Scarlet Revenge

by Sheri Lewis Wohl

The path wound through the trees, plants, and flowers, and Tory walked slowly along, letting the solitude calm her. The fragrance of blooming flowers filled the night, and, unlike the cloying heaviness the sprays inside the church created, the scents out here were lovely on the gentle breeze. At a bench beneath a tall tree, she sank to the hard granite.

  She touched the cover of the New Testament, the leather rough and dry against her fingertips. Thinking about the last time she’d held this book, she closed her eyes and took deep, steadying breaths. The impossibility of holding it now pressed heavy on her mind. Her world no longer made sense, and that pissed her off. Even when she spent a lot of time and effort creating a very secluded existence, somebody found a way to mess it up.

  The smell reached her before she saw anyone. A human. Blood rushed through the human’s veins, though interestingly Tory sensed no fear. A woman, and she knew what Tory was. She wasn’t afraid. She knew and understood the night. It wasn’t a stretch to figure out who it was.

  “Why are you following me?”

  Call-me-Naomi stepped around a tall flowering shrub and onto the path. Her worship attire was gone, replaced by black slacks and a silky button-down shirt with long sleeves. At almost six feet tall with long black hair pulled into a ponytail, she studied Tory with dark eyes. Pretty conservative was her first thought. Pretty nice was her second. She’d always been a sucker for a woman with long, dark hair.

  Not quite the time or the place to get the hots for someone, though. She had others to worry about, even if she didn’t exactly know who—or what—they were. She clutched the New Testament to her and returned Naomi’s steady gaze.

  Dark eyes met hers. “Following you? No, not exactly.”

  “Then why are you here?” Not for a second did Tory believe the encounter was accidental. Maybe Naomi hadn’t followed her here, but a coincidence? Not a chance.

  Naomi raised an eyebrow. “I needed to drop off some things for the gift shop.” She pointed to the small building on the edge of the garden. “I noticed you sitting here and so I took a slight detour. No stalking, I promise.”

  She looked up and noticed that she was, indeed, carrying a sack. Possibly Naomi was doing exactly what she said. It was also possible she’d come looking specifically for her. Tory hadn’t been born yesterday—far from it actually.

  “I’m fine. You can go on to your car.”

  With one hand stuffed in a pocket and the other still holding the bag, Naomi examined her for a long moment. “It’s after one o’clock in the morning and you’re sitting in the dark, in the gardens, alone.”

  “So…”

  “So, I’d be a piss-poor person if I simply walked by and pretended not to see you.”

  Piss-poor? Not the kind of language she’d ever heard from a woman of the cloth. “I’m fine,” she said again.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Tory took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “I really am all right.” She tried to keep irritation out of her voice. Why wouldn’t she just leave her the fuck alone?

  “You do realize this is Washington DC in the middle of the night, in the dark? Right?”

  No shit. “Yes, of course I do.”

  “Then you also have to know that it’s dangerous to be out here all alone. Right?”

  As if punctuating the gravity of the word alone, several cars drove through the driveway, and when Tory looked up not a single car remained in the outside parking lot. A few minutes ago, it had been almost full.

  Tory turned her gaze back to Naomi. “I appreciate your concern. The thing is, I’m aware of my surroundings and, trust me, I’m perfectly capable of defending myself if need be.”

  “So, say I buy that you can defend yourself, would I be any less derelict in my duties if I walked on by without inquiring what brought you to this lonely place in the middle of the night?” She gave Tory a half smile, which did something quite nice to her face.

  As much as Tory craved solitude at the moment, Naomi Rand was doing a pretty good job of chiseling away at her defenses. Who would have guessed? Probably nothing more than long-buried emotions that the appearance of the New Testament had brought up. Yes, that’s what it was. It wasn’t attraction or anything stupid like that.

  “Okay, would it make you feel better if I went back to work?”

  Naomi’s dark eyes looked startled. “Back to work? What are you? A nurse or a doctor or something like that?”

