Читать книгу Forever Vampire - Michele Hauf - Страница 7

VAIL EXAMINED THE cleanly cut edge of the glass window. Charish Santiago stood behind him at the door, quietly observing. Her presence echoed louder than her voice. The bold red flower in her oddly poufed hair, the bright red nails and lips, and that short flounced white skirt screamed slutty vampire.

Slutty vampire who headed an evil clan of thieves and murderers, Vail corrected his thoughts. He was so not going to give her another glance.

Something more precise than a glass cutter had been used on this window, but he guessed the device had been silent, allowing the woman who had been in the room little time to realize what was happening after the window was pushed inside.

But shouldn’t a vampire have sensed the intrusion? Heartbeats? Breaths? A scent?

He sniffed. Expensive chick perfume tinted the air. And it wasn’t cheap cologne, because he didn’t pick up the note of alcohol, but instead a deep, ripe cherry infused with jasmine petals. If he passed by a woman smelling like this anytime soon, he’d know it was the missing vampiress, Lyric Santiago.

“The meeting was scheduled for six,” Charish explained. “We checked her room at five-fifteen and found her missing. I had talked to her a half an hour earlier.”

No footprints out on the balcony, or on the manicured lawn edged with hawthorn shrubs. Vail had walked the perimeter before coming inside. Whoever had jumped the viciously thorned shrubs had to have bled. Which meant nothing. All sorts of paranormal breeds could lighten their steps, or jump or even fly, depending on what had taken the woman.

Assuming the kidnappers had not been mortal. No, a mortal kidnapping a vampire made little sense. On the other hand, Vail knew little about The Order of the Stake. They were always a possibility.

“What makes you think the Unseelie lord didn’t take her?” he ventured, his attention on the glass, because he didn’t want to look at Santiago’s red highlights.

“The faery? Why would he kidnap my daughter when I was going to hand the gown over freely to him?”

“Maybe he wanted her, too.”

“But we had a—”

Vail swung toward the vampiress, an inquiring expression on his face. A deal. They had a deal. So why hadn’t mommy dearest delivered the gown? Had she been afraid to make the handoff, so had sent her daughter in her stead? What had made her believe her daughter would be in no danger?

“Maybe Zett didn’t like the terms of your deal,” he ventured, “and decided to cut out the middleman, and any reason for him to pay his portion of the deal? Take the girl, get the gown, and extort more money out of the Santiago clan in return for the daughter. Sounds far-fetched,” he examined the idea out loud. “The sidhe have no need for mortal money. What could Zett want beyond the priceless gown?”

The vampiress tightened her jaw. “Nothing. I expected my daughter would return safely.”

Shoving both hands in his pants pockets, Vail strode along the wall where a full-length mirror was hung. The vampiress must have stood here admiring herself in the gown, perhaps while the kidnappers had cut through the window.

No, that couldn’t be right. He doubted the vampiress could see her reflection any more than he could see his. He hated seeing the bodyless clothing in mirrors, so did not keep them in his home, and avoided them, going so far as to take out the side mirrors on the Maserati. A rearview mirror served to see who was behind him. But seriously? Other drivers should watch out for him.

Charish’s bright red toenails were visible when Vail looked down at the floor searching for debris. Man, she stood too close, and her perfume reeked of a more masculine scent that startled his expectations.

“We’ve already gone over the room,” she offered. “There are no clues here.”

“That you can see.” He scanned the carpeting, seeking one small glint of faery dust that would prove his theory correct. Nothing. Not even a twinkle. “There were no faeries here.”

“Exactly.” Santiago pressed her hand high along the door frame. The position boosted her breasts higher and he wondered if she was trying to flirt with him. He hadn’t dialed into vampiress seduction techniques yet, and didn’t want to. “You’re cute and all, but what makes you an expert?” she asked. “How do I know Hawkes sent the right guy for the job?”

“You don’t.”

Vail wasn’t a detective by any definition. But he could wear any mask he was handed, because he never wanted to be doubted by a mere vampire.

