by Nalini Singh
“If Marco’s in there alone, we can take him. Let’s check things out first—I don’t want to panic him.” A pause. “Though it sounds like Silas is no prize.”
“Yeah. But Marco hurt Rodney, who’s about as dangerous as your average rabbit.” She hoped his master hadn’t been too hard on him. And that Mindy the Bitch had gotten her head torn off.
“We’re here.” He pulled over and parked. “The bar should be closed.”
Stowing the helmets, they headed to the bar . . . only to come to an abrupt halt when a little old lady on her way down from farther along the street stared at them and backed away very fast. Sara looked at Deacon, really looked. Big, sexy, loaded up with weapons . . . and stained rust red. “Oops.”
He smiled, slow and with a glint that said he was thinking about getting naked. With her. “We better wrap this up before the police arrive and all hell breaks loose.”
Nodding, she shoved aside the thought of soaping up his delicious body and picked up the pace. “How’re we getting into the basement?”
Deacon raised an eyebrow. “We ask.”
“Wha— Oh, that’ll work. Two hunters, needing sanctuary and somewhere to clean up. I’m good with that.”
The door to the bar was locked shut, all the neon turned off. Deacon went to knock, but Sara grabbed his hand and pointed to the intercom hidden discreetly to the side. Pushing the button, she waited.
“Yes?” Marco’s voice. Sounding tired, but not the least bit aggressive.
“Marco, it’s Sara and Deacon. We need a place to clean up.”
“I can see that.” The door clicked open. “Come on through.”
They went in. Sara waited until the door had closed behind them to whisper, “Is it just me or does he sound way too normal?”
Deacon was frowning as well. “Either he’s one hell of a good actor or something else is up.”
Marco stuck his head out the door that led up to his apartment. He whistled when he saw them. “Must’ve been some fight. The bathroom’s big enough for two.” A sharp grin that tried to hide exhaustion and failed.
Again, nothing weird about that if he hadn’t yet had a chance to go to bed.
Then she saw the mess that was the bar itself. Bottles shattered, blood on the floor, what looked like bullet holes in the walls. A second later, Marco stepped out from behind the door, and it became apparent he was sporting the beginnings of a serious black eye. “Do I dare ask?” She raised an eyebrow.
Marco thrust a hand through his hair. “Come on up and we’ll talk.”
“Now would be better,” Deacon said, unmoving.
The bar owner looked from one to the other and said, “Shit.” Sounding like his heart had just broken into a million pieces, he sat down on the last step, head in his hands. “He set me up. The bastard set me up.”
Sara was starting to get a headache. She’d come in here expecting to rescue a hurt vampire from an unhinged hunter, and found a shattered lover. “How about we take this from the top?” she suggested, staying out of attack range in case Marco actually was that good an actor. “Where’s Silas?”
“Locked in the basement.” Marco’s eyes were bleak when he glanced at them. “I needed time to get my shit together before I called the Guild.”
“And the man who was with him?”
Marco nodded at the bar. “Silas came up behind him and . . .” He stared at his hands. “I couldn’t believe it. But the blood, God, so much blood.”
Leaving Deacon to keep an eye on him, she pulled herself up onto the gleaming wooden surface and looked down. A vampire’s bright blue eyes stared up at her. She sucked in a breath. If she hadn’t been able to see that his head was no longer attached to his body, she’d have thought him alive. “Dead,” she confirmed to Deacon. “The question is, how did he get that way?”
“Silas,” Marco repeated dully. “He came in here, strutting like a damn peacock. I should’ve left him outside but I—” He swallowed, hand fisted, pain apparent in every taut tendon. “I thought maybe he’d come to apologize. I didn’t see the kid till after.”
“Apologize?” Sara had the sinking feeling they’d all been drawn into one seriously bad lover’s tiff.
“For cheating on me.” Marco finally looked her full in the face. “Here I was, being a putz. I gave my notice at the Guild, set up this place, all because he said he hated knowing I was putting my life on the line with every hunt. I even asked Simon to talk to some of the senior angels, see if we could maybe get the rest of Silas’s Contract transferred to an angel in the States so we wouldn’t have to keep going back and forth.”
