Forsaken by the Others (8 page)

Heat instantly suffused my cheeks, but I refused to be cowed or swayed by the posturing
of this overconfident, conceited ass.

“Don’t change the subject. You know as much about me as you need to. What I’m interested
in are your enemies. And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“If you want us to work for you and solve this case,” Sara cut in smoothly, tempering
my harsh words, “then you need to give us what we need to do our jobs effectively.
Like our phones, and the information we’ve asked for, and far more politely than you
deserve.”

Clyde leaned against one of the angel’s stone wings and steepled his fingers, his
eyes narrowing as he regarded us. It was rather obvious he was weighing his options
and deciding what information would be safe to divulge—but at least he was considering
telling us what we needed to know. Progress.

“Locally, there are two groups that may have information about this mess, and whoever
is behind it. There is a section of the city of Glendale that I do not hold dominion
over—another vampire named Jimmy Thrane calls himself its ruler.”

Another vampire running a portion of the city? That didn’t sound like good news, and
Royce had made no mention of it before I left. No wonder Clyde looked and sounded
like he’d just bitten into a lemon as he spat out that tidbit of information.

That sense of hunger emanating from him was growing again, somehow both magnetic and
repulsive at the same time. The fine hairs on the back of my neck were rising, a sense
of dread becoming a growing pit in my stomach. Sara didn’t appear to be handling it
much better, if the pallor and flutter of her eyelids were anything to go by.

“Aside from Mr. Thrane, if you are willing to run the risks inherent with making contact
with them, we have a local branch of White Hats in town. Undoubtedly they will have
information I cannot provide, but either the White Hats or Mr. Thrane’s band may see
you as a threat. They may even attempt to take you and use you as leverage against
Mr. Royce or me. If you don’t heed my warnings, and either of you end up in the enemy’s
hands, I will not go out of my way to save you.”

“We can take care of ourselves,” I said, hoping it was true.

“Good,” he replied, jerking his chin toward the door and the woman waiting nearby.
She’d been so quiet, I’d forgotten she was there, waiting in the shadows. “Trinity
will see to your transportation needs. Report to me when you return.”

“And the phone?” Sara asked. More daring than I was willing to be right now.

“If it appears you are in need of it, then it will be returned to you. Now do your
jobs. I’m not paying you to question me.”

I bit my tongue to keep from saying something sarcastic in reply. My refuge in snarky
humor might help keep me sane in terrifying situations, but right now didn’t seem
to be the best time to bait Clyde.

As much as I wanted to go running back to hide under the covers of my borrowed bed,
we needed to get this over with. And while I had every intention of meeting the rival
vampire ruler, Jimmy Thrane, my first order of business would be to introduce myself
to the local White Hats.

If anyone might have a burning desire to get rid of Clyde, it would be the White Hats.
If I was lucky, they might know who in the supernatural community was after him, too.

Trinity didn’t say a thing when I told her we wanted to go to the nearest known White
Hat hideout. She led us to a waiting car, then took her place behind the wheel. Sara
and I sat in the back together, making note of the routes she took, comparing them
against one of the maps Sara had tucked away in one of her jeans pockets.

We took expressways I had only heard of in movies—the 405 and 101—that were packed
with an ungodly amount of traffic. Somehow we kept moving at a decent clip, and it
took a little under an hour to reach North Hollywood.

Sad as it was to say, this part of town reminded me more of home. The apartment buildings
and businesses were not as polished and pristine as the ones in Santa Monica. Here
and there, streetlights were out. There appeared to be an uncommon number of auto
repair shops and liquor stores in relation to the few apartments and homes we passed
along the way. The only greenery was provided by scrubby-looking bushes or the occasional
scraggly palm tree.

The heat made it hard to breathe. I hadn’t noticed it right away, but now that I was
outside, the dry air made my skin feel tight and my nose feel like it was on the verge
of a bleed.

Trinity pulled into a small parking lot, then twisted in the driver’s seat to regard
us. She did not appear amused, her tone flat and bored. “Obviously, I can’t follow
you two inside. How long would you like me to wait before I assume they’ve killed
you so I can head back?”

I blinked. Sara made a little coughing noise.

“Um,” I said.

The vampire grinned, exposing extended canines that gleamed in the meager streetlight,
matching the flicker of red in her eyes. “Just a little joke.” Sure. Judging by the
look in her eye, our sudden, stark fear was the source of her amusement. “If you do
not return in, say, half an hour, I will come inside looking for you.”

I did not envy any White Hats who might try getting in her way if it came down to
that.

“Thanks,” Sara muttered, opening her door and stepping out with the kind of swift
grace that bespoke her discomfort. She could move fast when she had good reason.

