“Mr…Mac,” Gabi corrected herself, “you’ve met Kyle, I see, and this is Julius.”
“It is an honour to meet you, Master Julius,” Mac said, his tone deferential, even slightly awed. His face was a mask of grave respect, but his heart was racing.
Gabi was confused for a moment, and then it hit her. It was so easy for her to forget the effect Julius had on others. She still had no idea why his presence didn’t overwhelm her like it did almost everyone else.
“Please, just Julius, Mr Maclary,” Julius told him. “Take a seat. We don’t stand on ceremony outside of formal engagements.”
“Thank you,” Mac said simply, “and please call me Mac.”
Gabi was relieved to see the first hint of his usual humour resurfacing. She took the initiative and went around to Mac’s side of the table, leaving Julius the chair next to Kyle. Mac immediately pulled back her chair for her to sit, and Gabi noticed something she hadn’t when she met him earlier; the movement of his right arm was stiff and unnatural, as though his shoulder joint was partially immobile. He hid the weakness well enough to pass casual assessment, but it was obvious once he used the arm. Gabi wondered if this was the injury that ended his Slayer career. He helped her sit without comment, pretending he hadn’t noticed her shrewd appraisal. His heartbeat had settled somewhat but then accelerated with a jolt. Razor had stalked over to their side of the table and lifted himself up on his hind legs, putting his paws on Gabi’s lap to peer at Mac with intense concentration. Mac was frozen midway to retaking his seat.
“Oh, Mac, meet Razor,” Gabi said with a grin. “My cat.”
“Uh, I’ve never owned a cat,’ he said in a rumble as he settled carefully into his chair, “but isn’t that a bit big to be a pet cat?”
“It’s all right,” Kyle stage-whispered across the table, “we all pretend like we think she’s sane.” Razor turned his head to glare at Kyle, and a low mock growl issued from him. “Just try not to piss him off.” Kyle grinned as he refrained from taking his own advice.
“I’ll try not to piss either of them off,” Mac drawled, keeping his movements slow and steady.
Gabi rolled her eyes. “He’s not that bad. He hasn’t taken a piece out of anyone for days. Get him a chair, Wolf, and he might let you keep your fingers tonight.”
Kyle grumbled about being servant to a cat but got up to fetch a chair from a small stack of spares in a corner near them.
“Don’t worry,” she told Mac. “They have a long-standing enmity. Raz doesn’t hate everybody.”
Kyle snorted in disbelief as he positioned a chair next to Gabi at the table.
Further conversation was forestalled by the arrival of a waitress. A pretty young thing with a bright smile, fresh make-up and a handful of menus. Gabi had hoped they’d gotten over the sight of Julius in the restaurant by now, but the girls never failed to primp and preen before rushing to serve them. She’d even heard a fight going on one night as she went to the ladies’ room, over which one of them got the table. Jorge had had to step in and give the table to the only male waiter on duty.
They took their menus, and Julius requested a bottle of wine, something French and unpronounceable to Gabi. The girl had been so fixated on Julius she’d barely noticed the huge cat sitting on a chair at the table like it was perfectly normal. Perhaps the tiny brush of power in the air had something to do with it. Gabi glanced sharply at Julius and saw his jaw muscle tic as he suppressed a grin. It amused him to try to use his power without her noticing; so far he didn’t seem able to get it right.
They all silently perused their menus until the waitress arrived back in a breathless rush with the wine. She poured for Julius and Gabi and then took their meal orders. Julius placed an order for food out of habit now, knowing that between Kyle and Gabi they’d finish his portion as well. With the number of times they came here for dinner, it would raise questions if he never ordered food. It was easier to use the small deception than to continually alter human memories.
Gabi moved her chair slightly to be able to look at Mac without straining her neck. Despite the tense set to his shoulders, he appeared at ease in his surroundings. He’d swapped his well-worn jeans for a newer looking pair of beige corduroys and his previous checked shirt for another checked shirt, this one in shades of blue and grey. A brown leather jacket hung from the back of his chair, apparently Jorge hadn’t managed to pry it away from him, and his brown leather boots had had an obvious clean and polish.
