Blood Bound

by Rachel Vincent

  Cam laughed out loud, and my teeth ground together. “That’s not a plan. It’s not even a complete sentence.”

  “You got something better?”

  “How ’bout this?” He pulled back the right side of his jacket and showed me his gun. It was bigger than mine. And it was fitted with a long, barrel-shaped silencer in what had to be a custom-made holster.

  “Nice,” I admitted, and his grin was back. But I couldn’t help wondering why the hell he even owned a silencer.

  “I had a feeling you’d appreciate the reminder that I come well equipped.”

  “I’d appreciate it more if I thought you knew how to use that,” I said, without thinking. His eyes lit up, and that’s when I realized I was flirting. We’d fallen back into that old familiar pattern as if the past six years had never happened.

  “What, you don’t remember?” he teased, while I silently cursed myself.

  “This isn’t going to happen, Cam.”

  His good humor faltered, then resurged. “The execution?” He was as stubborn as ever.

  “No, that’s going to happen. Then you go back to your life and I go back to mine.”

  His grin vanished. “What life?” Cam demanded softly, his gaze holding mine like the earth holds the moon captive. “What could you possibly have now that’s better than what you left behind?”

  Nothing. I had nothing now but the knowledge that I’d made a tough choice for us both, because I couldn’t live with the alternative. And neither could he. But that knowledge did little to ease the hollow ache in my chest or warm the empty half of my bed, and admitting regret now would only make the whole thing worse. So I closed my mouth, opened the car door and got out without a word.

  Turning away from him this time hurt no less than it had the time before.

  Six

  Liv opened the passenger’s side door and stepped onto the sidewalk without acknowledging my question. She might think she could sweep me under the carpet again when this job was over, but she was wrong. I’d given her time. I’d given her space. I’d given her every opportunity in the world to find someone else and start a family, or at least start a life that included more than just the job she obviously lived and breathed. The closest she’d ever come was moving in with some asshole who cheated on her—I’d tracked him, even if she hadn’t thought to—then stolen her car.

  I could see the truth as well as any Reader could have. If she really didn’t want me, she would have gotten serious with someone else. She wouldn’t grimace every time she told me to go away, as if the words tasted bad. She wouldn’t still look at me like she used to, when she thought I wasn’t watching.

  Olivia still wanted me, just as much as I wanted her, but something was holding her back. Something she couldn’t move past. I could take care of that obstacle for her—I’d tear down anything standing between us—but I couldn’t destroy what I couldn’t even see. She’d have to show me the problem. I’d have to make her show me the problem.

  Bolstered by fresh determination, I fell in at her side, and we headed for the entrance without even a glance around the neighborhood.

  Rule #1 in tracking: don’t look like a Tracker.

  It’s always best to go unnoticed. Even near my own neighborhood.

  Especially with Liv at my side.

  Even if she wasn’t marked or bound, word on the street was hard to overcome, and most people thought she was sleeping with Cavazos at the very least, which meant that Tower’s men would see her either as a trespasser to be booted from this side of town, or a prize to be offered up to the boss.

  No easy outs, either way.

  I jogged up the front steps and she followed me into a tiny, dusty entryway leading into a long hallway lined with doors and apartment numbers. “Well?” I said, relieved to have her off the street and out of sight.

  Liv reached into her pocket to feel the bloody sock again. Then she nodded toward the staircase, and I followed her up the first flight of stairs. On the second-floor landing, she reassessed, then started down the hallway, eyes half-closed, obviously letting the energy signature pull her.

  She had told me once that the blood pull was really more of a feeling than a scent, and though I had little blood-tracking skill myself, I knew she was right. But as she worked her way down the hall, she sniffed the air softly, like a real bloodhound, though she didn’t even seem to know she was doing it.

  About halfway down, she stopped and turned to me. “It starts to fade here….” She stepped back toward me, then stopped, closed her eyes and nodded, as if she was sure of something. “And it’s strongest here.” She stood directly between two apartment doors. “Is that 208 or 210?”

