by Tanya Huff
“He’d made his choice,” Vicki growled, her eyes silvering.
“Did he know what he was choosing?” She laughed, unaffected by the Hunger as Vicki struggled to get closer. “You killed because that’s what you are. All I sent you to do was destroy the office.”
“Of Droege Shipping.”
“Yes.”
“What’s your connection to a shipping company?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time.”
She paused the constant motion of the comb. “I suppose you do. Well, all right then. A long, long time ago…”
“How long?” Vicki demanded. She knew she should just let the woman talk, but anger made it hard to keep silent.
Lorelei met Vicki’s gaze, and Vicki found herself sinking into blue-green depths. Deeper. Deeper. This sea was confined but no less deadly for all of that. Anyone else would have drowned, but Vicki had the Hunger to pull her back to the surface.
“That long?”
“That long.” Lorelei’s grip tightened on the comb, her knuckles white. “Year after year after interminable year.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I had a lover once. He betrayed me. Heartbroken, I gave myself to the river, and the river changed me, tied me to it with the curse of lost love. Still grieving, I sang.”
Vicki rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, singing. Very proactive. You should’ve kicked his ass.”
Lorelei blinked, frowned, and said, “Times change.”
“Assholes are eternal.”
She blinked again, then nodded. “True. The sailors who heard my song tried to get to me, but the river protected me and took their ships. Took their lives.”
“I know this story…”
“I can stop if you’re bored.”
The barrier between them continued to hold against her assault. “Go on.”
“If you’re sure.” When Vicki growled, Lorelei nodded and continued. “One day, a handsome young man named Fredrick Droege braved the river for my song, for me. He told me he loved me. Why wouldn’t I believe him? He’d risked drowning, risked death to hold me. He owned a shipping company, and he convinced me to sing only for him.”
“To sink the ships of his competition.”
“So you have heard this story.”
“Not that unusual,” Vicki snorted. She’d have been a lot more sympathetic had she not been used the night before. Had Chris Adams not died. “Let me guess. Fredrick Droege lied about loving you.”
“He did. And when I tried to leave him, the curse of love betrayed that had bound me to the river bound me as firmly to him. When he died, I became just another asset of the company, controlled by his son and then his grandson and now his great-grandson. Albert Droege. I have given them power, and power has corrupted them.”
“Yadda yadda. Same old. But if there’s no company there’s nothing for the curse to tie you to. That’s why you had me destroy the offices.”
“But it wasn’t enough.” A graceful gesture indicated both the dressing room and the club beyond. “They give me this, an audience for the songs I choose to sing to keep me happy.”
“Bird in a gilded cage.”
“It’s concrete.”
“It’s a metaphor.”
“Fair enough. The point is, I’m still not free. I need you to deal with the people who run the company. Begin with Albert Droege, work your way through the board of directors, and finish in the mail room if that’s what it takes.”
“Deal with?” Vicki snorted and folded her arms. “Nice euphemism. I don’t care how corrupt they are, you can’t make me kill for you.”
“Actually, I can.” She drew the comb through her hair, her smile cruel. “Who was he, Nightwalker? Who did you betray?”
Vicki watched in amazement as Henry exploded out into the light, face and hair a pale blur above the moving shadow of his body. The gunman on the nearest rack got a shot off just as she knocked him into the air. Henry’s howl of pain drowned out the ripe-melon sound of the gunman’s head making contact with the concrete floor nine meters down.
The smell of Henry’s blood rose to obliterate the singed sulphur smell of the gunpowder, the hot metal smell of the spent casings, and the warm meaty smell of the men below. Henry’s blood. The blood that had made her.
The Hunger ripped aside all controls.
When they were all dead, when the screaming and the running was over, when she stood with Henry in the midst of broken bodies, she drew in a deep breath of the rich, meaty, blood-scented air and laid her palm flat against his chest. Leaning forward, she licked a bit of blood from the corner of his mouth.
Henry caught her tongue between his teeth, carefully so as not to break the skin.
She moaned against his mouth, pushed a body aside with the edge of her foot, and dragged him to the ground. They managed to get most of their clothing out of the way without destroying it, and then it was flesh against flesh and a strength that could answer hers. No need to hold back. No need to be careful.
So Vicki let the Hunger have its head again.
She dragged his mouth back down to hers as she slammed up to meet his thrusts. Tasted the mix of lives on his lips as he could taste them on hers. Challenged his darkness. Matched it.
Streaked with blood, his skin was slick under her hands.
Her back arced up. His teeth found her breast as hers found his shoulder.
The world went red.
When she got back to the condo, Vicki stood just inside the master bedroom and watched Mike sleep. Watched the rise and fall of his chest. Traced the curve of the arm he’d flung over his head. Listened to his heart beat.
He shifted, and a curl of hair fell down onto his face.
She stepped forward, hand outstretched to brush it back but stopped as the movement pulled the saturated cuff off her sweater across her wrist, drawing a dark smear over bruises rising in the shape of Henry’s fingers…
*
The only other property Droege Shipping owned in Toronto was a trendy dance club called Millennium Ten. Technically, Mike was off the clock, but if this case involved—God help them all—a second vampire, he wanted it solved as quickly as possible. Nine twenty found him pulling up outside the club, using his lights to grab one of the rare Queen Street parking spots. He was still standing by the driver’s door, ignoring the traffic passing two inches from his ass, when he noticed Vicki’s car half a block east.