Gabi grinned. “You clean up okay, Mac,” she teased.
He returned her grin wryly and opened his mouth to respond; then his eyes flicked to Julius, and his grin dimmed, what he’d been about to say dying on his lips.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said with an odd formality.
Gabi sighed. “You can be yourself here, Mac,” she said, catching and holding his gaze. “I won’t let anyone eat you, I promise.”
“She’s right,” Kyle chimed in. “No one’s ever been eaten on her watch.”
Gabi pulled a face at him, balling up a chunk of a dinner roll from the basket in the centre of the table to throw at him.
He caught it and stuffed it into his mouth. “Hmm, can you butter the next piece? Thanks.”
“Please excuse the children, Mr Maclary.” Julius sighed like a long-suffering parent. “But Gabrielle is right. There’s no need to censor your words; I’m not that easy to insult.” He lifted his glass and breathed in the bouquet of the wine, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips as he continued. “And truly, she wouldn’t let me eat you.”
A startled huff, almost a guffaw left the older man, and much of the rigid tension of his shoulders eased.
“Well then, I guess, considering she’s on my side of the table, I’ll take my chances,” Mac stated, with his first genuine amusement of the night.
By the end of the main course, it was apparent that neither of the two bodies at HQ was Mac’s missing person; he was searching for a female Werewolf. But it was also apparent that the exsanguination cases in the City were not isolated instances. Mac knew of at least two cases of other Werewolves turning up dead from blood loss, each in separate towns but both less than two hours’ drive from the City. His local Master had lost two of his Clan in the past two weeks, one of whom had been accounted for and the other not yet found. While the missing Vampire wasn’t Mac’s case, by the basic description and the state of the body, Mac was fairly confident that the body at HQ would be that of the Vampire not yet accounted for. She’d been a short, strawberry blonde and a Vampire for less than fifteen years.
Gabi absent-mindedly fed Razor a final chunk of rare steak off her fork as she considered the facts. The four of them were now more certain than ever that something sinister was going on, but only Julius seemed to have any formulated suspicions, and he wasn’t sharing just yet.
“I’m waiting for an associate to ‘rise’,” was all he’d tell them. “Once I’ve confirmed the possibility of my assumptions, I’ll share. For now they’re just a far-fetched theory.”
“So what led you to believe that your missing person is here?” Kyle asked Mac. Gabi was chagrined she hadn’t even thought to ask that question.
“There was a witness to the abduction,” Mac said. “A sex worker arriving at her post for the night saw my victim being pulled into a dark van. Luckily the lady in question has a suspicious mind and a photographic memory. The licence plate belongs to a rental van. From a car rental agency here in the City. It was rented just over two weeks ago. Unfortunately the employee at the agency wouldn’t give me any other information over the phone. I made the trip to see what I can get out of him face to face.”
They paused in their conversation as the waitress arrived to clear plates and take dessert orders. Gabi didn’t need to see a menu to know what she’d be having as her final course of the evening. Shawn’s chocolate mousse was the food of the gods as far as Gabi was concerned. She sat back, savouring the wine, relieved that both Kyle and Julius seemed to be in ag
reement with her about Mac’s character. Any reticence to impart information had fallen away as the evening wore on, though Gabi noticed that Mac was very careful as to how much he asked, sticking to the concerns at hand rather than asking generalised questions. He was still treading warily.
Dessert arrived, with another bright smile and a blush as the waitress set a cheese platter down in front of Julius. Gabi noticed his face go tight as her hair fell away from one side of her neck, exposing a throbbing carotid artery just inches from his mouth. Damn, he was obviously hungry. She wondered when last he’d fed. Julius swallowed, releasing a breath as the waitress finally left.
“Good bouquet,” he quipped, noticing Gabi’s concern. The gold rings around the sapphire in his eyes were more prominent than normal, but he smirked at her with mischief glinting in his gaze. They were both still coming to terms with his need for blood donors; who he was and wasn’t allowed to feed from had become a standing joke throughout the Clan.