He picked up a pillow from the bed and sniffed it. More cherries and jasmine. If he were a werewolf like Tryst he could hop on the scent trail and follow the vampiress to wherever the kidnappers were keeping her. But he was not. And while vampires could recognize by scent, they were lousy trackers. Heartbeats and blood scent were the easiest to follow. But no blood had been spilled in this room.

Why hadn’t Rhys asked his real son to do this job?

No matter. After thinking about it a few hours, Vail had decided doing the job for Rhys would serve as means to repay him for the kindnesses he’d given him. One did not get along in the mortal realm without a car and cash.

“I want her found within forty-eight hours,” Santiago said, exhibiting the sharp edge that must see her respected by her kind. “The Unseelie are pressuring me.”

“What the hell for?” Vail had lived among the Unseelie. He knew Zett. Which is why this incident baffled him. “What, exactly, did the Lord of Midsummer Dark promise you in exchange for the gown?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.” She stroked her red nails down her throat. “Doesn’t matter, because my daughter is gone and neither she nor the Unseelie lord got to make the exchange.”

The woman didn’t care if her daughter was found, dead or alive, Vail decided. This sexpot of an aging vampiress was only concerned about the goods. Whatever those goods may be.

Interesting. Why involve the daughter in a deal with the Unseelie if it had all been about the gown in the first place? If she’d been so concerned for her daughter’s safety, wouldn’t the mother have sent a man or thug to make the exchange?

A cell phone jingled, and Santiago excused herself to take the call. Her sharp voice echoed down the hallway in tandem with the clicks of her high heels until Vail could no longer hear the erratic tune.

He toed out from under the bed the cell phone he’d noticed while Santiago had still been in the room. Snagging it, he clicked it on and scrolled through the call log. The phone had not been used a lot, but one number showed up three times the day of the kidnapping. It didn’t list a name, but Vail didn’t need a name. He pressed Call.

A sleep-laced male voice answered, “Lyric?”

So they knew to expect her from this number. That was helpful.

“No,” Vail replied. “Lyric’s assistant. Just checking in, making sure things went as planned.”

“What assistant? Lyric never mentioned no assistant. You call her and get your story straight before you bug me, man.” Click.

“And how can I call her if she’s been kidnapped?” Vail rubbed the phone along his forearm, working the scenarios. “Unless she wasn’t kidnapped? Had she worked something out with Zett? Possible.”

If her family was into thievery, that made the chances of her being a thief high. Had she stolen the gown? Why? It wasn’t as though she could fence such an odd and valuable item to any in the paranormal nation without someone finding out. Faery, most especially, had a way of knowing when things were missing.

“Has to be Zett,” he muttered. “That’s the only way the gown could still be out there and not draw attention. The two of them must be working together.”

Which didn’t explain a thing. Zett had been about to have the gown handed over on a silver platter shaped like a gorgeous blonde vampire. He didn’t need to steal or kidnap a thing.

Vail could not overlook the huge white elephant sitting in the middle of this bizarre incident—Zett hated vampires. So why kidnap one?

It had been three mortal months since he’d spoken to Zett. Much longer according to Faery time. Vail did not relish seeing the obnoxious Lord of Midsummer Dark anytime soon. Zett would remind him of Kit.

Vail whispered blessings the sweet young kitsune/cat shifter was happy now with her intended husband.

“Her apartment was clean, too,” Santiago said as she reentered the room.

“Apartment? Your daughter kept a place apart from this home?”

“Yes, in the second arrondissement. It was close to a gym where she likes to practice the silks with a coach. My men have gone through it. It’s clean.”

The silks?

“You don’t know everything,” Vail said. “If you did, I wouldn’t be talking to you. Give me the address.” When Santiago balked, Vail provided angrily, “I can see things, find evidence your men couldn’t dream of finding. Now write it down. You want your daughter found? Learn to cooperate.”

HUMMING A JOHNNY CASH TUNE about ghost riders in the sky, Vail strolled the tiny apartment that belonged to Lyric Santiago. His thoughts strayed. What was a ghost rider? Was it an incorporeal being? What did it ride? He’d like to meet one, and go for one of those infamous rides.

“Yippi-i-oo,” he sang the chorus from the song.