  Something, all right. Tory stood and, as if in slow motion, watched the centuries-old New Testament tumble and hit the ground with a solid thump. It lay there on the gray stone path, its cover riddled with spiderweb cracks, the by-product of its age and having spent two centuries sharing a casket with the body of her friend. She bent to retrieve it. Naomi beat her to it.

  “Wow,” she breathed, turning it over in her hands as she studied the age-darkened leather cover. “This is really something.”

  Tory took a menacing step closer, intruding on Naomi’s personal space. She touched the spine of the book. “I’ll take that.”

  Naomi didn’t release her grip or step away to restore her space. Instead, she ignored Tory and began to riffle the pages with a very soft touch, stopping here and there to recite a passage in perfect Latin.

  Tory was intrigued, but not enough to get sidetracked. “Give it back.” It took some effort not to show her fangs, though the menace in her voice would be hard to miss.

  “Tell me.” Naomi’s face underwent a subtle change. “Why exactly did you bring such a valuable book to our rather special services? Or did you steal this from the cathedral?”

  “Excuse me!” Shock and insult made her words sharp. The idea that someone would think she stole the book had never occurred to her.

  Naomi shrugged, her gaze intent on Tory’s face. “Legitimate question. You come to our services while security is down, look like you’re in the middle of an inquisition when I stop to say hello, and then bolt before the service is over. To top it all, I find you hiding in the gardens with a very old and probably very rare Bible. You’d have had plenty of time during the services to sneak into our facility and snatch something like this. My question is far from being out of line.”

  As Naomi spoke, Tory bit the inside of her lip so hard she drew blood. The metallic taste on her tongue brought an unwanted jolt of electricity to her body. It was time to get the hell out of here, except she wasn’t leaving without her book. The woman needed to give it up or Tory wouldn’t be responsible for what could happen.

  “I didn’t steal anything. Now give me back the fucking Bible before I do something we’ll both regret.” Her voice was low and controlled, but with a dangerous edge.

  Naomi tilted her head and studied Tory for a long moment. Slowly, she offered up the New Testament. “I’m going on faith here. Please don’t make me a fool.”

  Tory took it and said quietly, “You’d have been a bigger fool not to give it back to me.”

  She turned to leave, intending to waste no time putting distance between them. As the blessed darkness closed around her, Naomi’s voice cut through the night and made her pause.

  “You never told me your name.”

  Chapter Four

  Blood was everywhere—on her clothes, on her hands, on her face. She tried to wash it away, but the harder she scrubbed, the more it increased. Her heart began to beat so fast it stole her breath. Was she going to die at long last?

  In the distance thunder pounded and the air thickened. She couldn’t get away. She could barely breathe. Run. Run. The pounding grew louder, louder, LOUDER.

  Naomi bolted upright in her bed, shoved the hair off her sweat-covered forehead, and tried to bring her breathing back to a normal rhythm. Sweet Jesus, that was the nightmare from hell, and she’d had some terrible ones to compare it to. Her terror was so real she was surprised she hadn’t had the big one.

  All of a sudden it dawned on her that part of it wasn’t a dream. The nightmare hadn’t manufactured the pounding. It was rea
l. Someone was knocking on her front door so frantically she wondered if the house was on fire. No smoke, so probably not.

  Daylight tried to sneak in through the closed blackout blinds, and a glance at the clock told her she’d at least managed a few hours of sleep. Not enough. She wanted to lie back down, pull a pillow over her head, and try for long, peaceful slumber. Wasn’t going to happen. The assault on her front door was not abating.

  With a groan, she slid her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. After slipping on a pair of sweats, she pulled a T-shirt over her head as she headed to the front door. When she looked through the peephole, she groaned. Maybe the nightmare wasn’t so bad after all.

  For a second she gave serious thought to turning around and going back to bed. Then she slid the safety chain free and swung the door open. “What?”

  “Yeah, and a fucking good morning to you too, sunshine.”

