Hunter by Night (25 page)

She’ll be a danger to herself.

Siddoh thought about that needle and lighter he’d seen in Ivy’s desk drawer. The marks. He wondered if perhaps Ivy wasn’t already in danger.

He looked from the lovely, sobbing vampire female in front of him to the bedroom door on his right and back again. Ivy’s father lay at death’s door. After everything, she wanted to know the man had passed away in peace. Siddoh actually made peace pretty damn well.

He patted Ivy’s hand once more and headed back into the bedroom. Ivy’s father was awake but glassy-eyed. Clearly short on time.

Siddoh sat beside the bed. “Listen up, Grayson. You’re worried for your daughter. You need someone to provide for her and keep her safe. That I can do. Me. You have nothing to worry about. If you’ll just explain to me how it is she’s a danger to herself.”

The elder’s mouth opened like he might answer. Or maybe it was surprise. His breath stuttered, and he nodded slowly and closed his eyes. Then, with a short gasp, Elder Grayson was gone.

Siddoh never received an answer to his question.

Lee tried to remember the last time he’d been in a human hospital. The nostril-searing antiseptic smell, the way everyone looked at him like he didn’t belong there—a fair assessment but chafing nonetheless. He didn’t belong in this massive building full of ill and dying humans for certain. Once he had Alexia, they would go.

Anton met him in the lobby, looking twitchy and out of sorts. “Over here.” The former wizard grabbed Lee by the arm and pulled him to the middle of the room, near a cluster of vinyl sofas and tables covered with tattered magazines.

Lee held a snarl. “You’re not taking me to Alexia.” Not a question, a demand for fucking information.

“Here’s the thing: she’s actually doing much better.”

Lee found his lungs didn’t much like the air in this human hospital. Or Anton’s response. He grabbed the guy by the arms. “I’m not feeling reassured, wizard.”

Anton looked around them both. “I wanted to talk to you before we get up there.” His eyes darkened. “She’s been dizzy and sick to her stomach. Achy.”

Lee shook his head. “Then I need to get up there. She needs my blood.”

“Damn it, Lee, I’m sorry as hell about what happened this afternoon.”

“You couldn’t have known she’d get sick.” Lee almost choked on the words. Strangling Anton right there in the hospital lobby would not be productive, but hell if his fingers didn’t itch with the urge. He couldn’t strangle Alexia, after all, and it was her he truly needed to have it out with. He’d told her. So many times he’d warned her not to be out alone in the day. Although she hadn’t been alone this time. Sending her with protection wasn’t enough. How the fuck could he keep her safe? “Take me to her.”

Anton nodded and led the way.

“Do they know what caused this?”

The two of them bypassed the information desk and a security guard that Lee could have crushed with his thumb. Up five floors in the elevators, past another desk with nurses, and down a hall lit less harshly than the entrance through which Lee had arrived.

Anton radiated tension with every step, as if he expected that an attack was imminent. “They think she was exposed to some sort of nerve toxin. They asked questions about chemicals she might have come into contact with and took her clothes for testing. I had to go across the road to the gym and get her some sweats as a backup.”

“Toxins.” Lee’s vision swam.

They stopped in the hall, just outside of Alexia’s room. The door stood open. Tyra sat in a chair next to Flay, keeping an eye out while a male nurse in green scrubs took Alexia’s temperature. Her hair had matted to her face, and her olive skin looked pale. The nurse made a joke that elicited a chuckle from her, which made Lee growl under his breath.

He’d hardly heard Anton’s words. “I—Thank you for helping her.”
When
I
couldn’t.

When Lee resumed his charge into Alexia’s room, he got slapped in the sternum by Anton’s arm. “One other thing,” Anton whispered. “I don’t think this is isolated to Lexi.”

Lee brought his head up. “What?”

“Talked privately with Flay.” Anton inclined his head toward the door. “He complained of similar pain. Nausea and extreme dizziness. He nearly ate concrete during his last rotation the same way Alexia did. Refuses to get it checked. You vampires get so stubborn about medical care. He’s part human, right?”

Lee held Anton’s stare, trying to put the pieces together.

Your
acceptance
of
humans
will
come
back
to
bite
you.
The words of Siddoh’s uncle ran ominously in Lee’s head. Could it have been more than only hollow threats? Could someone have done something? Given them something?

“They do both have human blood, yes,” Lee said. This did not necessarily equal correlation to each other or to the dying warning from Siddoh’s uncle. Two estate residents with human blood plagued by the same symptoms could be coincidence.

Lee did not believe in coincidence.

