She would have jumped out of her skin, if it was possible while conscious. She did jump off the bed. Standing on the opposite side of the room from Jebel, she demanded, “What?”
He rose and turned to look at her, naked, tattooed, and quite calm. “I was also looking for the missing Enforcer of the City. We have a lot to talk about, Charlotte.” He watched her steadily, but with certain wariness beneath the calm. “But I suspect you know that.”
Chapter 13
BEN WASN’T QUITE sure where he went to sleep, but he was certain this was not the place where he should be waking up. He vaguely remembered the scent and feel of leather. The coolness beneath him now felt like concrete. The smoothness that completely covered him was the texture of satin. It was an odd, disturbing combination. He resisted the impulse to move, to throw off the cloth that covered him. When he opened his eyes, he discovered the covering was striped in pink and orange. His sensitive night vision made him aware that the room beyond was brightly lit. He stayed quiet for now because he knew he was not alone. He was aware of mortal breath, a heartbeat, and the flow of warm blood. He could hear movement as well, and a low, almost subvocal muttering.
Ben felt like he’d been drugged. His head ached, his memory was fuzzy, and he felt weak. How the hell did you drug a vampire? Who had done it, and why? Anger flared through him at the thought anyone would dare touch him. He snarled silently, and felt the prick of hunting fangs pressing on upper and lower lips before his jaw lengthened into a sharp muzzle to accommodate the growth of razor-sharp teeth.
It was hard to think through the weakness, harder to think through the transforming anger, but Ben managed to catch hold of his impulses. He stayed still. He brought his body back into mortal form. He took a few deep breaths, and made himself think. There was a current of energy in the air, surrounding him. He recognized where the weakness came from now. Who’d put a spell on him?
Martina. Her face drifted through his consciousness, all smug and bright-eyed with fanatical self-assurance. Had she done something to him? He hated her, but the truth was, she was barely aware of his existence. She didn’t believe anyone but the Enforcers could pose a threat to her.
Who then?
What had he done last night? When he tried to remember, a fog rose up to blanket his thoughts. Aware now that this was a spell, Ben bent his will against it. He breathed the fog in like cigarette smoke and forced it to dissipate within him. He was a creature made out of magic, after all. Now. What had actually happened?
He’d given a spell book to Reese. Why hadn’t he thought of that first? Because Reese had lulled him into a false sense of security. Or his own hormones had done that for Reese. They’d left the bar, gone back to Morgan Reese’s dressing room. They’d talked. He’d talked more than Reese. Told him too much? Reese had been very pleased with the gift of the spell book. Far more than Ben had been. It was meant only as a gift, to earn Reese’s trust, to please him, to impress him. Why would Reese use it against him?
Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe Reese had tried out a spell, and it had gone wrong. The result was that Ben woke up confused and feeling like shit. Ben finally noticed that he wasn’t restrained in any physical way. Reese had moved him, thrown a piece of cloth over him. That probably had a logical explanation. Maybe someone came knocking on the dressing room door during the day, and Reese had to quickly stash the body of a sleeping vampire before he answered the knock.
Logical. Reasonable. Sensible. Ben didn’t quite believe it, and decided it was time to stop speculating and find out what was going on for himself.
The satin clung to him as he sat up, so he had the satisfaction of ripping the cloth apart with slightly extended claws.
Reese’s back was to Ben. The sound of tearing fabric brought the mortal whirling around to face Ben. As their gazes met, Ben became aware that he was looking at Reese through the bars of a cage.
Ben laughed. It hid his disappointment in the man he was going to make his companion. It hid his anger. “So much for playing nice,” he said.
He reached for the bars. Reese’s smile was a warning, but Ben’s fingers closed on the burning cold metal before he could draw them back. His howl of pain mingled with Reese’s laughter.
Ben pulled his hands back and looked at the burn marks on his palms. “Maybe you should have mentioned that,” he said from between gritted teeth.
Reese wiped a tear of amusement from the corner of his eye. “And missed your reaction? Wish you’d screamed longer,” he added. “Pain and suffering come in handy.”
