The Den of Shadows Quartet (52 page)

“Ma’am, this area isn’t safe for bystanders —”

“I live here,” she spat, shoving away from him. “What …” She broke off.
Eric? Where was Eric?
She frantically scanned the area for the boy. “My brother was here when I left. He’s fourteen. Have you seen him?”

The man hesitated. “Please wait here, ma’am.”

If he was hurt … if one hair on his head had been singed …

Greg caught up to her, panting and coughing around the smoke. “What caused it?” he asked instantly. “Do they know?”

“I don’t even own a toaster,” Turquoise growled back. Faulty wiring was impossible. Nathaniel wouldn’t have had a house that had been poorly made. The stove and oven were new, and Eric was too experienced a cook to ever mistakenly leave one on unattended. If this wasn’t arson, she’d eat the cinders.

A police officer returned from the jumble of people, leading an ash-streaked Eric. The boy broke from his escort and hurried toward Turquoise.

She couldn’t help herself. She pulled the boy against herself, so grateful for his safety that she didn’t care
about the house. Nathaniel could deal with losing a house. Turquoise could pay for a house. There was nothing in there she could not replace.

“Are you the owner?” the officer asked.

Turquoise nodded, not really paying much attention. Instead, she spoke quietly to Eric. “What caused it?”

Eric grimaced. “Your favorite vampire,” he answered, under his breath so no one other than Turquoise could hear him. Greg must have picked up a word or so. The boy took a few steps back, looking awkward.

“Ms. Emerette?” Turquoise looked at the officer dumbly before remembering that the name on her license was something Emerette. Margot, maybe? She couldn’t remember. She was glad Greg was still dealing with his new belief that she worked for the government, or else he might have tried to correct it.

“Yes?”

“Would you mind coming down to the station to answer a few questions?” he asked.

“Right now?” Right now, she would rather go kill something than talk politely with these friendly officers. Specifically she wanted to deal Daryl a long, painful death for destroying Cathy’s life, for making it impossible for her to pick up where she had left off with Greg, and most of all for frightening her.

Greg came to her rescue. “She doesn’t need to talk now.” He spoke like he knew what he was doing. “We’ll come down after she and the kid are cleaned up, okay?”

The officer seemed to hesitate. Turquoise offered a watery smile. “Please,” she added to Greg’s words.

The man nodded finally. “I suppose there’s no hurry.
I know this is going to be a difficult time. Do you have a place to stay?”

“Yes, she does,” Greg answered for her.

They walked back to Greg’s car, which he had left near where he had met up with Turquoise.

“My sister’s visiting, and she probably has some clothes that will fit you,” Greg offered to Turquoise. “You two can come over and clean up, then figure out whether you want to talk to the police or what.”

Turquoise shook her head. “I can’t.”

Greg didn’t seem to know how to handle that one, so Turquoise didn’t make him respond.

“There’s something I need to deal with first,” she explained. Taking Greg up on his offer would put him in danger, at least until Daryl was dead.

“How are you going to get there?” Eric asked practically knowing that she would go to Midnight.

That was the most difficult part of her plan.

Greg was a lifesaver. He chewed his lip for a moment, and then asked, “Do you need to borrow my car?”

There is a God
. She gave him a hug. “I’ll be back in less than a day” She was still armed from Challenge, and she could pick up a few more weapons from her Bruja house before getting to Midnight. It was almost on the way.

“Sure,” Greg answered nonchalantly. “Just be careful with her, okay?”

It was hilariously easy for Turquoise to get inside Midnight. The raven guards at the gate did not challenge her; they were too shocked that a human was
willing to fight to get
into
Midnight. Her fury was visible in every movement she made, and no one approached her until she was almost to Daryl’s door.

“You no longer annoy me.” The voice behind her caused Turquoise to turn, a knife instantly in her hand. She hesitated upon seeing Jeshickah, willing to wait for the vampiress to either push a fight or back off.

