Hunted By The Others (24 page)

Just as I was drifting off to sleep, there was a knock at my door. If it was Jack or some other White Hat, someone was really going to get hurt.

With a pained groan I got up, muttering darkly about the injustice of it all as I stumbled toward the door. Somebody knocked again before I was halfway there.

“For Chrissakes, I’m coming! Hold on.” The knocking stopped.

Through the peephole I saw a man standing with his back to the door. I couldn’t really make him out and was too tired to play games. I left the chain guard locked and pulled the door open a crack.

“What do you want?” I didn’t quite mean for my voice to come out in such an unfriendly growl, but there it was.

Royce turned to face me, an amused smile curving his lips. He stood with one hand in the pocket of a well-cut black suit, which showed off his wide shoulders and flat, lean waist. The other hand held a bundle. I nearly backed up a nervous step but caught myself.

“I came to see if you were well. I didn’t wake you, did I?” he said.

Bastard. “No. I’m okay. If that’s all, thanks for stopping by.” I started to shut the door, but he put his hand out, catching it before it could close. A herd of elephants couldn’t have pushed it shut against that casual lean.

“Please. May we speak for a moment?”

I thought about it. Mostly I wanted to tell him to go to hell, but in a way I kind of owed him. Worse, he owed me for pulling his ass out of the fire and saving him from David and Anastasia’s tender mercies. Also, he did say please. I wasn’t
that
rude. After a purposely noticeable hesitation, I undid the chain and pulled the door open, stepping aside and folding my arms.

He slipped inside past me, black eyes glancing around, taking in the small kitchen, cheap dining set, and mismatched living room furniture. Him in his expensive suit, which probably cost more than all the furniture in the apartment put together, looked dreadfully out of place, but I wasn’t about to apologize for my living standards. I shut the door and headed for the kitchen, carefully keeping my eyes off him.

“Possibly a stupid question, but can I get you anything?”

“Water would be fine,” he said, his voice and manner deliberately bland. I wondered if it was for my sake or his.

I got him his water, and a soda for me, before easing myself down on the couch. He waited until I sat before choosing a place for himself, an overstuffed recliner, which tilted forward awkwardly when he sat down. I felt enormously frumpy in my
I HAVE PLENTY OF TALENT AND VISION, I JUST DON’T GIVE A DAMN
T-shirt and faded jeans but wasn’t about to change on his account.

“So what did you want?” My voice was flat and unamused. I tucked my socked feet under me and leaned against the arm of the couch. I was tired, cranky, and in no mood to deal with vampires. Though I suppose one never is.

He tried, and failed, to hide a smirk behind the glass of water. After taking a sip he put down the glass, offering me the bundle of black cloth he carried. I hesitated again, just for a moment, before shrugging off my worry and taking it. My brows about lifted to my hairline when I unfolded the cloth and revealed my guns. They weren’t with the stuff I took home from the hospital, so I’d assumed the police had found and confiscated them.

Now that I had my weapons back, I wasn’t sure what I would do with them, but it did seem to warrant some kind of response. “Thanks,” I said, carefully refolding the cloth and setting them aside.

“I wanted to apologize for my behavior,” he said with what sounded like regret. His eyes still sparkled with suppressed mirth, but I wasn’t about to point out the inconsistencies. A man like Royce apologizing for his behavior. Fancy that.

“I won’t lie to you. David was speaking the truth. I had thoughts of turning you, or at least binding you in the hopes that you would be able to maintain your will but still operate within my interests and perhaps take the focus from the two of them. It is probably for the best that it was destroyed.”

“That’s great,” I said, shifting uncomfortably and looking away. This was not a subject I was comfortable speaking about. Particularly when I was alone and in pain from the beating of my life, with a vampire sitting five feet away. “So you came all the way to my neck of the woods to tell me this?”

He sighed and rubbed his fingertips against his forehead as if he were trying to rub away the first signs of a headache. A human gesture from an inhuman creature. No matter how good he looked, no matter how warm and sincere his smile, I couldn’t put the thought out of my mind that it was the living, or maybe unliving, dead sitting across from me. When he looked at me, the amusement was fading, a small frown curving his lips.

“You do make things difficult. I’m trying to apologize. As you might imagine, I don’t do this very often.”

The first hint of sheepishness was creeping into my voice, but I bit back on it as best I could. I was pretty sure my cheeks were red, too. “Look, that’s great. I’m glad you’re getting in touch with your softer side. However, I’d like to remind you that you came damned close to tearing my throat out more than once and that doesn’t exactly give me warm fuzzy-bunny feelings toward you right now, no matter how sorry you are.”