“Here.” Sara grabbed a dented but still whole bottle of water and threw it at him. “Breathe.”
“I can’t.” He chugged the entire bottle, then threw it aside. “He was just using me. Wanted out of his Contract—his angel doesn’t like him. I could’ve swallowed that. Hell on the ego, but I’d have swallowed it. I loved him. But the whole time we were together, he was with . . . who the fuck knows. More than one guy.”
“Marco, that doesn’t make sense.” Sara folded her arms. “Why would he set you up if he was the one cheating?”
“’Cause I dumped him.” And in that moment, Sara saw the hunter Marco was. Hard, lethal, certainly very good at his job. “I told him to get out and stay out.”
“Which meant he lost any chance of getting his Contract transferred.” Deacon didn’t move from his position by the door. “It sounds good. But all the evidence points to a hunter.”
“He took my stuff. My weapons, clothes, one of the ceremonial swords I collect.” Marco ground his teeth together. “I feel so fucking stupid. I knew he didn’t handle rejection well, but I never thought he’d go around killing people just to get back at me.”
Sara glanced at Deacon. He shook his head in a slight negative. She agreed. Marco was very, very believable. But it was his word against this Silas’s. If they backed him, the vampires would take it badly—unless they had proof. In which case, Silas would disappear to face angelic justice. Hunters could kill, but only in exigent circumstances, or when they had an execution warrant. It made more sense for angels to deliver any necessary punishment—they were faster, stronger, and far more cruel than the vampires they Made.
“Security cameras,” she asked Marco. “Did you record the fight?”
“No.” Self-disgust marred the handsome lines of his face. “I turned them off when I realized it was him—didn’t want anyone seeing how much of a fool I’d been. At least I wasn’t stupid enough to leave my gun behind. Shot grazed his head, knocked him out.”
That explained how Marco had gotten the vamp into the basement. “We need to talk to Silas.” Sara stepped forward, expecting an argument.
Marco got up. “I’ll take you—let’s see what the bastard has to say.”
Letting him go on ahead, they followed with weapons drawn. Silas was pounding on the door by the time they got there.
“Help me!” More pounding. “Help! I can hear you!”
“Quiet.” Deacon’s voice cut through the pounding like a knife.
Sara took the lead. “How’d you end up locked in the basement?”
They got pretty much the same story as from Marco . . . but with the roles reversed. By the time it was over, Sara’s headache had turned into a thumping monster. How in hell were they going to fix this? The wrong move and a lot more blood would spill.
She looked to Deacon. “Got handcuffs?”
He handed her a thin plastic pair. “They’ll hold.” Marco lifted up his hands without question when she turned. Clicking the cuffs shut, she led him back upstairs, stashing him on the stairway that led up to his apartment . . . after blindfolding him and tying his feet together, then redoing the cuffs to lock him to the railing. Hunters were extremely resourceful when it came to survival.
“I won’t run,” Marco told her, a broken kind of pain in his voice that hurt her.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, “I believe you.�
�� If she was going to be Guild Director, she had to learn to judge her people. “But we need proof.”
“He’s smart. Part of his charm.”
Silas hadn’t sounded particularly charming to Sara, but then, she wasn’t in love with him. Patting Marco on the shoulder, she walked out, pulling the door shut behind her. “Rodney,” she said to Deacon.
“That’s what I thought.”
“But even if he can tell their voices apart, how seriously is anyone going to take him?” She pulled out her cell phone. Hesitated.
“It’s a start.”
As she waited for the phone to be answered, she found her eyes locked with Deacon’s. “I’m going to have to deal with messes like this all the time as director.”
A nod. “And you’ll care enough to find out the truth.” Bridging the distance between them, he touched her cheek. “We’re lucky to have you.”
The phone was picked up on the other end. “Yes?”
Sara dropped her head against Deacon’s chest at the sound of that voice. “Mindy, I need to speak to your master.”
“I got punished because you tattled.”
