hellcat 05 - come hell or high water (24 page)

“Excellent.” Gabi cracked her knuckles, once again missing the feel of her ring on her left hand.  Patrick and Kyle had begun putting down a trail of crumbs that the Kresniks could be led down if there was no other obvious route to the leaders.  By feeding the group certain information through Henry, they should be able to orchestrate a showdown on their terms instead of the Kresniks’.  But first prize was a direct shot at the leaders and the suspected
puppet master behind them.

“So you met the top dogs?” Kyle asked.

Henry was very nearly jumping out of his seat.  “They offered to take me directly to meet upper management, as they called it.  I told them my proof was in a very secure location, and I would only consider showing it to them after I met someone from the top and once I believed they were on the level and genuinely wanted to do something about eradicating the abominations from our society.  Sorry.” He looked a little sheepishly at Patrick, who waved his concerns away.

“You’re doing a job, Henry, one that will protect us. We’re not quite that sensitive, don’t worry.” 

“So where did they take you?” Gabi prodded, the night was fast disappearing. 

“I don’t know,” Henry looked crestfallen.  “They said they could only take me if I was blindfolded. Big Dog told me they’d had threats made against them and were just being cautious.  On the way I tried to hear things that might give away where we were when I was in the car, but I just heard traffic and car alarms, no trains or tunnels or anything useful.”

“That’s okay,” Gabi reassured him.  “It’s early days, and we’ve only just hooked them. We can take some time to reel them in.”

“Well, when they took off my blindfold, I was in some kind of office building.  The blinds were all closed so I couldn’t get an idea of where we were by looking out of a window, though by then the sun had set, so it probably wouldn’t have helped anyway.  I was in a small conference room and three people joined us.  Big Dog introduced Dark Stalker and Lady Helsing.  Weird nicknames, right?” 

They all nodded but didn’t interrupt. 

“Well, they were nothing like I imagined, I can tell you that. 
They’re both covered in tattoos and piercings.  Dark Stalker is
shaved bald, he even has tattoos on his scalp.  He’s
well-muscled and fit, though it was hard to place his age exactly, maybe because of the tattoos, but I guess somewhere
between twenty-five and thirty-five.  He moved like a panther, all restless energy but graceful, like a dancer maybe?  But there’s no way he’s a dancer looking like that, right?”

“What about Lady Helsing?” Gabi asked.  “What did she look like?”  They’d already heard about Lady Helsing from Adriana, but she wanted to hear Henry’s thoughts before telling him what they already knew.  It was interesting that Henry didn’t appear to have met the four men who had been involved in kidnapping Adriana.  Although Big Dog could potentially be one of those.

“Wow,” he breathed, then swallowed.  They all pretended not to notice the faint blush spreading across his cheeks.  “She was…intimidating.  In a good way, if that makes sense.  She wore this Goth-style leather coat decorated with studs and chains and spikes, and she had piercings everywhere. 
Some tattoos too, but not as many as him.  It wouldn’t be hard to picture her as a dominatrix.  I think she’s
younger than Dark Stalker, but she acts like she’s in charge. She certainly doesn’t take orders from him.”

“Hold on, you said that three people joined you in the room.” Alexander spoke up for the first time.  “Who was the third?”

“Well, that’s the really weird part,” Henry said, shaking his head as though something was bugging him.  “They never introduced him. 
He kind of hovered in the background as though he wasn’t part of them, and Big Dog and Angel didn’t even look at him,
almost like he didn’t exist in their reality.  Dark Stalker and Lady Helsing seemed to know he was there, but they didn’t bring him into the conversation or refer to him.  And weirdest of all?  I swear I could hear him whispering at times, but I couldn’t make out anything he said.”

“Can you describe him?” Alexander pressed, leaning forward.

Henry squeezed his eyes shut in concentration.  “It’s bizarre, but I found it hard to look at him.  I could see him better if I wasn’t looking directly at him.  He was
quite nondescript, really, nothing that would make him distinctive,
medium height, medium build, greying hair, unremarkable clothing.”  He opened his eyes and shrugged apologetically.  “That’s about all I can tell you.” 

Alexander and Fergus glanced at each other. A look passed between them, almost like what passed between Julius and Alexander and drove Gabi to distraction.

