Department 57: Rubies of Fire

by Lynne Connolly

  “I’ve got a name for you, Cristos.”

  Immediately, all attention turned to Candy. She flipped open the folder and started her spiel again. Unlike Knox and Andreas, Cristos listened attentively to her reasoning and didn’t interrupt her, but she lost Andreas at about the same point she had before. It didn’t matter. He got the principle. Someone clever with computers had rerouted the information they sent, bounced it off various satellites in such a convoluted trail that it had taken Candy until now to get it right. She’d traced it to Knox’s department, then to his personal office, but the times of day the computer was used set off her internal alarms, and she’d done some more work.

  “It could have been five people,” she said, turning a page and pointing at the final row of computer speak. “Don Harris, Nancy Carragher, Andreas Constant, and Bernard Knox. And Roz Templeton.”

  While Andreas’s mind spun with possibilities, he heard Candy say, “It’s obviously not Andreas, and I’ve ruled out Mr. Knox here. Traced alibis for him for at least three times of transmission that weren’t on a timer. Besides, he rarely uses the computer they were using to rout the messages.”

  “Not Roz.” Andreas spoke up firmly, and the others stared at him with questions in their eyes. “I know her, as deeply as a man knows a woman. Or a human being knows another.”

  Cristos nodded. “Not Roz.”

  Andreas felt lighter for that, doing what he should have done from the first time she’d let him deeply into her soul. Trusted her and trusted himself. Now it was done, and even if she never knew, he would be more content.

  “That leaves Nancy Carragher and Don Harris.”

  “I’d have thought it was them anyway,” Candy said, “but I couldn’t narrow it down any more than that.”

  “That’s why I sent Andreas in to arrest you,” Cristos said to Knox. “If you didn’t do it, you’d have a fair idea who did, and I needed to speak to you without red tape. I hope you would have done the same, given the circumstances.”

  Knox grunted low in his throat. “Probably,” he admitted.

  Cristos leaped up, crossed the room to his desk, and picked up his phone. “Diane, can you check that Roz Templeton is still in the building, please? Prevent her from leaving and send her to me.” He listened. “I see.” He put the phone down gently and faced Andreas. “She’s not here. She already told Diane she was leaving for home. She has another hot date with Marshall tonight—Diane’s words, not mine.”

  Andreas looked up in alarm.

  “I suggest,” Cristos went on, “that you go to her apartment and collect her. Now. Make her your priority. I want Don and Nancy captured and returned here. Alive, if at all possible, so we can question them. I’ll get a team together and send them to her place.”

  Andreas smiled grimly. “Thanks.”

  In front of Knox’s astonished gaze, he flashed from the room to Roz’s bedroom.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Divided loyalties were a bitch, but he’d manage somehow. He wanted Roz, but he had to stay with Fabrice until his friend could cope on his own. At the moment, he didn’t know anything for certain except that he loved Roz and he wouldn’t let her go without a fight. He wanted her so badly he could taste it. He wanted her to taste him; he wanted to taste her in return, absorb her with everything he had, give himself to her completely.

  So what if she’d had a date with the macho Marshall the night before? She’d tire of him in a week or two. Her independence of spirit deserved a man strong enough to cope with it. Marshall wasn’t that man.

  Andreas was.

  If he found them in bed together, he’d take it on the chin, but so would Marshall. The bedroom smelled of Roz. Andreas closed his eyes, savoring the taste of her, the sense that she remained somewhere close. When he opened his eyes, he saw he was wrong.

  The room seemed the same, but unnaturally tidy. The throw on the bed was neatly arranged, the contents of her vanity seemed too straight from the way he’d remembered. When he crossed the room to look, he saw fewer things on it than he recalled from before. What those things were he couldn’t be sure, not having had the leisure to study them in the feverish hours he’d spent here loving her, but when he looked for a hairbrush, one of the things guaranteed to lie on a vanity, he couldn’t see one.