8
Sara didn’t have time to engage in a pissing contest. “You should’ve been more careful.”
“Damn straight,” Mindy said. “I’m four hundred years old and I can’t get rid of the twerp. Not your fault. Hold on.”
Surprised, and glad something was going right, she took a deep breath as Lacarre’s cultured voice came on the line. “Hunter.” A demand for why she was calling, and permission to speak, all in one word.
She explained. “If we could borrow Rodney for a few minutes, it might help clear things up.”
“Since the victims included two of my own, I’d be very interested in learning the identity of the perpetrator. We’ll be there shortly.”
Closing the phone, she hugged Deacon. “Think anyone would notice if I chucked it all in and ran screaming for the hills?”
Warm, strong hands rubbing over her back. “They might send the Slayer after you.”
“No flirting. Not now.”
“Later, then.” He didn’t stop the back rub. “I think this officially equals the oddest case of my career.”
“You and me both. I don’t know why I’m always surprised when vampires act as weird as ordinary humans. It’s not like they gain the wisdom of the ages with the transformation.” His heart beat strong and steady under her cheek. Solid. Calming. A woman could get used to that kind of an anchor.
They stood in silence for a long time, until Sara’s heart beat in rhythm with his. “Did you ever consider another career?” she asked in a low, private whisper, realizing she knew nothing of his past. It didn’t matter. It was the man he was today who fascinated her. “Aside from the Guild?”
“No.” A single word that held a wealth of history.
She didn’t push. “Me, either. I met my first hunter while I was living on a commune—don’t even ask—when I was ten. She was so smart and tough and practical. It was love at first sight.”
His chuckle sounded a little raw. “I saw mine after a bloodlust-crazed vampire destroyed our entire neighborhood. The hunter found me standing over the vampire, chopping his head off with a meat cleaver.”
She squeezed him tight. “How old were you?”
“Eight.”
“It’s a wonder you’re not a psycho vampire-killer your-self.”
Somehow, it was the right thing to say. He laughed softly and all but folded himself around her, kissing her temple with a tenderness that shattered her remaining defenses like so much glass. “I decided I’d rather be one of the good guys. I don’t like tracking and executing my fellow hunters—every kill hurts like a bitch.”
And that, Sara suddenly knew, was why the last Slayer had chosen Deacon as his successor. The Slayer had to love the Guild with all his heart and soul. Every decision had to be made with the wrenching power of that love—Deacon would never execute a hunter without absolute, undeniable evidence. Otherwise, Marco would’ve been dead days ago.
Lifting up her head, she kissed his throat. “How do you feel about carrying on a secret affair with the Guild Director?” She couldn’t let him go. Not without a fight.
“I prefer the world know full well I consider a woman mine.” An uncompromising answer. “Secrets just come back to bite you in the ass.”
There went that possibility. Before she could come up with another, the front door vibrated under the force of an imperious knock. Lacarre had arrived. “Showtime.” Pulling away from Deacon, she walked over and let in both Lacarre and his entourage—Mindy, Rodney, and, unexpectedly, the vampire who’d originally asked for their help. “Please come in.” She raised an eyebrow at the one who didn’t belong.
“We found him loitering,” Mindy said, waving a hand with insouciance that told them she couldn’t care less. “Lacarre decided he might be of help.”
The foreign vampire didn’t look especially pleased to have been dragged inside, but nobody said no to an angel.
“Where are the two men?” Lacarre asked, keeping his wings several inches off the floor so they wouldn’t drag on the sticky mess of glass, blood, and alcohol that coated the varnished surface.
“One’s behind there.” She nodded at the closed door that led up to Marco’s apartment. “And the other’s in the basement.”
Mindy stroked a hand down Deacon’s arm. “Do they look like this one?” It was a sultry invitation.
Deacon said nothing, just watched her with eyes gone so cold, even Sara felt the chill. Deacon did scary really, really well. Mindy dropped her hand as if it had been singed and returned to Lacarre’s side quick-fast. Rodney was already cowering behind the angel’s wings.