“Really? For what?”
“Magic. Building magical energy.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
Reese patted the spine of the notebook he held cradled in his arms. “In here. In the book you gave me.”
Ben glared at Reese, and the notebook, and damned himself for a complete fool. He might not think much of magic, but it was real. Reese had inborn power, and Ben had given the mortal the keys to the treasure chest of the dark arts.
Reese came closer, but not so close that Ben could lunge at him through the bars. “Amazing how things respond to magic,” he said, looking at the cage. “It’s a flimsy thing, built to be collapsible, but with only a few words and a bit of concentration, I’ve made it a cage for a vampire.” He laughed again, the sound low and full of genuine amazement. “A real vampire. When you admitted to it last night, I thought you were crazy. Even feeling the power—” He gestured with one hand across the room where the red jewel and gold cup sat on the polished black marble coffee table. He continued to clutch the book tightly to his chest. “Look at that thing.”
Ben glanced at his other gifts to Reese. The gold cup looked somehow brighter, richer than the shining object he remembered. The jewel—it wasn’t just gleaming with the fire of a huge, multifaceted ruby anymore. It wasn’t reflecting light, but glowing with its own inner fire. And waves of heat shimmered the air around it.
“It looks bigger,” Ben said.
“It reacts to magic. I’ve been doing a lot of magic while you were sleeping.” He glanced toward the door, then toward the ceiling. “I’m going to have to make you scream again.”
Ben laughed. “There is a lot of screaming in one of our futures.”
Reese ignored the threat. “Dark magic requires pain.”
“Yes,” Ben agreed with Reese. “Pain, fear, and death will make you into a vampire. Believe me, I will give you a great deal of pain and fear before I let you use the spell that will bring you rebirth.”
Reese focused his attention back on Ben. “You promised me immortality last night.”
“I still intend to give it to you.” Ben gestured toward the cage bars, but carefully didn’t touch them. His palms were healing, but they still hurt. He wasn’t going to injure himself if he could talk his way out instead. “I admire your initiative—your experimentation—but you really don’t want me pissed with you.”
Reese gave him a look that was downright coy. “You’re not pissed at me now?” Before Ben could answer, Reese turned toward the door. “Well,” he said mildly. “You will be in a moment.”
Ben felt her coming before she reached the door. Frantic, afraid for him, protective. Emotions guaranteed to make her careless as she rushed to her lover’s aid. Ben didn’t know what Reese intended to do to his companion, but Ben wasn’t going to let it happen.
He grabbed the bars, twisting the freezing metal with all his strength as the door opened. At the same time he shouted through the rising pain. “Get out of here, Clare!”
He didn’t know if she heard him, or responded to the order. The world went bright, searing red. Ben dropped hard onto his knees, and the world went black. It lasted only a moment. He came back to consciousness in time to catch himself before slumping completely onto the concrete slab. Ben hissed as his burned palms hit the rough flooring, but he pushed himself up, surging to his feet with supernatural speed.
Reese had the notebook open. He was speaking swiftly, softly. B
en couldn’t make out the words, but the sounds hurt his ears. The temperature in the room rose as Reese spoke the incantation. Clare’s back was pressed against the closed door. Her eyes were on Ben, wide with fear. Sweat covered her as she strained to move.
Ben hated seeing her like that. Hated knowing he was the cause of her distress. “Stop it,” he called to Reese. “Leave her alone or I’ll rip your fucking heart out.”
Reese did shut up, but Ben knew it had nothing to do with the threat. It was because Reese had completed the spell.
The magician closed the notebook, but still held it close as he turned back to Ben. “Rip my heart out? What an interesting thing to say. Your girlfriend can speak,” he added. “But she can’t move. She can’t help you, but at least you can have a conversation while I get ready.”
“Ready for what?” Ben demanded. He had the feeling Reese planned to put on a magic show, but not one that had anything to do with the stage tricks that made him famous.
Once Reese was gone out through a different door, Ben asked Clare, “You okay?”
Her eyes were wild. “No.”
He tried to send reassurance through their psychic link, but doubted anything but Reese’s psychic powers worked inside this room.