  Fearing the worst, Andreas headed for the bathroom. No toothbrush, and clean towels on the rack, neatly set out as though waiting for the next resident.

  Roz wasn’t there.

  Tearing open the door, he strode into the living area and found the same unnatural tidiness as he’d discovered in the bedroom. Nancy and Don had gone too, but their absence didn’t seem as final. As though they planned to come back. Coats hung on the stand near the outer door, but none belonged to Roz. Andreas would have known them simply by touching them, but he couldn’t find any. Nor could he sense anything of her in the kitchen.

  Fear clutched at him. It seemed as if Roz Templeton had ceased to exist, as though she never meant to come back. She’d taken leave, not moved out. Only the faintest aroma of her favorite scent lingered in the air in places. None of her vitality or her intelligence. All gone. No fucking way of tracking them.

  Someone rang the doorbell, leaned on it. In no mood to avoid trouble, he ripped open the door. “What?”

  Outside stood two vampires. Two extremely pissed-off vampires. Seeing Andreas only seemed to make them worse. He didn’t care. His agonizing sense of loss made him angry enough to take on anyone, so he launched himself at the first one, the long-haired one. Marshall.

  Who seemed as eager for the fight as he. At least Andreas didn’t have to worry about not having a good opponent. This man equaled him, was probably his superior in strength. But Andreas was mad enough to take on anyone and win, or at least leave lasting marks of his presence.

  Claws and fangs shot out, and after the first, violent clash they sprang apart, circling. “Where is she?” someone cried, and Andreas thought he’d said it but he couldn’t be sure.

  “Tell us!”

  Andreas backed up, watched both vampires, but the second one—George, he remembered—stayed in his line of sight, watching the combatants until something else took his attention.

  Marshall lashed out with one strong, accurate jab of his foot, but Andreas, trained in combat, caught it and turned it, knocking his opponent off-balance. He heard furniture smash but didn’t take his attention off George, raising his mental shields and reinforcing them in order to bounce any mental attacks off him. This battle he wouldn’t, couldn’t lose.

  Marshall growled low in his throat, dropping into a crouch, but Andreas was ready for him, rising up, claws extended, the tips glinting in the gleam of the overhead lights. To anyone else he would have appeared terrifying, but his opponent was his equal, and in some respects probably more. “Come on, fuck you. I haven’t seen blood tonight, and it’s about time I did!”

  “How about this?”

  Another finger came between them, a drop of red gleaming obscenely on its tip.

  Both paused, but didn’t take their attention away from each other. Marshall’s blue eyes reflected the fury in Andreas’s own.

  The voice came again. “She’s gone and he’s here, Marshall. He doesn’t know where she is any more than we do. If you want to kill him, go ahead, but be quick about it. We have a job to do.”

  He sounded so much like Cristos that Andreas risked another glance, and he took a breath, taking in the scent of the blood.

  The blood was Roz’s. He snapped to attention. “Where did you find that?” He didn’t retract his claws, but he relaxed his stance slightly, waiting for the answer.

  “Over there by the bedroom door. Just a smudge. But you can smell the owner as well as I can. You haven’t taken her, or you wouldn’t be here. Or are we wrong? Did you come back for something you’ve forgotten?”

  Andreas straightened up and shook his head. “No.” They were right about one thing. He couldn’t afford to waste his time with these two. His min
d clicked into action, working out the angles. He opened his mind and immediately felt the dual invasion. He allowed it, but probed theirs in return.

  He didn’t like these two, but they were his best chance of finding Roz quickly and alive. “When did you see her last?”

  Marshall, eyeing him balefully, straightened up and retracted his fangs and claws. “Last night. I took her out to dinner, but she asked me to take her home early. She was tired and unhappy. She said she was going home later that night, back to Nancy’s parents’ for Nancy’s wedding. Since I’m invited to the wedding, I didn’t worry too much. Time to let her get over whatever you’d done to her, I figured. I don’t want to be a rebound.” Neither would Andreas, in his position. Reluctant respect for Marshall crept almost unnoticed into his mind. Marshall’s expression hardened. “What did you do to her?”

