Skye's Trail (18 page)

Patrice stood and walked to the shelf housing the tarot card collection. After a brief pause, she picked up a deck and returned to the sofa. “I believe powerful forces swirl around us, unseen and untapped. On occasion, I read for myself, but it’s more meditative than true ability. When I seek guidance and help then I look to more knowledgeable practitioners.” She nodded in the direction of the High Priestess.

“And Amy?”

“She was also open to mystical teaching and experiences. But like me, she didn’t have a strong psychic talent.”

“Did you ever talk to Amy about her interest in vampires?”

“Yes. We had many spirited debates about it. For the last several years she’s been interested in legends about shape shifters and vampires. Amy viewed the legends as alternative histories, a variation of reality that most humans weren’t able to experience or comprehend. She believed in a more literal translation while I believe that vampires and shape shifters are figurative—symbols in our psychic journeys.”

Skye’s mouth twisted into a smile as she thought about the vampire seekers at Fangs. “Did she ever mention vampire cults or visiting vampire chat rooms on the Internet?”

Patrice chucked. “God forbid! Vampires on the Internet!”

“Did she have friends with the same interest?”

Amy’s mother hesitated, just long enough to give lie to her words. “Not that I’m aware of.”

“So she never mentioned a girl by the name of Jennifer Warren or Brittany Armstrong?”

“No.” The answer was firmer, surer. She might have known there were friends, but she didn’t know their names.

“Did you know about Amy’s plans to empty her trust account and go to Las Vegas?”

“My husband and stepson seem to think so. Several of their detectives have asked me that question. The answer is unimportant, though. The trust fund was Amy’s to do with as she pleased. Compared to the money my husband has access to, and to the funds in my stepson’s various trust accounts, Amy and I are both poor relations.”

“So you had no idea what she was up to in Las Vegas?”

Again, the slightest hesitation before answering. “No.”

“I gather her relationship with both her father and half-brother is strained.”

Once again Patrice gave an inelegant snort. “There is no relationship.”

“But you and Amy are close?”

“Yes.”

“I assume that she’s been in contact with you since she disappeared.”

“That’s certainly your prerogative. You may believe what you wish.”

Skye shifted through her thoughts but found nothing else to ask. Another time, another place, she would have attempted to reach into Patrice’s mind. But instinct warned her against it today. Not with Patrice’s high priestess serving as a psychic mind-guard.

“Thanks for seeing me,” Skye said as she leaned forward in her seat and prepared to stand.

Patrice halted her with a question. “Do you think that you can find my daughter?”

“Yes.” There was nothing but certainty in Skye’s voice.

Patrice’s lips twisted bitterly. “And then what? Amy disappears again—only this time into some facility that will have no record of who she is and no authority to ever let her out again? Or perhaps you’ve already been paid to simply kill her. My husband and stepson have always used money to pay for silence and convenience.”

Skye smiled only slightly. The hell of her own childhood had created a flame in her soul that burned mercilessly. “I can’t tell you what’s going to happen to your daughter—not until I find her.”

When Patrice would have risen to show Skye out, the High Priestess stopped her with a brief touch to her arm. “If I may?”

Amy’s mother said, “Of course. This is more your realm than mine.”

The High Priestess nodded then turned her attention to Skye. “You shield yourself well. But even without the mark of one dedicated to the hunt, I know you as Angelini. Be warned, to kill one who gives life to others through black magic may be to kill those enthralled, whether they are good or evil. The Angelini have always prided themselves on being dispensers of justice.”

Angelini.
The word whispered through Skye, echoing from the deepest part of her soul, resonating with innate truth. Unbidden, the image of the man she’d encountered at Big Daddy’s house—the man who could be her twin—came to mind. The word had stirred through her mind when she saw the tattoo on his neck.

He’d been as wary of her as she’d been of him. He’d evaded her question and the moment had not been right to pursue an answer. But after this hunt was over, she would seek him out.

To the High Priestess she said, “And if there is no time to sort the good from the bad?”

“If they are truly vampire, truly animated through black magic, then a blade to the heart will suspend judgment.”

Patrice gasped and clutched her throat with an elegant hand.

Skye stilled as images of the child molesters, rapists—the vicious predators that she’d hunted—flooded her mind. From the very beginning it had seemed natural to kill them with a knife, to drive it through their hearts in order to ensure they ceased to exist.

On top of those memories came snippets of conversations that she’d had with Dawn, Candy and Mike, along with a collage of images featuring the Goth-clad patrons at Fangs.

They melded and juxtaposed with the elegant sophistication and power of the High Priestess, blended with images of Haley twisting her ancient pendant and ceding control to Kyle.

