The Doppelganger’s eyes narrowed, anger suddenly flaring. “It’s all your fault,” she hissed. “You couldn’t keep your nose out of our business. You couldn’t let one of your harem get away, could you? Whore. All you had to do was let Jason collect what was rightfully his.” Her gaze flicked to Derek with a sneer. “If you’d just died in that explosion like you were supposed to, along with your disgusting Vampire lovers, he,” she tossed her head at Derek, “would be where he belonged and I wouldn’t be here.”
“You’re claiming responsibility for the bomb last night?” Gabi’s mind was spinning. Just how much of this was tied to Jason King and the Werewolves? “And this is all about Derek?”
“I’m not saying another word,” Kimberley declared. “Jason will be here to rescue me soon. I don’t care what you do to me; I don’t betray people who love me.”
Gabi shook her head. Kimberley was starting to sound a little unhinged. When people started to lose it, you couldn’t trust what came out of their mouths. She yanked Nex out of the chair and spun to Byron. Athena and a couple of other team members stood in the doorway. The newcomers’ eyes were as round as saucers.
“I need someone who can tell if she’s sane and if she’s telling the truth. Do we have a Mind-bender we can call on?” She directed her question at Athena. The witch would know if there was one in the City. They were another closely guarded secret; the Magi who could literally pull thoughts from the minds of humans, make them relive past experiences. Not even the deepest, darkest secret was safe from them once they broke into your memories.
The Doppelganger tensed, and another flood of adrenaline and fear filled the room.
“Don’t worry,” Gabi reassured her in a mild voice. “It won’t hurt. Much.”
Athena swallowed, an unusually nervous gesture for her. “Um, I think we can get one from—” She didn’t finish her sentence. There was a soft moan from Kimberley, and as Gabi spun back to her, the Doppelganger fainted.
“Fuck,” Gabi spat. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Gabi,” Byron spoke in a calming voice, “we’ll find him. Now that we know he’s been taken, we’ll get the best Tracker we have to find him.”
The thought of Kyle being kidnapped brought back memories of her own abduction. She’d been tortured. For hours. She had to force away those thoughts. Only the knowledge that keeping calm now would get him back faster kept her together. He’d done it for her, now she would do it for him. And heaven help Jason King when she found him. Her grip on Nex tightened.
“I’ll call in Stewart,” Athena said into the tense silence.
“Who’s Stewart?” Gabi demanded.
“He’s the Magi Tracker who located you when you were missing,” Byron explained. “He’s the best. He’ll find Kyle.”
“And what about Ms Kimberley Adams?” she ground out. “What are we going to do with her? Is there really a Mind-bender in the City?”
“Leave her to us,” Byron said. “We’ll get her back to HQ, and I’ll call Irene and Margaret in to talk to her first. If they get nowhere, we’ll find a Mind-bender. I have a feeling this story is more interconnected with recent ructions in the City than we have any idea. I want to know the full extent of it.”
Gabi knew by the tone of his voice that he was a rare shade of angry. Kimberley wasn’t going to be a happy camper when she came around.
“You’ll need to increase security at HQ. If she really is close to Jason King and if he really is responsible for the car bomb, he could be capable of just about anything,” she warned Byron.
“Now that we know the specific threat,” Athena interjected, “our clairvoyants will be able to warn us of any potentially lethal attacks.”
“What if she’s not the only Doppelganger working for him?” Gabi asked. “We need to counteract that possibility.”
“It’s highly unlikely, Gabi,” Byron said. “There are so few Doppelgangers in the world, but to be safe, either Athena or I will be with her until Margaret can tell us how to be sure.” Then his eyebrows suddenly knit together. “How did you figure this out?”
A grim smile touched Gabi’s lips. As the team dragged Kimberley off to the waiting van, she explained how the animals hadn’t been fooled by the Doppelganger’s façade.
“That’s fascinating,” Byron exclaimed. “I wonder if the Shape-shifter Elders know that. I’ll mention it to Margaret. Can you stop by Kyle’s and collect something of his for the Tracker to use? After you drop that at HQ, you need to go and see Ian.”