No real surprise that she’d found the same information and headed here as well.
In an effort to delay exposure to the music he could hear being pumped out the front door, Mike headed down the alley leading to the back of the club. The people he wanted to talk to wouldn’t be out on the dance floor.
Rounding the ubiquitous dumpster, he paused as the rear door opened and Vicki stepped into the alley, lips pulled back off her teeth, her eyes gleaming silver. The terror was instinctive, his hindbrain momentarily taking over. A little harder to place blame for the surge of arousal, but given the twisted strands of their relationship, it certainly didn’t surprise him.
He fought to control both reactions, knowing that with the Hunger released Vicki would sense them. If he wanted to maintain any kind of equality in the conversation they were about to have, he couldn’t…
Between one heartbeat and the next, Vicki was on the roof. And then she was gone, the not-quite-visible flicker of a vampire moving at full speed heading south toward the lake.
Forcing himself to unclench his jaw—they were definitely going to have a talk before the sun came up—he took a step toward the club and paused. Why would she be heading south? Relatively speaking, there wasn’t a lot of city between Queen Street and the lake.
Vicki had emerged from the club fully vamped out.
Something or someone in a club owned by Droege Shipping, the same Droege Shipping that had been destroyed by a supernatural creature the night before, had set Vicki on the Hunt.
To the south.
Al
bert Droege, the man with controlling interest in Droege Shipping, was currently staying in a company-owned penthouse at Queens Quay. Mike had spoken with him briefly that afternoon and had been ripped a new one for not having already found the vandals who’d destroyed the office. Were he a betting man, Mike would have bet big bucks that the elderly CEO’s temper tantrum hid something significant.
His gut told him that Vicki had gone south to find out exactly what that was, and given the mood she was in, she wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about following even the spirit of the law.
“Son of a fucking bitch!”
He hit the siren and forced his car out into bumper-to-bumper traffic. South on Niagara to Bathurst. South on Bathurst slowed by the fucking street car and an SUV driven by a fucker who wouldn’t yield. Left turn onto Queens Quay West. East to Droege’s condominium. He wouldn’t beat her there, but God willing, he wouldn’t be far behind.
The concierge met him at the door, mouth open to complain about his car, not so much parked as abandoned up on the wide sidewalk. Mike flashed his badge as he pushed by, heading for the elevators. Security had just been improved, replacing decades-old locks with electronic keypads. “Can you unlock the condos from here?”
“If it’s an emergency, but…”
“Unlock penthouse four.” If Vicki was already in there, no one would be available to let him in. Mike had no idea what the concierge saw in his expression, nor did he want to know, but as the elevator door closed he saw the man nod and run for his desk.
And thank fucking God it was only nine floors to the two-story penthouses.
The door to four was open when he got there.
The glass doors out onto the terrace were still closed. Good sign. Vicki wouldn’t have taken the elevator.
A crash from the upper level. Something breakable thrown, and thrown hard.
He ran for the stairs.
Charged through the first open door and nearly had his head taken off by a flat-screen monitor.
Although he was clearly terrified, Albert Droege was fighting back.
Mike would consider the implications of that later. Right now, he needed to keep the situation from escalating any further out of control.
“Vicki!”
She glanced toward him. Her lips were pulled back off too-white teeth and her eyes were as inhuman as Mike had ever seen them. He’d seen her vamped out before; had lain in her arms while she sank her teeth into his body and taken him to edge of darkness, but there’d never been a time when hadn’t been able to see Vicki. Here and now, there was nothing in her but Hunger, and words weren’t going to be able to stop her.
He felt himself responding and knew that in half a heartbeat he wouldn’t be able to do anything but bare his throat. A trickle of sweat ran down his side. One step, two… By the time he hit her, he was running full out. He dropped his shoulder, wrapped both arms around her, and took her with him out the open window.
If words couldn’t stop her, gravity might.
Vicki’s body took the brunt of the impact. She’d managed to get her feet under her, her knees and hips acting as shock absorbers for them both, but hitting the cedar decking still hurt like hell. Mike rolled, tasted blood, swore as pain shot up his arm from his wrist, and found himself, finally, staring up at Vicki as she lunged toward him.
*
Mike’s blood wasn’t, couldn’t be, enough to keep her fed, but it sustained her in other ways. The familiar scent cut through the song and stopped her before her teeth broke through the skin. Mouth against his throat, she breathed him in. Home. Humanity.
She wasn’t…
She couldn’t…
The song filled all the spaces Mike wasn’t and threatened to overwhelm her tenuous control. She skimmed a hand over his body, feeling him respond. Pain. Pleasure. Want.
She needed…
She had to…
She ran.
*
There were uniforms in Droege’s penthouse almost before Vicki disappeared over the edge of the roof. The concierge had to have called them.
