Laws of the Blood 1: The Hunt (26 page)

He was answered with a fulsome laugh. “Nonsense. It’ll be good for the strig. Teach him to respect his betters. I even thought I’d take the boy home on a leash. He’d make a good pet.” There was answering laughter—albeit with an undertone of deep nervousness—from the rest of Kamaraju’s household. Selim silenced them all with a deadly look as Kama added,
“We
don’t kill our own kind, Hunter.”

“No.” Selim smiled. “That’s my job.”

Kamaraju’s answering smile was equally nasty, yet also conciliatory. “You’re not threatening me, are you, Hunter?” He looked around, his pose all innocence. “What have I done to offend?”

Selim advanced smoothly, stopping within an inch of the nest leader before Kamaraju could retreat further. Selim put a hand on Kamaraju’s shoulder, staining the nest leader’s clothes with the blood of the vampire he had killed. Kamaraju wasn’t going anywhere except into a meat locker before too much more time passed. Selim didn’t know why he bothered to continue the conversation. “There was no need for Moira to die. No need at all.”

Kamaraju pretended not to be intimidated by Selim’s proximity. “She was prey. Prey
you
designated.”

How had Kamaraju found out about that? Sterling
must have talked to another strig about Selim’s offer for their hunt, and Kamaraju had found out from the strig grapevine. Or Kama had been good enough to pluck the information out of Sterling’s mind last night. Was it only last night? How didn’t matter now that the damage was done.

He tightened his grip on Kamaraju’s shoulder. He heard Sterling scrabbling to get to his feet behind him. “I changed my mind,” Selim told the nest leader.

Kamaraju contrived to look and feel innocently outraged. “Nobody told me.”

Selim shook him. “It wasn’t your Hunt!”

“What the hell difference does that make!” Kamaraju shouted back. “Your job is to name the victims. That’s all the Law requires of you! I only had to agree to Hunt someone you chose.”

“Don’t talk to me about the Law, you bastard! There was no reason for that girl to die!”

“What difference does it make to you? Prey is prey. Meat is meat.”

Selim heard Sterling’s silent cry of pain in his bones. It was only a little worse than his own. “This one had a name. A face. She was chosen!”

Kamaraju gave a scathing, grating laugh. “By a strig? Who cares? He hadn’t tasted her yet. She wasn’t chosen. She was meat.” Kamaraju licked his lips. “Damn good meat, too.”

He was going to rip off Kama’s face first, Selim decided. Then he was going to tear him limb from limb, pluck off every extremity slowly, like taking the wings off a fly. Then he was going to make him eat his own balls. Then he was going to kill him. Maybe in a month or two.

“You’ve had this coming for a long time.” Selim raised his arm, claws extended, ready to sweep them down across Kamaraju’s eyes. Kamaraju tried to break from Selim’s grip. Someone screamed a protest. Selim struck.

Or would have if a hand as strong as iron hadn’t
closed over his extended wrist. “Not so fast, Hunter!” a breathless voice shouted in his ear.

Selim didn’t know where Mike Tancredi came from, but there he was, big as a bull, wide as a wall, his grip as tight as a vise. His bulk shut out the sight of the rest of the parking lot. For a moment, the only thing that filled Selim’s vision was the sight of a beige sports jacket, then his gaze shifted to Mike’s face. He looked scared, but stubbornly rebellious as well.

Selim kept his hold on Kamaraju as he looked calmly at the other nest leader. “I would suggest,” he said quietly, “that you take you take your hand off me.”

Mike swallowed hard but didn’t move. “Take you hand off Kama first.”

“No.”

“He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“He’s a murderer.”

“Since when is that a crime?”

“Listen to Michael,” Kamaraju said. His tone was soft, insidiously reasonable. The Snake in the Garden’s voice. “I asked him to be here. A witness. I knew you wouldn’t like my Hunting without supervision, but you know it wasn’t unlawful.”

“He’s right,” Mike said. His grip was hard on Selim’s wrist. Selim made his muscles relax, but Mike didn’t let him go. He released his grip on Kamaraju and took a step back. Mike gave him a half-apologetic, thoroughly nervous grin, but he didn’t release Selim. “You’re tricky, Hunter. I’ll let you go when you’re really calm. We’re all empaths here, remember?” His tone was soothing, persuasive. The Snake as a Car Salesman. “Let’s talk this out like reasonable adults.”