Gabi nodded, not telling him that a trip to Ian would be unnecessary. A glance at the kitchen clock told her that Julius would be awake in an hour or two, and risk be damned, she’d be taking some of his blood.
As the rest left, Gabi turned back to where Derek and Trish were standing quietly in a corner of the room. Trish’s eyes were wide and dark, the scent of Werewolf was strong.
“Sorry,” Gabi said shortly. “I didn’t mean to make you nervous, I know it’s not what you need right now,” she told them. “Derek, do you feel up to driving the two of you back to Julius’s?” She was putting effort into trying to project less anger and frustration, but holding it back was a strain.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Derek assured her. “Are you sure you don’t need us to help with anything else?”
“Please let us help,” Trish said in a small voice. “Whatever we can do.”
Gabi realised that it wasn’t fear in Trish’s eyes, more like admiration mixed with determination. She had a feeling that Trish would fit into the SMV far easier than Derek.
“If you can do your ‘computer magic’ thing and turn up as much info as you can find on Mr Jason King aka Jason Sweeney, you will be helping. Anything that isn’t public knowledge, his property holdings, his business interests, international contacts. I’ll tell Byron to feed you anything useful that Kimberley gives up. Okay?”
Trish nodded fervently. “I’ll send you anything of interest the moment I find it,” she assured Gabi. “Keep an eye on your phone, I’ll send it direct to you.”
“Get going,” she told them, tossing Derek the keys to Kyle’s van. “Track Patrick down when you get to the Estate, and tell him what’s happened, he needs to be kept in the loop. I’ll be at the Estate before nightfall.”
Derek nodded, and they hurried away.
Gabi returned to her room to clean the blood away, brush her teeth, and change into yet another set of clothes, choosing a button-up short instead of pulling a shirt over her abused head. Then she packed a bag with work clothes, extra weapons and some casual clothes. Razor watched her pack with a disgruntled look on his face. He was intelligent enough to know what a packed bag meant, and he wasn’t happy about it. She grabbed his fluffy face with both hands and planted an apologetic kiss on his nose before making a dash into her office to grab her iPad and her spare phone—Kyle’s spare was a little too basic for her liking.
On her way out the door, she reset the ward and called Rose. Word of the bomb had already reached the Community grapevine, so she was more than happy to help out by feeding the animals for the next few days. Gabi could hear the concern in the older woman’s voice, both for Kyle and for her, but Rose knew better than to try and talk her into staying out of the thick of it. She told Gabi not to worry about a thing at home; it would all be well taken care of. Then she begged Gabi to take care of herself.
As she nudged the Audi into the cramped parking space outside Kyle’s condo, suddenly AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’ blasted through the confines of the car, making her stamp on the brake a little harder than necessary. Her head pounded warningly, threatening revolt if there was any further abuse. The noise could only be her phone. The ringtone had to be Kyle’s idea of funny, and the anxious band around her chest squeezed tighter. She dug the phone out of her bag and found Julius’s number flashing. She also noticed the ‘missed call’ icon flashing in the background.
“You’re awake early,” she said in greeting, as she checked her watch. It was a li
ttle after three, several hours earlier than she expected to hear from him.
“A jolt of shock and pain woke me up about an hour ago, only it wasn’t my shock or pain.” His voice carried an edge of admonishment. “I’ve been trying to reach you ever since, but just got the low-down from your stuntman friend.”
“So you know about Kyle, the Doppelganger and Jason King?” she asked, not bothering to address his rebuke. There was a slight pause; Byron also took those pauses when she ignored his concern. Gabi climbed out of the car and started up the outside stairs to Kyle’s first-floor apartment.
“Yes, and I understand your concern for Wolf,” he said finally. “I’m concerned about the Doppelganger being taken to the Venatori’s HQ. If what the Doppelganger has told you is true, we already know what this man is capable of and that he knows the location of HQ. It’s not safe to keep her there; not if you want to hold onto her. Mr King may or may not love this woman, but she may well be party to at least some of his secrets, and that would be enough for him to try and either rescue or kill her before she is questioned.”