  I glanced at the end of the hall, toward the first door, then followed the pattern to where we stood. “Two-ten,” I whispered, and reached for the doorknob. But then her hand landed on my arm, warm against my bare skin.

  “Let me,” she insisted. “Men are still less threatened by women than by other men. I’ll have a better shot of getting in there without causing a scene.”

  I nodded and stepped back from the door, not because I agreed with her—I didn’t—but because I could still feel her hand on my arm, and the surprise of being touched by her again had yet to fade.

  She may not have looked scary, with her big blue eyes and jacket that hid her gun but not her curves, but Liv could track better than any man I’d ever met, and if word on the street could be believed, Rawlinson had turned her into a damn fine fighter. Over the past six years, living and working in this city had turned the funny, charismatic girl I’d loved with every cell of my body into a jaded, hard-edged loner I still couldn’t look at without catching my breath.

  I’d never felt more alive, watching Liv prepare to charm—or maybe force—her way into some stranger’s apartment. Olivia was a wire wound too tight, always about to snap, but she lived on excitement and thrived under pressure. Being with her was like holding a bomb in both hands, watching the numbers tick back toward zero. I knew she’d eventually explode, and this time it might kill me.

  But it was hard to care about the potential for collateral damage when just being near her again felt so good. So I pressed my back against the wall to the right of the door, gun drawn and ready in a two-handed grip. Liv’s gun was still concealed, but I had no doubt she could get to it in a hurry. She knocked on the door, but no one answered. There was no sound from inside.

  Liv knocked again, but again got no response. “The pull’s still strong, which means he’s home but not answering. Or, he’s lying unconscious and near death from whatever wound Shen managed to inflict before dying.” She glanced up at me, brows raised in question. “Plan B?” she whispered, and I nodded.

  B always stood for breaking and entering.

  She stepped aside and pulled her gun while I holstered mine. I took the doorknob in both hands and twisted sharply. The lock broke with a metallic snap that seemed to echo much louder than it should have. But the door didn’t swing open.

  “Dead bolt,” I said.

  “Is that a problem?”

  I gave her a disappointed look. “It’s like you don’t know me at all…. Step back.”

  She stepped away from the door hesitantly as I dropped into a deep squat to stretch—which is when she figured out what I had in mind. “Wait, don’t…!” she whispered, but I was already in motion. My foot slammed into the door just beneath the knob and wood creaked loudly. Liv cringed over the noise, then shrugged. “May as well finish it now….”

  I kicked again, and the interior frame gave way with the loud splinter of wood. Maybe not the most subtle entry, but definitely the fastest.

  The door swung open, and I lurched to the right, watching her from across the doorway with my gun already drawn. For one long second, neither of us moved.

  I couldn’t break Cam’s gaze, and my own breathing was heavy in anticipation. We shared that single, taut moment of expectancy until we realized that if the target was in there, he wasn’t coming
out.

  Finally, I nodded at the ruined door, reluctantly impressed by the damage, and lifted both brows in question. Cam gestured for me to go first. Which I liked.

  I rounded the door frame and into the living room, gun aimed at the floor, scanning the room with my gaze and the entire apartment with whatever sense it is that feels the pull of blood. That pull was still there, but not as strong as it should have been. Not as strong as it would have been if the target were in the apartment, even if he wasn’t bleeding.

  Cam came in behind me and pushed the front door closed, but it swung open a couple of inches again, because of the busted lock. I heard him checking behind doors and under furniture while I opened all the kitchen cabinets big enough for a man to crawl into.

  “I think it’s clear,” I said, flicking the safety on my 9mm. But I kept the gun out, just in case. “Damned if I understand it, though.”

  “Maybe he just left.” Cam kicked open the bedroom door and glanced beneath the bed, then in the closet, checking both potential hiding places gun first. “He is a Traveler, right? So he probably just stepped into a shadow and out of the apartment the minute he heard us.”