The apartment was indeed clean. Too clean. Vail had never seen such a Spartan living space—save his own—and suspected the vampiress could not have used it much. Three pieces of furniture—bed, couch and the requisite coffee table—and a few items in the closet. That was it. No personal touches or monogrammed towels in the bathroom. It looked as though it was a new place that had not yet been staged for sale.

If she had used it because it was close to a gym, it was likely only a stop-off of sorts. Silks? He really should have asked what that was about. Sounded kinky. And he did like some kink.

He stuck around a few hours after casing the apartment. Parked across the street from the building, he listened to the car radio while keeping an eye on the place.

When two vampires approached the building, Vail grabbed his sunglasses and got out and crossed the street. He knew they were vamps because of their ashy-red auras. Something he’d tried countless times to see on himself in a mirror but could not. Did he not have the red aura, or was it just that a man could not see his own aura?

For the love of Herne, he was one fucked-up vampire.

The vampires noticed him striding determinedly toward them and veered from the door of the building and around the side. The streets were tight and this one ended at an inner courtyard shaded with overhanging vines and fragrant honeysuckle.

Fingertips trailing the brick walls, Vail walked right into the center of the courtyard and flipped a nod at the vampires. “Nice day, messieurs. Sun is out. Looks like you got your one thousand SPF sunscreen on.”

One sneered and lunged toward him, exposing fangs. His buddy caught him by the shoulder. “Who the hell are you?”

“Miss Santiago’s assistant. I’m sure I spoke to you earlier.”

“I thought I told you—” The man realized he’d just given up his identity, in a manner.

“What are you looking for?” Vail asked. He put back his shoulders, flaunting his broad frame and imposing height. The faeries had thought him a freak. Vampires tended to take a step back from him. These two wibs did not. “Did Lyric ask you to get something for her at the apartment? It’s been picked over by her mommy’s thugs.”

“Damn it,” the one who had lunged said. “I knew we should have come here right away.”

They were definitely her allies.

“So where is she?” Vail tossed out. “I didn’t get the final destination.”

“In the seventh—”

The bigger one slammed his arm across the smaller’s chest. “You’re not her assistant. That cold bitch ain’t got no friends. He’s working for the old lady.”

The smaller one, unleashed from the bigger one’s restraining hold, rushed toward Vail, fangs down in warning.

Normally, Vail got into mortal combat. It kept his adrenaline flowing, and he liked to do damage to people who pissed him off. But exerting himself over these two was a waste of breath. He had a few tricks up his sleeve.

Vail rubbed his palms together, loosening the faery dust ever embedded in his skin. Tilting his palm flat, he blew dust in the face of the attacker just as he moved within touching distance.

Faery dust penetrated the vampire’s pores, traveling up his nostrils and into his throat, instantly rocketing him to a methlike high. The vampire grinned widely, staggered—and dropped.

“You want a taste?” Vail teased the other, who stood with arms out at his sides in bewilderment.

“What the hell was that? You got some voodoo mojo going on?”

“Ch’yeah. Here’s a taste.” Vail blew another cloud of dust and the thug batted at it, but succumbed as quickly as his cohort.

Standing over the two fallen bloodsuckers, Vail shook his head. “Vampires. They’re so weak.”

He licked his palm and inhaled deeply. Once upon a time he could get just as quick and massive a high. He’d give anything for that high now, but since he’d come to the mortal realm he’d shed the haze he’d once lived in, and was becoming clearer by the day.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

He bent over the vampires. “FaeryTown is in the eighteenth, guys. You’ll find more of what you now crave there. Tell ‘em Vail sent you. They’ll hook you up with a sweet little number.”

He straightened and scanned the area. “The seventh?” Across the river, the quarter boasted the Eiffel Tower and the Invalides museum. “Big area to search, but I’m on it.”

THE TWO MINIONS who’d succumbed to his dust clued him in that something was fishy in Paris. Where would a vampiress who had been kidnapped, or maybe not kidnapped, hide? It had to be someplace close to a food source so when she went out for sustenance she did not risk being seen.