Gabi chewed on her bottom lip as she used her spare key to unlock Kyle’s front door. Julius made a good point.
“So where do you think—” She broke off as she smelled a familiar scent and heard a faint click. “Oh shit.” She literally dived over the waist-high balustrade behind her as the explosion hit, desperately twisting to position her body before impact with whatever was underneath her. Which, as it turn out, was some brand of coupe.
“Gabrielle? Gabrielle?” Julius’s voice roared.
Wow, somehow she’d managed to keep her grip on the phone. She groaned, lifting it back to her ear, fighting to draw a breath back into her lungs.
“Thank the Lord and Lady for soft tops,” she gasped and used her other hand to protect her face as shredded bits of door rained down from above. “This guy is seriously starting to piss. Me. Off.”
“Lea, are you hurt? Tell me what’s going on.”
Gabi could hear an edge of panic in Julius’s voice. “I’m fine,” she wheezed, doing a quick physical assessment before daring to move. Car and house alarms were going off all around her, and people were rushing outdoors, some with phones already to their ears. “The bastards rigged Kyle’s front door to blow,” she explained, trying to untangle herself from the remains of a black coupe soft top. It didn’t feel like she’d broken anything new. “The blast wasn’t anywhere near as bad as last night’s—just meant to make a point, I think. Goddamn, I owe somebody a new Mini Coupe. My insurance company is going to blacklist me after this week.”
A man rushed over to her, looking very concerned as she half-tumbled off the car roof.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “Don’t try to move. There’s an ambulance on the way.”
She brushed past the man and started up the stairs towards Kyle’s apartment again.
“Lady, I really don’t think you should be going in there,” the man called urgently.
She ignored him.
“Gabi, what are you doing?” Julius demanded. “Get out of there, and come back to the Estate.”
“I came here for something of Kyle’s, for the Magi to track him. It’ll only take me a second to find something.” She tucked the lower part of her face and nose inside the collar of her shirt and carefully picked her way inside the damaged apartment. “Damn, damn and double-fucking damn,” she cursed. “This was a carefully executed attack,” she told Julius. “There is almost no structural damage in here, but everything inside has been blown to bits. Even if I gathered a few scraps of something, I don’t think it’d be enough for a Magus to track him. Arghh, this is madness. We’re going to have to crack the Doppelganger. I’ll take off each of her fingers one at a time if I have to.” A red wall of rage suddenly swamped her.
“Gabrielle, focus,” Julius ordered, his voice loaded with authority. “Get out of there, get your curvaceous butt back to the Estate, and we can come up with a plan of action together. While you do that, I’m going to call Byron and get him to move the Doppelganger to a secure facility at one of my other properties. One that Jason King will find it very hard to track down, let alone infiltrate. We can join him there at sunset. If they haven’t cracked the woman by then, I’ll let Fergus at her. There aren’t many human minds he can’t break into.” His voice had also gone hard, but brooked no disagreement from her.
She breathed through the anger, forcing composure as she picked her way back out of the debris littering the inside of Kyle’s home. Once outside, she ducked to the side of the door and slipped along the corridor to take the fire escape back to the ground, hoping to avoid any would-be rescuers. She considered demanding the address Julius was sending Byron and the Doppelganger to so she could drive straight there, but just then a potent, rhythmic pounding started up in her head, and a few sparkles began an erratic dance in front of her eyes. Ah yes, she had something she needed to see Julius about first.
“Fine, I’m on my way,” she conceded. “You’d better send someone to triple-check Kyle’s van. Derek and Trish travelled back to the Estate in it, and I wouldn’t put it past these bastards to have rigged it as well. I’ll check to see if Kyle left anything in it that a Tracker could use when I get there.” She cut the call and snuck into the Audi, reversing and making it onto the main road just as the first fire engine arrived.