  Which was why tracking a Traveler could be a real bitch. The only way to catch one was to trap him in a room with no shadows big enough for him to walk through. And that’s a lot harder than it sounds. Kori was a shadow-walker, and her grandmother had given up on grounding her when she was fourteen.

  But…

  “That shouldn’t matter,” I said. “So long as he’s alive, his energy signature should lead to him, not to his apartment.” Which Cam would know if he were a bloodhound—name-tracking works a little differently, and Cam was no better with blood than I was with names. “But the pull still feels like it’s coming from…here.”

  “Here…where?”

  I closed my eyes and clutched the sock in my pocket again, through the plastic bag. The energy signature was fainter now, as the sock continued to dry, but I could still feel it. Eyes still closed, I turned until I faced the direction of the pull, and when I opened my eyes, I found myself staring at the open bathroom door.

  “There.”

  Cam crossed the room in a heartbeat. He pushed the door open all the way with one hand, then scanned the interior with his gun aimed and ready. He’d had training. The same kind of training I’d had. And he was good.

  For a moment, I wondered if he was a cop. Was that why Anne had wanted us to work together? Was Cam actually using his criminal-justice degree, while I’d let my B.A. in philosophy rot in a drawer?

  And if not, how was he making a living?

  A second later, he took two steps into the bathroom and pulled the shower curtain back in one swift movement. It rattled on the rod, but revealed an empty—if filthy—tub. There was barely space for two people in the room, but I squeezed in with him anyway, already half suspecting what I’d find.

  Sure enough…

  I dropped the toilet lid—the bowl was no cleaner than the tub—and sat, then pulled the wastebasket in front of me, between my boots. Inside was a pile of blood-soaked rags, tissues and bandages.

  “Shen must have got him good.” Cam sank onto the edge of the tub.

  “I guess. But why would he leave them here?” Every Skilled person I knew carried a bottle of ammonia—or at least bleach—in their car, and most of us had an entire collection of chemicals that would destroy blood in our homes.

  Leaving blood around like this was beyond careless. If found by people with the right Skills—or people who had access to people with the right Skills—fresh blood samples could be used to track the donor, or bind him to…well, anything. At least for a while. Blood not freely given wouldn’t bind someone forever, unless the Binder was extraordinarily gifted. But it would work long enough to compel the donor to turn himself in, or keep him from going to the authorities, or whatever the Binder wrote into a contract and sealed with the stolen blood.

  This wasn’t the kind of mistake anyone with Skill would make. In fact, fewer and fewer of the unSkilled were leaving viable blood samples undestroyed, as the truth of our existence persevered despite the lack of official recognition from the government.

  Any government.

  “Something’s wrong here, Cam.” I glanced around the bathroom for something to prod the trash with, and didn’t find so much as a plunger. So I donned the latex gloves from my pocket and used them to lift bandage after bloody bandage from the trash can. They were all the same.

  “Fresh…” I said, laying the first piece over the edge of the tub next to Cam. He stood to make more room. “He’s only been gone an hour. Maybe less. And you’re right, he’s hurt pretty badly.” Based on the amount of blood alone. “But why would I be drawn here, instead of drawn to him? Whoever he is?”

  “Maybe he’s dead,” Cam suggested, leaning over the sink tewerll open the medicine cabinet.

  “If he were dead, his blood would have no pull. He’s still alive, somewhere, and leaving his own viable blood around like he wants to be found, whoever he is.”

  “Eric Hunter.” Cam held a prescription pill bottle down for me to see. “Three of them, and they’re all prescribed to the same man, at this address. Antibiotics, antidepressants and anti-inflammatories.” He set the bottle back on its shelf and closed the cabinet. “Mr. Hunter, you were obviously depressed, inflamed and…biotic. But why did you kill Shen Liang?”

  “My guess is that he was hired. But who would hire someone to kill a work-at-home husband and father?”

  “Maybe something to do with his work?” Cam suggested. “Did Anne mention what kind of software he designs?”