He seemed to be a bit nonplussed, like he wasn’t sure whether to be offended or amused. Eventually, he offered a neutral “As you say.”

Warming up to my theme, I switched the soda to one hand so I could level an accusatory finger at him. “It’s probably been a long time since you’ve been human, but I know you felt a very mortal kind of terror for me, not just when I got my hands on the focus but also back in your office. You want to control everyone and everything around you so you won’t have to face the fact of your own potential mortality—it’s why you wanted the focus for yourself.”

He flinched as if I’d slapped him. In a way, I had. There was no way I could have known that without having had the focus to help me see into his thoughts. Maybe it was cruel of me to abuse the knowledge this way, but I needed to get my point across.

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s a part of you that’s still afraid that some nice, sunshiny day, I’ll come find your daytime resting place and put an end to you. You know I’m not afraid of you anymore.” The funniest part about that was how true it was. I hadn’t been afraid of him, really afraid, since I realized that he was more scared of me than I was of him. “That’s why you’re here making nice now, to win me over so I won’t turn you into a crispy critter. Am I wrong?”

He stared at me, his entire body gone into that odd, deathly stillness, only his eyes betraying some alien thoughts I couldn’t comprehend. Eventually, he dropped his gaze and looked away from me. His voice, normally smooth and confident, came out in a whisper. “No. You’re not wrong.”

“Great,” I said, though it seemed a hollow victory.

Summing up the reserves of whatever politeness was left to him, he straightened and looked pointedly into my eyes. Maybe he was trying to use his powers to spell me, or maybe he was just playing it straight. Either way, it was intense, charm or no charm to block his…uhh…charms.

“I would normally never turn someone without their consent. Believe what you will, but if I’d had a choice, I would not have done things the way I did. Like any other creature, survival is my priority. And—I mean this—I’m sorry for manipulating you the way I did.”

I took a deep breath to steady myself, ignoring the dull ache it caused in my ribs. With as much graciousness as I could muster, I said, “I accept your apology.”

He seemed relieved. Fancy that. “Good. There’s one other thing I came for tonight,” he said, dark eyes glittering with some emotion I couldn’t place. Whatever it was, I didn’t like it.

“What?” I finally prompted when he paused longer than seemed necessary.

In the blink of an eye, he was suddenly there, right in front of me, his lips pressed to mine and his fingertips lightly cradling the back of my head so I couldn’t pull away. I was too shocked to think, move, breathe as he kissed me. I’d never seen anything move that fast. The only thing my mind managed to register around the cool, velveteen softness of his lips was the fact that there was not even the slightest hint of fangs behind them. That, and the desire I felt, brief and intense, that shocked me almost as badly as his touch.

Before the thought of struggling even entered my mind, he pulled back, the fingertips of one hand lightly trailing under my jaw, before he stood. I stared at him, open-mouthed, in pure shock. Just then, I didn’t know whether to be angry, flattered, or afraid. So I simply gaped at him as a hint of that wicked, melt-in-your-mouth-sexy smile he’d won me over with back at The Underground curved his lips.

“Good night, Shiarra. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again soon.”

With that, he turned, adjusting the lapels of his jacket as he walked over to and out my apartment door. I was still gaping when it shut quietly behind him.

So that’s the story of how I became a vampire hunter and came to see Others as just another, if scary, kind of people. I haven’t actually hunted down any vampires since Anastasia but I keep finding little white cowboy hat pins in my apartment, my office, even one left on the passenger seat of my car one morning. I’m not sure how much longer Jack will let me ignore his little calling cards, but I’m willing to find out.

Arnold helped me put some spells on my doors and windows to keep the bad things out. Somehow, in the crazy aftermath of the fight, he and Sara had tumbled into each other’s arms and are now dating steadily. Stranger things have happened, I suppose.

Like the fact that Chaz comes over any night we’re both free. We’ve decided to give the whole relationship thing another shot. He promised not to come by during the full moon or shift in my apartment, and I promised not to freak out if he accidentally lost control and did it anyway. We go on double dates with Sara and Arnold sometimes. Talk about oddball relationships.

Royce has left me a couple of notes, sometimes in the mail, sometimes delivered as little cards with flowers. They’re all invitations to see him again. I’ve done my best to ignore each and every one, though some perversity has led me to keep them in a little wooden box in my bottom dresser drawer, the same red cloth–lined box that cradles a pair of matched guns. Next to the box is a coil of leather with three identical silver stakes sheathed all in a row. I wear the belt when I’m alone at night so it has someone to talk to now and then. I won’t tell if you won’t.

