Bloodlines (Demons of Oblivion) (38 page)

I patched myself up, rinsed off all the blood I could find, but forewent the shower. The small suburban home had a Jacuzzi tub upstairs—not a big one, but serviceable—and I’d soak later. After the whisky.

The blood on the floors wiped up well enough, though anyone shining a black light over it later might believe they’d stumbled across a crime scene. I dumped the towel in the laundry room and stalked for the den. Peter’s eyes remained locked on his tablet; his right index finger tapped the screen, scrolling through whatever text he was studying. An array of liquor waited in the cabinet on the far wall. I tossed some Springbank single malt into a glass and took a seat across from Peter, sinking into the arm chair. Then took a sip.

Fuck me, it was heaven. Or as close as I’d be getting.

The scotch eased the ache in my muscles and cleared the dull pain in my head. A comfortable burn settled in my limbs, my gut, and my brain. Magic swirled with cool tendrils twisting around my arms, my bare chest and abs, repairing. Slower than vampire blood healed, but better than the old fashioned way.

Peter sat in silence, pointedly ignoring me. He never asked where I’d been. Probably didn’t want to know—we’d been friends a long time so he had the sense not to ask something he was better off not knowing.

This meant it was up to me to broach the subject. I had to—no one else I could ask.

“Ran into a vampire.”

His thick black brows lifted but he still didn’t look up. “Oh?”

“A vampire
witch
.”

That got his attention; he tipped the tablet down and glanced up. “You’re sure?”

“Saw the fangs and she dispelled a barrier I used. She was juiced up on something, too—thing weighed as much as a ten-year-old and one touch knocked me across the room. Literally
touch
, not just vampire strength.”

I must’ve engaged his attention sufficiently because he set the tablet down on the couch beside him and picked up his mug of tea instead.

“It’s unusual, right?”

Peter nodded. “Magic users aren’t normally turned, or if they are, they don’t survive the ensuing insanity when they wake for the first time. Something about the DNA of a witch is not cooperative with the vampiric parasite. I interviewed one for my thesis years ago and while he was functional, I wouldn’t say all the lights were on.”

That summed up China Doll. “She also didn’t dispel with normal means—bitch threw something and cracked the barrier. Some kind of powder.”

Again, Peter dipped his chin, as if nothing surprised him. “Useful for dispelling when there are layer of magics. She might’ve had something else nearby she didn’t want to disrupt.”

That made sense. She wouldn’t have been able to interrupt my disturbance of the dimension’s timeline—she probably had reactionary magic in there that kicked in when my spell went live.

The powder she used, though, could come in useful. “Can you find me someone who knows to mix up that dispel powder?” I was adding everything I could now to my personal arsenal and that might be helpful.

“Sure. Now, am I permitted to ask
where
you were?”

He was permitted. And I didn’t want to answer—not yet. I sipped my scotch instead.

Peter waited, studying me, blinking impassively.

I kept my hand locked on my drink and rose. “Going to shower.”

He didn’t ask again for details.

****

Heaven’s voice announced her presence downstairs, not loud but somehow worming its way to the upper floor all the same. Her words were always deliberate, tone simple and a tinge sardonic—especially after a few glasses of wine.

Goddess, she sounded like Mishka. Enough so that I paused mid-step, hand on the railing, standing at the top of the stairs.

She tried, repeatedly, to get me to talk about her daughter, my wife—especially in that first month. She wanted to know
everything
. As if I truly had a fucking clue about what Mishka was really like when everything had apparently been an act. And I didn’t even have the energy to tell Heaven lies. I couldn’t think about Mish, couldn’t grieve, couldn’t yet repair the damage her betrayal had done to me. Instead I found a new focus, a new obsession—a quest to drive my every waking moment and even my dreams. One that kept me going, gave me something to hold onto in the chaos around me.

With practice effort, I tucked away the painful burn against my sternum, shoved aside Mishka’s image in my mind’s eye, and drove away everything her memory conjured in me. Still, the sting remained the way flesh burns minutes after a slap.

I trudged down the stairs in a pair of dark yoga pants, the decent mood I’d been in post scotch and relaxing soak in the tub already long gone.