  I shook my head. We were no closer to the why, but the how was obvious. The killer was a Traveler—a shadow-walker, capable of stepping into one shadow and out of another one, anywhere in the world, if he were powerful enough. Certainly anywhere in the city, based on the strength of the blood sample Anne had brought.

  “And why did he leave his blood…?” I thought aloud, staring at the mess he’d left. And that’s when I realized why the whole thing felt so weird, beyond the presence of so much viable blood. “It’s fading.”

  “What’s fading?” Cam asked. “Is it drying already?”

  “Not the blood, the power. The Skill.” I stood, stunned by what shouldn’t have been possible, but was quite obviously happening anyway. “Feel this.” I thrust a blood-soaked dish rag at Cam and he took it reluctantly in his bare hands. “Do you feel it?”

  He shook his head slowly, and his blue eyes widened. “I’m not as good with blood as you are, but I should be able to feel something. If he’s Skilled.”

  “Exactly.” I pulled off my gloves and laid them over the edge of the tub. “I can still feel it, but it’s nowhere near as strong as it was. As it still is, in this sample.” I pulled the bagged sock from my pocket. “But it’s definitely the same blood. Which means that somehow, his Skill was stronger when he bled on the sock than when he bandaged the wound here at home, about seventeen hours later.”

  Cam ran water over his hand to rinse away the blood. “How is that possible? How can Skill fade?”

  “I don’t know.” And I still couldn’t figure out why I’d be pulled to a trash can full of bloody rags, rather than to the man who’d left with even more of it in his veins.

  The squeal of hinges froze us both, and Cam laid one finger over his lips, warning me to be quiet. As if I didn’t already know.

  “Who’s in there?” a male voice called, and I shoved the sealed sock back into my pocket with one hand while I drew my gun with the other.

  Hunter? I mouthed to Cam, but he shook his head, and I read recognition on his face.

  “Nick, is that you?”

  “Who’s that?” the voice from the living room called.

  “Cam Cabellero. We’re coming out.”

  “Who’s we?”

  Cam motioned for me to put my gun up and follow him out of the bathroom. I holstered my pistol, but left my jacket open so I coul
d get to it in a hurry.

  Nick turned out to be in his early twenties and unSkilled, with a thick build, dark hair and a black Glock 9mm, which he was shoving barrel first into the waist of his pants when I stepped into the living room. His eyes widened when he saw me, but in surprise, not recognition. So far, so good.

  “Lady next door said someone kicked in the door to 210. I’m guessing that was you and…” He glanced at me expectantly, waiting for me to fill in my name.

  “Liv Warren,” Cam said reluctantly, when I remained silent. I could have punched him. Why the hell had he given out my real name?

  “Liv…?” Sudden comprehension wrinkled Nick’s forehead and when he crossed his arms over his chest, one of the short sleeves of his dark T-shirt rode up, revealing a single thick, rust-colored link of chain tattooed on his upper arm. He was one of Tower’s grunts—no surprise, considering the neighborhood. Like most of Tower’s men—and more than a few women—he’d probably grown up on the west side and discovered after high school that his employment options consisted mostly of greasy fast-food service and manual labor.

  Like the typical syndicate employee, Nick had likely signed on for a five-year term of service with the potential for renewal and advancement if he proved useful. But even if he opted not to re-up at the end of his service commitment, he would never be able to work for another syndicate or work against Tower, thanks to the lifelong loyalty and noncompetition clauses he would have been required to sign and seal with his own blood.

  “Aren’t you on the wrong side of town?” Nick demanded, staring down at me as if I was worth less than the crud stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

  Nick’s single mark said he was in his first term of service; the cocky grin said he’d been in just long enough to think he was badass. I was itching to prove him wrong—to take out some of my unspent anger at Cavazos on this little prick’s face—but I knew better than to start shit with one of Tower’s men in his own neighborhood. I’d be outnumbered before I could throw my second punch.