Laws of the Blood 2: Partners (24 page)

“Reborn?”

“You heard me. I think you know what I mean.”

“I think I want you to tell me.”

“You’ve seen me in my working outfit.” She drew her lips back in a snarl, but didn’t sprout any new teeth. “I’m not a werewolf. I’m a Nighthawk.”

“You can fly?”

She gave an exasperated sigh. “No, but I can run pretty darn fast.”

“An Enforcer of the Law. What law? Whose law?”

She stood. “You don’t want to go there, Jebel. Not if you want to live until morning.”

“Why, Charlotte McCairn, I do believe you’re threatening me.”

He thought about drawing the gun in his jacket but figured shooting her would just annoy her. She was physically tougher than he was, wasn’t she? He actually found that kind of attractive. Mentally, though, he figured he had the edge.

“Jebel Haven,” she said as she rubbed a spot on the middle of her forehead. She shook her head. “I can’t do this; I just can’t.” She got up from the bed. He stood back and let her pace the width of the room a few times. She finally stopped in front of him. “My people are different,” she said. “Human groups fear other groups that are different than they are. My people are more vulnerable to this innate prejudice than any other ethnic group. My job is to protect my people. I believe in trying to do it without harming . . . any other ethnic group. I’m as much of a good guy as I can be—and still protect my people. I don’t want Agent Novak to die. I really don’t. But she can’t find Daniel and take him home. He belongs to my people now.”

“He’s a vampire.”

“Yeah. How about that?”

“You said you’re a vampire hunter.”

“I am.”

He couldn’t take it any further. He should. He looked at her. He remembered making love to her. A vivid image of the half-rotting, almost mindless monsters he
fought out in the desert flashed through his mind. One of them wore Charlotte’s face. The vampire that attacked him in the alley had talked to him. She’d talked about smart urban ones. Her
people
? He couldn’t ask.

“What have you done to me?” he asked her.

“Typical male. Always blaming the woman. Let’s go.” She walked out of the bedroom.

He could do nothing but follow. “Where we going?” he asked when they were in the car.

“To Della’s.” She backed out too fast and put the car in gear with an angry, jerking motion. She looked straight ahead through the windshield as she added angrily, “I can’t let Helene go through with murder. I just can’t do it.”

Haven relaxed in the passenger seat. “Wimp.”

Charlotte’s faint laughter told him she accepted it as the compliment he intended.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Nothing to do with us,” Char said as they waited for the police to clear the angry crowd from the middle of the street. “For once. But I do wish they’d get out of the way.” Char refused to move her hand to the middle of the steering wheel and add her horn to the raucous chorus coming from all the disgruntled motorists caught in the traffic jam. She looked at the dashboard clock and shook her head. “What are these idiots doing out here at this time of night? Getting plenty of media attention.” She answered her own question. The noise and lights of a news helicopter circling overhead confirmed her cynical remark. There was a lot of shouting nearby, and the
sound of shattering glass. Windshield? Windows? Beer bottles? Hard to say. It wasn’t her concern. “Honestly. I’m all in favor of free assembly and protest rallies, but why now?”

They were stuck in traffic on the edge of the downtown area, somewhere near the hotels where delegates were staying, she surmised. They’d been stopped still for some time, and Jebel Haven was not a patient man.

The delay was making her nervous. She’d tried calling Helene’s cell phone but had gotten no answer. An attempt at mental contact with the nest leader hadn’t been any more successful since they might share a bloodline but certainly didn’t know each other. The night wasn’t getting any younger, either. That could work for or against them, depending on what Helene planned for Daniel’s birth mother.

“So, I repeat, What the f—”

“Language, Jebel.”

“—hell is going on?”

“You don’t listen to public radio, do you?”

“I don’t even listen to country radio. And CNN isn’t my thing, either,” he added.

“ESPN?”

He flashed her a grin. “Guilty as charged.” He gestured at the chaos outside the car. “Explain, please?”