Heaven Thiering sat at the kitchen island on a barstool, sipping tea; Peter stood across from her. Both glanced at me when I walked in. I paused as they exchanged a look and then carefully turned to face me, expressions expectant. A hush fell over the room the way it does when you walk in on people who have just been talking about you.

My gaze darted back and forth between them.

Peter spoke first, his grin faux-friendly. “You’re just in time. We were hoping to...speak to you for a minute.”

I knew their looks now—it was a fucking intervention. I pursed my lips and kept mum; they probably had no idea what it was an intervention for anyway, so they could talk, and I could ignore and then go about my business again tomorrow.

“So speak.” I stalked past, the kitchen tile shockingly cold on my bare feet, and went for the fridge. We had eggs, cheese, and an array of vegetables in the crisper. Magic drained my body and I could use a big helping of protein.

And with my back to them while I cooked, they might shut the hell up sooner rather than later.

“You go out several times a week for most of the day and evening and tend to come back in need of medical attention,” Peter began.

I withdrew a large butcher knife from the block on the counter, kitchen light glinting on the blade, and began chopping red and green peppers; the
thwack
on the cutting board drowned out whatever Peter had said after that.

“—and frequently moving to avoid detection that we believe you bring to us,” he continued, “has been upsetting several of the other covens.”

I should care because the covens were so concerned about
my
well-being? Sure. They still had money and had no ties to the country left—they could leave. Go someplace safe where they didn’t have to fucking worry about me leading someone to their doorstep.

I cracked the eggs next and then coated the skillet with olive oil.

The other two were silent behind me. A glance in the chrome toaster oven to the side revealed them looking at one another.

Heaven turned my way again first. “To put it bluntly, we’re slightly concerned you’re going to get us killed.”

A handful of spices in the whisked eggs, and the omelet was ready to go. As the oil sizzled and popped, I tossed the mixture in and snatched a spatula.

Peter cleared his throat. “Can you tell us
why
you had a meeting with Felix Laurent today?”

I paused, spatula poised over the pan, as I stared into my browning, bubbling dinner. I hadn’t mentioned Felix’s name—not once. I didn’t keep information like that around either, not on scraps of paper, my cell phone, or the fucking calendar.

I turned slowly to face them, jaw set and brows pulled tight in a frown. Heat from the stovetop warmed my bare back; a drop of water from my damp hair slithered down my spine, icy cold and sending a fresh shiver through me.

“I have eyes and ears everywhere, Nathan.” Heaven tilted her head and sat up straighter. Her hands tightened around the light blue mug resting on the counter. “Vampires, at the moment, are extremely distrustful of our kind. Mr. Laurent, in particular, is not someone you ought to be dealing with at all. Whatever you’re attempting to accomplish, he will not help.”

“Figured that out. Thanks, though.” I turned back and flipped my omelet to cook the other side.

“Nate—” Peter began.

“If you’re both so worried,” I called over my shoulder, “you can move. I hear Peru is really nice this...well, any time of year.”

I swallowed dryly, fingers twitching. Magic thrummed in my veins again like the whisky, swimming contentedly. Non-witches would never understand, but magic had a sort of sentience of its own, and in that moment it was
happy
. Cheerily mending my wounds, which kept it occupied but not with a task it found draining. The more I used it, the more it built, like every spell poked another hole in the veil between the magic and me. Soon I’d be flooded, out of control, and I couldn’t find it in me to care.

But as much as I wanted the others to shut up about it and go away, a voice in my head swayed me from saying more—reminded me what I was doing in the first place. If I kept it up, I’d get myself killed. And that wouldn’t save her.

I turned off the stove and slid the large omelet onto a plate, not looking at them as I spoke. “I keep getting recognized.”

“There
are
bounties on your head,” Heaven said. “Very large ones. Several times the size of mine. What did you expect?”

I stared at the food, appetite gone, and leaned with both hands on the counter; corded muscle moved on my arms as I squeezed the counter’s edge and tension worked through me. I’d avoided mention of this for
months
. Months of lying, of hiding, because I didn’t want to have this conversation.