“Always nice to gain a new friend,” the hunter retorted.

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Jeshickah’s voice was dry.

Belatedly, Turquoise informed the vampire, “Gabriel made me freeblood.”

Jeshickah nodded. “I’m aware of that. His foolishness is why I am speaking to you, instead of chaining you down so I can break every one of your bones before removing your skin and making it into a nice pair of pants.” Jeshickah’s expression of polite amusement never left her face as she spoke.

“Pleasant image,” Turquoise answered. Impatience was gnawing at her, but she was smart enough to avoid antagonizing Jeshickah by ignoring her.

“I have determined my reasons for detesting you,” Jeshickah stated. “You are too like my own pets. The traits are attractive in a man I own. They are less so in a human girl.”

Turquoise thought with unease back to Jaguar’s words.
Jeshickah picks her trainers for physical beauty, mental acuity, moral void, and what she calls a trainer instinct — the instinct to watch a person, determine her weaknesses, and destroy her
. Surely she didn’t fit that description.

“I’m not one of your pets,” she argued.

You’re willing to sell yourself, your principles, for
power, strength. You’ll lie, manipulate, or kill for money. And may I say you are very good at it; you have my Jaguar eating out of your hand.” There was bitterness in the statement. Or jealousy? Was Jeshickah jealous?

“Do you have a point?” Turquoise spoke to keep from laughing. She didn’t think Jeshickah would appreciate amusement.

“Go ahead and kill Daryl if you wish,” Jeshickah purred. “He’s too stupid to live anyway. But then go home. Get a job, breed, do any of the tedious things humans do. Get old and gray, and stay that way If you take vampire blood from any of my brood — either Nathaniel or Jaguar would give it to you, at your request — know that I will control you.”

That sounded unpleasant.

The conversation skidded to a halt as Jaguar stepped into the hall. His step faltered as he noticed Turquoise and Jeshickah, and when he approached, he did so cautiously.

He addressed the vampiress first. “Your Triste is requesting a meeting with you.”

“That creature is no end of trouble,” Jeshickah grumbled.

Jaguar shrugged. “You hired him.”

“There seems to be a shortage of gray matter this century” To Turquoise, she offered, “Enjoy your sortie, girl. Don’t make too much of a mess.”

“How long until she dies?” Turquoise growled, as soon as the vampiress was out of the hall.

Jaguar smiled; the expression looked too wary to be hopeful. “Not long, if Jesse does his job. Jeshickah
hired him for his kind’s talents at restraining vampires. It’s something he is very good at.” The smile was gone as he asked, “You’re after Daryl?”

She absently checked one of her knives. “I’ve waited too long already.”

“You know that if you get yourself killed, I’m going to hate myself for not stopping you,” he informed her.

“I’m not planning to die.”

“No one ever is.” He hesitated, but then turned away. Jaguar, like most of the vampires in the building, would turn his back and not hinder her, but he wouldn’t help her.

She didn’t want the help. This was her fight to win or lose alone.

Turquoise kept one knife in her hand as she turned the knob and entered Daryl’s room. If he wasn’t in, she could wait.

N
ATHANIEL HAD SAID
he was there to conduct business; he didn’t say what type. He had seemed surprised when she, a slave, had spoken to him, but he was willing to talk
.

Despite knowing what Nathaniel was and despite knowing that Lord Daryl would be furious to find someone in his home when he returned, Cathy was grateful for the vampire’s companionship
.

“Would you help me kill him?” she asked, in a moment of frustration
.

Nathaniel looked at Cathy as if she had finally done something interesting. “Is that really a road you want to travel?” he asked
.

“Is there another choice, besides dying here?”

“You could have asked for help escaping,” the mercenary pointed out
.

“He killed my parents and my brother,” Catherine argued. “I want to see him dead
.”

