To Hell and Back (Hellcat Series Book 4)

by Sharon Hannaford

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  When they left Savannah’s laboratory nearly two hours later, Gabi was driving her new, red, armour-treated performance car. The dark grey BMW would be delivered to her house later in the week, but she simply couldn’t resist trying out the McLaren 12C. She told herself that she couldn’t make him send it back; the car was already coated in Savannah’s impervious-to-just-about-anything chemical compound. Apparently Julius’s choice of car had lumped the Vampire inventor with even more work. The McLaren was built of carbon fibre, so the original compound wouldn’t adhere to the lightweight surface. Not that Savannah had seemed put out; she’d shrugged off Gabi’s thanks and thanked Julius for giving her an interesting new challenge. Though Gabi would never admit it out loud to Julius, she was in heaven driving the new car. It was a challenging drive, but she’d been taught to handle muscle cars by one of the best stunt drivers in the movie business, and she revelled in the edgy, untamed power.

  In the back was a small pile of treated leather offcuts and several treated daggers and short swords. Razor was curled up asleep in the passenger seat, unperturbed by Savannah’s fussing. Savannah had promised delivery of his armour by the end of the week, and she’d made Gabi swear to bring him back for a visit soon. Julius followed close behind her in the Aston Martin, toying with her on the open sections of road, but stopping short of turning things into a true race as she got to grips with her new mechanical beast. For the half-hour trip back to the outskirts of the City, Gabi forgot all the dangers and troubles that nipped at their heels like persistent hyenas and simply exhilarated in the experience of driving.

  Gabi’s mood was light and carefree when they arrived at the Estate just around midnight. Alexander, Nathan and Kyle were waiting for them at the front of the mansion. Kyle gave a low, protracted whistle when she lifted the vertical car door and stepped out of the McLaren. Julius’s smile, when he joined them, was mildly smug.

  “Makes your Ferrari look like the poor cousin now,” Kyle teased Alexander as he walked admiringly around the car.

  “Mine’s a hardtop,” Alexander replied quellingly.

  “How exactly are you going to fit all your gear in it?” Kyle asked her, opening the passenger door for a peek inside and narrowly avoiding Razor’s swat. “Bloody cat,” he swore, quickly slamming the door closed again.

  “That’s where the other car comes in,” Gabi told him airily.

  “Other car,” he exploded.

  “I hate to break up the sibling rivalry,” Nathan broke in quietly, “but we weren’t just hanging around out here waiting to see your new car.” As Julius’s head of security, Nathan’s words immediately sent a shot of adrenalin through Gabi.

  “What’s wrong?” Gabi and Julius spoke in unison.

  “A rogue Vampire has been found dead in the City,” Nathan reported.

  “And…” Gabi asked, knowing there had to be more to it if Julius’s two most senior Clan members and Kyle were waiting to tell them about it.

  “And it seems she was drained of blood before she died the true death,” Nathan reported, his tone perfunctory, but the twitching of his jaw muscles gave away his unease.

  “Have you ever heard of a Vampire being killed by exsanguination?” Gabi asked Julius as they sped through the dark City streets. The atmosphere in the Aston Martin was tense, though Razor, grooming himself calmly in the back seat, seemed oblivious to it. Alexander and Nathan followed behind them in the Ferrari, and Kyle brought up the rear of the convoy in his van. The body of the Vampire had been taken to the City morgue, and one of the SMV undercover staff had called it in. Byron would have his work cut out smoothing things over with the human contingent. The Vampire had to have been young, as she hadn’t turned to dust, but her mummified appearance had already garnered unwanted interest at the morgue.

  “Only once or twice,” Julius replied. “But those were many years ago, and I only know the reports third or fourth hand, so I can’t tell you much about them.”

  “But it’s possible it’s something that happens with more frequency?” Gabi checked.

  “If the Vampire is more than fifty years Turned, they’ll most likely become dust. There would be no way to know for sure how they died unless someone witnessed the event,” he confirmed.

