Blood Hunt (5 page)

No, he could never be allowed free. I had no idea what connection the Roland boys might have to Set, but they were a link at the very least, and one we had to sever. Belief and worship fueled a god's power, and if they were able somehow to make him strong
enough
, it was possible he could bust his bonds and we'd be in a world of trouble.

“Where would they go?” I asked. “Richie and Ian? They came to you, but you weren't in a position to help. Where else would they go?”

“I don't know. They have lots of friends…or, at least, people they party with. I can give you some names and numbers, but…do you really think they killed their parents.”

“Yes,” I said, meeting his gaze dead on. “I really do.”

Chapter Four

I'd put it off long enough, but I was going to have to call Armani…again. He had to talk to Viktor. He'd want to take a statement, go over the place, find out if anything was missing or if anything from the Roland crime scene had transferred.

And he was
really
going to want to meet Neith, see the photos of the museum crime scene, talk about what happened in Egypt. Luckily, she wasn't law enforcement. There weren't going to be any international hoops to jump through. No joint task force and Homeland Security getting all involved. The Roland boys were undeniably human, so she couldn't even argue that the gods policed their own. If everything went the way it should, which, sadly, it rarely did, she could see about Set and let Armani worry about the brothers. It seemed perfectly fair to me. Armani had already been hurt more times than I could count fighting gods and monsters. Maybe he could sit this one out. But there was no way he was going to let the murders go unanswered.

The front door to the bungalow blew open right then and two figures suddenly appeared in the door, guns out and aimed our way.

“Police!” the front figure said. “Everybody, hands up.”

Viktor and I raised ours instinctively, but Neith looked thunderous.

“Hands up,” I said out of the corner of my mouth, oh so subtly. I gave my hands an extra little raise-the-roof motion so she'd get the point.

Slowly, with a glare all around, she complied.

I recognized the woman giving the orders. I'd seen her back at the station with Nick…Armani. She was the one he'd sent Jessica off with. His new partner?

Her gun lowered only slightly when she recognized me. “What's going on here?”

“Did Jesus call you?” I asked, wondering if I'd taken too long to get back to him.

“Jesus?” she asked, clearly at a loss. She sighed. “Stand down,” she told the uniformed officer with her. “Tell Detective Armani the place is secure. And tell him…well, just tell him,” she said.

Armani must have gone around the back to secure other exits.

Then she fixed us with a
look
. She and Neith could easily have done a stare down and I'd have had a tough time calling a winner. But it didn't really phase me. Unless she could shoot lasers out of her eyes, I had her beat.

“What's going on here?” the detective asked. Reyes, I remember Nick calling her. “And who are you?” she asked Neith.

Neith inhaled, and it seemed to blow her up an extra inch or two. She reached into her vest and pulled out a wallet, which she flipped open, showing some kind of badge. She reached behind it to pull out a card as well and to hand it to Detective Reyes.

“Neith Sais,” she said, “insurance investigator. I'm tracking Ian and Richie Roland for suspected antiquities theft.”

I should have known that the goddess of strategy would have a cover story. Maybe it was even true. So many of the old gods had day jobs now that their worship and tribute had dried up.

“For…theft?” the detective asked.

“Well, that and murder, but that's a little beyond my purview. Largely I'm here to recover the artifacts…and see justice done, of course.”

Nick arrived in the doorway then. Again, I didn't think the little kick to the gut had anything to do with my precog. But it didn't matter. I was with Apollo now and Nick… I didn't know if he'd moved on yet. I didn't want to think about it.

He took one look at his partner, one look around the room and froze on Neith.

Or rather, her gaze snagged his and wasn't letting go. I knew how powerful it could be; like a tractor beam. I looked from him to Neith, prepared to be amused, but found myself startled instead. Neith looked…transfixed. As though she'd suddenly been struck by something. If it was one of Eros's arrows I was going to find him and tear his little bow to kindling. Not that I had any claim on Nick anymore; I knew that even if I couldn't internalize it. But, well, now was not the time for Neith/Athena to finally make a love connection. Not in the midst of what was looking to be a serial killer case with the chaos god all up in the mix.

