Hotter Than Hell (40 page)

His fingers were still warm. Too warm to be human, feverish, but oddly soothing.

She hated that comfort.

Distant sirens cracked the still air.
Breathe
, she repeated.
In through the nose, out through the mouth. Breathe.

The mantra didn’t help. “I mean it. I hate you.” Her voice shook. “I
hate
you.”

“And yet you need me.” He smiled, an almost-tender expression that made her entire body go cold. Selene would have fallen over backward, but his fingers closed around her wrist, a loose bracelet. Sirens hammered at the roof of the night. “Selene, you do not wish to see what lies in that room. Remember your brother the way he was.”

“I don’t
need
you.” Selene tore her wrist away. His fingers tightened slightly, just to let her know he could hold her, before he let her go and she stumbled. There was something hard and small and spiny in her hand, cold metal.

A police cruiser materialized around the corner, whooping and braying. She opened her hand to find her key ring.
He must have had Bruce sneak into my house and get my keys. The little thief. Always creeping around, peeping in windows and doing Nikolai’s bidding. No wonder His Highness keeps him around.

She looked up. Except for the police car—siren, flashing lights—the street was deserted. Nikolai had vanished. She saw the blurring in the air, the shimmer that might have been him or just the tears filling her eyes. She fumbled on the ring for the key to the front of Danny’s building.

Numb, her cheeks wet with rain and tears, she raised her hand to flag the cops down. Thankfully, they cut the siren as soon as they pulled to a stop. Selene waved, her bag bumping at her hip.
No poltergeist here, no curse to be broken, no client looking down their nose at me. No, this time the person needing help is me.

Two cops, a rookie and a graying veteran who looked at her as if he recognized her. Selene hoped he didn’t. If he recognized her, he might ask questions.
Hey, aren’t you that freak who hangs around with Jack Pepper?

“My brother.” Her teeth chattered. “He’s a shut-in. He doesn’t leave the apartment. He called me—his doorjamb’s all busted up—it’s not normal—”

They barked questions at her, who was her brother, what apartment, who was she, was anyone armed, what did she see? The mice scurrying in Selene’s head supplied answers. “4C, apartment 4C, Danny Thompson, I’m Selene, I’m his sister—no, nothing, just the door, that’s all I saw, it’s busted all to hell—”

Before she unlocked the building door for them, the medallion scorched against her skin. Warning her.

She followed the cops up the stairs, sliding the medallion’s chain up over her head. She pulled it out of her sweater. Light flared sharply from the silver disc before she tossed it into a dark corner of the second-floor landing. The cops didn’t notice—they were too busy looking up the stairs and speaking back and forth in cryptic cop-talk. Both had their guns out. “Fourth floor. Apartment 4C,” she repeated, and took a deep breath, choking on tears.

“Go back downstairs,” the older cop told her. “Go back downstairs!”

Fourth floor. They saw the shattered door, the wedge of light slicing through the dim hall. The older cop radioed for backup.

They edged forward and cautiously pushed the splintered door open. Told her again to go downstairs. Selene told them she would and stood where she was, hot tears spilling down her cheeks.

Now that she wasn’t standing next to Nikolai, the wards vibrated with Selene’s nearness, lines of light bleeding out from the hole torn where the door used to be. Something had blasted right through the careful layers of defense she’d painstakingly applied to the walls. What could do that?

She took two steps, and the rookie backed up out of the apartment. He was paper-white and trembling, freckles standing out on his fair face, his blond mustache quivering.

After glancing past him once, Selene could see why.

She clamped her right hand over her mouth, staring past the rookie, who stumbled to the side and vomited onto the hall rug. Selene didn’t blame him. She could only see a short distance down the entry hall and into the studio room. The kitchen was to the left, bathroom to the right, and she had a clear view almost to the night-dark window, with the orange streetlamps glowing outside.

A moment later her eyes tracked a shimmer up over the streetlamp, a shimmer that resolved into a dark shape balancing atop the streetlamp’s arm. A tall shape, crouched down, hands wrapped around the bar, eyes reflecting the light with the green-gold sheen of a cat’s eyes at night.