  “Who would want to do such a thing?” Gabi asked, thinking aloud rather than expecting an answer. “Surely a rogue Vampire hunter would find easier ways to kill.”

  “It’s unlikely it was a human,” Julius said, shaking his head. “Kyle said there was no blood at the scene where the body was found.”

  “So if not a human, then who?” Gabi racked her brain for possible reasons to kill like this. “What supernatural would take blood from a Vampire?”

  “Not just a Vampire, Lea,” Julius reminded her.

  Her mind suddenly flashed a picture of the bloodless body of the Werewolf at SMV HQ. “Holy shit,” she whispered, wondering how she could’ve been so slow in putting it together. “You’re right. A drained Werewolf and a drained Vampire in, what? Three days? Both unknown to the City and both left at scenes with no sign of the blood they’ve lost. What the Hell is going on?”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out,” Julius assured her tightly, pulling up outside the neatly painted, unassuming building that housed the City Morgue.

  Kyle met them at the entrance. He was just sliding his phone back into his pants pocket. “We’re going in as relatives of a long-missing woman matching the description of the deceased,” he told them in a low voice. “As the corpse looks like it’s been dead at least a decade, and she appears to be in her twenties, Gabi, you’ll be her sister, and Julius your husband. I’m her boyfriend from the time she went missing.”

  Gabi nodded. That explained why the other two were still in the Ferrari. Too many friends and relatives would look suspicious.

  “Once we confirm our suspicions, Byron will arrange someone to mind-wipe the humans who brought her in and processed her, and our insider will eliminate the paper trail. The body can be sent to HQ’s morgue if you approve, Julius.”

  “Let’s go,” Julius said, his mouth a grim line.

  The corpse on the cold steel table was a pathetic sight. Whatever clothing she’d arrived in had been removed, and a crisp white sheet covered the desiccated body curled in on itself like a sleeping child. Stray wisps of strawberry blonde hair clung in uneven clumps to her browning, parchment-like scalp. Gabi was relieved that it wouldn’t look unusual for her to have tears in her eyes. The overpowering smell of chemical disinfectants and unnatural deodorisers was all but singeing off her nose hairs. The fainter smell of decomposition was almost pleasant in comparison. She wasn’t sure how Kyle and Julius were keeping such passive faces through the onslaught; their sense of smell was even sharper than hers.

  The morgue attendant calmly and sympathetically warned them that the viewing might be difficult, and that positive identification would require a DNA test. He was a thin, unassuming man, already slightly balding, but no older than his mid-thirties. The three of them nodded wordlessly, and the attendant didn’t seem to expect anything more from them. He pulled the steel gurney over to a brightly lit area of the cold room, gently tugged the sheet down to expose the mummified face of the corpse, and left them, saying he’d give them a few minutes.

  Her eye sockets were dark sunken voids, and her lips were beginning to pull back from her teeth, leaving her with a macabre kind of grin. If you knew what you were looking for, the fangs were a dead giveaway, Gabi thought, then grimaced at her own pun. Julius and Kyle glanced at each other and silently nodded their agreement. This corpse had, not long before, been a living Vampire.

  “Call Byron,” Julius told Kyle. “Have her taken to HQ, and see what your coroner has to say about cause of death. If he agrees with the exsanguination theory, we may need to call a meeting of all the powers that be. It’s possible this is a bizarre coincidence, but far more likely the beginning of something particularly unpleasant.”
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  Kyle was just pulling out his phone when the attendant re-entered the room. Kyle lowered his head, as though in grief, and ducked out the door before it swung closed.

  “Would you like me to go ahead and arrange the DNA test?” the attendant asked.

  A tingly sensation spread across Gabi’s exposed skin as Julius turned to the man.

  “This is indeed my wife’s sister,” he told the man, authority ringing in his voice. “We will arrange to have her body collected in the next few hours. There is no need for DNA tests or further paperwork. Everything will be arranged, and you can go on with your other work for the evening.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” the man intoned, his face gone blank. “I’m sorry for your loss. I have other work to attend to.” Then he turned, his white lab coat swinging with the brisk motion, and left the room without further comment.