“Yeah.” Anton licked his lower lip. “And here’s the thing: that gym where I grabbed those clothes for Lexi, it’s one of those classy places with a spa and a cafe and a business center and everything. I gave them the impression I was interested in a membership so I could use the business center…” He dug in his back pocket.

The picture Anton produced, printed on cheap paper, looked like nobody Lee recognized. He grabbed it for closer inspection. “Is this a mug shot?”

“Yeah.” Anton cleared his throat. “My brother has the power now to transfer wizard powers. I remember when I found out, thinking all he had to do was crack open a prison and he’d have a fresh supply of psychos for his army.”

“Fucking insanity,” Lee murmured.

“Right.” Anton flicked the paper. “Well, this is Baron Ingram, a.k.a. ‘the Doctor.’ Convicted for an aborted attempt at what was believed to be a re-creation of the sarin gas attacks at Metro Center in DC. Sarin, by the way, is another nerve toxin. Former profession? Oral surgeon and cosmetic dentistry. License revoked on suspicion that he was taking disgusting liberties with the patients while they were sedated for treatment. Vanished from Red Onion State Prison about eight months ago.” Anton tapped the picture. “The without a trace kind of vanished. From a maximum-security prison. Around the time my brother took over leading the wizards.”

“Holy shit.” Lee’s fist pounded the wall where he stood. He ignored the angry glare of a passing nurse. Fuck.
Fuck.
“So much for your brother’s truce. How has this scum managed to taint Alexia? You think this is your brother’s work?”

Anton’s agitation had him pacing their small section of hall as if standing still would be his death. Lee had the opposite trouble. His boots remained rooted to the tile, certain that if he moved, he would storm into that room and throw Alexia over his shoulder. A thing he’d sworn never to do again. He needed his arms around her. He needed her to never be out of his sight again. But first, he needed to focus on her safety.

Anton rubbed his neck. “I’m dead certain. Lee. He’s come up with a way to transfer wizard powers to humans. I saw him do it once. With my own eyes. He no longer needs to breed wizards. He finds the right criminal, bestows the power he wants, and
Boom
—” Anton punched his fist into his palm. “He can fucking customize. Breaking one out of prison would be nothing.”

“Jesus, your brother’s an evil piece of shit. If Lexi and Flay were both exposed to something, it’s almost a given that Siddoh’s uncle was the insider responsible. Your brother must have hooked the two up somehow. This bastard has to go down.” All of them.

“Agreed.”

So this thing with Haig, the truce. Had it all been misdirection? “I haven’t seen your brother since he approached me in the woods and proposed a cease-fire. Where the fuck might he be hiding?”

Anton was thoughtful. “I have some places we can check that we haven’t tried yet,” he said at last.

“Good. I’m sorry to pull you in on this, but we gotta get this shit done. You, me… Flay, if he’s able. We go out after I talk with Lexi and we take this asshole down.”

“Roger.” Anton’s expression was resigned.

“I’m sorry your whole family’s evil.”
Perhaps
the
most
absurd
thing
I’ve ever said aloud.

“It is what it is,” Anton replied.

Lee brushed past a tall, male nurse in blue scrubs who was leaving as Lee and Anton entered. Lee gave the guy a short but pointed stare.

“Lee.” Alexia held her hand out. Her expression was equal parts sleepy and stern. “That was unnecessary.”

“I thought it would be good for him and me to be on the same page.”

“It makes you look insecure.”

His hand tightened around hers. He bent down and put his nose against her throat, inhaling to assure himself that even in this odd place, she still smelled the same. “I almost lost you. I can be any fucking way I want to be right now.”

Her brown eyes softened. “I’m so sorry.”

“So am I. I would like to have been wrong.”

She smiled slightly. Suddenly, her face brightened. “Hey, but I’m doing much better. They’re hoping whatever is in my system will work its way out on its own. Is it safe to come home?”

He squeezed her hand again and leaned forward to kiss her gently. “It will be. I should give you blood,” he whispered, “to help you heal.”

She glanced around. “I’m not sure that’s safe right now. Whatever I’ve got going on is weird enough there’s been someone in here to poke around practically every five minutes. Anyway I’m feeling much better. Really.”

He didn’t like her answer, but the windowed walls of her room provided no privacy. He hoped they could afford to wait. “All right. You rest.” He kissed her again and motioned to Flay. “Anton, Flay, and I are going out now.”

He turned to Alexia. “We’re going to take care of this. I’ll make it safe.”

***

Lee pounded the cold, stone walls of an abandoned wizard sanctum. They’d scoured the town over the course of the night, checking every hideout, basement, nook, and cranny that Anton could remember having visited with his brother in their youth. Finally, they had wound up back at the place that had been Anton’s home for the majority of his time when he worked for the side of the vampires’ enemies.