Like I said in the beginning, I’m a private detective, not an assassin. Since I’m human, without outside help there’s no competing with Others, so I’m doing my best to stay out of their world.

Unfortunately, they all seem to want in to mine.

Please read on for an exciting
sneak peek of the next
Shiarra Waynest novel,
TAKEN BY THE OTHERS,
coming in January 2011!

I don’t usually have people pointing guns in my face. Or in my direction at all, really. I’m a private detective, so I know some people have certainly
thought
about shooting me after I reported their illicit activities to my clients or the cops, but looking down the barrel of a forty-five was a new experience for me.

“Jack, can we talk about this without the gun?”

Jack was precisely as I remembered him. Tall, slender, with close-cropped blond hair and the coldest blue eyes I’d ever seen. His flannel, long-sleeved shirt was rolled up to just above his elbows and left unbuttoned for easy access to his shoulder holster. He’s clean-cut, looks like the poster boy for some white bread good ol’ boy magazine, and crazy as a loon. He belongs to a group of extremists and vigilante hunters who call themselves the White Hats.

His thin lips quirked in a polite smile. No real emotion shone through the empty mask. I was praying he was just using some of his psycho scare tactics again. I deeply regretted leaving my own guns in my bedroom all the way across town. Fat lot of good they did me there. Maybe I should have our receptionist frisk the clients before letting them into my office from now on.

“Shiarra, I’m disappointed. I’ve left you a number of invitations to come work with us. Why didn’t you get back to me? Did you succumb to Royce after the little fiasco this spring?”

That again. A few months ago I took a job I should’ve known well enough to leave the hell alone. When your business is failing and someone offers you a lot of money, sometimes you do stupid things. For example, accept a job trying to find some powerful magic artifact that a vampire was hiding from a bunch of magi. I suppose you could call accepting a proposition like that suicidal. These days, I just called it a bad business decision.

“No, I haven’t gone to see Royce since the fight at his restaurant.” One little white lie couldn’t hurt. He’d come to see me, not the other way around. I’d stringently avoided Royce since the day I got home from the hospital, when he visited to apologize and thank me in his own way for pulling his ass out of the fire. “Listen, I don’t deal in that shit anymore. Once was enough.”

“You’ve taken on clients, done other jobs for supernaturals since your recovery. You have strong ties to two of the most powerful Were packs in the Five Boroughs. You’re linked to the most influential vampire in the state. We need your expertise, and your connections.”

The only reason the Moonwalker tribe had anything to do with me was because, like Royce, I saved their butts from a crazy power-hungry sorcerer. They owed me. They only reason the Sunstriker tribe had anything to do with me was because the leader of the pack was my boyfriend. Aside from that, the occasional (non-dangerous) case notwithstanding, I tried to keep my connections to anything furry or with fangs to a minimum.

I took a deep breath to steady myself while I thought about how to get Jack to get the hell out of my office, and take his gun with him. He’d tried this tactic before; I wondered why he’d never figured out that waving a weapon in someone’s face was not a good way to get them to cooperate with you for any length of time. “You know I don’t like vampires. I don’t have much to do with Weres anymore, either. I don’t take jobs that have anything to do with the supernatural, no matter what the papers say about me.”

“You have the equipment and connections to be a hunter.” He frowned. “We need you. I won’t have you going to them, taking their side.”

“Whoa now, who said anything about that?”

His eyes narrowed, something passing through them I couldn’t read. “There’s a new player in the game. It’ll be down to him or Royce. Or us.”

I stared blankly. “Who?”

“Word on the street is that Max Carlyle is coming to town.” He stared back, expectant.

Silence. After a moment decidedly lacking any explanations, I urged him along. “And he is?”

“You really don’t know?”

“Would I ask if I did?”

He grinned; the flash of white teeth against his pale skin was ominous. Predatory. Too much like the things he hunted—vampires.

“My, my. I hate to spoil the surprise.” One hand reached up to rub his smooth-shaven jaw while he stared at me. After another long, drawn out moment of silence, he raised the gun, thumbed on the safety and tucked it away in its holster under his flannel. “Ms. Waynest, again, I must apologize for my methods. Unfortunately, your reputation leads me to worry about what needs to be done to ensure you’re playing on the right side of the field.”