  “It was easier than going through the motions of a DNA test,” Julius explained as Gabi raised an eyebrow at him. “The Magi can finish the job when they get here.”

  Gabi shrugged. It was irrelevant to her who wiped the humans’ minds so long as it was done.

  “Now what?” she asked, chewing on her bottom lip.

  “Now, I have some phone calls to make,” Julius said, striding from the cramped room and its disturbing inhabitants.

  CHAPTER 7

  Gabi hated downtown on a weekday. Parking was a nightmare, and even finding a taxi, never mind hailing one, was a near impossibility. People rushed in every direction, somewhere urgent to be, something urgent to do. She’d parked the new car on the seventeenth floor of a parking garage and now had seven city blocks to traverse through the tide of human urgency to get to her accountant’s offices. She seriously had to get the woman to find new offices or stay open late.

  Gabi was already three weeks overdue delivering the paperwork Jeanine had requested, so putting it off another week was not an option. In previous years she’d used a courier to collect and deliver stuff in town, but last year a batch of important documents of hers went missing in the courier system, and it’d taken six weeks to find them. She’d vowed never again, which left her having to make her own trip to drop off paperwork or sign documents.

  She sighed as she exited the elevator from the parking garage and darted into the surge of people jostling along High Street. She detested this rubbing of shoulders with strangers. Even though very few bumped or jostled her, they couldn’t give her the breathing room she generally enjoyed around humans. There was just something about her that made most humans unconsciously keep their distance from her. It’d been that way since she was a teenager, and she still had no real idea why.

  As she neared Fountain Square, the crowd thinned a little, and she took a deeper breath, filling her lungs in relief. She hitched the awkwardly sized box of paperwork under her left arm instead of carrying it in front of her now that there was some room to spare. She entered the square with its brimming, colourful flower boxes and cherub-encrusted cement fountain and was tempted to pause and breathe in the scent of the blooms, a pleasant counterpoint to the scent of humanity milling around her. She shook off the urge, reminding herself that she’d rather be done with her errand and get home for a nap. It’d been a long night. She just barely kept the flush from her face at the memory.

  As she turned to cross the paved centre of the square, a tiny nudge at her back grabbed her attention. She just barely controlled the urge to viciously grab hold of the human who’d dared to brush up against her. She had to keep her natural tendencies in check in the daytime with so many witnesses. Still, she swung her head to rake the nudger with a swift, assessing glance.

  “Excuse me. Sorry,” the petite young woman said. She was dressed in torn jeans, a crude T-shirt and sneakers. She had an iPod in her hand, a backpack swinging from one arm, and was chewing gum. “I didn’t see ya there.” She grinned brightly. “Maybe I should pay more attention to the people around me than this.” She brandished the iPod in front of Gabi’s face. Without waiting for a response from Gabi, she took two steps backwards then re-shouldered the backpack and started to wander off.

  “Wait,” Gabi snapped.

  The girl ignored her and stuck an earphone into each ear as her stride became more hurried.

  Gabi caught up to her in three steps and swung her around by her elbow. “I’ll have my things back before you leave,” she growled.

  The girl shrieked in shock and stumbled back from Gabi, eyes wide. “Don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt me,” the girl yelled loudly, attracting attention from passersby. The shock was gone from her eyes, replaced by cunning. “Take whatever you want. Just don’t hurt me.” She continued to overact her part.

  Immediately Gabi scanned the gathering crowd. In a few seconds the one she was expecting appeared. A tall, heavily muscled man a few years older than the girl pushed through the onlookers, a stormy look on his face.

  “Hey, you, leave the girl alone,” he spluttered.

  Gabi ignored the command and hung onto the girl’s elbow with bruising force.

  “I said leave her alone,” the brute repeated loudly, looking around himself as though expecting others to join him in protesting.

  “I will as soon as she gives back my possessions,” Gabi said through gritted teeth.