“I should have come sooner. I should have helped you sooner.”
Clare’s eyes and voice held so much guilt and self-loathing, it turned Ben’s stomach. Right now he hated himself, hated the way he’d bound her to him. He’d once been bound to Alice. That was the way of the vampire life. That didn’t always make it right. Not when it put Clare in danger.
“I should be the one protecting you,” he told her. “I got myself into this. You warned me about Reese. I should have listened.”
“It’s your right,” she defended Ben to himself.
“That’s crap,” he told her. “And we both know it.”
A flash of anger flared in her eyes, like lightning in a distant desert storm. “It’s the Law,” she said. “We both know it.”
“And you want to change the Laws.”
Fear replaced the anger. New fear. Not for him, but of him. “You—know?”
Ben waved a hand in front of the bars of his cage. “It’s pretty obvious I don’t know anything. Never mind, sweetheart.” He glanced to the spot in the ceiling where a small camera watched the room. “What did he do to your security system?”
“Don’t know, exactly. But the monitor in Control shows that you’re still sleeping. I wasn’t in Control when I felt you wake up. Didn’t suspect anything until I got back and checked the screen. Then you screamed. I ran. Was too upset to tell anyone to come with me. Sorry.”
Ben shrugged. “We’ll work it out.”
As he spoke, Morgan Reese returned. This time he was carrying what looked like a large pair of quilted silver oven mitts. He put them down on a chair, then took everything but the glowing red gem off the marble-topped coffee table. “This will have to do,” Reese said. He went over to Clare and took her by the shoulders. He smiled at her. “I need a volunteer. Come along,” he urged and pulled her toward the table. “I need you to lie down.”
“You’ve read the Scrolls of Silk?”
Haven didn’t think Char noticed her voice rise to a near shriek as she shouted. He waved a hand to shush her. “I said I saw them. From a distance. Through a surveillance camera.” This gave too much away, and he cursed himself for it. “There’s some things you need to know,” he went on. “If you don’t ask questions.”
She gave him a stern look. The sort of look that reminded him that she was a cop. A cop who could rip any information she wanted out of his mind if she chose to. Fortunately, mindrape was not something Char would ever immediately consider. She asked, “Questions about how you get your information?”
“I have sources,” he said. “I need to protect them. Like a journalist.”
“Protect them from me?” Her hands were on her naked hips, and there was, literally, fire in her eyes. At least they were glowing in an angry vampire way.
“Yes,” he answered. Never back down from an angry vampire was Haven’s policy. He’d survived so far. “Look at you, going Enforcer on me when I’m trying to help you.”
“I am an Enforcer. I am a Nighthawk.”
For some reason she blushed when she said it, and her gaze slid away from his in a guilty kind of way. What was up with that?
“You worried about what’s in the scrolls?” he asked. “Think I won’t love you if you aren’t really a vampire?”
“I am a vampire!” Char actually stamped her foot when she said it. “Whatever you’ve heard is a lie.”
Haven held his hands up in front of him. “Hold on, Char. Darlin’, I do not know what the scrolls say. I haven’t read them. I’m guessing about them. And the guess seems to have hit a nerve. Hit a nerve with people who have fangs and it can get ugly.”
This made Char smile a little. “You’re making a very educated guess.” Her eyes were no longer glowing, but there was sharp suspicion in them. “How?”
“I know why I’m really in Vegas,” he said. He sat down on the bed and patted a spot on the rumpled bedding for her to join him. “Neither of us came only for the wedding, and we both know the other knows it. Why are you really in Vegas?”
“The Silk Road,” she admitted, sitting down beside him. “All I wanted was to have a look inside the Silk Road. It’s supposed to be full of wonderful things.”
He scratched his chin. “I was in the museum today,” he told her. “I don’t know how you vampire cops let it happen, but the place is full of real stuff. Very scholarly. You’ll love it. You should go.” He put an arm around her shoulders, pulled her close. “But you have to take care of Martina first.”
Her surprise went through him like a hot knife. Char jerked away. “Martina? Who the hell’s Martina?”