  Naomi leaned against the door frame and waited. For Nathan to show up at her house at this time of day meant one thing: bad news. The only real question was whether the visit was personal or professional. The odds, unfortunately, were on professional, which sucked.

  “So, sis, you gonna ask me in or make me stand outside?”

  She was tempted to just shut the door, except years of experience told her it wouldn’t make any difference. Her twin brother wasn’t the kind who would take a hint. Not that he didn’t get it—he just consistently chose to ignore it, at least when it came to her.

  She opened the door wide enough for Nathan to step inside, and he immediately headed to the kitchen. She tried to think if he’d ever come here when he didn’t inventory her pantry and refrigerator. Not in recent memory. Too busy to buy his own groceries or always starving, she was never sure. She’d lost her appetite years ago, and even being out of the hunt didn’t bring it back.

  “When the fuck are you going to get a coffeemaker?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I don’t drink coffee.”

  He rolled his eyes back at her. “That’s pretty un-American, cupcake.”

  She was about this close to pinching his head. Call her cupcake one more time and there’d be some pinching going on. “Deal with it. What do you want?”

  He looked up from her refrigerator where he’d been rummaging around. Her eating habits and his usually didn’t mesh well, yet when he stepped back he held a bottle of orange juice. “There were two particularly gruesome murders last night. One close to the Hill, one on the Mall.”

  Like murder didn’t happen with some degree of regularity around here? “What does that have to do with me?” A sinking feeling deep in her gut told her she knew what he was getting at. Even so, she was going to make him spell it out. If he had the nerve to drag her out of bed, he could explain in detail.

  Nathan tipped his head back and took a long draw of the juice before he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Women seemed to fall all over themselves for him, and she couldn’t figure out why. Maybe his table manners were better with the ladies. She really, really hoped so. Around her? Slob was one of the nicer descriptions.

  His dark eyes that looked so much like hers were serious. “One of yours did them.”

  Crap. “They’re not mine.” Not technically, anyway. She knew what he meant, but she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. He was supposed to be impartial, to look at everyone the same. She’d give him a few points for minimal effort. He could do better.

  He smacked the orange juice down, some of it slopping over the rim to the counter, where it pooled on the clean white tile. The mess would still be there when he left. “You know what I’m getting at, Meme.”

  When he used her childhood nickname these days, she hated it. The name should have been a term of endearment, but coming from Nathan lately, an endearment was about the last thing it was. The way they butted heads, it was hard to believe they were once inseparable. When they were growing up he always had her back. Even if he never said it, she now figured she was on her own. Not that she blamed him. They were in different places without a bridge between the two.

  Still, it pissed her off when he got so high and mighty. Her eyes narrowed and she clipped her words. “No, I don’t. Why don’t you spell it out for me, bro?”

  He gave her the same look in return. “Fine, you want to play it that way. How about this? One of your goddamn bloodsuckers picked up a big-time lobbyist, fucked him, and then drained him dry. Not just the lobbyist either. The same kind of hit was made on a bodybuilder after he left his gym. Clear enough for you? Two, Meme, two in a single night by one of those monsters you protect. When are you gonna learn they’re not on your side?”

  The reality of what he said made her sink to one of the tall stools at the kitchen bar. Running a hand through her hair she sighed. She hated the way he thought about her congregation, how he assumed they were all evil. She knew they weren’t and, at the same time, understood where he was coming from. She’d been there once too…before she’d learned the hard way how wrong she’d been.

  “Are you sure?”

  Nathan dropped to the stool beside her and let out a breath, the anger of a moment before evaporating. His shoulders slumped and his dark eyes were haunted. When he wasn’t being a macho ass, he could be an okay guy. Too bad she didn’t see that side of him much lately. “Yeah, I am.”

  “How bad?”

  “It’s not good. The one guy had some serious clout and shit is going to start rolling downhill. We need to find whoever did this and get him shut down before the good citizens of the District get riled up again.”