  “Fell in love with her.” What was the point in denying it? He’d admitted it to himself; that had been the most difficult part. “But I’m an orphan. No family, no wealth.”

  “If I know Roz, that wouldn’t have mattered,” George said. “So why did you split up?”

  “She wanted one thing. I wanted something else.” He felt uneasy explaining precisely why they’d broken up. “I came back to get her. Whatever it took, I’d do it. I flashed in. I’d just realized she wasn’t here when you arrived.”

  “You flashed in? And which room do you know well enough to do that?”

  He met George’s eyes, daring him to say something. “The bedroom.”

  George sighed. “Okay, we get it.” He glanced at Marshall. “Both of us.”

  Andreas ran a hand through his hair distractedly. “I don’t think she went willingly. Or something happened, and they were all taken.”

  Marshall lifted his head, sampling the air. “I can’t sense any other blood.”

  Despite his animosity toward these two, Andreas was impressed by their ability to scent out blood. He’d have to wait for those Talents to become more refined in him.

  He needed to know for himself. Keeping the others in his line of sight at all times, he backed off and glanced around. “No signs of struggle.”

  “Except for the blood.”

  “She could have fallen and hit her head.”

  Marshall frowned. “She said she’d call me before she left. I don’t like this. Not at all.”

  “The bedroom looks as if she’s moved out,” Andreas said, his hand on the doorknob leading to the room Nancy shared with Don. “She’s left a few things, but none of her books, few of her toiletries. Nothing that mattered to her.”

  “Which says she packed for herself. Doesn’t it?”

  Andreas snorted. “Not fucking likely. There’s something you should know.”

  They all froze when the phone rang, one shrill ring after another. Andreas muttered a curse and picked up the receiver when the answer machine failed to click on. “Uh,” he said, trying to sound like Don.

  “Andreas.”

  “Yes?”

  Cristos’s voice sounded clipped, all business. “I called you because I knew you’d be there. You’re with Talents, aren’t you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Is Roz there?”

  “No. Neither are Nancy or Don.”

  Cristos sighed heavily. “Okay, this is what you do. I’m sending a team over to secure the place. Don’t go anywhere until they arrive. Then go look for Roz.”

  “You think she’s in danger?” Andreas met Marshall’s eyes, as troubled as his must be.

  “Yes, I do.” Andreas glanced at George. He grimaced.

  “If they’ve killed Roz, someone has to pay,” Marshall said tersely.

  Andreas tried to add reason. Just a little. “That’s fine, but we want to talk to them first.” The communication must go two ways, because the vampires could talk to Cristos as well as he could and hear him too. “We can work together on this, guys. I’ll promise to hand them over to you as long as we get to question them first. It’s national security, vampire security, you name it. We need to plug all the holes, and the best way to do that is to give them over to us for a while. Believe me, they’ll be begging to die by the time we give them back.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Marshall said. “That team’d better be quick.”

  “They’re coming by dragon. The fastest we can find,” Cristos said.

  “Leon,” Andreas said. “He’s a good guy, Cristos.”

  “I know it. Okay, get on with it.” Cristos hung up.

  Three male heads jerked around as a wild hammering hit the door, sounding like someone desperate to get in. It couldn’t be the backup team. Even a dragon needed time to get here.

  Andreas extended his senses and knew who it was. “Hold it, guys. It’s a kid I know, another vampire. Her name’s Ellie.”

  Before they could finish asking “Ellie who?” he walked to the door and wrenched it open. Ellie almost fell on his chest, tears streaming, her mouth twisted in agony.

  His arms automatically went around her.

  “Hey, what are you doing here?”

  “Ellie, Ellie, it’s okay.”

  She stared up at him, her eyes swimming with tears but no longer overwhelming her.

