Fireborn (17 page)

His gaze flickered between the two of us. Him walking away didn't seem to be on his agenda right now.

“Trust me,” I said softly, “any attempt to do anything more than walk away would
not
be wise.”

I flicked a finger, and a slither of flame danced apart from the main ring of fire, shimmering softly as it curled toward Rawlings and almost lovingly wrapped around his ankle. His pants instantly began to melt away, but I withdrew the flame before it did any real damage.

Rawlings didn't scream, didn't react in any way, really. And, oddly enough, the anger in him seemed to fizzle away. But old vampires were very good at that sort of thing, and I very much
suspected Rawlings was one of the old ones. His speech was too formal for him to be a more recent recruit into the vampire ranks. “What do you wish to know?”

“Who do you work for,” Jackson said immediately, “and why do they want Emberly?”

He studied us for several moments, then said, “I work on a commission basis. You can threaten me all you like, but it would be far easier if you simply paid me for the information.”

That raised my eyebrows. “You'd risk ratting out your employer?”

He half smiled. It was not a pleasant thing to behold. “
That
shows how little you know about the vampire sindicati and how they work in these matters. As I said, I merely accepted this commission and I can give you nothing more than the next person in the chain. I do not know the person behind the order. I will never know.”

“Well, the next person is better than nothing.” Jackson glanced at me and, at my nod, added, “How much will it cost?”

“One thousand. That is the fee I will lose.”

“I seem to be going rather cheaply if you ask me,” I muttered, resisting the urge to rub at the ache beginning to form just behind my eyes. The fire encasing Rawlings might not be mine, but it still pulled at my strength. I couldn't keep it going indefinitely—not unless I wanted to become little more than ash and flame myself. And that would
not
please Rory.

Rawlings's gaze flicked briefly to me, and in its
dark depths, amusement briefly glinted. Despite that he hired himself out to the vampire crime syndicates, I had a suspicion he wasn't intrinsically bad. “Having witnessed your rather extraordinary skills, I would agree that you most certainly
are
going cheaply.” His gaze went back to Jackson. “Do we have a deal?”

“Yes.”

“Wire the money into my account immediately.”

Jackson drew his phone from his pocket and, as Rawlings recited the number, made the transfer.

Rawlings nodded. “The vampire who employed me for this parcel pickup was one Henry Morretti. I cannot give you his address, and I suspect the phone he called on is either generic or untraceable.” He reeled off a number, then added, “And I was not told why he wished you collected, only that I was to be here at this time to collect you and then deliver you to an address in Laverton North.”

“Why would you deliver me to what is essentially an industrial area?”

He raised an eyebrow, the movement rather eloquent. “Where else could you question someone without suspicions being raised? Most of the warehouses around that particular address are not twenty-four-hour.”

Charming, I thought with a shiver. “What address?”

He gave it to us, then added, “I have lived up to my part of the bargain. I now expect you to live up to yours.”

“Do not try to attack us,” I warned.

“We made a deal. I will not go back on that.”

An honorable criminal. Amazing. I glanced at Jackson, who nodded. I took a deep breath and released my hold on the flames. They shimmered for one brief moment longer; then their heat dissipated, retreating to the realms of earth and air.

Rawlings bowed slightly. “Thank you,” he said, then promptly disappeared.

Jackson's nostrils flared. “He retreats, as promised.”

“Good.” I rubbed my temples wearily, wishing I had some aspirin.

Jackson frowned at me. “You okay?”

“I will be. Creating those sort of flames takes a bit out of me, that's all.”

“Do you need tea? Painkillers?”

“Yes, but I'm guessing you don't have either right at this particular moment.”

“No, but there's a 7-Eleven not far down the road. If you think you can walk there—”

“The only place you two will be walking,” a sharp, all-too-familiar voice said, “is straight into two goddamn jail cells.”

I looked up quickly and my stomach sank. Sam and Adam strode toward us, and to say neither of them looked particularly happy would have to be one of the understatements of the year. Sam's body practically vibrated with anger.