“You’d make a good vampire,” the angel said to Deacon. “I might actually trust the city wouldn’t fall apart if I left you in charge.”
“I prefer hunting.”
The angel nodded. “Pity. Rodney, you know what you have to do?”
Rodney bobbed his head so fast, it was as if it were on springs. “Yes, Master.” He looked childishly eager to please.
“Come on.” Keeping her voice gentle, Sara held out her hand. “I didn’t hurt you last time, did I?”
Rodney took a moment to think about that before coming over to close his fingers around her own. “They won’t be able to get me, will they?”
“No.” She patted his arm with her free hand. “All I want you to do is listen to their voices and tell me which one sounds like the man who hurt you.”
They went to Marco first, Lacarre and Mindy following. It made the hairs on the back of her neck rise to have a powerful angel and his bloodthirsty vampire floozy behind her—she was able to bear it only because Deacon was bringing up the rear, with Silas’s friend in front of him. “Marco.” She banged on the door. “I want you to threaten to cut off Rodney’s head.”
Rodney shot her a wide-eyed look. She whispered, “It’s just pretend.”
Marco began yelling a second later. Eyes wide, Rodney skittered away from the door and Sara felt her stomach fall. “Is it him?” she asked, after Marco went quiet.
Rodney was shivering. “No, but he’s scary.”
Lacarre wasn’t fond of the basement idea, but he came down with them. And when Silas refused to do as ordered, the angel whispered, “Or would you rather I come in for a private . . . talk?” Silky sweet, dark as chocolate, and sharp as a stiletto sliding between your ribs.
If Sara had ever had any delusions about trying to become a vampire, they would’ve died a quick death then and there. She never wanted to be under the control of anyone who could put that much cruelty, that much pain, into a single sentence.
Chastened, Silas made a wooden threat. About as scary as a teddy bear. Sara was about to order him to do it with more feeling when Rodney turned around and tried to run back up the stairs. Deacon caught him. “Shh.”
To Sara’s surprise, the vampire clung to him as a child would to its father. �
�It was him. He’s the bad man.”
Lacarre stared at the back of Rodney’s head, then at Sara. “Bring this Silas upstairs. I will hear from the hunter as to what happened.”
Sara had her crossbow at the ready, but it proved unnecessary. Tall, dark, and striking Silas, his clothes torn and bloody, followed them meek as a lamb. Leaving him in front of Lacarre and Mindy—with the foreign vamp skulking in the background—she released Marco and walked with him to the others.
Silas glared at his ex-lover. “You kill and put the blame on me.”
Marco ignored him, staring straight ahead as he recited what Sara believed to be the truth. Around the time that he got to his rejection of Silas, the out-of-town vampire gasped and said, “I believed you!”
“Be quiet!” Silas screamed.
Lacarre raised an eyebrow. “No. Continue.”
“He has done this before,” the foreign vampire said. “Three decades ago, when a human he’d been romancing left him for another vampire, he killed four of our own kind.”
Sara met his eye. “Were they men with strong ties to humanity?”
“Yes.” A trembling answer. “He told me the bloodlust had gotten hold of him. He was young . . . I protected him.” The clearly shaken vampire took a deep breath and turned his back on his former friend. “I no longer do.”
Silas screamed and jumped up as if to attack, but Deacon brought him down with a single chop to the throat. The vamp went down like a tree. Marco flinched but didn’t turn even then.
“As I said,” Lacarre murmured, “it’s a great pity you don’t wish to be Made. If you ever change your mind, let me know.”
Deacon’s smile was faint. “No offense, but I like being my own master.”
“I’d tempt you with beauties like Mindy, but it seems you’ve made your choice.” He walked over to Silas’s unconscious body. “The Guild has the right to demand restitution and proffer punishment. What is your will?” A question aimed solely at Sara. As if she were already director.
Sara glanced at Marco, saw the struggle on his face and knew there could be only one answer. “Mercy,” she said. “Execute him with mercy.” For they all knew that Silas wouldn’t be allowed to live. “No torture, no pain.”