There were three Werewolf guards at the gate instead of the usual two when Gabi pulled up. They waved her through the gate but asked her to stop once she was inside. One stood near the guard house with a phone in his hand, and the other two slowly circled the car, nostrils flaring. After a full circle by both of the wolves, they prostrated themselves on the ground either side of the car and checked the undercarriage just as thoroughly. They hopped up and gave a nod signalling all clear.
Julius was in Rowan cottage, pacing the floor. Gabi had only just remembered to give a knock of warning before she opened the door. It wasn’t normal to think of Julius as vulnerable. He was standing well back from the front door, the cottage was lit with artificial lighting, every window securely screened by sun-impenetrable blinds. She turned to close the door, and by the time she turned back to the room, he was right there. A frown creased his forehead as he inspected her. He didn’t say a word as his nimble fingers reached into her hair and began extracting paint chips and tiny splinters of wood.
“Thanks,” she said, realising she probably looked like an unwashed, unkempt, mad cat lady. His fingers brushed lightly over one of the gashes, and she winced. “Okay, enough. Time to get to work,” she insisted, catching his hands and going up on her toes to place a quick kiss on his lips.
He caught her around the waist and deepened the kiss. A scuff behind him made Gabi aware that they were not alone in the cottage. She broke the kiss and peeked over his shoulder to find Patrick and Derek standing against one wall. Trish was crouched on the floor behind a trestle table filled with electronic equipment and monitors. She was connecting wires and inserting plugs into an electrical extension. She glanced up at Gabi with a slightly stressed smile.
“Seeing as the rest of these oafs won’t say it, I’m glad to see you still in one piece,” she said, jiggling one more cable into place before standing up and brushing herself off.
Gabi licked her lips self-consciously and pried her body away from Julius. Derek was looking sullen. Patrick was looking anywhere but at her and Julius.
“What’s going on?” she asked, walking further into the cottage.
“The Doppelganger will be secure in our underground bunker soon. Byron, Athena and a contingent of Werewolves, including Matt and Alistair, are taking her there now,” Julius explained, coming up behind her. “We’re setting up a video feed from the bunker to here so we can see and hear exactly what the Shifter has to say.”
Trish was tweaking things at the front of the table now, pushing buttons and checking coloured lights as the monitors flickered to life. She grabbed a nearby chair and dragged it closer as Ga
bi came to stand behind her. Her fingers flew over a keyboard and several programmes began loading, several lines of code and a little cursing later, two of the monitors switched to a view of a large, brightly lit room. The room was painted white, had a plain, concrete floor, and was furnished only with a small, sturdy table and four chairs. One of the chairs was a little different from the rest. It stood ready with open metal cuffs on the chair arms and legs, and another metal contrivance across where a person’s chest and upper thighs would rest.
Gabi’s eyebrows shot up. “You never told me you have an interrogation room, Jules,” she drawled.
He came to stand alongside her, also gazing at the empty room. “The facility is mostly an emergency bunker for the Clan, but we do also take care of…business…down there at times,” he explained calmly but didn’t elaborate further.
Gabi turned to him. “I need to talk to you,” she said quietly, “in private.”
Chapter 18
Gabi headed for the bedroom, away from the others, her steps slower than usual as sheer exhaustion set in. Julius followed, closing the door behind him, though they both knew the Werewolves would probably hear them anyway.
“Sit before you fall,” he growled.
Her instincts demanded that she pace, but her body just couldn’t comply. She sank onto the bed, rubbing at her temples. The mattress gave way next to her as he joined her.
“Those injuries are not minor, Lea,” he noted. “You need to rest.”
“No,” she said, short and sharp. “I can’t rest, not until we have Kyle back. You know what happens when I’ve been injured. I’ve explained it, haven’t I?” She didn’t really know how to ask for what she wanted from him, not without sounding desperate. It wasn’t every day you had to ask someone to let you suck their blood. She clamped down on the automatic shudder of revulsion.
“You lose your normal physical edge, your preternatural speed and strength,” he said, adlibbing what she’d told him several weeks ago.
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