“We aren’t reasonable adults,” Selim told them. “We’re vampires. Kamaraju’s a vicious killer,” he added. “He deserves to die.”

“Maybe he does,” Mike said, with a quick glance at Kamaraju. “By the human definitions of what we are, he’s a monster of the worst sort. Decadent, cruel, sadistic—just like we all are. But, Hunter,” Mike continued
reasonably. “You don’t enforce human laws. No Law was broken tonight. None. Bent a little, maybe,” he hurried on. “I’ll agree that Kamaraju took more independent action than you like, but he didn’t break the Law. The prey was of your choosing. He didn’t reveal his people to the humans. The Hunt was in an area where the humans are looking for a mortal murderer, so any suspicion will bleed onto this human monster.”

It all sounded so logical. So true. “And you did what?” Selim asked. “Waited in the car with these excuses all ready for when I showed up?”

Mike nodded emphatically. “Yes. Precisely. Kama knew you’d give him trouble for simply doing what he needed to do. For taking care of his people the way he saw fit.”

“We need more autonomy,” Kamaraju said. “It’s time you saw that, Selim.”

Mike said, “I agree with Kama.”

“Nobody asked you.” A groan close behind him briefly caught Selim’s attention. He shifted his gaze to see Sterling kneeling on the concrete nearby. “You all right, Geoff?” He received another groan in answer.

When Sterling lifted his head, Selim saw that the young vampire’s bruised mouth was covered with blood not his own. He struggled to his feet, clutching his belly like he wanted to claw out the fire he’d swallowed. Good. He was getting the hang of what it took to be a Nighthawk. Good? What was good about being a Hunter? What good could possibly come out of this night? And why did he have a persistent, nagging, insane belief that strigoi needed or deserved a concept of “good”?

A vision of Moira Chasen’s pale face filled his mind, though he realized the vision wasn’t his own. He couldn’t recall having ever seen the girl in person. Hadn’t even seen her on television. It didn’t matter. She deserved better than the death he was responsible for bringing to her.

“Fuck the Law,” he said to the nest leaders. He pulled his arm away from Mike’s grip. Bones broke in
his wrist, but the clean sharp pain was worth the effort. “This is about justice.”

Kamaraju laughed, even as he turned to run. The injured fledgling grabbed Selim’s leg. Mike planted himself between the fleeing Kamaraju and Selim as Selim tried to shake off the young vampire’s grip. Lisa emerged out of the shadows to scream, “No!” Sterling stumbled to his feet with a roar of pain and rage. The limo driver started the car’s engine. Everything happened in an instant, though time stretched and slowed to Selim’s senses. He knocked Mike down. Sterling kicked the broken-backed vampire off of him. He was still kicking him when Selim dashed after Kamaraju.

All the interference gave Kamaraju enough time to make it to his limo. For the limo to pull away from the parking lot. Selim laughed wildly, knowing that Kamaraju could have gotten away faster on foot. The long car picked up speed as Selim headed back the way he’d come, back up the hill above the playing field. There was only one road out of here. The was a sharp turn the limo had to negotiate to reach the streets beyond the park. Selim intended to be waiting at that turn.

The night quieted around him. The smell of blood faded from his nostrils. The moon looked down and probably saw nothing for the light pollution and the air pollution and didn’t give a damn about what little it could make out. It was just a rock in the sky, anyway, not the all-seeing eye of the Goddess Reborn. Except—he felt as though she were watching him, that her cool, moon gaze was firmly centered on his back. He was half-tempted to glance over his shoulder or to whisper a prayer into the night. It was a strange feeling, but just another strange feeling in what had, so far, been the strangest night of his life.

There was a clump of bushes and some decorative-looking boulders at the spot where the roads met. Selim scrambled down a steep, gravelly slope to reach the bushes. He sat down on one of the jutting rocks and took a deep breath. He tried not to think but emptied his
mind as he looked in the direction the limo had to come. He wanted to take Kama alive, that was the plan. To take him in a showy way, let everybody else in the limo live to spread the word. Then he’d take Kamaraju with him. He saw headlights approaching but decided he had time enough. He took his cell phone out of an inner jacket pocket.

“Selim? Where are you?” Siri’s shrill voice demanded in his ear a moment later. “Never mind. I’m on my way.” She sounded harassed, frantic. Accusing.