Following her out, I ran a nervous hand through my hair, brushing some stray curls
out of my face as I took in the club. It didn’t look like much: a rundown hole-in-the-wall
with a flickering neon sign and some incongruously cheerful country-and-western music
spilling out to mingle with the sounds of traffic on the night air. I might not have
thought anything of The Brand except that it had a white neon cowboy hat flashing
under the name. To advertise their presence so obviously, either these guys had bigger
balls than the hunters in New York or they were horrifically stupid.

I was willing to bet on the latter, though I kept that thought to myself.

A guy in a wifebeater, jeans, scuffed cowboy boots, and a leather vest leaned against
the wall next to the entrance. He watched us approach with interest.

“Muy bien, gracias,”
Sara replied.
“Me llamo
Sara.”

He gave her a wide grin, his teeth a white slash against dark skin.
“Mucho gusto. Encantado. Me llamo
Jesus.” He glanced at me, then abruptly shifted to English with only the barest trace
of an accent. “I take it you two aren’t from around here.”

Sara shook her head. “In town on a visit. We’re here for business.”

“Who are you here to see?”

She looked at me, and I shrugged before pointing a single finger at the sign over
our heads. “I guess that depends on whether your sign is advertising a certain type
of business.”

Jesus frowned and pushed off the wall. “You two shouldn’t involve yourselves in White
Hat business. It’s not a game.”

“We never said it was,” I replied. He towered over me, but I held my ground, tilting
my head back to meet and hold his gaze. My nose was about level with the shoulder
holster not very well hidden by his vest. “There’s something bad going on in this
town. We thought some of your people might know who’s behind it.”

“What kind of bad? What are you talking about?”

I didn’t give an inch, not even when his chest brushed up against mine. “Someone’s
using a forbidden type of magic. Messing with the dead. Who might know about that?”

He stared down at me, dark brown eyes crinkling at the corners as they narrowed, his
frown deepening. Eventually, he turned his head away and spat.
“Sí. Los muertos
and the
brujo
—I have heard of this magic. Go into the back room and speak with the man in the red
jacket. He might know who is behind it.”

Though I didn’t understand it all, I was glad he was giving us a pass. I gave a last
glance to the car, dark and mostly hidden in the shadows at the back of the lot, before
moving inside.

Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness beyond the front door, I took in all there was
to see. The place looked like a real rat trap. The scarred bar was being manned by
a guy who looked like he could most likely wipe the floor with anyone, human or no,
who tried to mess with the patrons. A couple of guys in biker leathers gave us bleary-eyed
leers over their shoulders, as we edged past the bar and a stage taking up a good
portion of the floor to an unmarked door that presumably led to where the White Hats
gathered.

Nobody said anything or tried to stop us, but it was a bit strange to have the suspicious
stares of everyone in the room on us while Shania Twain poured out of the stage speakers.
It didn’t seem like the right kind of music for a place like this, but then again,
it wasn’t my place to be pointing out the inconsistencies.

Sara led the way into the back room, which, unlike the bar, was comfortable. Overstuffed
chairs and couches were spread in a loose circle around the room, laptops and other
gadgets mixed with the papers and guns spread over the low table in the middle of
the room.

About half a dozen of those seats were occupied, and the people sitting in them looked
up sharply on our entrance, two or three of them reaching for guns as Sara and I both
raised our hands and jerked back.

“Don’t shoot! We’re unarmed!”

Though the guns had drawn my attention before I could register any details about the
hunters, the flash of red as one of the men stood up caught my eye. “Shiarra? What
the hell are you doing here?”

My mouth dropped open. “Devon? What the—wait, what are
you
doing here?”

He laughed and stepped around the table, waving at the other hunters to put their
weapons away before sweeping me up in a tight hug. I was too shocked to do anything
to reciprocate right away, and he’d done a pretty good job of pinning my arms.

“I thought you were dead! After what happened to Jack and the rest—”

“No way,” I squeaked out, short of air thanks to his grip. “I thought maybe
you
were dead since you—”

“—and all those werewolves! And the stuff in the paper, and—”

“Yo! My man, you mind letting her loose long enough for me to say hello, too?”

I grinned up at Tiny, who had slipped behind Devon while we were babbling at each
other. Almost the moment Devon let me go, Tiny swept me up in a hug that made my feet
leave the ground and ribs twinge in protest. Meanwhile Devon greeted Sara with a bit
more decorum, shaking her hand.

The two hunters had disappeared sometime after I allowed Royce to bind me to him by
blood. They hadn’t liked the idea, though they both had known that I didn’t have much
of a choice at the time. It was either take the vampire’s blood, or risk being called
to that psychotic prick, Max Carlyle, against my will. Max had slipped me some of
his own blood during one of my bouts of unconsciousness as his prisoner. Thanks to
being bitten against my will, unconsciousness had been frequent enough that I sometimes
wondered if all my bad decisions of late had stemmed from brain damage related to
lack of oxygen from the blood loss.

