When Temptation Burns: A Shadow Keepers Novel (Shadow Keepers 6) (16 page)

“Well?” he asked as soon as Travis shut the door behind him. The lights of downtown Los Angeles twinkled like stars below the balcony.

“I confirmed Creevey’s transfer. Prison staff put him on the bus at five o’clock this afternoon.”

“Good.”

“I don’t like this, Paul. There’s a reason I worked so hard to put the murderous son-of-a-bitch behind bars.”

“You’ve made your concerns known.”

“Creevey’s a murderer. He’s worse than a murderer. He’s a monster—as much of a monster as these creatures we’re fighting.”

“Which is part of the reason he’ll be useful to us.”

“You really believe his bullshit about having vampire friends?”

“Don’t you?”

Travis shifted. “Even if he is in tight with the vamps, it won’t necessarily do us any good.”

“We know the dark creatures are organized, and that some of them are hiding inside our very own government.” Years’ worth of intelligence had revealed as much.

“I know,” Travis said. “I know.”

“And after what happened with Jordan, we have to acknowledge the possibility that a group of organized, vicious dark creatures has its eyes on us.”

“So we get them before they get us. I know,” Travis said.

“But what we don’t know is where. Maybe they don’t have a central base. But I bet they do. And if Creevey has the connections he’s claimed to have, I’ll bet he can find out where it is.”

“Even if he can, why should he tell us?”

Paul laughed. “We’re breaking him out of prison, Travis. I think even a sociopath like Creevey will agree that he owes us a favor.” His smile grew thin. “And if his sense of honor isn’t sufficient, then we’ll give him another compelling reason. Poison, for example, can be extremely persuasive.”

Kyle Creevey was a list maker. Before he’d been imprisoned, he’d made lists of every girl he’d ever fucked. Of every girl he’d ever killed. And of every asshole who’d looked at him the wrong way. During the trial he’d made lists of all the lies the witnesses spread about him. Of all the pompous lawyers who had it in for him. And most especially of all the reporters who wrote about him in their articles as if he was some sort of goddamned freak of nature.

Top of that list was Andrea Tarrent. Or, as she liked to be called, Allison Stahl.

He grinned. Little bitch thought she could keep her identity a secret? It had been so easy to find out the truth. A chat with his defense attorney. A conjugal visit with one of the bitches he kept on the side. A clever little girl who earned her living picking pockets, and who’d been more than happy to slide in next to Andrea during the trial and sneak a peek at her driver’s license. And the bitch reporter had been none the wiser.

What fucking bullshit. Little bitch thought she was so smart. But he had his eye on her. Oh, yes. He had his eye on all of them.

The whole death row thing was a problem, no doubt about that. But there were ways.

Oh, yes … there were ways.

It was good to have friends in high places, and Kyle
had made friends with some of the best. He’d heard through the grapevine that Rhys had been captured—and that was some fucked-up shit—but Rhys had introduced him to some pretty fine folks. Folks who’d made Kyle’s blood stronger. Who would make him stronger yet. Oh, yeah, they would.

No, Kyle didn’t fear death row. All he regretted was the mind-numbing boredom. But that was going to change. Yeah, that was going to change real soon.

At the moment, he was wearing an orange jumpsuit and his wrists and legs were shackled to the rail on the third seat from the back on the prison bus. And the bus was on a lonely section of highway heading toward San Quentin. The sun had set hours ago, and they were so far from of the city, that the only lights on the horizon came from the occasional far-off house.

He was the only prisoner, and he bounced in the empty shell of a bus, his bony ass, too thin from prison food, coming down hard on the worn-out springs.

They were transferring him. Prison crowding, they said. Whatever. He didn’t care why; he only cared about the opportunity. Because they were watching, weren’t they? They had to be. They’d promised him freedom. They’d promised him life.

They’d come for him, Kyle was sure of that. They’d come, and he’d become magnificent.

He sucked in some air and started to whistle.

“Shut the fuck up, Creevey,” the driver shouted back to him. The guard, sitting in the first seat right behind the driver, just shook his head, a smug little smile on his mouth. Another asshole. Not that Kyle was in a position to do anything about it. Sometimes you just had to accept
the fact that you were up to your asshole in assholes. Better than alligators, he supposed.

Suddenly, the bus stopped, and Kyle was thrown forward, his chest slamming into the back of the seat in front of him. “What the fuck?” he yelled.

“Car stopped short in front of us,” the driver called back. “We’ll be moving in a minute. What the fu—”

He didn’t finish his sentence. The bullet that blasted through the front windshield tore off the bottom of his jaw. The second one went through his brain.

“Holy fuck!” The guard was on his feet in a second, but it was a second too late. A shotgun blast, then the door burst open. Three men in bulletproof vests leaped on, guns aimed. Two shots, and the guard went down. The three ran forward as two more entered, guarding their backs. Kyle yanked at his arms, but the chains that bound him held tight.

“Kyle Creevey?” the third one asked.

“You fucking know it.”

“You’re coming with us.”

“You’re vampires?”

The men looked at each other and laughed. Then one of them plucked a syringe from a sleeve pocket. “Not exactly,” the man said, then jammed the needle into Kyle’s neck.

“Cut the restraints,” the man said, and as another one hurried to comply, the world started to spin around Kyle.

He wasn’t dying—he couldn’t be dying.