  “Help me. She’s hurting me,” the girl shrieked, a little more earnestly now, trying to pull from Gabi’s grasp. The brute stormed towards them threateningly. Gabi let the girl go with a little shove, to keep her in Gabi’s line of vision, while she swiftly put her box of paperwork on the ground and turned to meet the girl’s partner in crime.

  “I’d stand down if I were you,” Gabi said in a deadly, cold voice when he got to within a few feet of her. She flattened her gaze and allowed him to see the implicit threat in her eyes. Warning him to take the chance she was offering him to walk away. It wasn’t that she was afraid of the idiot. Though he towered over her by more than a foot, she could take him down with one arm tied behind her back, blindfolded and drunk (if she could actually get drunk). She was more concerned about taking a six-and-a-half-foot-tall slab of testosterone-filled male down in front of human witnesses. There would be questions, and she didn’t have the patience for police interrogations today. “Even an imbecile can see the two of you are working a scam here. I’m not going to be today’s patsy.”

  She turned back to the girl. “Hand back my wallet and phone, and I’ll give you a two-minute head start before I phone the cops.” She wasn’t going to call the cops, she had far more effective means of dealing with lowlifes like these, but they didn’t need to know that.

  “How dare you accuse us of something criminal,” the man spat, taking another threatening step towards her, his fists clenched at his sides, his eyes blazing.

  “Make your pretty little cohort hand back my things, and nobody gets hurt,” Gabi growled, only barely holding onto her temper now. Mr Tall-muscled-and-stupid was either too witless or too unobservant to take the hint. He took another step closer, actually lifting his right hand as though ready to backhand her.

  “What you going to do?” Gabi challenged him snarkily. “Assault me in front of dozens of witnesses. Gods, you’re even more moronic than I originally thought.” It seemed there was only going to be one way to conclude this little set-to, but she wasn’t walking away from her wallet and phone.

  The man raised his eyebrows incredulously, shocked that she hadn’t backed down from his aggression. Then, emboldened by the gathering crowd’s lack of action against him, his eyes narrowed deviously.

  “Twenty bucks on the lady,” a rough, gravelly, masculine voice called lazily from her left.

  Gabi allowed her attention to dart in that direction for a fraction of a second, assessing the newcomer. He’d shouldered his way through the crowd to stand a foot closer than the rest of the humans, with his arms loosely crossed. He was a tall, older man, maybe in his fifties. Grey flecked the dark brown hair at his temples and punctuated the five-day-old stubble on his chi
n. Grizzled was the word that popped into Gabi’s mind, the sort of man you expected to see playing the lead in a fifties Western. While there was nothing overtly dangerous about the man, even his casual dress code of jeans and a button-down, checked shirt didn’t detract from the air of unconscious swagger that marked the man a fighter to Gabi’s experienced eye. Mr Stupid seemed confused. Again.

  “I’m not sure there are any ladies here,” Gabi quipped, buying time to work out if the older man was in on the con. He was human, so no real threat to Gabi, but if he was on their side, things weren’t looking good for the recovery of her personal items.

  A slow, wry grin broke through the stubble on the man’s face, and he inclined his head ever so slightly. “I use the term loosely,” he conceded.

  “What the fuck do you want, old man?” Stupid snarled.

  Gabi noticed that the girl was trying to back away from the fray. She could run, but she couldn’t hide, not from Gabi, so she could try. The chase might be fun.

  “Hey, it’s your funeral. I just thought it was fair to warn you, you know, man to man?” the newcomer told him. “You see, this lady,” his lips twitched in amusement, “works out at a dojo I used to do maintenance work for. She’s pretty notorious there; not too many women achieve black belts in three different martial arts, and she has a reputation for a pretty short fuse. I think you’ve caught her on a good day if you’re still standing here arguing with her.”

  Gabi was hard-pressed to keep back the snort of laughter that bubbled up from her chest. Did this man have any idea of how close to the truth he’d just hit? Or did he? Still keeping half her attention on Stupid, she flicked her gaze back to the older man, studying him more deeply, trying to discern if she’d ever come across him before. Aside from his fighter’s bearing, nothing about him seemed familiar to her.