by J. D. Robb
There was a sound, a whoosh of air, a ripple of fabric on the breeze. Eve watched the gloved hand snake in, between the ’link and the victim’s face. There was an upward jerk, an instant of pain and terror in Allesseria’s eyes. Then the image flipped as the phone tumbled: sky, street, sidewalk. Black.
“Crap” was Eve’s comment, and her hands fisted in her pockets now. “Anything when you magnify and slow it down?”
“We can enhance so you can count the stitches in the seams of the glove,” Feeney told her. “Can use the scale program to get you the size of it. We can give you the attacker’s probable height calculated from the size, the angles. But we can’t put on screen what’s not there. Got some snatches of audio though, for what it’s worth.”
He set the comp again, made the adjustments, then played it back.
What she heard first was silence.
“We backed out her voice, her footsteps,” Roarke explained, “the ambient city noises. Now…”
She caught it. Feet on pavement, the faintest rustle, then the rush she identified as a run followed by a jump or leap. There was a breath, expelled in a kind of laugh as the hand shot out and clamped Allesseria’s throat. And as the images rolled and tumbled on screen, a single low word. You.
“Not enough for a voiceprint,” Feeney pointed out. “Never hold up in court even if we could match it on one syllable.”
“He doesn’t have to know that.” Eve narrowed her eyes at the screen. “Maybe what we’ve got is just enough to shake him, to make him think we have more.”
Feeney grinned at Roarke, tapped a finger to his temple. “She’s got something cooking up there.”
“Yeah, I do. This time, we con the con.”
Roarke stepped into Eve’s office, closed the door. “I don’t like it.”
She continued across the cramped little room to her AutoChef, programmed coffee. “It’s a good plan. It’ll work.” She took the two mugs of hot black out, passed him one. “And I didn’t figure you’d like it. That’s one of the drawbacks of having you inside an investigation.”
“There are other ways to run him to ground, Eve.”
“This is the quickest. There’s no putting standard surveillance on him,” she began. “There are dozens of ways in and out of those tunnels. I can’t know what kind of escape hatch he might have in that club, up in his apartment. He decides he’s bored here, or there’s too much heat, he’d be in the wind before we got close.”
“Find a way to shut down the club. Illegals raid will put him out of business.”
“Sure, we could do that, we will do that. And if that’s all we do, he’ll be smoke. There are fronts to the business,” she pointed out. “You said so yourself. And it’d take time we don’t have to cut through them and dig down to him. By then he’s gone.”
He set the coffee down on her desk. “All right, even agreeing that all that’s true, or very likely, it doesn’t justify you going in alone. You’re setting it up this way because the DNA crashed on you, and you’re blaming yourself.”
“That’s not true.” Or not entirely, she amended silently. “Sure, it pisses me off he pulled that over on me, but I’m not doing this to even the score.” Or not entirely.
Logic, she decided, was the best way to lay it out. Not as satisfying as a fight, she thought, but quicker. “Okay, look. I go in there with troops or other badges, he’s not going to talk, even if he sticks around long enough for me to corner him. He doesn’t have to stick around at this point. I can’t even pry him aboveground and get him in the box for interview. It has to be on his turf, and it has to be between him and me.”
“Why—on the last point?”
“Why didn’t you like him, from the get?”
She could see irritation cross Roarke’s face before he picked up the coffee again. “Because he scoped my wife.”
“Yeah. He’d like to take a bite, not only because I’m the cop looking at him, but because I’m married to you. Be a big ego kick for him to score off you. And if he thinks he has a shot at that, he’ll take it, and I’ll be ready.”
“Eve—”
“Roarke. He’ll kill again and soon. Maybe tonight. He has a taste for it now. You saw that, and so did I, the first time we met him. I’m telling you I saw more of it today. I see what he is.”
This was the core, he knew, whatever she said. Whatever the other truths, this was the heart of it for her. “He’s not your father.”
“No, but there’s a breed, and they’re both of it. The smoke, the blood, the insinuation: Is he or isn’t he an undead, bloodsucking fiend? That may tingle the spine, rouse superstitions, even tease the logical to entertain the illogical. But it’s what’s under it, Roarke. It’s, well, shit, it’s the beast that lives there that has to be stopped.”
“The one you have to face,” he corrected. “How many times?”
“As many as it takes. I want to walk away from it. Hell, I get within five feet of him, I want to run from it. And because I do, I can’t.”
“No.” He traced his thumb down the shallow dent in her chin. “You can’t.” That, he knew, was what he had to face—again and again. Loving her left him no choice. “But this rush—”
“He’s flying on the moment. Whatever drugs he’s on, they’re not as potent as the kill. As the blood. If I don’t try this, and he gets another, how do I live with that?”
He searched her face, then lifted a hand to her cheek. “Being you, you don’t. You can’t. But I still don’t have to like it.”
“Understood. And…” She took his hand, squeezed it briefly. “Appreciated. Let’s just count on me doing my job, and the rest of you doing yours. We’ll shut him down, nail down that lid, before he knows what the hell’s going on.”