But then the world went black.

Doyle leaned against the bar, a drink in his hand and his eyes on the crowd. Travis was on the balcony with Paul, and the crowd was mingling. So far, everything was going to plan, but he hadn’t yet spoken with Paul himself. Just in case the big man decided to kick him to the curb, Doyle was making a point of familiarizing himself with the faces in the crowd; he wanted to be able to recognize Paul’s inner circle by sight.

The trouble was, his attention kept pulling back to one face. An elegant face, with a strong jaw and prominent cheekbones and dark hair that seemed to both absorb and reflect the candlelight like angelfire.
The reporter
. She was sitting with an older man on a silk sofa. He couldn’t hear their conversation, but he could see the look on her face, which was filled with both pain and incredulity. Whatever the subject of conversation, it was a good bet it wasn’t Disney’s latest movie.

He started to shift his attention, but for just an instant, her gaze swept the room.
Those eyes
. He slammed back the rest of his drink. Those damned eyes that kept pulling his focus, not to mention his memories.

The first time he saw her, he’d thought they were Kathryn’s eyes. But they weren’t. The color and shape were the same, but now that he had the chance to really look, he could see the differences.

This woman’s eyes were sharper and set more widely on her face than Kathryn’s had been. Her eyes were soft, even slightly vulnerable, but there was strength there, too.

Without thinking, he took a step toward her, then stopped cold.
What the hell was he doing?

He lifted his glass to toss back some more Scotch, then remembered that he’d already polished it off.
Shit
.

The woman was messing with his equilibrium, and that simple reality was pissing him off. He told himself that any spark he felt was simply because she reminded him of Kathryn, but he didn’t really believe it. Better to just walk away. He wasn’t here about the woman. Hell, he had no reason to even be thinking about her.

Except he did
.

For one thing, she knew what he was—an agent, if not a paradaemon. Of course, since he was using his job as his cover, that hardly counted as a reason for him to go talk to her. Simple logic, but it left him disappointed.

But then there was the reality of what she was—a reporter. He had to assume that she was here writing a story, some huge investigative piece on Paul and his operation. And while Doyle couldn’t give a shit if she blew the lid on their group, he did care if she exposed them before he was ready.

She was still talking with the older man on the sofa, but after a moment, he squeezed her shoulder, then stood up and stepped out onto the patio. This was an interesting development, since it suggested that the man ranked highly in the group’s pecking order. Paul, Travis, and this anonymous man. Were they the holy trinity, or did others also hold powerful positions in Paul’s Dark Warriors?

He was mulling the question over so deeply that he didn’t notice her gaze shift to him. But when he looked up, those pale eyes were looking right at him, luminescent in the flickering light. He considered looking away, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t know if the compulsion was good, bad, or indifferent, but he did know that he wanted to do nothing but get lost in her eyes.

In the end, she was the one who looked away, her gaze
darting downward. He felt a tight sense of satisfaction, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. Winning a staring contest was hardly the most impressive feat of his career.

She stood, and he felt his pulse quicken in anticipation. This time, he did turn away. If she was coming toward him, he damn well needed another drink.

He turned and poured himself another Scotch. When he looked back, she wasn’t even close to him. She was standing with the two young men whom Paul had been parading around when Doyle arrived. Wes and Stu, Travis had told him. Two of the three who’d killed Jordan. He needed to talk to them—but before he did, he needed to make sure he could keep his temper under control. Revealing the daemon here would not only be counterproductive to his overall mission, it would most likely be suicidal.

After a moment, she squeezed the hand of the redheaded kid, then stepped away. She turned, paused, and looked straight at Doyle. She had a trim figure that she held with grace, shoulders back and her chin up. She walked toward him slowly, but with undeniable purpose, and as she did, one eyebrow arched up, as if in question. Doyle didn’t know what the answer was.

“You’ve been watching me.”

“You look familiar.”

“That’s because we’ve met. At the prison. Or don’t you remember,
Agent
Doyle?”

“I remember,” he said. “Miss?”

She hesitated for just a moment, then said, “Tarrent. My name is Andrea Tarrent. Andy.”

“Of course,” he said. “The First Amendment’s most vocal advocate.”

She stepped closer to him, her expression tight. “I’m not here as a reporter.”

He looked at her, trying to judge whether she was telling the truth. “No? Then why are you here?”

She stood even straighter. “I’d appreciate it if you’d keep the reporter thing between us. I write under a pen name, and my job isn’t something I advertise.”

“I won’t blow your cover.”

“I’m not undercover.” She drew in a breath. “Look, are you going to be a jerk or aren’t you?”

He couldn’t help his laugh. “Chances are I’ll be a jerk several times over. But I will keep your secret.”

“Oh.” Her expression had been shifting into something argumentative. Now her face relaxed. It was, he thought, a stunningly beautiful face. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

“Right. So.” She reached up, her fingers touching the cross that hung around her neck. He didn’t think she was aware of the movement. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll get a glass of wine.”

“I’ll join you.”

She glanced down at his drink.

He took a sip, then smiled. “For the company, not the Cabernet.”

Her brow furrowed, but she nodded, then shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She turned and moved toward the side of the room, then took a glass of wine from the serving table. He followed, telling himself that he needed to find out more about the man she’d been talking with, but knowing damn well that he really just wanted to be near her.