Of course, that could be anywhere in the vast city of Paris. The buildings were close, the streets narrow and labyrinthine. Easy enough for mortal or vampire to move about unseen. Even if her minions had narrowed it down to one particular quarter, it would take Vail hours to cover it all.

One thing he had learned since arriving, the vampire tribes, while they kept to themselves, communicated from tribe to tribe in an amazing network. If you were a tribe member, you were accounted for. But even those unaligned with tribes were known. It was in the tribes’ best interest to keep tabs on everyone. A sexy, blonde ice princess like Lyric Santiago would surely be recognized by at least a few.

He did have a tribal contact, but would give the search a go first. Besides, that’s if anyone knew she was missing. The family was keeping this hush-hush.

He folded the picture of the vampiress and stuffed it in a back pocket. Appealing to any man with a healthy sex drive, certainly, with her high breasts and come-on-let’s-kiss white teeth and flirty, long-lashed eyes. But beyond the surface glamour, he wasn’t interested.

Vampires did not appeal to his palate. Sure, that was like calling the kettle black, but he’d grown up knowing that vampires sustained their lives through the heinous practice of imbibing on mortals. They drank their blood!

Vail would never succumb to such a base appetite. He didn’t need it. Faery ichor sustained him. So why bother succumbing to something that horrified him?

As if you don’t do the same, his conscience screamed. You sink your teeth into faery necks. How is that different than taking a mortal?

“They’re filthy and poisoned by their food,” he muttered, and walked onward.

Thinking of which, he was a bit peckish. It had been over a day since he’d fed. He should have fueled up for what he suspected would be a long night.

Striding the streets in the seventh arrondissement, he didn’t attempt to quiet the clicking beats of his boots. He wanted to be heard, to be seen tracking through the twilight haze.

Let them know what they can’t get away from.

Every so often the street was cobbled, a remnant from Paris’s earlier centuries. Vail liked that. And then he didn’t. He knew his father had been around since the mid-eighteenth century, as had Rhys Hawkes and his mother, Viviane.

Rhys and Viviane had fallen in love a few years before the French Revolution. Had they walked these very streets?

“Don’t care. They didn’t care enough about me. I don’t care about them.”

Jumping and hitting the bottom of a low, rusted tin sign with his knuckles, he set the ancient thing into a creaky swing.

Eyes followed him as he cut through the twilight; he could feel their regard prick at his spine. Some were mortal, peering out from windows as their televisions blared monotonously in the background. What a mind waste technology was.

Yet other eyes were Dark Ones, unwilling to test his strut. And woe to those who did employ the bravado to try him.

“Yippi-i-oo,” he sang lowly. “Where are you?”

A glimmer in the corner of his eye told him a sidhe lurked in the shadows, slithering along, following his steps. Curious, but not threatening. His hunger stirred. He sensed it was a lower imp or perhaps a sprite. Sprites were nasty and he didn’t care to go toe-to-toe with one of them. Their ichor was acrid, and he always ended up spitting it out.

Couldn’t be a sprite. Their iridescent sheen never allowed them to blend completely into the shadows.

As he turned a corner, Vail twisted his head quickly to spy the sidhe before it realized he’d been aware of it. The ointment he wore around his eyes gave him that sight.

He dashed forward, grabbed the thing about its narrow chest, and sank his fangs into its neck. Just a quick bite, something to take the edge off the jitters he’d felt tweaking his muscles. Hot ichor glittered down his throat and soothed his pangs. He dropped the faery in a collapse of pale violet limbs. It wobbled in a giddy daze from his bite. The swoon was good to mortal, vampire and even the sidhe.

Thumbing the corner of his mouth, Vail walked on and thanked his ability to see the sidhe. He hadn’t been well loved in Faery, and suspected if any of his former rivals were in the mortal realm of Paris they would not hesitate to call him out. Zett held the top position on that rivalry list.

“Come and get me,” he muttered—then stopped abruptly.

Ahead, a mortal male moaned. A pleasurable utterance that curled Vail’s smile smartly. Right out here, in the street, and not tucked inside a bedroom. Such moxie!

He didn’t hear a responding female voice, but he did smell cherries and jasmine. “Gotcha.”

