Hunting Daylight (9781101619032) (35 page)

Gillian twisted her pinkie ring around and around on her finger, light spinning from the diamonds.

“I like your ring,” the blonde said.

“Thanks.”

The blonde was staring, as if she were waiting for Gillian to continue. A waiter passed by and Gillian waved. “Sir, I need a doggie bag.”

He nodded and veered toward the kitchen door. The blonde leaned closer. “You have a dog?”

“Lord, no. I saw a skinny cat in the alley. She looked
like she could use a meal.” A bead of perspiration slid down Gillian’s back. “I saw you earlier. You went into a shop. Did you find anything pretty?”

The blonde opened a bag and pulled out a large copper pan. It had a brass handle and a thick bottom. “I paid too much. But I like it.”

“You must be a chef,” Gillian said.

The blonde’s mouth flickered at the edges, and then she slid the pan into the bag. She looked up as the waiter returned with a to-go box. “Please bring my friend a glass of wine,” she said.

“No, no.” Gillian waved her hand. “I was just leaving.”

The blonde spoke to the waiter in Italian, then turned to Gillian. “I’m Tatiana. What’s your name?”

“Oh, I answer to just about anything.” Gillian laughed. “Tall girl. Blondie.”

Tatiana lifted her glass. “Are you traveling alone?”

Gillian hesitated. “Not really.”

“Either you are or you aren’t.”

“My husband is waiting for me at the hotel,” Gillian said.

“Husband?” Tatiana looked amused.

The waiter passed by the table and set a wineglass at Gillian’s elbow. She ignored it and began scraping the anchovies and sardines into the take-out box. She didn’t know how much the food would cost, so she put a handful of euros on the table.

“Hope you enjoy Venice,” she told Tatiana.

“I will.”

Gillian left the restaurant. The alley had cleared out,
and the cat sat on his haunches, licking its paw. “Kitty?” Gillian said. “Here’s your supper.”

The cat bolted down a narrow opening between two buildings. Gillian walked to the edge. It was too dark to see anything, and it smelled like garbage. A raspy meow cut through the shadows.

Gillian took a mincing step forward. “Come on, kitty.”

Behind her, a woman said, “Caro?”

Gillian turned. A copper pot slammed into her temple. The wig flew off her head, and she staggered backward.
What the hell.
The side of her head began to throb. Something wet ran down the side of her face.

“Hey, why did you do that?” Gillian yelled. “Who the hell are—”

The pot struck the side of her head again, and a ringing pain filled her ears. She dropped the to-go box. Another blow clipped her on the chin. She fell to her knees, and the gritty cobblestones cut into her flesh. Blood streamed out of her mouth. Her hand shook as she dragged it over her face, passing through a sticky wetness. She lowered her hand. A dark stain covered her palm.

Tatiana stood over her. “Who are you?” she said.

“Fuck you,” Gillian spat with a mouthful of blood.

Tatiana swung the pan again. Pain exploded in Gillian’s forehead, and she moaned.

“Check her purse for ID,” Tatiana told someone.

A man stepped out of the shadows. “Passport says Caroline Barrett,” he said.

Gillian felt fingernails dig through her hair, biting into her scalp. She screamed as her neck bowed.

“Shut up,” the man said, and pushed the barrel of a gun between her teeth.

She stopped yelling. Pain moved inside her skull like scalding-hot gumbo poured into a bowl, but she forced herself to be calm. If she showed fear, it would just excite them.

Think like a public defender.
These reprobates wouldn’t shoot her in an alley. No way. Too many tourists. They’d take her money and go. That was all they wanted. But Lord almighty, she was hurt bad. She needed to call an ambulance.

“Where’s Vivienne Barrett?” Tatiana said.

Gillian’s teeth clicked against the metal. This wasn’t a robbery. She was going to die. Her bladder let go, and a cramp twisted in her bowels. A garbled sound came out of her throat.

“Take the gun out of her mouth,” Tatiana said.

The barrel scraped against Gillian’s teeth, and the man stepped back.

“Tell the truth, and I will not kill you,” Tatiana said.

“Caro is in Paris,” Gillian said. “She’s with a vampire. Raphael Della Rocca.”

“What about the girl?” Tatiana asked.

“She’s with them.”

“That’s all you know?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent.” Tatiana lifted Gillian’s hand, pulled off the diamond pinkie ring, and slid it on her own finger. She smiled as she jammed the wig onto Gillian’s head. “Take her inside,” she told the man. “Then, take your time.”

Another man stepped forward, holding a grinning Venetian mask in his hands. He put it over Gillian’s face. The men grabbed her arms and yanked her off the pavement.

“You promised you wouldn’t hurt me,” she said, her voice muffled. Her knees buckled, and the men jerked her upright. Through the holes in the mask, she saw them lead her past an open door that smelled of fish. High above her, someone played a piano.

“Where are y-you taking me?” she asked.

The man on her left brushed his mouth against her ear, his breath stinking of overripe fruit. “To hell.”

PLACE DES VICTOIRES

PARIS, FRANCE

It was the blue hour,
l’heure bleue
, that brief time when the sun slips below the horizon and the air is stained with cobalt light. I put on a periwinkle cotton dress and little flat shoes and pinned my hair into a bun. Then I left a note on the desk for Raphael:

I took the elevator to the cellar, then walked to the shallow end of the pool. I kicked off my shoes and looked down at the steamy water. Life would be almost perfect if
I could put every evil vampire on the space shuttle. I missed Vivi so much. But I had to trust Sabine. She would take care of my daughter.