  The thought gave her chills. The relationship between the humans and the preternaturals was tenuous at best. Something like this could blow the precariously balanced truce to hell in a heartbeat. A decade ago, a vampire turned a gang member. He showed his gratitude by turning his whole gang. By the time they were put down, at least a hundred were dead and blood literally ran in the streets. She was there and remembered it all too clearly. The tragedy still lingered in the city’s collective memory enough that nobody wanted to see something like that happen ever again, especially her.

  Her brother wasn’t being unreasonable, even when he was angry and bitter. Nonetheless, he had a firm grasp of the real dangers of a preternatural serial killer. Too many deaths and it could get out of hand in a hurry.

  “Let me see what I can find out,” she told him, her thoughts turning to the beautiful and mysterious woman at last night’s service. Did she know something? Could she be involved? Her gut said she wasn’t the killer, but her gut had been wrong before.

  He squeezed her shoulder lightly. “Appreciate it.” He headed to the front door, pausing before he stepped outside. “Meme?”

  She met his dark eyes. “Yeah?”

  “Make it quick.”

  Their eyes locked and she nodded. “I’ll call you tonight.”

  The door had no sooner closed behind Nathan than her cell phone trilled from the kitchen counter. So much for going back to bed for a little more R&R, not that she’d be able to sleep after her brother’s visit. His warning had her wound up tight.

  She grabbed the phone and tried not to sound as grumpy as she felt. “Hello.”

  “Where is your lazy butt?”

  “What…oh, Karen.” The familiar voice cut through the fog.

  “I’m waiting…”

  Naomi walked to the window and looked out. Sure as the world, Karen was standing on the sidewalk leaning against the streetlight pole, dressed in workout gear and holding her road bike upright in one hand. In the midst of all the chaos, she’d forgotten their once-a-week morning bike ride. She really was out of sync. They’d ridden together for the last couple of years.

  She stifled a groan. The last thing she felt like doing at the moment was riding. Then again, the physical exertion might be exactly what she needed. “Give me five.”

  Karen gave her a thumbs-up and put the phone into the zippered pocket of a light jacket. It actually took six minutes to throw on clothes, sl
ip into her biking shoes, and grab her bike from the rack in the hallway. Even if she didn’t feel like going out, Karen wouldn’t accept any excuses. The woman took her workouts seriously and showed up at her door with frightening punctuality each and every week. Naomi, on the other hand, was not quite so serious. Truthfully, she exercised only because it kept her in shape and she liked the high that came at the end of a long, hard workout. When she was a hunter, keeping in top condition was critical to battle survival. These days it was more to win the battle against the slow creep of age. Today, it would be a good way to clear her head.

  “Saw tall, handsome, and grumpy as he left your place,” Karen said once Naomi was in the saddle, her shoes clipped into the pedals. They started out at an easy pace for warm-up. Like Nathan, Karen was a police officer. While he was a detective with the DC force, she was a street cop with the Capitol Police.

  “Yeah, Mr. Sunshine came with more good news.” The sun on her skin felt good, the air clear and nice. Despite her reluctance this morning, she was glad she’d come out. Anything that might help unblock her mind and help her think was probably a really good idea.

  Karen nodded and picked up the pace. “I know and I’m worried.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “If my secret gets out…” Karen powered up a hill at a pace that made Naomi’s thighs burn as she tried to keep up.

  With close-cropped red hair and sharp features, Karen was a powerful necromancer, capable of raising the dead. Few would guess it, though now and again her law-enforcement confidants called on her skills to help solve cases. Didn’t make it any less of a secret because people in general were scared of someone who could literally bring folks up from six feet under. Only the very trusted knew of Karen’s special ability.

  Karen didn’t need to finish the sentence. The reality of what could happen pressed at Naomi’s heart and soul. At the top of the hill, she stopped, got off her bike, and bent over to catch her breath, her hands on her thighs. Karen sped ahead to a trail with paved paths and plenty of tree cover. Once she realized Naomi wasn’t right behind her, Karen backtracked to where she’d stopped and dismounted as well. Naomi straightened and pulled Karen close. The tough policewoman trembled.