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

Creevey turned his head slowly, his mouth curving into a sneer. “I think you’re full of shit. But even if I didn’t, there’s not a damn thing I could tell you, seeing as I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“There are lives on the line, asshole. Rhys dumped his victims at a property your family owns. And you spent half your trial telling folks that you were in nice and cozy with some bad-ass vampires.”

Something dark and cunning flashed in Creevey’s eyes. “That was just talk. I don’t really believe that shit.”

“Oh, I think you do. And if we had all day, I think I could convince you to tell me exactly what you believe, not to mention what and who you know. But we don’t have all day.”

Creevey leaned back, once again smug. “Brother, in case you didn’t notice, I’ve got all the time in the world. Least until they shove the needle in my arm. And once they do that, I’ll be no help to you at all.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Doyle said, and Creevey barked out a smug laugh that would have had Doyle
fighting the urge to punch him in the face if it weren’t for the fact that Doyle already had this well in hand. “Fortunately, I’m not here to play your games.”

“No? Well, that’s a downright shame, ain’t it? Because I’m in the mood to play.”

Doyle glanced sideways at Tucker. “I’m tired of talking to this fuck. Your turn to have a chat with our friend.”

“My pleasure,” Tucker said. Then he leaned forward and said, in that casual way that Doyle so admired, “We’re going to talk about Rhys, Creevey. We’re going to talk about where he might have taken the rest of those girls.”

The Club Rouge had been around since the 1920s, and the enterprising human who founded it had been one of the few who knew about the existence of vampires. Much like other club owners who had established back rooms that served bathtub gin, he had set up a private room. Only the clientele at the Club Rouge didn’t indulge in alcohol; they were served blood. Fresh from the humans who clamored to be admitted to the exclusive back section, little knowing that their memories would be wiped and their veins opened.

The humans weren’t permanently damaged—that would raise too many questions—but they were sent on their way thrilled to have gotten a little peek in the back, and upset that they’d been too damn drunk to remember the details.

Millicent Teal had been working as a waitress at the club for years, and she was perfectly content with the status quo. And part of that status quo was that while a few select and tasty humans were allowed in the back, admission to werens was absolutely forbidden, and any fur-back who wandered in learned that lesson the hard way.

This one, however, was beyond learning any lessons. The shitbag had wandered in already battered and bloody. And then he’d been rude enough to die right in front of the damn ladies’ room.

“He said to call the precipice,” Joleen said. “What’s a precipice?”

“Who cares?” Millicent said.

“Someone messed him up really bad.” Joleen knelt down beside the dead weren. “Isn’t that like a cliff? Don’t you jump off a precipice?”

Millicent toed the body, frowning as her Jimmy Choo impacted the weren’s chest. “He did jump off,” she said. “Right into the deep end if he came in here.”

“Maybe he meant the PEC? Precipice,” Joleen said slowly, as if tasting the word on her tongue. “PEC,” she murmured, equally slowly. She shrugged. “They don’t really sound alike, but maybe?”

Millicent tossed her hair. “Even if it’s not what he wanted, it’s what he’s getting. I’d just as soon have Tony dump him out back with the trash, but I guess we have to report it.” Millicent was proud of the fact that the owners—a vampire couple that had purchased the place twenty years before—trusted her enough to let her be acting manager on the nights when they weren’t around. Unfortunately, that meant that she couldn’t always do what she wanted to do. Because even though the Club Rouge was very, very,
very
anti-weren, it wasn’t cool to be too public about that. Which meant that if a weren died on the premises, they needed to be all concerned and good citizen-y.

“I’ll go make the call,” Joleen said, and hurried away, her heels clicking on the laminate floor.

Left alone with the body, Millicent cursed softly. The last thing the club needed was for the PEC to start poking around. Feeding from a licensed faunt might be legal, but none of the human snacks invited into the back of the Club Rouge were licensed. After all, where
was the thrill if the human actually
wanted
a little stick and suck?

And now this idiot weren may have gone and ruined everything. “Fucker,” she said, giving him another soft kick. “If you’ve screwed this up for us, you’re gonna be so glad you’re dead.”

Damn but she hated werewolves.

“And that’s it?” Tucker asked. “You can’t think of any other place where Rhys might hole up?” He leaned back in his chair, just as casual as you please, like him and that shitbag Creevey were two guys having a drink around the kitchen table. It was, thought Doyle, a beautiful sight. More than that, it was the reason he could so easily forget that his partner was human. Technically, Tucker scored a ten in that regard. But for more practical purposes, he was as much a shadower as Doyle was.

“That’s it, brother,” Creevey said. “Those are the only places I know about.” Tucker had started the conversation by leaning in close, all smiles and penetrating eyes. He’d told Creevey he needed his help; and thanked him for being so eager to give it. And then he’d told Creevey to list every possible place where Rhys could have taken the girls. Like a puppy trying to please its master, Creevey had eagerly rattled off three possible properties, including one in Culver City that he’d inherited upon his father’s death. It had fallen into bankruptcy after Creevey’s arrest. Although Doyle was sending teams to each location, that was the one he was putting his money on.