“He best not get so much as a nibble of you. That’s my job.” He leaned down, caught her bottom lip between his teeth. After one quick nip, he sank in, drawing her close, taking them both deep.
Her initial amusement slid away into the dreamy until she could float away on the taste of him, glide off on the promise. When she sighed, eased back, her lips curved up.
“Good job,” she told him.
“I do my best.”
“Maybe later you can put in some overtime.”
“Being dedicated to my work, I’ll be available.”
“But for right now, let’s go get the team together for a full briefing. I don’t want any screwups.”
“Lieutenant.” He caught her hand before she reached the door, and tugged her back around. Out of his pocket he drew a silver cross on a silver chain, and dangled it in front of her.
“Knew I forgot something.” But when he draped it over her head, she goggled. “What? You’re serious?”
“Indulge me.” He planted another kiss on her lips, this one brief and firm. “I’m a superstitious man with a logical mind that can entertain the illogical.”
Staring at him, she shook her head. “You’re full of surprises, pal. Just full of them.”
She used a conference room for the briefing. On screen was a diagram of Bloodbath, and a second of the apartment—or the area of the apartment Eve had seen. Both were sketched from memory, with input from the others on the team who’d been inside the club.
As was often the case with underground establishments, no recorded blueprints or work orders could be located.
“There will be alternate exits,” Eve continued. “It’s likely at least some of the staff are aware of them, and will use them. Detaining and arresting waitresses and naked dancers aren’t priorities.”
“Speak for yourself,” Baxter shot out, “on the naked dancers angle.”
“Moving civilians out,” Eve said, ignoring him, “without inciting a riot is a primary goal. Anyone wants to make collars for illegals, that’s a personal decision and can be determined at the time. A couple dozen busts will add weight to the op, and hang on Vadim as manager. Anything and everything we get on him is a plus, but not at the expense of the primary target.”
She scanned faces. “Nobody moves in, nobody tips the scales until I give the go. My communicator will be open for said go. Nothing, I repeat, nothing, is to be recorded from that source. I’m not having this slime skate on a technicality.”
She paused, ordered the computer to show the diagram of the club only. “Our warrant covers only this area. No personnel are to move outside the club area in search or pursuit without probable cause. All weapons low stun.”
Once more, she switched the screen image. Now Dorian Vadim’s face filled it. “This is primary target. Unless specifically ordered or cleared, he is not to be detained or apprehended. If I can’t pull this off, we have no cause for arrest. Suit up,” she ordered. “Vests all around. Report to squad leaders for transportation to target.”
She laid a hand on her sidearm. “Let’s go kick ass.”
As she bent to check her clutch piece, Baxter tapped her shoulder.
“What?”
“Got something for you.” He held it out as she straightened.
“You’re a laugh a minute, Baxter.”
“Yeah, you gotta admit.” He gave the wooden stake an agile toss.
Because she was amused despite herself, she caught the stake in one hand, then stuck it in her belt. “Thanks.”
He blinked, then roared with laughter. “Eve Dallas, Vampire Slayer. One for the books.”
Ten
She went in alone, the way it had to be, as a cop, as a woman fighting her own demons.
She walked the now-familiar path down from the world to the underground, through the fetid tunnels with misery skulking in dirty shadows.
She’d come out of the shadows, Eve thought. So she knew what hid there, what bred there. What thrived there.
Light killed shadows, and it created them. But what loved the dark would always scuttle back from the light. Her badge had given her the light, Eve knew. Then Roarke had simply, irreversibly, blasted that light straight through her.
Nothing could pull her back again, unless she allowed it. Not the nightmares, not the memories, not whatever smear the man who’d made her had left in her blood.
What she did now, for the job, for two women, for herself, was only another way to cast the light.
She moved toward the ugly pulse of red and blue, the bone-rattling thrum of violent music.
The same bouncers flanked the arched door, and this time they sneered.
“Alone this time?”
Still moving, she kicked the one on the left solidly in the groin, smashed her elbow up and out into the bridge of the second’s nose.
“Yeah,” she said as she strode through the path they made as they stumbled back. “Just little old me.”
She walked through the jostling crowd, through the sting of smoke, the crawl of fog. Someone made the mistake of making a playful grab for her and got a boot down hard on his instep for his trouble. And she never broke stride.
She reached the steps, started up their tight curve.
She felt him first, like the dance of sharpened nails along the skin. Then he was there, standing at the top of the stairs, mists swirling dramatically around him.
“Lieutenant Dallas, you’re becoming a regular. No escort tonight?”
“I don’t need an escort.” She stopped on the step below him, knowing it gave him the superior ground. “But I’d like some privacy.”
“Of course. Come with me.” He held out a hand.
She placed hers in it, fought off a jitter of revulsion as his fingers twined with hers. He led her back, away from the crowd, then keyed in a code on his private door. “Enter Dorian,” he said for the voice command, and the locks gave.
Inside candles were lit, dozens of them. Light and shadow, Eve thought again. On the wall screen various sections of the club were displayed, the sound muted, so people danced, groped, screamed, stalked, in absolute silence.
“Some view.” Casually, she stepped away from him and stepped over as if to study the action on screen.