“Ah, Detective Turner,” Jackson said equably. “How nice of you to join us.”

Sam barely gave him a glance. He was too
intent on glaring at me. “What the fuck do you think you're doing, Emberly? This isn't some sort of game, you know.”

I bit back the instinctive smart-ass reply that rose to my lips. “I know.”

“Then, to repeat, what the hell are you doing here, waiting for some criminal?”

Meaning he hadn't seen Rawlings, which put us one up on him—although what good it would do us if he threw us in jail, I had no idea.

“I told you—”

“You told me you were going to be sensible. This is not what I call sensible.” He planted himself in front of me, his hands clenched near his sides and a blanket of darkness emanating from him. “You were both warned to stay clear of this investigation—”

“I'm being employed to investigate Professor Wilson's death,” Jackson said flatly. “And if that means I also have to investigate Baltimore's, then so be it.”

Sam's gaze flicked to Jackson. The darkness in him sharpened, even as his control seemed a little more tenuous. Fear skipped lightly into my heart. I had a bad feeling we did not want to see his control slip.

Sam took a half step forward, leaving me sandwiched between the two men. I don't think he even realized he was doing it, because he was so focused on the Fae at my back—a Fae who was more than ready to give as good as he got, if the coiled readiness I could feel in his body was anything to go by.

“You had better”—Sam's voice was little more than a harsh whisper, but the force of it seemed to shudder the air around us—“start listening, or else—”

Adam placed a hand on Sam's shoulder, as if in warning. Sam growled, the sound animalistic, then drew in a breath and released it slowly. He glanced down at me, and awareness flared. Awareness and hunger. It was thick and sexual and it stormed through me, making me ache even as the dark heart of it had fear stirring again.

After a moment, he stepped back. The darkness in him receded, but not the awareness. Not the hunger. “Adam, get both their asses out of here. Take them to headquarters.”

Adam raised a pale eyebrow. “That will not please Henrietta—”

“Right now, I don't fucking care. Just do it.”

Adam hesitated, then said, “And you?”

“I'm going to the hospital to question Michelle Rodriguez.” He glanced at me. It wasn't a pleasant experience. “I'll interrogate them when I get back.”

Adam studied him for a moment, then nodded. “You two, follow me. And please, do not attempt to run. It would be a fruitless waste of all our time.”

I glanced at Jackson. He just shrugged and tucked his hand under my elbow, both guiding me forward and offering support in case I needed it. We were shoved into the back of a waiting van, which had no windows and no seats, forcing us to hunker down on the metal floor. The rear door
slammed shut, and darkness closed in. After a few minutes, the engine started and the van drove off, taking us god knew where.

“Well, this is the first time I've been arrested in quite a while,” I muttered, drawing my knees up to my chest. Flames flickered across my hands, but given the energy store was very low, they barely lifted the darkness. Jackson's eyes were little more than a pale glitter.

He raised his eyebrows. “Meaning this lifetime or past?”

“Past.” I gave him a lopsided smile. “You'd be surprised at some of the things I've done.”

Amusement tugged at his lips. “Actually, I wouldn't. I daresay a being who keeps getting reborn has more than her fair share of tales to tell.”

“Yeah.” I paused, then added, “Although being burned at the stake as a witch was not the punishment they thought it would be.”

He laughed, but his attention wasn't really on me. I contemplated his intentness and realized he was listening to the sounds around us—a tram rattling by, the peal of a church bell, the heavy bass thump of music—normal noises that meant nothing unless you needed to retrace your steps.

Jackson was planning just that, I suspected. Or, at the very least, wanted to be able to should the need arise. So I watched him quietly, sensing we'd moved through the city and out the other side. Not too far, but somewhere close to the ocean. The distant call of seagulls ran under the night's stronger sounds.

St Kilda, I thought. There was a major police hub there, but I wouldn't have thought it'd be a suitable location for a specialized task force. But maybe that was the whole idea.