“You’re sure? No others you’re sitting on?” Tucker asked, as Doyle surreptitiously finished sending messages
on his smartphone to PEC headquarters in Los Angeles.

“Come on, man,” Creevey said. “You know I wouldn’t yank your chain. We’re buds, right?”

“That we are,” Tucker said, scooting back the chair and standing. He turned to Doyle. “You got agents en route?”

“Hell, yeah. But Culver City is mine. We go by wormhole. I want to be there when the team arrives.”

At the table, Creevey was blinking slowly, his frat boy face contorting as he shook free of the whammy that Tucker had zapped him with. “What the hell—?”

“Sorry to pick your brain and run,” Doyle said, rapping on the door to signal the guard, each knock reverberating in his aching head. He gritted his teeth against the pain, then pulled his lips back and aimed a grossly exaggerated smile at Creevey. “But you should know we appreciate your enthusiastic cooperation.”

The door opened and they slipped out as Creevey’s numb brain finally figured out the score. He howled in frustration, but the heavy door slammed shut behind them, cutting the sound off as effectively as steel shears through ribbon.

“Hold on a second,” Tucker said, taking Doyle’s elbow and trying to tug him to a stop. Doyle yanked his arm free and kept on going, pushing through the air that seemed to be getting thick with sticky threads, like walking through a field of cotton candy.

“Dammit, Doyle,” Tucker said, this time parking himself directly in Doyle’s path. “We came
here
by wormhole and it just about ripped you up. Your skin still looks gray, and I bet if I poked you in the chest, you’d
topple over. There’s no way in hell we’re going by wormhole again.”

Doyle wrenched his arm free and sucked in air through his teeth, then forced it out through his nose, concentrating on letting the breathing calm him. On tamping down the rising urge to tell his partner to fuck off or, worse, to lash out and hurt him.

“Don’t mess with me,” he said. “Not now.”

Tucker straightened his shoulders. “Then don’t you fuck with me.”

There wasn’t time for this shit. “Do what you want,” Doyle said. “I’m going.” He thrust out his hand, palm parallel with the wall in front of them. He focused all his energy—his anger, his frustration, and his desperation to find those girls while they still had lives to save—on pulling the power of time and space around him. It was a quick means of travel, allowing him to cross even the globe in mere minutes. Unfortunately, the wormhole was composed of energy—and it demanded energy in return.

Tucker was right; considering the state he was in, traveling this way was a risk. But goddammit, this was what he was—a cursed wretched daemon who had to steal bits of soul just to stay alive. Pathetic and horrible and vile, so if he could use one of his so-called daemonic gifts to maybe save an innocent life, then he was damn sure going to do it.

“Now,”
he cried, commanding the air. The vortex burst open, a swirling maelstrom of energy surrounding a dark tunnel that twisted and curved toward a terrifying void. Each time he entered a wormhole, Doyle wondered if it would be the last. Because if he conjured it wrong, there was no telling where he might end up.
Deep inside the earth, lost in the vacuum of space, far down in the depths of hell. The latter he deserved. The others, he sometimes longed for.

Not today. Today, he had a job to do, and without looking back at his partner, he threw himself into the void, aware only of the rushing sound of swirling energy and then, yes, the undeniable presence of his partner beside him.

“You’re an idiot,” he snapped, as the wormhole spit them out onto the Culver City pavement.

“I wouldn’t dream of denying it.” Tucker stood up and dusted himself off, managing to look all pressed and proper. Doyle, of course, looked as rumpled as always.

Doyle pushed aside the temptation to yell at his partner some more. For one thing, it wouldn’t do any good. More important, underneath the curling, poisonous tentacles of his hunger hid the knowledge that Tucker had thrust himself into the void as much for friendship as for the case. Even lost as Doyle was in his need to find and stop Rhys—even as snared as he was in the claws of the hunger—Doyle couldn’t discount that.

“There,” he said, pointing to the shabby structure’s entrance. “We’ll station agents there and at the back exit. But we go in through Rhys’s entrance.”

“And where’s that?”

Doyle flashed a feral smile. “That’s what we need to find out.”

The eight-man Recon and Capture team arrived only moments after Doyle and Tucker, and Doyle pressed forward, forcing his limbs to move and demanding that his voice bark out commands. He was hungry—so damn hungry—and yet he couldn’t afford to show it. In front of him, an RAC lieutenant, a Jinn named Cort who’d recently transferred from Chicago, stood rigidly at attention.

“Rhys has had access to this location for a while. If he’s on site, he’ll most likely be dug in, and he’s damn sure going to be dangerous. He’ll have the place tricked out, and the girls tucked away. First order of business is access. Find me an entrance that’s not through one of the doors to the building. Second order of business is to find the girls. Do not—I repeat, do not—allow anyone on your team to breach the building until we’re confident of the target location. Get them out, then we concentrate on Rhys. I want the bastard, but not at the risk of those girls’ lives.”