has been seen around Savannah several times lately.”

“That's it?” Seth asked. “Savannah's a big place, hon.”

“Don't call me
hon.
And I know it's a big place. I'm not stupid.”

“Well, jeez, Tope, what do you suggest we do, start a door-to-door search?”

“Did you just call me
Tope?
”

“Don't take it personally,” Reaper said from the far back. “He has, on occasion, referred to me as
Reap.
”

“Excuse the hell out of me while I make a list of the things I'm not allowed to call you two!” Seth folded his arms and slammed back against the seat.

They all fell silent and turned to stare back at Reaper, who shrugged, his face just as stoic as ever. “Roxy, take a right here, and start looking for a safe haven for the daylight hours. Shelter is the foremost concern at the moment. There's not much darkness left to us.”

Roxy flipped on the signal.

“No, left,” Topaz said. And when all eyes were on her again, she went on. “Well, you don't think I was on my way down here without having made arrangements for my comfort, do you? I rented a little place. A friend's winter home.”

Roxy flipped the other signal light on, glanced both ways and pulled out just as the driver behind them grew impatient enough to blow the horn at her. Seth grinned as he wondered whether they would have been so quick to honk if they knew they were behind a van full of blood drinkers.

“How long did you arrange to use this little place of yours, Topaz?” Reaper asked.

“Indefinitely,” she said. “I mean, they don't come down here until after Christmas, and it's only September, so…”

She said no more, and Roxy drove. Topaz pulled a slip of paper from a pocket and began reading from it, a frown between her brows, as Roxy followed her directions. About twenty minutes later they were pulling into a paved circular driveway that led to a ranch worthy of the world's biggest country star. The house was a huge Georgian, white and flat-roofed, with tall pillars holding up the front, and wide steps and giant windows. There was a garage with at least a half-dozen bays, and beyond it, white wooden fences, meadows, barns, stables—not an animal in sight, but plenty of room for them.

“This is a little place?” Seth asked, gaping at the back of Topaz's head. “Your friend's winter home?”

“Mmm-hmm. Cute, isn't it?”

“
Cute
isn't quite the term I would use,” Seth said. “Who the hell is your friend? Donald Trump?”

“God, no.” She rolled her eyes as if he were an idiot. “Sissy Spacek.”

Seth thought he would be damned if he could tell whether she was kidding or dead-on-balls serious. It was impossible with her.

Roxy pulled up to the front, passed the house and followed the strip of pavement to the endlessly long garage. “This is great. We can keep Shirley out of sight.”

“A blessing all its own,” Reaper muttered. When Roxy shot him a sharp look, he went on. “Let's find an empty spot and park this thing. No point in drawing any more notice than we have to.”

“All right.” Roxy looked up to the row of overhead doors on the six-vehicle garage and shrugged. “So, Monty, should I take door number one, do you think?”

“What?” Reaper looked confused.

Topaz said, “The doors are automatic. All the bays are empty, too—or all but one. She said something about leaving a car here for the season. There should be a remote…” She looked through the van's side window, and then pointed to a plant hanging from an ornate wrought iron bracket between doors four and five. “There, in that ivy. Do you mind, Seth?”

“Hell, at least you got my name right this time.” Seth slid open the side door and got out, then took his first breath of Georgia air. It was potent. He could smell about a million flowers and then some. Sweet, sweet air. He went to the ivy, a ceramic pot overflowing with the stuff, and reached in, feeling around the moist soil until he found the small remote control. He picked it up and pointed it at the door closest to where Roxy and her van had come to a stop, then hit a button.

The door opened, and the interior lights came on. “Nice,” Seth muttered. Shirley rolled inside as Seth stayed outside, pushing buttons, opening other doors, curious to see what was behind them. And then he was standing there, feeling a rush of something very close to lust, and staring at his dream come true—well, his second best dream, at least—and muttering, “
Damn
nice.”

The others came out to join him, gathering around, gradually picking up on his state of arousal and following his hungry gaze to where she sat, teasing him with the sultry expression in her headlights.

“Holy moley,” Roxy said. “Is that a…?”

“Mustang,” Seth whispered. “Shelby GT.” He walked into the garage, moving slowly around the car, holding a hand out as if to touch it, but stopping short, not quite wanting to mar its gleam with a smudge. “Mint condition. Nineteen sixty-eight. I've never been this close to heaven in my life.”

“Oh,” Topaz said, “that's the one my friend left here. She said I could use it if I want. Keys are in the house.” She wrinkled her nose. “It looks kind of old.”

Seth swung his head toward her, gaping.

“And that color. It's like blood. Don't we get enough of that?” Topaz shrugged. “Whatever. I suppose it'll do.”