As she turned her attention to the large, fluted wine glass filled with dark chocolate pudding and topped with cherries and curls of white chocolate in front of her, she temporarily shoved her worry over Julius’s feeding schedule to the back of her mind and dug in. Before she had a second spoonful in her mouth, Kyle’s phone rang. Gabi knew before he even answered that it would be bad news. Nothing good ever came from a phone call just as she was about to eat chocolate mousse.
One look at Kyle’s face confirmed Gabi’s assumption.
“What?” she demanded as Kyle disconnected and began to stand. By Julius’s expression, he’d heard the other side of the conversation and didn’t like the news one bit.
“We’ll join you,” he said, pushing away from the table, several large bills already left under the cheese platter.
“Demons,” Kyle said shortly.
Gabi glanced down mournfully at her barely touched dessert and realised it was missing. She looked around in confusion and then saw Mac also standing, ready to go with his jacket over his arm. With a conspiratorial grin, he peeled the jacket back an inch to show the glass of pudding hidden beneath it.
“You can bring the glass back,” he said. “Grab a spoon.”
Without a second thought Gabi slid a clean spoon into a pocket, grinning.
Despite the obvious seriousness of the phone call, Kyle shook his head as they prepared to leave the restaurant.
“You’re good,” he told Mac. “Just a few hours and you’ve already found her biggest weakness.” Then he glanced shrewdly back at Julius. “Well, almost her biggest weakness.”
Julius said nothing, but there was a sudden tension in the air.
“Where are we headed?” Gabi asked, pushing Kyle ahead of her to weave through the tables towards the exit, Razor at her heels.
“The City Cathedral,” Kyle told her in an undertone as they made their excuses to Jorge and retrieved their coats.
Gabi knew the cathedral was one of several powerful ley line convergences in the City. She just hoped the cathedral didn’t have anything special planned for the evening.
“Sorry to cut the evening short,” Gabi said to Mac as they strode into the crisp night air and she retrieved the smuggled dessert from him.
“Can’t I tag along?” he asked. “I’ve never actually seen a demon before.”
Gabi paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth, surprised. “It’s not a pretty sight,” she said carefully and couldn’t help a glance at his stiff shoulder.
Mac’s lips thinned in uncharacteristic annoyance. “I won’t get in your way,” he growled.
“What Gabrielle means,” Julius said, in a voice that made Mac back up a step, “is that you may come along for the ride, but you will not be joining in. Trying to protect a human in the middle of a fight with demons will put us all at risk.”
Mac’s head was bowed before Julius, once again avoiding the Master Vampire’s gaze. “Of course,” he agreed in a bland tone. “I wouldn’t want to put anyone else at risk. I’ll keep as far away as you deem safe for everyone.”
“You’ll be fine with the Magi,” Gabi put in, slightly exasperated with Julius. “Why don’t you travel with Kyle? Your truck will be safe enough here for the meanwhile.”
Kyle glanced at his watch. “Need to get going,” he said, pulling keys out of a pocket and loping towards his van.
Mac gave Gabi a quick nod and strode to catch up with Kyle.
“See you there?” Kyle threw over his shoulder.
“I just need to grab my kit from my car at the Estate,” she told him. “Won’t be far behind you. Save me one.”
CHAPTER 9
It seemed to have been too long since Gabi had been part of the SMV Hunters, but no one questioned her and Julius’s presence as they joined the milieu gathered at the rear of the City Cathedral in the huge parklike gardens. It felt good to be back amongst her SMV peers, though there were a few unfamiliar faces. Doug, a tall Shape-shifter and the most senior Hunter, was coordinating the defence, but wasn’t supposed to be on active duty yet. The gunshot that had nearly claimed his life was taking longer to heal than he’d hoped. Despite the best care, both human and magical, only time could really heal the damage done to his internal organs. At least Mac wouldn’t be the only one expected to watch the fight from the sidelines of the parking area. He’d been put in charge of keeping an eye on Razor, who was grumpily agitated that Gabi was refusing to let him stay with her.