“I didn't do it, man,” Viktor chimed in right then, breaking the tension. “I didn't know they were killers or I'd never have let them in. Anyway, I didn't really. I just opened the door and they did the rest.”

His outburst
should
have broken the tension, but it looked like it took a monumental effort for Nick to turn his gaze that way.

“Why don't we talk about it outside,” he said, gesturing for emphasis, “so that my partner can check out the rest of the place.” When no one moved instantly, he made it an order. “All of you,
out here
.”

He was looking at me now in a way that promised trouble. At a guess, he wasn't happy that I'd been a step ahead of the police on where the boys had been. It smacked of not sharing information, as I'd promised to do. But I had no idea what I would find when I arrived, and since then I'd been a little busy.

“How did you end up here?” I asked Nick quietly as I passed him on my way out into the yard.

He glared at me as though I was the one who should be answering questions, but he relented enough to say, “We activated the Lojack system on the car the Roland brothers made off with. It pinged close by, and since this was one of the addresses their sister provided, we came looking for them.”

“Well, they were here,” Neith said, drawing his attention. She still stood puffed up, an inch or two taller, I thought, as she'd been with Detective Reyes. Her eyes were so incredibly intense they were almost mesmerizing. “They knocked out Mr. Ramone here, raided his beer, and then, it appears, took off. We missed them.”

Despite catching on her gaze, Nick's professional face was in place. His poker face. I couldn't read anything—not whether he saw her as witness, suspect, ally or potential pick-up. Not that he thought in those terms, but… Gah, not my business.

“Mr. Ramone,” he said, switching his focus to Viktor, “is that true? What did they want? I doubt it was just beer. They could have found that anywhere.”

Viktor looked scared at that. He'd been so intent on the fact that he'd unwillingly harbored fugitives, I didn't think he'd even considered the rest. “I don't know,” he answered. “Wait…you said their car is still in the area. If they took off…” He ran to the garage that looked like a later addition to the bungalow and glanced quickly through the small windows in the electric doors. Whatever he saw had him dropping his forehead to the doors and sagging against them.

“What is it?” Nick asked.

“My El Camino!”

“El Camino?” I asked, probably not as quietly as I intended. “You've got to be kidding me.”

“It's a classic. It's worth…it doesn't matter what it's worth. It's mine, and it's all original, and if they do anything to that car…”

“What else did they take?” Nick asked.

“What else?” Viktor turned on him. “Isn't that enough?” But then he seemed to think about it and instantly patted himself down. “My wallet. They have my wallet. My money and all my cards. But…why would they need any of that? They're rich.”

“Not if their assets are frozen,” Nick said. He grabbed his phone and rang through to someone, maybe back at the station. “Janice? We need an APB out on a—tell me everything about the car,” he ordered Viktor. He relayed what was said. “A '64 metallic blue El Camino with white side panels and detailing, license plate LBZ 32A. Stolen. Perpetrators considered armed and dangerous. Approach with caution. Yeah, thanks.” He hung up.

“Wait right here,” he said to Viktor. “As soon as the place is cleared, we're going to need you to do a walk through, find out if anything else is missing.”

Viktor only nodded.

“
You
,” he said to me, “we need to talk.”

“And me,” Neith said, stepping up beside me.

Nick looked from me to Neith. “Tori?” he asked.

“Oh, let her come. She's got something to show you and…I don't think you're going to like it. I was actually about to call you when Detective Reyes came busting in. New partner? How's she working out?”

Nick…Armani…had no trouble working with women, I knew. Not only had I fought alongside him, but his last partner, Detective Helen Lau, had been about as badass as they came and had left the force only to become an honest-to-gods dragon rider.
Dragon
, as in flying, scaly, fire-breathing beasts—well, some of them anyway.

“We're not talking about Detective Reyes.”

“Oh, right, because, well, murder.” Matricide. Patricide. Scrambled brains.

I pulled Nick off toward the gate. It wasn't very far from the house, but it was far enough that probably Viktor couldn't overhear or oversee, and it put us between him and escape…not that I thought that was likely. “Show him,” I told Neith.