Raphael and I were leaving for Morocco tomorrow, but I wasn’t sure what we’d find. I’d tried not to obsess about Jude’s ring. I didn’t know when it had been removed from his hand, but I felt sure it had involved torture. Whoever had placed it on Keats’s finger had meant for the pain to continue—from my end. But I wasn’t going to allow it. If you let fear enter your mind, it destroys hope and creates a third entity, a dark sludge that pushes through the bloodstream, tainting every thought until you’re afraid all the time.

I stared at the pool, trying to remember how it had looked before the renovation. In those days, it had been a swamp, and I’d been afraid to get near it. Now it was a pristine blue bowl. Clean water lapped at the tile edges. If a hellhole could be transformed into an oasis, then anything was possible. All my life I’d believed that goodness would triumph over malice. But I couldn’t change evil. I could only refuse to let it change me.

Raphael joined me a few minutes later. He walked up, his chest rising and falling under his shirt.

“You’re really going in without a swimsuit?” he asked.

“Have I ever lied to you?” I took off my dress, and it skated over the limestone floor. Next, I dropped my lace thong on the stone floor, and then I stepped down into the water and swam to the deep end. I looked back, treading the silky water, my fingers spread slightly apart.

Raphael hadn’t moved.

“Come on in,” I said.

“You know I hate to swim.”

“You had the River Styx in your cellar, and you turned it into a spa. But you still won’t swim?”

“No.” He smiled.

“This is a pool paradox,” I called. I floated on my back, and my hair fanned out around me, tickling my shoulders. I was barely moving, but the water held me up. I felt just as weightless inside. Right now, I wasn’t worried or trying to control the future. Dangerous people were somewhere in this world, but they weren’t coming after us today.

Raphael pulled off his shoes, and they clattered onto the stones. His shirt fluttered over his head like a white bird and landed on a chaise longue. He unzipped his jeans. His boxer shorts were red, printed with Eiffel Towers. Everything dropped into a messy pile.

Behind him, light streaked across the walls. “Come to me, Raphael.”

He dove into the water and swam along the bottom, his legs white and chiseled, his arms moving in great arcs. He surfaced and slicked back his hair.

I swam closer and closer until we were almost touching. His hands caught my waist and moved lower, tracing my hips. “We’ll be in Morocco tomorrow night,” he said. “I’ve leased a
riad
in the medina.”

“What’s the vampire culture like in Marrakech?”

“It’s harder to recognize the immortals. Some wear djellabas. Some don’t.”

I dropped my hand through the water and found him. As he moved nearer, my hand slid all the way down his length.

His breath dented the water. “You are a temptress,
mia cara
.”

“I’m just a girl in a pool.”

“A girl who makes me so happy.” He reached for my hands and brought them to his lips.

“I hope I always do.”

He kissed my knuckles. “Let me turn you into a vampire.”

“My blood could hurt you. You have to build antibodies.”

“But
my
blood won’t hurt you. You’re immune to the neurotoxin. I can transfuse you. Very simple. No bite marks on your beautiful skin.”

“Stop.” I put my fingers over his mouth. “I can’t think about becoming immortal until Vivi is older.”

He lowered my hand. “I will help you take care of Vivi. I don’t want to lose either of you.”

“Let’s don’t think about sad things,” I said.

He kissed me hard, until something began to build around us, like musical instruments in an orchestra pit, tuning and tweaking. I gripped him tighter, and the music broke loose inside me.

PLACE DES VICTOIRES

PARIS, FRANCE

Smoke curled from Tatiana Kaskov’s cigar as she sat in the passenger seat of the Hummer.

“Drive around the Place des Victoires once more, Maury,” she said.

“Sure thing,” Maury Sullivan said in a Boston-cream-pie-accent. He was Al-Dîn’s chief security officer, a human from Massachusetts, a disgrace to all New Englanders, in Tatiana’s opinion.

The night sky stretched above the limestone buildings that lined the square. She squinted at the luminous storefronts, then glanced along the sidewalks. A few tourists milled around.

“Make sure you don’t leave any witnesses,” Tatiana said.

“That will be a problem.” He lifted one hand from the wheel and rearranged the thin, reddish hairs on top of his head.

“Take care of it.”

“Are you kidding?” Maury said. “This is Paris. Your plan stinks. There’s an easier way to do a takedown.”

“Just do it.” Tatiana kept her face still, trying to hide her distaste for this man.

“It’s going to cost more. You only gave me twenty-four hours to assemble my team,” he said. His lips looked as if they’d been flattened by a rolling pin, and the tips of his ears were fluted like pie dough. He smoothed his hand down the front of a two-thousand-dollar gray silk suit, his fingers splayed over a striped lavender tie. His sleeve pulled back, and Tatiana saw his Rolex.

Pretentious asshole.

Maury guided the Hummer around the square again, the dark sky racing over the buildings. “This location blows,” he said. “See how the roads fan away from the square, cars moving in all directions? This means people. Potential witnesses.”

Tatiana ignored him and studied Della Rocca’s house—four stories, balconies, blue mansard roof. The windows on the third floor glowed like honeyed lozenges. Scattered lights were visible on the other floors. The manse nearly took up one block, wedged between two narrow roads, where businesses and apartment buildings were lined up. Her gaze moved away from Della Rocca’s house to the six-story apartment building across the street. She glanced up at the blue-tiled roof. “I don’t see your team,” she told Maury.