Mac’s presence had caused a little more of a stir, but once Gabi confirmed he was there with her blessing, the rest of the crew either ignored him or treated him as one of the group. Kyle would take the lead once the fight began and was busy consulting with Doug. Lance, the fire-bender Magus, was leaning casually against the crumbling wall that separated the graveyard from the picturesque church grounds. A Werewolf named Callum paced up and down a stone pathway, using deep-breathing techniques to calm his inner wolf. Gabi didn’t know him but assumed he was one of the new recruits. She doubted he’d ever seen a demon before, let alone fought one. She hoped he wouldn’t be a liability once the fight began. Simon, one of the Vampires Julius had allowed to join the Hunter squad, approached and greeted both Julius and Gabi respectfully before ghosting back to his position near one of the clean-up vans. He had the natural Vampire tendency of standing in such absolute stillness that you forgot his existence.
This was a Code Gamma, just two steps away from a grab-granny-and-flee-the-city call. The entire crew had been called up tonight, and those who weren’t at the cathedral had been sent to the old sports stadium as a precautionary measure. The Oracles, a trio of powerful Magi clairvoyants, were certain of a demon infiltration at the cathedral, but had insisted on an SMV presence at the stadium as well. They refused to go into details as to why, and Byron had acquiesced to their wishes. Gabi knew that Byron probably had more information than he was sharing, but Gabi also knew he wouldn’t have sent Kyle, Doug and Lance to the place less likely to see action. Of Gabi’s original Hunter squad only Matt, the Werewolf, had been sent to the stadium, obviously Byron wanted at least one experienced Hunter there. She wished Byron had sent Doug there too. It was going to be hard for him to stay out of the action, but she doubted a whole pride of lions could’ve kept him from the cathedral.
The full dark of a cloudy night blanketed the area, lit dimly by several distant streetlights, a few decorative garden lamps, and some subtle lighting set into the old, brick wall of the graveyard. Gabi was grateful for her acute night vision. While she’d always been able to see better at night than any human, since she’d begun taking blood from Julius, her night sight was almost as good as a Vampire’s. The only sounds were those of traffic and a distant car alarm. There wasn’t a peep from any wildlife that may normally live in the gardens. Gabi didn’t know if it was their presence or some kind of sixth sense that had sent them to ground. She knew very well that animals were far better tuned to the supernatural than any human.
Julius’s arm brushed hers. It was no longer stran
ge for her to be fighting beside him; they’d done it several times now. She found she liked having his strong presence nearby, but she still worried that he may end up trying to protect her rather than accomplish the mission.
An icy cold chill brushed down Gabi’s spine, and the tiny alarm bell in the back of her mind rang loud and clear. She gasped at the force of the sudden sensation, and Julius looked down at her sharply. Before he could phrase a question, a commotion erupted amongst a knot of Magi standing in a small tight circle in the graveyard itself. Gabi tensed, a shot of adrenalin replacing the warning shiver of dread she’d just felt. She tucked the warning into the back of her mind as she started forward, but was brought up short as another car screeched to a halt in the parking lot—Alexander’s Ferrari. A few seconds later an unremarkable silver car pulled up beside the standout red one.
Alexander was out of the car in an instant and around to the driver’s door of the other car. Once he had it open, Athena climbed out. She was dressed in dark pants, sturdy boots, a dark sweater, and had her hair tied back in a severe bun. Gabi had never seen her dressed like this before; she was obviously ready to join the fight. Alexander and the blonde Magus exchanged a quick, intense look, and then Athena hurried to join the group of agitated Magi, and Alexander veered off to join Gabi and Julius.
“The portal is opening,” one of the female Magi warned in a piercing tone, and Razor’s menacing growl from his position on the hood of Kyle’s van confirmed her assessment.
“Non-essential personnel prepare to clear out,” Doug yelled, and several vans’ engines started.
“The others aren’t far behind,” Alexander told Julius, securing a broadsword to his waist. He was referring to Fergus and Charlie, who’d insisted on coming along as extra backup. Gabi thought it was overkill, but who was she to deny them some fun?
To Hell and Back (Hellcat Series Book 4) Page 9