A deep breath. “I’m trying to find her.”

Silence.

I pushed off the counter and moved toward the drawer to retrieve a fork, walking through the thick, building tension in the room that pressed down on me.

“Nate...” Peter, conciliatory, as always. “You know that—”

I snatched a fork from the drawer and slammed it closed again. Flatware rattled. “We don’t know anything.”

“None of the missing vampires have shown up,” Peter continued, voice still calm as ever. “Reports go back almost a year and none have reappeared. Who would kidnap and keep them alive? And
how
could someone hold that many vampires?”

I swung around, damp hair whipping against my shoulders. “Then where the fuck are the bodies? Not a single body has shown up. You said they take longer to decompose—have
any
of your contacts reported strange bodies that don’t decompose showing up in any morgues? Isn’t that something someone would have
noticed
?” The happy magic in my veins was gone, shifting to a wicked buzz that flickered across my skin, calling me to hurt and destroy and take pleasure in damaging everything around me.

I drew in a shaky breath and focused on driving down the building rage.

“It’s a big world,” Peter said. “It wouldn’t be difficult to hide her body.”

Her
body. Not
the
bodies—not all the others. No, hers. Just hers. Because I wasn’t looking for the others, didn’t care about the others. I wasn’t a hero, wasn’t selfless—I’d be safely in another country myself if I didn’t think she was still out there.

For a moment, air left my lungs like a vacuum sucked it all away and I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. A startling, cold pain washed over me and something in my chest
hurt
.

No.
No
. She wasn’t dead. Not by a long shot.

I leveled him with a chilly stare. “She’s alive. I
will
find her.”

Heaven rolled her eyes and clicked her nails against the counter. “She probably—”

“No.” We’d already had this conversation and I wasn’t interested in a repeat.

“This is Zara Lain we’re talking about, Nathan,” she continued, undeterred. “She drew us into a trap and sold us out.”

“Then how did we get away?”

“They didn’t anticipate—”

“Bullshit! She knew what I could do. She saw me mark the car in case we needed to teleport.
Jamie
set us up, not her.”

Irritation sparked in her eyes, once again reminding me of the sharp little look I’d detected in Mishka now and then. “You knew her a week. She first stole from me eight years ago and I’ve had many dealings with her since then. Zara Lain looks out for herself and that is all. Don’t be a fool.”

“Well, you know, I actually have quite a bit of experience playing the fool, thanks to your daughter. Not everyone is a treacherous bitch.”

Anger simmered in the air, pushing from Heaven in waves. I braced, ready to strike back.

Then a smirk crossed her cherub lips. “Your wife spent several years as Zara’s right hand. Where do you suppose she learned the fine art of double crossing?”

I swallowed back a lump in my throat. Said nothing. She wasn’t repeating anything I hadn’t already thought, hadn’t already feared—

But no. I wouldn’t accept it. Ever.

“She could’ve killed us a dozen times and she didn’t. She’s not stupid enough to turn us into the people trying to kill us when she knew damn well they’d grab her too. Self-preservation motivates her, like you said. She
didn’t
sell us out.”

Heaven sighed and shook her head, then slid off the stool. “And if she didn’t, she’s dead. You’ll kill the rest of us if you keep this up.”

“Then I hope you have a plot picked out.”

Peter visibly winced.

“Funny,” Heaven said without smiling, “I hadn’t realized the myth of vampire thralls was actually fact.” She strolled away and left the kitchen. Fifteen seconds later the front door opened and closed.

I scooped up my plate and fork, dropped them on the island where Heaven had been sitting, and tried to eat.

“Unlike Heaven,” Peter started with care, “I have nothing but fondness for Zara. But we have no new leads. No sign of the other vampires. The likelihood is...”

“I know they took her to Quebec.”

He glanced up at me, eyes wide. I looked down again and shoveled a forkful of food in my mouth; the eggs were lukewarm and tasteless, but I swallowed them down. Eventually my stomach would thank me.

“I traced the helicopter that stopped at the mansion before we got away—the one that probably grabbed her. It brought her here, somewhere. No one who remembers seeing it fly overhead could say where it landed.”