Selene looked down again, and her hand tightened over her mouth. Her throat burned with bile. The shapes she was seeing refused to snap into a coherent picture. Blood painted the white walls, soaked into the thin beige carpeting, and the…the
pieces
…

Footsteps echoed in the hall, shouts, radios squawking. Four more cops. Selene stepped back against the wall, her hand still clamped over her mouth, fingernails digging into her cheek. She struggled to swallow the hot acid bile instead of puking like the rookie.

Detective Jack Pepper, his graying buzz-cut and familiar rumpled gray wool coat steaming in the hall’s heat, came striding from the other end. She stumbled back, hitting her head against the wall. Jack gave her a look that could have peeled paint. “Aw, Christ. Get her downstairs,” he said as one of the cops took a look past Selene and into the apartment, swearing viciously.

Selene couldn’t help herself. She began to giggle into her hand, her eyes streaming. The shrill sound echoed under the crackle of radio talk and more sirens outside.

After wiping his mouth, the blond rookie was finally delegated to take her downstairs. Selene had to steady him, her fingers against the creaking leather of his jacket. The queasy flickers of fear coming off the young man were enough to make her flush, her stomach tightening. Her mental shields were as transparent and brittle as crystal, he was hyped enough to broadcast all over the mental spectrum.

Lawrence, his name is Lawrence. He’s an open door right now, and I don’t have enough control to shut him out.
Knowledge burned through her, the fear turning into a wash of heat that made her nipples peak and her entire body tighten. Her jeans were definitely damp between her legs.

I wish I’d stopped to put my panties on.
The sanity of that thought saved her, slapped her back into herself.
Focus, Selene. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Breathe.

She filled her lungs and tapped in, the rush of Power sparking along her nerves.
I hope he puts me in a car, I can use this and yank the wards off the apartment. A killing like that leaves a mark on the air, the wards will be vibrating with it. I’ll be able to track whoever did this to him.
Selene made a slight crooning noise, patted the rookie’s shoulder when they reached the foyer. He was looking a little green again, his cheeks pooching out and his lips wet. Selene smelled fear, the sharp tang of human vomit, and her own smell, rich floral musk.
Tantraiiken
musk, the smell of a sexwitch.

Put me in a police car.
She patted the rookie’s back as he heaved near the stairs. A loose ring of cop cars sat in the wet street. More sirens cut the distant darkness.
I don’t want to work magick right here on the street. God alone knows what sort of notice it will attract if I pass out, too.

“It’s okay, Lawrence.” She looked up in time to see another cop come flying out of the door—some thoughtful soul had braced it open with a chunk of pavement. This man—tall, stocky, brown hair combed over a bald head Selene could see because he’d lost his hat—made it to the bottom of the stairs before he puked, too, vomit spraying out onto the street.

Selene’s gorge rose. She swallowed against it. “Nice boy,” she said softly, stroking Lawrence’s back. “It’s okay. You okay?”
Quit retching and put me somewhere quiet where I can Work, you waste.
The coldness of the thought almost surprised her. He was just the type of ordinary civilian to come running to Selene for her help in dealing with something extraordinary—and then decide she was less than a used Kleenex when everything was said and done.

They were all alike, every one of them. Except Danny, and Danny was gone. Selene’s jaw clenched, her teeth grinding together.

He did put her in a police car, mumbling something about her safety and a report, and she closed her eyes, settling back into the cracked vinyl seat.
Finally. What did you eat for dinner, anyway, it certainly stank…oh, God, what am I going to do now? Danny.

Tears pricked behind Selene’s eyes.
Quit it! Focus!
She pictured the hallway leading into Danny’s living space, the foldout bed and salvaged wooden shelves of books and curios and the blood—

Her concentration guttered, came back; her ability to visualize under stress had plenty of practice.
Don’t fail me now,
she thought, and dropped through the floor of her own consciousness, into the place where she truly lived. Her breathing stilled, her heartbeat paused. An onlooker would have thought she was sleeping, or just sitting with her eyes closed, head tilted back, mouth slackly open. In shock.