Char had read about it all in a newspaper she’d picked up on the ferry. “Some sort of huge trade organization meeting in town. Lots of protesters protesting.” Char thought there might be more police officers on the street than actual protesters.

“What?”

“Globalization of markets, I guess.”

“Sorry I asked.” He shook his head.

She smiled. “Wouldn’t you rather find out how to kill a demon?”

“Definitely.”

A cop directing traffic motioned them forward, and Char followed other cars as they inched through the congested intersection. She was grateful that the traffic cleared within a couple blocks. Driving in Seattle was bad enough. Clots of angry humanity adding to the traffic snarls didn’t help. The last time Char recalled anyone taking to the streets had been . . . 1992, wasn’t it? Some small-scale rioting after the Rodney King thing in Los Angeles?

Rodney King. Riots. Los Angeles. That reminded Char of some strigoi history she’d researched, and her smile had a slight amount of fang in it. She recalled that in Los Angeles, rioting had been used several times to cover the activities of hunts, and she had a hunt to cover. “This could be useful.”

“What could?”

“Ever heard of the zoot suit riots?”

“No.”

“In Los Angeles, in the forties. Never mind, they had nothing to do with killing demons. Do you own a sword, Jebel?” He gave her a sardonic look. “I guess not. You might want to get one, because the only way to be sure to kill a demon is to behead it. I should have mentioned that sooner, shouldn’t I?” she asked after a few moments of annoyed silence from Haven.

“Lots of things you should have mentioned sooner, Char.”

“Possibly.” Her cell phone rang before he could react to her equivocal answer. “Hello? Helene! I’m glad you called. Listen—What?”

“What?” Haven repeated her question.

Char banged a fist on the steering wheel, then tightened one hand around the wheel while she clutched the phone to her ear with the other. She pressed her foot down on the accelerator while Helene Bourbon talked. “My fault,” she answered. “I should have expected something like this. How many? Della? What about Novak? Right, you’ve never met her. I’d completely forgotten about Blessing Day. The eighth this year? That could be.”

“What could be?” Haven said.

“What about Santini?” she asked Helene.

Haven grabbed her arm, she shook him off. “What about Santini?”

Char drove like she was immortal, ignoring all the honking and crunching of metal she left in her wake. “Little guy with a beard,” she told Helene. “Tell me he isn’t dead.” She listened for a few tense seconds. “Thanks. I know where it is. No time. Meet me there.” She turned at the next corner and headed uphill.

“The shelter’s the other way! Where are you going?” She noted that Haven was holding his gun, but he hadn’t threatened her with it.

“Hospital,” she said to Haven. “Santini was alive when he was put in the ambulance.”

“Ambulance. What happened?”

Char tossed the small phone on the dashboard and concentrated on driving very fast. She deliberately didn’t look at the car clock. “Della’s shelter was invaded. Helene arrived about the same time as the police. She waited to find out details before calling. The police are blaming everything in this town on demonstrators tonight. That gives us a break. A lot of people are injured. Della’s missing. I’m betting Novak was taken as well. The police have no idea who took them. Or even
if
anyone’s missing.”

“We can guess.”

“Magic is confusing the police. The cult took them, of course. Alive,” she added significantly. “Della’s very psychic. So’s Novak. I noticed how she felt when she studied where the vampire was staked. The sorcerer will want her, too.”

She and Haven exchanged a grim glance. “Human sacrifice,” they said together.

Haven leaned back against the headrest. “Holy shit. You’re right,” he added. “You should have thought of this before.”

“They may not be sacrificed right away. Helene reminded me of something just now.” She held out a faint hope to him. “If this sorcerer’s done his homework, he’ll think that the new moon before the winter solstice is the perfect day for casting his transformation spell.” Assuming this idiot knew more about the strigoi than he should. Assuming he wanted to fill his human Vessel up with all the magic he could just before he sacrificed the man. That’s why she hadn’t been able to detect more of the stolen psychic energy, wasn’t it? It was stored in human
form. Why hadn’t she remembered that part of the ritual slayings sooner?