No sign of Anton’s half brother, Petros; no sign of this crazy “Doctor” fucker. No guardians.

Lee lowered his MK23 as he swept the hall. “Lights out, nobody home.”

“Actually, we rarely had working electricity,” Anton said dryly. “The lights being on or off wouldn’t be much of an indicator about occupancy.”

“Do we really want to play a game of who had the shittier childhood? Even the winner loses.” Lee spat out the words. Strange, he used to pride himself on composure. These days he found it tough to keep a lid on his temper.

Flay appeared from a stairway off what Anton had said was the main gathering area. “I find evidence upstairs of recent habitation. Food containers, spent lighters. Nothing of substance.” He held out a small silver canister. “Except maybe this thing, whatever it is. Looks sort of like a nitrous cartridge.” He tossed it to Lee, who stuck it in a pocket for later examination.

Lee pointed down the hall from where he and Anton had just come. “The place that Anton says used to be the main living area appears to have been empty for some time.”

“As well as the ceremony room,” Anton added.

Flay shuddered. “Ceremony, my ass. You cut a vampire open and take out its heart. It’s fucking murder.”

Back when the sanctum had been a bustling hub of lively wizard activity, a vampire would have been taken to the ceremony room so a wizard could cut out its heart and claim its power. Lee had taken a gander at the place. Tiled walls and floor with a drain in the center for easy cleanup. Disgusting.

He paced, gathering himself. His fingers clenched and released with the urge to dig at the burning in his chest. He needed Alexia. He needed… fuck, exhaustion weighed him down. He let out a breath, acutely aware of the tight bind of muscle on bone throughout his body.

Something far greater plagued Alexia than had shown at the hospital. He didn’t claim to know shit about human females, but the roiling sickness, the panic shooting through his veins spiked within him a very real unease that
his
human female was having some kind of serious trouble. “We need to get going,” he said.

“There’s got to be something we’re missing,” Anton replied. “For all of his power, my brother likes routine and familiarity. Either he’s around here somewhere, or he’s gone halfway across the world so there’s no way we’ll find him. It’s not the latter. Given these recent attacks, he’d want to be nearby to control his puppets.”

“There you guys are. You know, there are a lot of damn woods around here. You could have left a note or a trail of bread crumbs or something.”

Lee turned just as Tyra pushed her way into the room. While her tone may have been light and conversational, her face showed fatigue. She made her way immediately to Anton, bumping her head against his even as she spoke again. “You guys gotta get out of here. Lexi is out of her mind with worry, Lee. Girl wants outta that hospital bed.” She stepped back and took a deep breath. Her thumb jerked toward the entryway. “And I don’t think you have any idea how close you’re riding the dawn. Sky’s almost gray out there.”

“Fuck.” They’d been hunting those evil bastards all night, and this place had no windows. The only way in or out was through a strange portal in the woods. Lee had been too wrapped up in his thoughts. This was why it didn’t pay to get distracted. Why he didn’t do relationships. Why he hadn’t until Alexia.

Lee, as the only pure-blooded vampire in their little group right then, was the one who would take the greatest damage. Funny how all the elders crowed about the importance of purity of the species. That morning, it would be to his detriment.

“One more thing, though,” he said. His hands spread wide, indicating the place where they stood. “We need a way to close this off. Make sure the wizards can’t use it for their ceremonies anymore.”

Tyra’s shoulder quirked. “Anton and I can probably make the entrance collapse.”

Anton’s eyebrows shot up. “We can?”

She nodded firmly. Leave it to Tyra. “Sure. Flay, you get out there and stand guard. Lee, if you can use your shield to make sure Anton and I don’t blow each other up, that would be super. You’ll have to pull us both out since the portal is really narrow, but it should be a piece of cake.”

“Piece of cake,” Anton said with raised eyebrows.

Her face was deadpan. “We could go back home and grab some explosives, if you want. But, you know, sun’s coming up.”

Nausea surged in Lee’s gut, and the mere mention of sunlight burned his skin raw. “Okay, let’s do this.” He positioned himself in the center of the portal and charged his shields, one arm hooked around Anton’s waist, one arm around Tyra’s.

They each invoked their powers. Both their bodies glowed red and very hot, uncomfortable enough that if Lee hadn’t had the protection of his energy shield, he’d have been as fucked as the now crumbling concrete. Tyra added her ability to make fire, shooting across the arc of the stone doorway, and everything cracked and came apart with a heavy rumble.