Racing forward on the balls of his feet—now he wanted the element of surprise—Vail swung around the corner and into a dark alley cluttered with stacked terra-cotta flowerpots.

The man stood shoulders and back to the wall and the female was running her hands up his thigh and over his obvious hard-on. She wore a black scarf that covered all her hair, but Vail bet what was tucked beneath was long and blond. Clad entirely in black, the only spot of color was the red pointed shoes peeking from beneath the pant hem.

She leaned into the mortal’s neck, fangs glinting—then sighted Vail.

Palming a huge flowerpot to leverage his strides, Vail pushed it aside and behind him. It cracked and clattered on the cobbles.

The mortal man landed against Vail’s chest, groping to stand yet utterly confused about why he’d been pulled from the high of arousal. The scent of sex and cigarettes shrouded him.

Shoving him off, Vail tripped over the man’s legs and plunged forward, landing on the cobblestones. He looked up. The vampiress paused at a turn at the end of the alley. She flashed a defiant smirk at him and took off.

“It’s not going to be that easy to ditch me.”

Charging up from all fours, he performed a racer’s dash and made the corner, careening around it in time to spy the vampiress’s long legs slip into the open maw of a warehouse.

Taking in the building’s structure as he approached, he decided it was abandoned. The missing windows and flat, pebbled roof would provide her an easy escape while he wandered about in the dark trying to sense her. He could see well enough in the dark, but preferred to track her heartbeats.

Sniffing, he noted the jasmine and cherries. “You’re the one I want,” he said. “But I think I’ll let you come to me. Always prefer to be the one in control.”

He turned right and walked along the side of the building, tendering careful footsteps so he would sense any noise from inside. She wouldn’t be so stupid now she knew someone was after her.

At the opening to a main street, Vail got another whiff of jasmine. He eyed the stretch of apartment buildings and walk-ups directly across the street. Older, and likely lower rent, though this area was nothing to sneeze at. But dark. No streetlights to expose anyone’s secrecy.

“Perfect.”

“FUCK.”

Shoulders glued against the corrugated iron warehouse wall, Lyric listened for the stranger’s boot steps.

Why had he run after her? Who was he? And what a way to spoil supper. She hadn’t a chance to sink in her fangs and now she was beyond hungry.

All the adrenaline pumping through her system over the past twenty-four hours had stripped her energy and weakened her. In fact, she breathed heavily and panted. What was with that?

She’d gotten a quick look at him. Hair darker than Himself’s heart, slicked back like some kind of goth Elvis. Dark clothing and dark eyes. Really dark, like he used guyliner and smudged it.

Could be a druggie. Mortals, when high on meth, were strong, and if hurt or wounded, could still function without noticing the pain. That had to be it. He was a junkie who’d stumbled onto the scene of her trying to get the mark off, and decided he’d wanted a piece of her for himself.

Which meant she may get lucky and he’d forget what he’d witnessed and be diverted to a quest for more drugs.

Daring a peek around the doorway, she scanned the alley. The room she was squatting in was down the street. She could make a dash for it if she kept to the left side of the street in the shadows that hugged the walls. So she did.

Taking the back stairs up the side of the building to avoid the lobby, she then had to jump onto a neighbor’s balcony and lean over to slide through the window she’d left open a few inches. Years of training with Leo and her acrobatic skills aided her as Lyric mastered the leap and slipped into the apartment.

A twin bed with a lumpy mattress sat below the window. She landed on it in a roll and came up to sit on the edge of the mattress. The apartment, a recent acquisition, was dark. The full moon had cruised behind nasty gray clouds that promised rain before morning.

Could she do this? Actually pull it off? It wasn’t as though she’d ever spent time away from the family mansion. She possessed some facsimile of a social life, went clubbing and made dates, and hunted. But to live on her own?

Lyric sighed and wondered how long it would be before she dared go out again to look for supper.

“So, this is how the young and the kidnapped live.”

A tall, dark-haired man strolled out from the bathroom, leaned against the kitchen wall and hooked one foot up on the side of the butcher block.

Double fuck.