“What?” she growled at them.

“That sounds like a
Celatus,” Alexander told her. 
“A Vampire skilled at camouflage.”

“Camouflage?” Gabi repeated, confused.

“It’s one of the talents some of us have, like super speed or human mind control,” Alexander explained.  “It might not have worked properly on Henry because he’s a Null.  Maybe his ability works against Vampire tricks as well as magic.”

“Do you think this is the one Adriana spoke of?  The one they refer to as the Lieutenant?”  Gabi didn’t like the sound of that.

“If so, then the Kresniks’
puppet master is
a Vampire,” Alexander replied ominously.  And then he checked his watch.  “I have an urgent meeting,” he said. “I’ll catch up with you later.”  And an instant later he was simply gone, leaving the rest of them slightly stunned. 

********************

The suite was on the third floor of an upmarket, boutique hotel.  Athena would’ve been happy with a room in a cut-price motel, but Alexander wouldn’t hear of it.  She knew it wasn’t easy for him to get away from the Clan without explanation or bodyguards, but he never mentioned how he managed it or how long they had.  In fact, they spoke few words. 

The mask he habitually wore was cool and detached, possibly even uninterested or unintelligent.  She’d certainly been fooled in the beginning.  When the door to the luxury suite slammed shut, the mask evaporated instantly.  His gaze turned hot, passionate and hungry.  For her.  Just the way he looked at her made her insides clench.  Made her hands long to travel over his cool, smooth skin, made her mouth yearn to taste him. 

They didn’t make it to the bedroom.  She closed the distance between them and their hands went to work discarding clothing as fast as possible.  And he was fast.  In seconds they were both naked, his fingers tangled in her hair, staring into her eyes, searching her soul.  He was only a couple of inches taller than her, and she liked that.  His mouth didn’t have far to go to find hers.  The shock of his fangs grazing her lower lip added to the fire in her core.  She knew exactly how much pleasure those fangs could inflict.

While she’d had her fair share of sexual liaisons, she hadn’t experienced the kind of orgasms that actually made her scream until she’d allowed Alexander to take her to his bed.  She would never have thought that pleasure pain would play a part in her own sexual needs.  Now she couldn’t imagine being satisfied by anything less. 

“Gods alive, I need you now,” Alexander growled deep in his throat, his cool lips tracing the line of her jaw before skimming down her neck and latching onto the spot just below her left ear, suckling at the thick, pulsating vein that throbbed under her skin.  Athena didn’t have the breath to speak, but her body told him everything he needed to know.  His hands massaged down the length of her back until he reached the curve of her bare backside.  He lifted her body effortlessly, allowing her to wrap her legs around his narrow waist.  She shivered at the cool, rough texture of the wallpaper against her back as he pressed her against the nearest wall.  And then a ragged scream tore from her throat as he plunged his rock-hard cock deep inside her and sank his fangs into her neck at the same moment.

********************

Caspian had tracked many people over many years for many reasons, but never had he tracked like this.  The screen of his phone was consumed by a map of the City.  On it a bright red line snaked across the map, linking two points, and another line, this one orange, mapped a pathway from the second point to a floating yellow pin. 

The first point was the position the Magus’s car had been in the last time he checked on it, the second was somewhere on the far western side of the City.  The floating yellow pin was stationery somewhere in the middle of the City centre.  Caspian zoomed in on the second point, making a note of the address and running a search on it, cursing his fingers as he attempted to use the tiny
touch screen.  These human whelps made it look so easy, but it wasn’t.  Still, it was easier to dredge up information on the phone than to run to the other side of the City himself just to see if his assumption was correct.

Ah, he couldn’t help the lift of his lips as he read what the address belonged to.  He’d been right, as usual.  It was a medical clinic.  With an official website and everything.  A respite specialising in mental health issues and other chronic conditions requiring long-term care in a controlled and monitored setting without the clinical feel of a hospital, the blurb told him. 

The perfect cover for a Magi institution. Once a ruined and decaying psychiatric hospital, according to Google, it was now a Magi facility hiding in plain sight amidst oblivious humans.  He guessed they had a list of extremely good excuses as to why you couldn’t be admitted if you were simply human.  With the term respite being used as the popular euphemism for psychiatric hospitals these days, no one would question heavy security measures and strict entry controls. 