Daryl’s room in Midnight brought back unpleasant memories, even once Turquoise had assured herself that he was not in it. From the delicate glass etching on the chair, to the whip lying ominously on the cluttered desk, every object reminded the hunter of the creature she had come to kill.

Turquoise paced restlessly, waiting. She killed some time working at the tight braid of his whip with her knife, and unraveled enough to make it harmless if Daryl got his hands on it. She started to go through the desk, and found more cash than she had ever seen, then amused herself imagining a Midnight Savings Bank.

One of her Crimson knives, a slender weapon with a blade of expensive firestone, was in her hand before Daryl finished opening the door; she saw Daryl hesitate when he caught sight of her. “Catherine,” he greeted her. “I thought you would find your way back here. A slave without her master is lost, after all.”

“You don’t seem to understand your situation,” the vampire said coldly. He reached past her to shut the door she had been trying to escape through, and she recoiled from his proximity. “I own you, Catherine, as surely as I own the shirt I’m wearing, and you don’t want to make me mad
.”

That had been her introduction to the concept that a human being could be property. The concept had been beaten into her time and again; the more she fought, the more she had been forced to realize how powerless she was.

She actually smiled at the memory. She wasn’t
powerless anymore. She certainly wasn’t this creature’s slave. “You’re not my master.”

“You’re human, Catherine,” Daryl argued. He closed the door and leaned against it, and Turquoise realized that, while she would never prove the point to him, she no longer felt the need to argue. He continued, “Ours is simply a higher race. You are a slave by blood, and that is all you can ever be.”

Without words, Turquoise attacked.

Daryl was prepared for a fight this time, and he dodged her first attack easily, and then drew his own knife.

It would have been so much easier — for Turquoise, at least — if he had just tried to bleed her. Trying to kill a feeding vampire is as easy as trying to kill a blind deaf-mute.

“Revenge,” Nathaniel paraphrased. “It sounds sweet, but it doesn’t make for a good life
.”

“Maybe not, but in this case, I think I wouldn’t mind it.” Bravado. Did she really think he would help her? And could she really kill, even Lord Daryl?

Nathaniel drew a knife from his boot and handed it to her, handle first. “If you’re willing to kill, wait to strike until he’s feeding. Go for the heart — it’s the only place that will be fatal
.”

She hesitated. Cathy wasn’t a killer; violence made her stomach turn. But as her hand closed over the knife’s handle her decision was made
.

Daryl caught Turquoise’s wrist and knocked the first knife away. Fortunately, she had others, and Turquoise’s left hand was almost as good as her right.

Daryl hissed in pain as the next knife raked across the skin of his chest, but a hasty block knocked the blade from its aim and kept it from piercing the rib cage.

Lord Daryl stormed back into his home, his temper already hot and looking for an outlet. He found one as soon as he saw Nathaniel waiting in his parlor
.

“What is he doing here?” Lord Daryl demanded of Cathy, as if the human should have been able to make Nathaniel leave
.

“I have business with you,” the mercenary replied. Lord Daryl ignored him; Nathaniel leaned back against the wall to wait
.

Lord Daryl pulled Cathy against himself wrapping her hair around his fingers to yank her head to the side and bare her throat. She shivered with the pain as his fangs pierced the skin
.

The knife was in her left hand. The vampire obviously didn’t see it as a threat, if he noticed it at all. Across the room, she saw Nathaniel make an
X
over his heart, a reminder
.

But she missed the heart. The blade hit a rib and skittered across his chest, and her master threw her away with a curse
.

Turquoise pulled away abruptly before he could retaliate, but his grip on her wrist didn’t falter. Instead, he used the hunter’s momentum to throw her.

The breath hissed out of her lungs as her back slammed into the wall, and Turquoise stumbled to her knees before she could recover it.

She hit the wall hard, and fell. The next moments were un-clear; she only remembered fear, pain, and anger. Because in that moment she heard a sound that had never been directed toward her before — the crack of Lord Daryl’s whip
.