She dove into a black blood-warm sea, her concentration narrowing to a single point. Pulled on the threads of the Power she’d spent warding Danny’s apartment. The defenses recognized her, left the place in the world where they had been bleeding free, and leapt for her.

Selene “caught” the energy, folded it deftly. The resultant mass shrank, a small bright star to her mental vision, taking on more mass as she compressed it. Selene’s body arched upward, gasping for air. The energy she’d taken from the hyped-up rookie drained away. Her skin was prickling and her lips wet, her hips rocking forward slightly, tensing, tighter, tighter, aching for release.

She couldn’t afford to let it spend. She had to find something physical to hold the Power until she could take a closer look. Her fingers dipped into her black canvas shoulder-bag and found smooth wood.

My athame. Christ. Here I am in the back of a police car with an illegal-to-carry eight-inch ritual knife. Why did I have to be born a
tantraiiken?

Training brought her focus back and the star of Power drained into the knife, leaving her sick and shaking, her entire body aching for completion. The pain was low between her legs, and it would torture her all night unless she found some way to bleed off the pressure.

The whole event had taken less than five minutes. The rookie was gesturing to an ambulance crew. Lurid light from the cop cars and stuttering flashes from the ambulance painted the street in gaudy flickers. The entire street was now swarming with cops and emergency personnel. Selene slumped down against the cracked vinyl and peered out the window, her senses dilated, looking for a dark blot or a breath of anything that didn’t belong. Nothing. Not even a shimmer in the air.

Was Nikolai gone? She couldn’t be that lucky.

Danny.
The numbness was still there. Whatever was locked inside her athame would give her a direction, somewhere to go…hopefully. At the very least, she would see how her brother died.

The
how
might tell her
who
, and once she knew she could start planning. There weren’t many things she could take on as a
tantraiiken,
she was worse than useless in a fight since pain and fear turned to desire and swallowed her whole.

But she could give it a try, couldn’t she? Nikolai wouldn’t help, he would be too interested in getting leverage on her. One more dead human wouldn’t matter, even if it was the brother of his semi-pet sexwitch.

I hate you, Nikolai.
The hate was a bright red slash across the middle of her mind. She closed her eyes, set her jaw. Her fingers itched to unzip her jeans, slide down, touch the slick heat between her legs.
Hate you. Hate you.
She felt her face contort into a screaming mask, tears spilling down her cheeks.

The door creaked open, letting in a burst of chill rainy air. “Hi, princess,” Jack said. “Get your ass out. We got a hot date with some paperwork.”

Selene blinked, her fists curled at her sides. She let out the breath she’d been holding. Her cheeks hurt, so did her lower belly; her eyes were hot and dry.

Jack didn’t mean to be cruel, he was just used to treating her like one of the boys. If she had been waiting to join another investigation, he would have acted the same way. Selene would have had an equally brisk response for him. She searched for something sharp and hard as a shield to say.

Instead, her throat swelled with grief. “Danny?” she whispered. It was stupid, she knew it, Nikolai would not have lied and her own eyes had told her the truth. But still, she had hoped. Hope, that great human drug.

Jack’s face turned milk-pale. He was thin and stooped, except for his potbelly straining at his dingy white shirt. His lean hound-dog face under its gray buzzcut was almost always mournful, now it was actively sad. “Lena…Jesus, I’m sorry. Nikolai was supposed to keep you from seeing…any of that.”

I have a right to see what happened to my brother, Jack.
Selene slid her legs out of the car. She had to catch her breath as the material of her jeans rasped against swollen tissues. She
needed
, and there was no way to fill that need tonight.

“Nikolai can go to hell,” she rasped around the obstruction in her throat. That helped—it sounded like the old Selene, the tough Selene. “I’m sure it’s where he’s bound sooner or later.”

She twisted her hands together. Her palms slid against each other, damp with sweat. The image of Danny’s apartment, framed by a shattered blood-painted doorway, rose up again. Numb disbelief rose with it.