Holding a knife to my throat in the dead of night after breaking into my bedroom didn’t exactly give me warm fuzzies, and neither did holding a gun on me in broad daylight. I was hoping my expression was more neutral than pissed, but wasn’t holding my breath.

“Look, for the last time—I don’t want anything to do with Others. I don’t talk to Royce, I don’t give a shit what the White Hats are doing, and I’m not about to do the tango with things that could eat me for breakfast. I’m a private detective, and that’s all. Someone go missing? Think your girlfriend is cheating on you? Great. I’ll go look for them. But I will not,” I stressed, leaning forward across the desk and pointing one admonishing finger in his direction, “be bullied into dealing with vampires and Weres again. Coming close to dying once was enough. You can’t pay me enough to put my own life on the line. Not again.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Ms. Waynest. They’ll be coming to you soon enough. And once they do, you’ll come running to us for help.”

I stood, a thread of fear trailing down my spine, even as I finally boiled over. I pointed at the door. “Get the hell out of my office! Stay away from me!”

He swung the door open and sauntered out of the room, his cool, arrogant laughter trailing behind him. My glare stayed trained on him until his shadowed frame was no longer visible behind the frosted glass of the front door.

Jen twisted around in her chair to peer into my office, staring at me with wide brown eyes over the rims of her glasses. “Jeez, Shia, what was that all about?”

I shook my head, coming around my desk to shut the door to my office. “Nothing. But if he comes back, or tries to make another appointment, I’m out of the office. No—out of the country.”

She shrugged, muttered something, and turned back to her desk to work on the stack of papers in front of her. I glared at the frosted glass door with its gold leaf-inscribed “
H&W INVESTIGATIONS
,” even though Jack was long gone.

As much as he pissed me off, he scared me more. Or maybe him saying the Others would come looking for me scared me more. Hell, I think I was entitled to be a little unsettled considering I’d had a gun waved in my face. Irritated and upset, I twisted around, calling over my shoulder as I shut the door, “Hold my calls. If anyone asks, I’ve gone home for the day.”

Some preventative measures needed to be taken about this Max Carlyle, I thought. I went to my desk and sat in the squeaky office chair, rolling it back so I could rifle through the back of the top drawer. After rummaging through a scattering of old Post-it notes, paper clips, pens and papers, I finally found the leather-bound notebook I kept business cards filed in.

I flipped through the pages until I found the neat, professional card for A. D. Royce Industries. It had all the data I needed to contact Alec Royce, the vampire I’d been doing my best to avoid the past several months. The one I’d ended up legally, contractually bound to, who’d been sending me invitations to a night on the town and, presumably, other things. All of which I’d carefully ignored up until now.

Daylight still shone through the window behind my desk, but I figured I could leave a message if he didn’t pick up. I grabbed my cell, dug the card out of the little plastic holder, and dialed the handwritten number scrawled on the back.

Tucking the phone between my head and shoulder, I fixed my eyes on the framed photograph of Chaz and me on the corner of my desk. We were leaning back against the rail together at the end of the pier in Greenport and his arms were wrapped around me. I tried not to think about what Chaz would say about me calling the vamp, listened to the ringing, and finally, a click. “You’ve reached the desk of Alec Royce. I’m not in right now, but if you leave a message with your name and number, I’ll get back to you.”

That mild, friendly voice gave me the shivers, worse than anything that Jack had said or done. Did I really want to get back in touch with the vampire? Even though we were technically no longer enemies, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe he’d get the wrong idea about why I’d called him. After swallowing hard and hesitating a bit longer than I should have, I remembered I was supposed to be leaving a message and squeaked out a few words.

“Yeah, Mr. Royce, this—it’s Shiarra Waynest. I’d like to ask you a couple of questions. I might need your help with something.” I left him my cell number and was about to hang up, hesitated again, and added, “Thanks.”

I set the receiver down, wondering if I’d done the right thing. Damn it all to hell and back, I was putting myself back in the fire by contacting him again. Regardless, I needed to know who Max Carlyle was, and what sort of danger he represented. Since Jack specifically brought up Royce when talking about Max, I had to hope Royce would have some idea about what was going on. After all, he was an elder, influential vamp. He had all sorts of connections that informed him well ahead of time when somebody gunned for him or planned to do something that would influence him or his properties. I knew at least that much about him from prior experience.

Depending on what Royce told me, I might have to lay low and hide somewhere out of town for a few days. Or a few months. Whatever would keep my ass out of the fire.