Planting a wet kiss on my cheek, Tiny squeezed all the air out of my lungs and then
set me back on my feet, careful to help me catch my balance before he let me go. Devon
clapped me lightly on the back, facing the rest of the room. “Guys, you’ll never believe
who this is. You remember the chick I told you about who was working with Jack and
that leech in New York?”

The other people in the room gave tentative waves, though they looked more bemused
than unwelcoming. I was sure my expression betrayed just how baffled I was, too. Devon
and Tiny had never told me where they were going, and this was one of the last places
I had expected to run into them.

Trinity was waiting for Sara and me outside. We couldn’t afford to dawdle. As much
as I wanted to catch up with the hunters, I didn’t think it would be wise to let Clyde
know I had ties to them, or vice versa.

“It’s really great to see you two, but we don’t have a lot of time. We’re actually
here on a job, and we have a couple of other places we need to check out tonight,
too.”

Devon and Tiny exchanged a look I couldn’t quite decipher before Tiny answered me.
“Let me guess. Something to do with Clyde Seabreeze and the vampires who have been
showing up dead, and the zombies shuffling around town?”

Sara coughed. “Well, yes. Should we even bother asking how you know?”

Tiny gave a derisive snort, pulling away to collapse into one of the bigger couches,
sending up a puff of dust. “It’s our job to know. There’s some new big bad in town,
and he doesn’t play by the same rules as the others.”

Well, this was an interesting development. I thought about some of the places bodies
had been found, dredging my memory for names of unfamiliar streets.

“Do you guys know anything else about him? Where we can find him? We were going to
check out some place off of Magnolia in Burbank next—”

Devon shook his head and gestured for Sara and me to take seats. Though I didn’t want
to offend the White Hats, we didn’t have enough time to hang around and play nice.
Not unless I ran out to tell Trinity to wait for us a little longer. I didn’t like
the idea of annoying her, so maybe we’d come back here some other night—without our
vampiric babysitter.

“You’re not going to find him there,” Devon said. “I can see you guys don’t have much
time to talk. The short story is that he’s not from around here. He showed up in the
last week or so, and zombies have been sighted all over LA County. We’re pretty sure
he’s been storing them in the Angeles Crest, but it’s impossible to say for sure.
The guy comes and goes seemingly at random. We’ve run into him a couple of times when
we were out looking for particular targets at known vampire haunts. I’d call it luck
that we happened to see him at all, but it’s not going to do you much good.”

“Why’s that?”

One of the other White Hats responded, leaning forward as he toyed with the safety
on his gun. “He’s one of those magi who can fade. Looks like most any other guy on
the street, and you forget what he looks like as soon as you walk away. The harder
you try to recall the details, the faster they slip away.”

“Yeah, we’ve all seen him at least once, and none of us can agree on a solid description,”
one of the others chipped in.

“We just know he’s a guy who’s sometimes surrounded by zombies. Aside from that? Can’t
tell you much. We can’t decide if he has dark skin or pale, what color his hair is—nothing.”

Fading. That was a new term to me, but I could see where it could come in handy for
a mage. Must be some kind of defensive mechanism some of them had developed to blend
in. Considering what type of magic this guy did, it made a whole lot of sense for
him to use some sort of passive forgetting spell that made peoples’ memories of him
fade like that. Too bad it would fall under the category of black enchant, since it
directly messed with an unwilling subject’s mind, and was therefore even more illegal
than raising the zombies.

At least we knew we were looking for a man. That narrowed it down, if only by roughly
fifty percent of the population of greater Los Angeles. Sigh.

The charm I was wearing might assist me in spotting and remembering the mage if we
ran into him, but unless Arnold gave her something to counter that kind of magic,
Sara wouldn’t know if she was looking at him. Even if she did, later on she wouldn’t
know which guy I was talking about. This would be a heck of a manhunt.

Biting back a frustrated growl, I turned to Devon. “I do want to catch up with you,
but our ride is waiting outside, and I don’t want her to come in with guns blazing.
Can we meet up later? I’d like to talk and maybe see if I can help you remember some
details about this mage.”

If Devon was disappointed, he hid it well. His smile was sweet and sincere, and he
reached out to give my shoulder another squeeze, which this time felt more intimate
than a simple expression of platonic friendship thanks to the way his thumb brushed
over my collarbone.

I gathered the twinkle in his eye was from the knowledge that his touch was making
me blush.

“Yeah. Seeing as you’re in town, we’ll have to make some time to get together.”

Coulda-woulda-shoulda’s rang dim alarm bells in the back of my head. The hunter had
previously expressed some interest in seeing me as more than a friend. Since I was
technically seeing Royce now, it wouldn’t be kosher to lead Devon on.

Luckily, I was saved from having to say something awkward about my love life in this
room full of staring, judgmental hunters by Tiny’s booming voice. “Yes, we will. Let
me give you a number. . . . Hold on. . . . Here.” He thrust a scrap of paper with
a phone number scrawled on it at me. “Call us when you’re ready to get together.”