She pulled out her phone again, pulled up the pictures and handed it to Nick. He took it, slid a finger over it every once and a while to scroll through or used two fingers to enlarge a section for better viewing. He didn't turn green, but neither did he look ready to break for lunch.

“I'll need copies,” he said. “And details. Case files, if you have them.”

“I'm not law enforcement,” she told him, going through the whole museum thing again, “but I'll give you what I have. Maybe we can work together.”

“And me,” I said, echoing her. “I'd like copies and…whatever.”

“I told you to stay out of this,” she said. “It's too dangerous.”

“What about Nick? And Detective Reyes? It's not dangerous for them? No, thank you. I have a client and a case, and you don't have the authority to remove me.”

Neith tore her gaze away from Nick and took a step toward me until we were chest to chest. All I could think was that Hermes would have paid money to see it. Hell, Hermes probably would have snapped his fingers to make it a cage match. Or, more likely, bikini wrestling or something equally ridiculous.

“Do you want to test that theory?” she asked.

“What, you're going to beat me down to
protect
me? That makes a helluva lot of sense. And here I thought you were the mistress of strategy.”

“If by maiming I protect you from death…”

“It's not your job to protect me.”

We weren't just chest to chest now. We were breathing each other's air. And there wasn't enough for the two of us.

“Ladies,” Nick said, voice tinged with amusement I kind of hated him for at that moment. “There will be no maiming.”

When neither of us moved, he stepped up to us, shoved his hands between us and pried us apart like he was the jaws of life.

I went only because it was pretty silly not to. Also, a uniformed officer jogged toward us, squinting into the bright sunshine after being inside the darker house. “Place is clear. Shower is still wet, like it was used recently, so there might be some trace there. Also, we found the packaging for prepaid phones.” He shot a glance toward Viktor. “Detective Reyes says I can escort him in to tell her what might be missing.”

“Then by all means,” Nick said, nodding toward the house. “I'll be right behind you.”

He waited for the officer to escort Viktor and for them to disappear through the doorway.

“You
will
wait and give statements,” he said to us.
Us
…as if Neith and I had a common bond.

“Of course,” I said.

Neith didn't say a word, but apparently Nick took it as agreement, because he also vanished into the house.

She stared after him.

“No,” I said. “Just no.”

Her head swiveled back toward me, eyes blazing.

“You
dare
?” she asked.

I'd thought Neith/Athena/Minerva and whoever else she might have been was supposed to be a virgin goddess. Chaste. Untouchable. Beyond such things as human entanglements. But if the way she looked at Nick was any indication…

“He's been through enough,” I told her.

“You have history.” It was a statement, and she made it as though it tasted bitter on her tongue.

“We do. Not so long ago, he had third-degree burns over a good part of his body from taking on a fire-breathing monster. He's tough and he's dedicated and he won't stop. If you can't protect him, you need to just let him go.”

“Like you did?” she asked, voice quietly deadly.

I stared back, not answering. That wasn't what I'd done. At least, it wasn't the whole story. But the truth was complicated.

“I am not you,” she said, each word clipped, bitten off, heavy with what should have been meaning but came out as menace.

Wow, did I know how to make friends or what?

There was a choking sound from inside the house, and when I looked up, Viktor was stumbling out, gagging. The officer with him was dragging him off the path to the gate, away from any potential evidence. I looked away while he emptied his stomach of the pizza he'd eaten, which didn't look or smell as good coming up as I was sure it had going down.

When I glanced back around, Neith was gone and Nick and Detective Reyes were striding back out, the former holding a clear plastic evidence bag full of what looked like a dead mouse, but which on closer inspection was a clump of wet hair and other detritus probably pulled from the shower drain. I wondered if that was what had sent Viktor reeling. She sealed the bag while I watched and Nick called for a team of crime scene techs.

When he ended the call, he stared me down. “Where's the other woman? Neith.” The way he pronounced it, it rhymed with Beth.

“Gone,” I said. “Don't worry, she left Detective Reyes with her card, and I don't think you've seen the last of her.” As much as I wanted it to be so.

“Well, then, for now,
you
can tell me everything.”