Eventually, the van dipped downward, then stopped. Doors slammed, and then the rear doors opened. Adam motioned us out and, with two other men, escorted us through a series of tunnels that were cold and bleak. PIT, it seemed, didn't believe in making their guests feel welcome.

Jackson was placed in one room, me in another. It was little more than a concrete box and was sparsely furnished—just a couple of long benches divided by a table, all of which were concrete. They obviously didn't believe in comfort, either.

I scanned the walls, looking for mics and cameras and finding none. That one fact chilled me more than my bare surroundings, simply because it meant they kept no formal record of what went on in these rooms. They really
weren't
tied to the rules of the regular police force.

I shivered and began to pace, half wishing Sam would hurry up and get here, but fearing what would happen if he did. Outwardly, at least, he wasn't the person I'd known—that darkness . . . Another shiver ran through me, and I rubbed my arms. Something had happened to him—something bad enough to change his very essence.

It was more than an hour before he did arrive, by which time I was practically climbing the walls. But as my gaze met the blue of his, I
realized that was precisely what he wanted. Me on edge, desperate to get out.
Bastard
.

He stepped into the room, a paper coffee cup in each hand and what looked to be a BlackBerry tablet tucked under one arm. The darkness—or whatever it was I'd sensed earlier—had retreated. How far, I had no idea, but in its absence, he seemed a whole lot more . . . human
.
Which seemed the wrong word to use, given that was what he actually
was
, and yet it oddly fit.

“Thought you might like some tea.” He slid one cup across the table and kept hold of the other. His voice held none of the cold abruptness that had been a constant in most of his dealings with me, instead hinting at warmth.

But it was a warmth I couldn't afford to believe. I made a short, somewhat humorless sound. “Last time I had a drink in your vicinity, I ended up drugged.”

“Oh, for god's sake, Em.” He picked the cup back up and took a drink. “Happy?”

I somewhat gingerly picked up the cup and sniffed the contents. It smelled like ordinary, everyday green tea. There was no weird scent that I could detect, but that didn't really mean anything—these days they had all sorts of drugs that were odorless and tasteless. I cautiously took a sip. It
did
taste like ordinary, everyday green tea.

“Now that we have that little drama over with,” he said, voice a weird mix of annoyance and amusement, “will you please sit down?”

“Sorry. I prefer to stand.” Besides, sitting would bring me far too close to him. I had a hard enough time resisting his presence when he was being a bastard—there was no way I'd cope being near this less-frosty version.

Don't let him hurt you again,
Rory had said. It was a warning that was very much uppermost in my mind at the moment.

Sam shook his head and made a sharp “whatever” motion with his free hand. “Fine. Your choice. Tell me about Lee Rawlings.”

“Why? It's not like you haven't found out all you need the same way we did—via Sherman Jones.”

“Adam is interviewing Jones, but I haven't received the report yet.”

I took a drink of tea, then said, “And you'd also like to cross-check information, just to make sure we didn't get anything extra.”

“That, too.”

I snorted softly. “Why am I here, Sam? We've done nothing illegal.”

“You're interfering with an ongoing case. That in itself is enough to confine your ass in jail if I so desire it.”

“And do you? Desire it, that is?”

His gaze swept me. The twin fires of need and fear stirred in its wake. The desire was echoed in his eyes. “That depends.”

“On what?”

He slammed the BlackBerry on the table, then sat down on the concrete bench. “Your answers. And you staying away from this case as ordered.”

“Jackson is a legal private investigator, and he's been employed by Rosen Pharmaceuticals to uncover who murdered James Wilson.” Which wasn't exactly the truth, given what they wanted was his research rather than his killer. But Sam probably knew that. “You can't legally prevent him from doing his job.”

“I can if he gets in the way, and he is.” Just for a moment, the darkness resurfaced, staining his eyes and expression, making me wonder yet again just what had happened to him. What was
still
happening to him. But it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Fierce self-control, or had something else happened in the hour or so since I'd last seen him? “But that doesn't explain why you're involved—other than the fact that you've always been bloody stubborn.”