  He forced a smile. “Come on, tell me. I’m here, but not for much longer.”

  “What?” Dazed, she looked past him to the other two. “Who are they?”

  “Gardiners. Relatives of Roz and Nancy. Do you know anything about this?” Andreas asked.

  “What?” George asked.

  “Oh, Andreas, Andreas, I’m so sorry!” She gulped, clutching him.

  He gently drew her away. “Sorry for what?”

  “I broke you guys up!”

  He forced a smile, although it nearly killed him when he felt so churned up inside. “No, no, you didn’t. Well, not entirely. I came back here to make things right, but I was too late. We’re looking for a lead, some idea where they’ve gone.”

  Ellie frowned. “I just saw them. Well, half an hour ago.”

  She had their instant attention. “Ellie? What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

  “I came up because I thought I’d find Roz alone. I wanted to say sorry one more time. I didn’t realize you guys were here.” Ellie looked around as though she expected Roz to pop out of the bedroom. God, how he wished she would!

  Ellie sniffed and wiped her sleeve across her nose before Andreas could stop her. “I stopped for coffee at the place across the street, getting my courage together, you know. That’s when I saw them, and Roz wasn’t with them. Don and Nancy, that is. They looked happy, real happy.”

  “Where did you see them, Ellie?”

  “Getting into a cab with their luggage.”

  “Going to the airport,” Andreas said to the Gardiners.

  Marshall took a step forward. “What kind of luggage did they have, sweetheart?”

  Although he kept his voice soft and unthreatening, Ellie ducked behind Andreas before peeking out again. “A couple of backpacks, and”—she paused and nibbled the tip of her forefinger in thought. When she looked up, dawning horror filled her eyes—“one of those big suit carriers.”

  “Big enough to hide a person?”

  Ellie nodded, her eyes wide with terror. “It looked full. Very full.”

  “You’ve given us a lead, Ellie.” Andreas snagged the sleeve of her T-shirt and dragged her out from behind him. “Whatever you did before, you just made up for it.”

  He didn’t bother with the phone this time, but contacted Cristos directly. Pausing only to briefly identify himself, he launched straight in. “Ellie’s here. She saw Don and Nancy with a large suit carrier getting into a cab. That means they have Roz—I’m sure of it. Don’s on the donor list. They’re probably planning to circumvent it.”

  Cristos’s return came instantly. “I checked that. He’s not on any list. They want to use Roz to convert Don. Get after them. I’ll arrange the search here in case they’re hiding in the city.”

  “I c
an’t sense her at all, Cristos. That means she must be far away.”

  “Or unconscious.”

  “She can’t convert anyone if she’s unconscious,” Marshall put in.

  “That’s your best hope. Find her before she comes around. Go.”

  Cristos cut away from Andreas. The brothers walked forward, but as they did, he felt a familiar fuzziness in the air, the sign of a shape-shifter masking his other form. Then they heard the arrival, the elevator whirring as it brought people up to their floor.

  When Andreas opened the door, Leon was just pulling up his fly. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, man.” He led two men inside, Talents Andreas didn’t know, and Candy, who gave him a sympathetic smile. “We’re securing the electronics.”

  “I doubt they left any, but we have to try everything.” She glanced at the two Gardiner vampires, and her eyes widened. “Hurry back, boys.”

  Andreas supposed some people would think them quite good-looking in a dark, brooding kind of way. Not something he usually noticed. He took more interest in their muscle tone and usefulness as backup. He waved vaguely at the apartment, anxious to get away. “Help yourselves. Don’t move the furniture in the bedroom around. Then we can flash in and out there if we need to.”

  “Sure.” Candy had already spotted a computer, a tower set in a unit in the corner of the living area. She’d gone.

  “A new development, guys,” he told the new arrivals. They got busy, and the buzz of psi senses getting busy filled the air like the atmosphere during a thunderstorm.

  Andreas turned his attention to the two vampires. “Where first? Where will they take her?”