He would have to pay the place a visit very soon, but right now he needed to get back to his assigned route.  Nathan had taken to checking up on him since his encounter with the newbie Vampire at the Estate.  As much as it pained him to pretend obsequiousness towards Julius’s upper echelon, he didn’t want to alert anyone to the fact that he wasn’t being a good little Clan member.  By the time they worked that out, it would be too late to do anything about it. 

CHAPTER 14

A stiff breeze ruffled Gabi’s hair as she watched the lights of the jet descend from the darkness of the sky.  A sky that would soon begin to lighten; dawn was less than an hour away.  A slight bounce of the lights heralded the plane’s contact with the tarmac and then the plane was heading directly for her.  She retreated back inside the hangar to wait. 

She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment that his presence
re-entered her own consciousness, only that it was back and as strong as ever.  He was as impatient as she was for the plane to stop and the door to open.  Before the steps finished lowering to the ground, she was in Julius’s arms, though he was careful of her injured shoulder.  They didn’t speak.  They didn’t need to.  They just needed the strength and assurance of the other’s physical presence. 

Finally, when she’d breathed the scent of him in to the very bottom of her toes and felt her hair move as he did the same thing, once she’d run her hands over his chest to check that he was intact, and he’d done the same to her back, gently avoiding her shoulder, they parted.  Still no words were exchanged.

“Didn’t know you were going to be here, Gabi.” Derek’s voice broke the silence as he carefully navigated the steps from the plane, both his and Kimberley’s luggage over his shoulders.  “You came to give us a ride home?” 

She felt Julius tense, and squeezed his hand as she turned to her friend.

“No,
Bo,” she teased him.  “I’m only here for one person.  But Butch has kindly offered to drive you and Kimberley home.  Rory brought a van for the vampires.”  She’d been worried about getting the other Vampires home with dawn so close, but Alexander explained that they had a van with a blacked-out interior and bunks for exactly this sort of situation.  The car she’d driven here was also Vampire friendly, with all windows coated by one of
Savannah’s special concoctions.  She’d never driven the Aston Martin before; it was Julius’s personal favourite.  She’d specifically chosen it because it only had two seats.  No chance of having to take extra passengers. 

Derek’s face darkened, but Kimberley emerged behind him and put a hand on his arm. The annoyance fell away as he looked over at her.

Gabi stepped away from Julius and approached the other woman.  “I owe you a huge debt.  Thank you,” she said simply. 

Kimberley smiled sadly.  “No, I was repaying a debt.  One of many, but I’m glad to be able to tick one off my list.  I also understand the importance of what you did back at Court, and the bravery it took.  Amelia brought one of the girls around.  I promise you it was worth it.”  There was a sheen of tears in her eyes and she didn’t even try to blink them back.  She reached out and pressed Gabi’s ring into her palm.  “If I can help again, don’t hesitate to call on me.  What you do, and why you do it, is important.  I would love to be a small part of it.” 

Gabi nodded, slipping the ring back onto her finger where it belonged.  She would take the other woman at her word.

Julius left her side just long enough to check on the other Vampires and make sure they all made it into the van before the daysleep took them.  Satisfied, he returned to her as Butch brought his Subaru to a screeching halt just outside the hangar.  As Derek led Kimberley towards their ride, Julius laced his fingers through Gabi’s and tugged her towards the exit. 

“Time to go,” he said, his voice a low purr that hummed through her and
jump-started a slow, aching pulse in the centre of her body.  She dug the keys out of her pocket and held them out to him, but he grinned and shook his head.  “You drive,” he told her. 

“You are up to no good, Mr
Edwards,” she told him, releasing his hand as they neared the Aston Martin.  “I’m onto you.” His smile was predatory and sensual.

“I hope you meant on top of me?” he returned, sliding into the passenger seat.  A growl vibrated up her throat.  Her place had a
house-sitter and his place was just too far away, there was no way she’d hold out that long.  With dawn just minutes away, their options were limited.  She slid behind the wheel and pressed the start button, and the engine roared gloriously to life.  Hmmm, she thought with an evil smile, limited options didn’t mean no options.  She floored the accelerator and revelled in the tyres’ squeal of protest as they raced from the airfield.