By the time Mike filled them in on the situation—“I’m guessing she was on some kind of designer drug. A two-story drop barely phased her, and if you don’t stop touching my fucking wrist, I’m going to shoot you.”—Droege’s lawyer had arrived and Droege himself was unavailable for questioning. The lawyer issued a brief statement, the clear expectation being that everyone not a billionaire CEO should just clear out of the condo. A big believer in using bad moods to his advantage, Mike threw his weight around until Droege, through his lawyer, agreed to an appointment. At the club. Ten thirty AM.
Between filing reports and having his wrist taped, Mike wasn’t home until just past three. He made a coffee, sat in the dark, and tried not to think about silvered eyes. Tried not to think about pain and pleasure so entwined he couldn’t tell anymore where one ended and the other began.
Tried not to watch the clock as he waited for sunrise.
The crate behind the false wall in his crawlspace remained empty. He had to believe that Vicki had made it to the safety of her downtown office. He had to believe it because he wouldn’t believe the alternative.
*
Vicki’s car was still parked just down the street from Millennium Ten. She’d been ticketed, but somehow missed having been towed. Staring past his reflection in the car window, Mike flipped open his phone. The call went straight to voicemail.
“Nelson Investigations. Leave your name, number, and what you need me for after the tone.”
And what he needed her for? He unclenched his teeth long enough to growl, “Call me the minute you’re up.”
Few things looked less attractive than a dance club at ten thirty in the morning. The harsh glare of the overhead lights illuminated every stain, every scuff, every lie. Mike flashed his badge at the bored young woman running a steam cleaner over the carpet. She half turned, and pointed toward a door tucked in to the right of the small stage.
One end of the concrete corridor led to the exit up into the alley. The other to an open door, defined by a rectangular spill of light. Odds were good Droege wasn’t waiting in the alley, so Mike turned toward the light.
The room he stepped into seemed to be a dressing room. Four metres square, cinderblock walls painted a pale institutional green; if the tiny window high in the far wall didn’t give away its basement location, the off-center drain in the floor did. It held a dressing table and mirror, aluminum rack of clothes, and the most beautiful woman Mike had ever seen, sitting in an old wooden captain’s chair, combing her hair. She was singing softly to herself, but she looked up as he entered the room.
Her smile promised sunlight and laughter.
Mornings spent lazily in bed, warm under the covers, long legs wrapped around his as they rocked slowly against each other. Afternoons sprawled on the grass, her head on his lap, bending to lick spilled jam from warm skin. Evenings at the table surrounded by family, her eating off his plate as though she didn’t have exactly the same on hers, while under the table her touch wanders up his thigh. Nights together with no surprises in the moonlight.
Mike didn’t remember moving, but he was standing close enough to touch. He reached out, needing to know if the curve of her cheek was as soft as it appeared.
Her smile changed. “So easy,” she sighed, “for you to betray her.”
*
Considering how the investigation to this point had turned up sweet fuck all, Mike found it amazing that the Droege Shipping case was taking up so damned much time. An autopsy had determined that yes, the dead guard had been taken out by a heart attack. The coroner had refused to speculate on the cause although had allowed that given the state of his arteries, Chris Adams was a myocardial infarction waiting to happen. Duncan Riley, the surviving guard, remained physically fine and mentally unhinged. His doctors suspected he was reliving the night over and over… “He’s ejaculating every two, two and a half hours. All things considered, his recovery time is impressive.
”
“Way, way too much information,” Mike muttered as he hung up. Rolling out his shoulders, he glanced toward the window where the sunset gilded the glass. Vicki’d be calling soon, and as little as he was looking forward the conversation, at least it would get him away from the piles of futile paperwork he’d spent the day on.
“Well…” Dave propped a thigh on the corner of Mike’s desk. “…what’d you turn up?”
“Big fat nothing.” Mike nudged his coffee mug out of harm’s way with the back of his bound wrist.
“Let me guess, Droege had no idea who could possibly be after little old never-cheated-anyone him.”
“Yeah, well, Droege’s lawyer seemed to have no idea.”
“He brought his lawyer to the club? That sucks.”
“To the club?”
Dave stared down at him for a long moment then shook his head. “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, paperwork kills brain cells. Did Droege,” he continued slowly, with heavy emphasis, “bring his lawyer to the club?”
“I don’t…” Mike frowned. The lawyer had been at the condo. Hadn’t allowed him to speak to Droege. The club was on Queen Street West. It was… There was… He didn’t… “I don’t remember.”
“Interesting.”
“Why?”
“Because lately, my friend, all your memory lapses tend to lead back to Vicki.”
“Vicki has nothing to do with this!” When Dave reared back, both hands up, he realized he’d been a little overly vehement. Dave hadn’t known what the bite marks on Duncan Riley meant. Hadn’t know it was Vicki that Mike had chased out of Albert Droege’s condo.
“Dude, chill. I didn’t say she did. I was thinking maybe you were distracted by a little afternoon delight not that she’s been ripping people apart. Not that it would matter if she was. You got it so bad, you’d never give her up.”
Mike rubbed his head wondering who the hell had the music playing so loud in the squad room. “Give her up…?”
“Rat her out,” Dave expanded, rolling his eyes. “Squeal on her. Turn her in. Betray her trust.”