And superimposed over all of them were vague memories of Gian healing her body, bringing her back when she’d felt death’s familiar presence.

Skye had known from an early age that she was not like other people. Was it so much of a stretch to think that other creatures existed?

But even as she asked the question and sought answers within herself, she felt the warning tendrils of pain deep in her mind and pulled away from the thoughts.

“I will consider what you’ve said,” she told the High Priestess.

The High Priestess held out her hand to Patrice. “The deck please.”

Patrice passed the tarot deck to the other woman. The back of the cards bore no pattern but shone like onyx.

“Please, cut the deck,” the High Priestess said to Skye.

Skye studied the deck and the two women in front of her. “For the answer to a question.”

Without looking at Patrice, the High Priestess answered, “Of course.”

Skye asked Patrice, “Have you been in contact with Amy since she supposedly died?”

Patrice glanced at the High Priestess for confirmation. The other woman nodded.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Later that night. Not since then.”

Skye reached over and cut the deck.

The High Priestess turned the top card.

The deck was old. Hand-drawn with pen and ink. Unique.

A vampire deck.

Patrice sobbed when she saw the Death card.

Chapter Twelve

Gian watched as Kyle stroked a hand down Haley’s neck, pausing briefly at her pulse before settling over the ancient medallion that she wore. She turned her body into Kyle’s, silently communicating acceptance of his ownership.

On the other couch, Kisha’s pale white skin gleamed in contrast to Nahir’s onyx flesh. The scent of sex still clinging heavily to both of them. The ruby stone of her companion medallion glittered and winked.

Gian’s cock stirred and the medallion he wore around his neck burned against his flesh. His eyes closed briefly in relived pleasure, his cock hardening as he remembered the pull of Skye’s lips on his skin as she’d drunk what he’d offered. Perhaps he should have offered the medallion to her when she was weak, when he’d held her enthralled as her body accepted his blood in order to survive, but she was so strong, much stronger than his companions guessed, and he wasn’t positive that the bond would hold if she wasn’t completely willing.

The walls muffled the sound of the music being played in the public section of Fangs, but the throb of its beat moved through the floor. Nahir broke the silence in the room by saying, “We have watchers at all of the places where Skye might go. When you have her in your possession again, then you must bind her.”

Gian flashed his lethal fangs. “I will bind her when I choose and not before.”

“You risk much, Gian,” Nahir said.

“And I have much to gain.”

Gian closed his eyes against the waves of restlessness that assailed him. He hadn’t thought to tie Skye to the city, hadn’t anticipated that she’d go to LA. But if the High Priestess Duvier was to be trusted, then Skye had been back in Las Vegas since the afternoon, and should be here, should have been here when the sun set. He’d locked the compulsion deep within her, so deep that she shouldn’t have been able to fight it. In all the centuries of his existence, Gian had never used such mental force on another being—human or otherwise.

Kyle spoke for the first time, his features serious, his words careful. “You have called her to you?”

Gian rose from the chair and paced the room. “Yes.” He felt like a million fire ants were crawling over his body.

“You are bound to her in the way of the Angelini?”

Gian hissed, his fangs extending. “You know I am.”

Kyle’s features grew troubled. “Perhaps it is not her disobedience that has you growing more dangerous by the moment. Perhaps something has happened to her.”

Gian stilled as Kyle’s words took root and grew within him. Alarm radiated through every cell in recognition of the truth.

* * * * *

The first thing Skye was aware of was the cold. Her body shivered violently, as though it had been put in a freezer, but she couldn’t see where she was. Her eyelids were so heavy that she couldn’t open them. Nausea filled her senses next and for several seconds the desire to vomit was overwhelming. When it passed, the shivering also passed, her body returning to normal.

Memory followed. The meeting with Patrice. The flight back to Las Vegas. Getting on the Harley. The sharp sting in her thigh, only a second to see the dart before everything had gone fuzzy then dark.

She recognized the effects now.

One of the places she’d been as a child, as a ward of the state, had been a foster home that relied heavily on illegal tranquilizers—to keep the children controlled, to keep them from fighting when various “uncles” stopped in to “visit”.

An old rage poured into Skye at the memory. Hot like the flames of hell. But satisfaction came with it. It was the first time she’d ever killed—the first time she’d meted out justice.

It wasn’t the last.

The hunter that lived in her skin was awake now, aware that she lay naked on the floor. Like a chant in her blood, with each beat of her heart, she could feel the call to be
other
, to survive.

The smell of foul, tainted blood filled her nostrils and once again she had to fight the urge to vomit. Carefully she opened her senses.