“It'll
do?
” Seth repeated. “That car is a freaking work of art. Do you have any idea—”

“Not much legroom. We'll be cramped in there if we all squeeze in together.” Topaz tilted her head. “At least it won't draw as much notice as the van.”

“People will fall on their knees in the streets and worship it as we pass!”

Topaz looked at Seth, and broke into a full-blown smile. “You're kind of cute, for an irritating rookie, you know that?”

He rolled his eyes and headed to the van to fetch her bags, much as he hated doing it. She was still the woman who'd led him closer than ever to his redhead, and although she was dumb as hell about cars, he was pretty sure she'd just paid him a compliment.

Roxy eyed the surroundings as they trooped toward the front door, nodding in approval. “This place is defendable. That fence—Okay, it'd be easily scaled, but you couldn't drive up to the house. We'd see anyone coming for quite a ways, too. Good visibility. Up on a slight rise. Yeah—” she nodded “—I like it.”

“I'm hoping it won't need to be defended,” Reaper said. “But it's good that it can be, just in case.”

 

The van was put away, and Seth had discovered the joys of projection TV. TV? Hell, this place practically had its own theater. He was flipping channels, and the others were running around making their own discoveries. If he had to guess, he would say Reaper was probably looking for the safest place to bed down for the day sleep, while Roxy was likely checking out the security system. As for Topaz…hell, Topaz was probably soaking in a Jacuzzi, sipping A Positive from a margarita glass with a little umbrella in it.

Eventually, though, they all came to him, as if he were their center somehow, and sank into comfortable chairs to stare at the images flickering across the screen at the far end of the room as he flipped channels. There had to be three hundred to choose from. Maybe he should just choose a DVD from the thousand or so in the custom-made case that took up most of the wall to his left.

“It's time to retire,” Reaper said.

Seth glanced at him. “I don't feel the lethargy coming on yet.”

“Best to be secure before you do, don't you think, Seth?”

With a grin, Seth said, “Aw, c'mon, Dad. Five more minutes?”

Reaper didn't smile, but he did roll his eyes.
Finally,
Seth thought,
a joke the guy actually gets.
Seth kept flipping channels, so the flashing images and the partially uttered phrases of a hundred actors had to be irritating to everyone else, but he liked the noise. He kept pausing for a second or two on the interesting-looking programs, before moving on to see what else he could find. But then he heard something that made him stop.

It sounded like a groan—like a tortured, pain-racked groan from the depths of hell itself.

He turned slowly to see that Reaper, who was still in the center of the room, was bent over now, holding his head in his hands, and it looked as if he was starting to shake.

“Hey. Reap, what's up, pal? What's wrong?”

Reaper lifted his head from his hands. His face was contorted into a grimace of utter hatred, utter vicious rage. And his eyes were glowing.

Seth felt his own eyes widen, and he rose from the sofa, dropping the remote. “What the hell?” He glanced past Reaper at Roxy, who had gripped Topaz by the wrist, and was watching Reaper and looking downright terrified. Seth didn't know much about Roxy but he didn't think she scared easily.

“Get out of here,” Roxy said.

Topaz didn't hesitate. She turned and ran from the room. Seth couldn't, because Reaper stood between him and the doorway.

Hell.

And then Reaper lunged. Seth tried to dodge, but he wasn't any match for the other man. Not in age, not in power, not in experience. Hell, he thought belatedly—just about the time Reaper's big, meaty and oddly hot hands closed around his throat—he really shouldn't have given that Noisy Cricket to Topaz.

And then he was feeling his windpipe being crushed in a merciless grip as Reaper stared at him with unseeing, bulging eyes full of nothing but murder.

And then it was done. There was a slight hissing sound, followed by a pop, and all of a sudden, Reaper's grip relaxed. His eyes bugged wider for just a second, and then he was dropping, first to his knees, his hands falling away at last, and then—as Seth pressed his own hands to his neck and sucked in breath after breath—forward onto his face.

Seth looked across the room at Roxy. She was standing there with the Noisy Cricket in her hands. He noted the dart sticking out of Reaper's ass. “Hell,” he muttered.

“Yeah. I guess he was right to insist we carry these babies.”

Seth knelt beside the man he had begun to think of as more than a mentor—as a friend—and touched his shoulder. “What the hell is this, Roxy?”

She didn't answer.

“Hey, it's my neck he tried to wring just now. Don't you think I ought to know?”

She pressed her lips tight, then nodded once. “All right,” she said. “He'll be mad as hell that I told you, but the man needs to start sharing something with someone sooner or later.” She lowered her eyes. “Seth, Raphael used to work for the CIA.”