“How long do we have?” Haven’s practical question interrupted her analyzing.

“The eighth. We have a few days until the eighth.”

She braked sharply for an emergency vehicle, then swung into the long drive that led to the huge hilltop hospital complex. She dropped Haven off at the emergency entrance and told him to find Santini while she found a parking place.

Then she drove back to the corner where she’d seen Helene jump off the flat roof of the emergency vehicle and paused long enough for Helene to get into the car.

The woman’s hair and clothes were disheveled, her eyes were bright with excitement. “I haven’t done this for a while. What next, Hunter?”

“We can spare a couple hours looking for Della,” Char said as she pulled back out into traffic. “Then we better find somewhere to stay for the day. Della knows where I live.”

Helene nodded at Char’s explanation. The truth was, that while Della
might
be compelled to reveal strigoi secrets, the real reason Char didn’t plan to go home was that she didn’t trust Jebel Haven not to go vampire hunting come morning. And he might pick a real vampire to hunt this time.

“
Y
OU CAME BACK
.” The Angel looked at him. Recognized him. Spoke to him.

The Disciple knelt before where the Angel sat on the bed and dared to rest his cheek against the Angel’s knee. “I brought you women,” he said, fighting the jealousy that raged in him. “For your bed.”

The Angel stroked his hair. “I missed you.” The Angel drew him up onto the bed and they stretched out side by side. The Disciple rested his head over the Angel’s heart and could barely breathe for the happiness. “Don’t leave me,” the Angel pleaded. “Take me with you when you go again. I don’t want to be here,” the Angel whispered in his ear.

I love you,” the Disciple told him. “I came back as soon as I could. I want you to be safe.”

“Safe with you. We can go down into the dark together. I remember the dark . . . under the ground.”

The Disciple longed desperately to give the Angel everything he wanted. He lived to serve. Once he’d wanted to live forever and had wanted the Angel only for that gift. But the more the Angel gave him, the more
the Disciple needed to give back. The Demon and the Prophet were fools. He’d thought them so wise and powerful. They were nothing. Except—

“The Prophet’s sacrifices protect you.”

“Sacrifices?”

The Disciple hated the confusion and worry in the Angel’s voice. Everything should be perfect for the Angel. Evil creatures were hunting the Angel. The Woman in Black wanted to take the Angel away. She knew his name. He’d felt her power. “She won’t have you.”

“She?”

“The Witch’s death will protect you.”

“My head hurts,” the Angel said. “I’m sleepy.”

“Then sleep,” the Disciple urged, glad no one was in the Angel’s bed but him. He forgot the pain in his arm and leg, in his jaw, and the burn along his ribs where the man who had been sleeping with the Witch had shot him. They’d overpowered the bastard, taken the gun away. Stupid slaves hadn’t had the sense to turn the gun on the man, but they’d beaten him senseless. The Disciple hoped they’d beaten him to death. The other woman had had a gun, too, but she hadn’t gotten a chance to fire it. She was beautiful, the woman with the gun, her soul full of the magic fire. He was delighted to find her with the Witch. They’d brought her back to the houseboat with them. They would both be sacrifices, but they were not in the Angel’s bed. He was.

He sighed with contentment. His blood hummed with joy. But the Demon roared from the doorway, destroying his peace within moments.

“Get away, you!” the Prophet shouted over the Demon’s bellow.

The Angel held him tight, but the Demon’s claws bit into the Disciple’s back, grabbed, hauled him away. The next thing he knew, he slammed into the wall on the other side of the room. He passed out for a moment and woke up on the floor. By the time he’d regained his senses, the Vessel and two slaves were pushing the naked prisoners toward the bed. The women’s hands were tied behind their backs, sacred signs were painted on their skin with blood. The Angel was on his feet.