“The vampire nest leader responsible for the Enforcer of Las Vegas’s disappearance.”
She was on her feet again. “How did you know he disappeared? At least, Valentine thinks he’s disappeared—though I don’t know who the hell Valentine really is, or why I feel compelled to listen to her.”
The name Valentine had come up on the companions’ conspiracy board, but Haven wasn’t prepared to mention his rebellious activities to Char just yet. “Let’s not make this too complicated,” he told her. “Never mind this scroll shit. Words can kill you if you’re allergic to magic, but fangs and claws and weapons can kill you faster.”
“I don’t think the scrolls have anything to do with spells. The scrolls contain negative propaganda about the Nighthawks. The information can be used to turn regular vampires against us. Those words can kill us even without containing magic.”
Char was a great believer in words. “Actions speak louder than words, isn’t that the saying?”
She nodded. “Yes. But—”
“Let’s stick to immediate danger. What I’ve discovered in Las Vegas is a situation involving a nest of vampires who hate Enforcers. If they’re going to—what?—post the scrolls online? That’s probably only part of this Martina’s plan. Who believes in old prophecies and that kind of crap these days? How many care? Modern vampires believe in science. Most people turned into vampires in the last fifty years think it’s caused by a mutation that affects their reaction to energy fields.”
“How do you know that?”
He ignored the question. “Some have never heard your creation myth. Some believe the origin stories about vampires in movies and comic books. Am I right?”
She nodded reluctantly. “You’ve been thinking too much, Jebel.”
“Comes from hanging with you, babe. Now, if Martina feeds regular vampires scientific information, gives them DNA evidence that Nighthawks are different than they are, then the vampire population’s going to get restless on your Nighthawk asses.”
She frowned at his language, then said, “Well put, Jebel. You have such a way with words.”
“I do,” he agreed. He crossed his
arms. “So, Enforcer McCairn, what do you think’s going on when a nest of Nighthawk-hating vampires goes looking for the local Enforcer, and that Enforcer then disappears?”
She didn’t have to think about this long. “I think the Enforcer is a dead-brained dickless asshole if he lets himself be taken by a few disgruntled vampires.”
It was his turn to frown at her language. “Well put, Charlotte.”
“We need to find this nest,” she announced, “and the idiot Enforcer they’re doing lab work on. We probably need to get dressed before we do that,” she added.
Haven rose to his feet. “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you go back to Tucson, and let me track down this Martina and her disgruntled nest.”
She looked amused, and pleased, at his concern. “You’re trying to protect me?”
He nodded, quite solemnly, aware in that moment that he was afraid for her. “They’re out to get Nighthawks,” he reminded her. “You’re a Nighthawk. Why offer them another target?”
She touched the spot on his shoulder she’d bitten earlier. “You’re going to be a Nighthawk.” She gave him a fierce grin. “Let’s go get them together. But first we get dressed. And I have to call Valentine.” After a disturbing hesitation, she added reluctantly, “And Sterling.”
Chapter 14
“WHY DO I have to be here?” Eddie saw Martina wince at his whining. So he whined some more. “Why? I’ve got a life, you know.”
“Don’t you want to see how we’ve fixed up the place, wraith?” She gestured around them.
Eddie only vaguely remembered how the hangar building had looked in its prime. One end had an open space under an arched roof big enough to hold a couple of small private airplanes. A wall separated the hangar area from several rooms that had once been used as an office, and living quarters for the flight crews of the planes. Eddie knew Martina hadn’t sent a pair of big boys from her nest to fetch him for the purpose of showing off the redecorating.
He’d been brought through the dark hangar to meet Martina in the old office area. The place had changed a lot. The smell of the fresh white paint on the walls bothered his nose. There was disinfectant in the air as well, and even a hint of lemon from the polish on the floors. The new lighting fixtures might be bright by mortal standards, but they did nothing for Eddie’s needs. The place held lab benches, where mortals worked with high-tech machines. About the only things Eddie could identify were several high-powered-looking microscopes. There was a lot of glass around, beakers and test tubes and whatnot.
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