“My way of being surrounded and alone at the same time.” His hand brushed lightly over her shoulder as he walked behind her and over to his bar. “You’d understand that.”
“You talk as if you know me. You look at me as though you do. But you don’t.”
“Oh, I think I do. I saw the understanding of violence, of power, and the taste for it in you. We have that in common. Wine?”
“No. Are you alone here, Dorian?”
“I am.” Despite her answer, he poured two glasses. “Though I planned to entertain a woman later.” This time his gaze traveled over her, boldly intimate. “How interesting it should be you. Tell me, Eve, is this a professional or a personal call?”
She let herself stare at him, into those eyes. “I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out. I know you killed those women.”
He smiled slowly. “Do you? How?”
“I feel it. I see it when I look at you. Tell me how you did it.”
“Why should I? Why would I? Lieutenant.”
As if impatient, she shook her head. “I don’t have a warrant. You know that. I haven’t given you your rights. I can’t use anything you tell me. You know that, too. I just need to know what you are. Why I feel the way I do around you. I don’t believe in…”
There was no mistaking the hunger on his face as he walked toward her. “In what?”
She could hear her father’s voice whispering in her mind. There are things in the dark, little girl. Terrible things in the dark.
“In the sort of thing you’re selling out there.” She gestured toward the screen. “Turn that off, will you? It feels crowded in here.”
“You don’t like to watch?” he said, silkily. “Or be watched?”
“Depends,” she answered with what she hoped sounded like false bravado.
“Screen off,” he ordered, and smiled again. “Better?”
“Yeah. It’s better with it off.”
“That’s the signal.” Feeney nodded to Roarke. “All units, move in. Move in. She’s playing him,” he said to Roarke. “She’ll walk him right into it.”
“Or he’s playing her.” With Eve’s voice in his ear, Roarke rushed into the dark.
Into the terrible things.
“Hold it.” There was the slightest hesitation in her order as she slapped a hand against Dorian’s chest and shoved. “I have obligations. I have loyalties.”
“None of which fill your needs.”
“You don’t know my needs.”
“Give me five minutes to do as I like with you, and you’ll know differently. You came to me.” He trailed his fingers over her cheek. “You came to me alone. You want to know what I can give you.”
She shook her head, stepped away. “I came because I need to understand. I can’t settle, I can’t focus. I feel like something’s trying to crawl out of my skin.”
“I can help you with that.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Yeah, I bet you could. But I’m not like Tiara Kent. I’m not looking for cheap thrills. And I’m not like Allesseria Carter. I don’t need your goodwill. I’m not afraid of you.”
“Aren’t you? Aren’t you afraid of what I could make you?”
She looked at the portrait. “Like that?” Her voice was just a little breathless. “I’m not that gullible.”
He lifted one of the wineglasses, drank deeply. “There’s more in the world that slips in and out of what’s deemed reality.”
“Such as?”
He drank again, and his eyes went even darker. “Such as powers, and hungers beyond the human. I’ll take you there. I can show you a glimpse without causing you harm. You should drink. Relax. Nothing will happen to you here. It’s not my way.”
“No, you go to them. Kent practically spread rose petals on a path to her bed for you.”
“Hypothetically, invitations are required.”
“In an occupied building,” Eve agreed. “Not in an abandoned one. Like the one where you dragged Allesseria, where yo
u killed her.”
“Does it excite you to think so, to look at me and see her death?”
“Maybe it does.”
“You seek death.” He laid his fingertips under hers, lifted her hand. “Surround yourself with it. Isn’t that what I sensed, what I saw, in you that first moment our eyes met? It connects us, this…fondness for death in a way the man you give yourself to can never understand. He can’t reach that dark bloom inside you. I can.”
She let her fingers curl to his for an instant, then eased back again. “I don’t know what connects us, but I felt something when I heard your voice come in on Allesseria’s ’link message to me. It was a mistake to say anything, Dorian, a mistake not to make certain the ’link was down and the transmission broken before you spoke to her. We’ll have your voiceprint match by morning.”
He lowered the glass he’d lifted to his lips. “That’s not possible.”
“Would I be here now otherwise? Risking all this so I could see you tonight? This goes down tomorrow, and my part in it’s over. I need answers for me. Why would I tell you we have evidence building that could take you down, give you time to poof? I have to know. For me.”
“I have an alibi,” he insisted.
“Kendra Lake? Another spoiled rich girl running on hormones, vanity, and chemicals. She won’t help you. She’ll crack, we both know it. She’s on the juice, she’s your lover. It won’t hold.”
“You’re lying.” He gulped down the rest of the liquid in the glass, heaved the glass aside. “You’re lying. You bitch.”
Okay, Eve thought, time to change directions.
Outside the apartment it was hell. Screams and shouts echoed through the mist some clever soul had boosted up when the small army of cops had burst in, announcing a raid.
Roarke flung one attacker aside, dodged the swipe of a knife from another. Preferring fists to stunner, he used them viciously. Despite the cacophony, he heard Eve’s voice clearly in his head.
“She’s losing him,” he yelled to Feeney. Whirling, Roarke sprinted for the stairs through streams of stunner fire.