He wanted to ask what he’d done this time, but only had time to say, “Kamaraj—”

“This is
important!
Stay right where you are and don’t move a muscle.”

“I have to stop him. I want you to meet me at—”

“You’re at a crossroads with a hibiscus flower sticking in your ear. I’ve
seen
you. I have a movie producer in my backseat,” she went on. “You want to talk to him more than you do Kama.”

“That can wait.” Selim pushed away the flowering branch that was tickling his ear. He could hear the big car’s powerful engine, quiet though the limo was. Headlights approached from the main road as well. Siri on her way to pick him up. “Stop where you are,” he ordered his companion. “Wait until I say.” He put the phone back in his pocket, turned, and tensed for the leap onto the limo roof.

Siri’s voice in his head said,
Rasmussen’s more important right now than killing Kama. There are only so many hours in the night. Only so much time to save the world.

“Shit!” Selim snarled the word and stepped back, hiding in the bushes while Kamaraju’s long car glided past and made the turn. “Damn! Hell! Son of a—!”

He was still swearing when Siri’s Mercedes pulled to a stop a few moments later. He slammed the passenger door shut when he got inside. He glared at her furiously. “Damn it, woman! I hate when you’re right. Kamaraju deserves to
die!”

She gave a curt nod, unfazed by his fury. She patted him on the arm. Her touch was a calming balm. She let out her breath in a sad sigh. “I know what he did. We’ll get him.” She glanced toward the backseat. Selim turned his head and saw a large, smiling man seated next to Alice in the back.

Alice smoothed a hand across the man’s cheek. He arched, and practically purred at her touch. “Say hello to the nice man, Art.”

“Hello,” Art Rasmussen said to Selim, though his gaze didn’t leave Alice’s face. “I have things to tell you,” he went on, and smiled hopefully at her. “Alice says so.”

Selim was amazed. He was in awe of Alice Fraser’s talent, of her power, her gift. His heart raced with excitement, fear, maybe a little hope. He gave Alice a grateful look. To the slave who should be a mindless vegetable at having his bloodbond broken, he said, “I’m listening.”

Valentine sat crossed-legged on the cool Spanish tiles of her balcony floor, a mug of cold coffee cradled in her hands. Her gaze was turned up to the moon, but she wasn’t looking at it. Her vision floated for a while, then settled down, not necessarily on purpose, not necessarily with who she wanted to be, but even she sometimes had to go where the gift of the Goddess took her.

The parking lot was illuminated by a couple of moth-encircled streetlights that gave a faintly gold tint to the tableau she watched. She recognized the older ones, and the sight of them left a sour taste in her mind. Oh, Michael Tancredi wasn’t so bad. She remembered him as a Byzantine mercenary who’d sold his fighting skills all over the Mediterranean for hundreds of years. Smart enough, but happier following orders than he’d like to think he was. He looked taller than she remembered. But Kamaraju wasn’t pleasant to look upon, certainly not to think about. He’d been a follower of Kali in his mortal life, only hadn’t gotten it, not the sacred meaning of
what he’d done. Kama got off on killing people, and the day should be cursed when somebody decided that meant he’d make a good vampire.

“Humph,” she snorted disdainfully into the night. “Riffraff.”
Is it any wonder the sensible ones end up recluse? Who wants to associate with such scum?

She asked herself the questions, then settled back into watching events unfold. Dark, tragic events, but she had to admit she enjoyed the drama. At this distance it was like watching a movie; a low-budget indie done with a handheld camera and in need of a serious script doctoring, but it held the attention nonetheless.

Valentine’s eyes flew open when Selim said,
“Fuck the Law, this is about justice.”

She winced, and rose to her feet. “No, no, no,” she complained. “Too easy. Too melodramatic. Nobody really talks like that. You should have said—” No, wait. This wasn’t a movie. “Well, it should be,” she pouted.

She shook herself all over, gave the moon a sardonic shrug, and went inside to get more coffee. Once there, she went to her desk, sat down at the keyboard and started to write. She didn’t lose track of the time. She was waiting for a phone call, and it was late in coming. The notion that her slave hadn’t yet gotten in touch with her sent a thread of nervousness up her spine, but she was willing to make excuses for now. He was a busy man in a busy town. This was Wednesday; he was probably caught up in a dinner meeting at Morton’s. He wanted to iron out a few more details before bringing her news that would make her happy. All would be well, she told herself. He’d grovel. She’d forgive him. No biggie.