Hunter's Rise (19 page)

Sylvia glanced around, eyeing the subtle gleam of golden light behind arched windows of etched glass, the look of
rough-hewn stone or aged brick, all the carefully manicured lawns. “Rich guys, yeah. You’ll find them here.” Something vague and uncomfortable started to itch along her spine. She didn’t like it… odd, slippery, familiar—

Frowning, she brought the bike to a halt at a stop sign and turned off the engine. “Something’s wrong,” she said quietly.

“Yeah?” He kicked a leg off the bike and moved to the sidewalk, looking around. His head fell back and he scented the air. “There’s blood in the air, but it’s old. A few days, at least. It’s coming from the same place as the sex, the sweat.”

“I smell pain. Misery.” Shaking her head, she looked at him and said, “How can your Master have something like that going on so close to his house?”

“Do me a favor— quit calling him my
Master
like I’m his dog or something,” Toronto said, his voice just barely above a growl. Then he shoved a hand through his hair, shook his head. “The blood I smell, it’s all human. We’re not omnipresent, Sylvia. Not all-powerful. Memphis has got one hell of a paranormal population and lately, it’s getting bigger. We’ve got our hands full just keeping
that
under control. When we
know
something bad is going down, we’ll do what we can, but our main concern has to be our own kind. If they get out of control, the humans are screwed.”

She stared at him, the stink of rage and anger so thick, so heavy. Then she shook her head and turned away. “We need to walk,” she said quietly. “Let’s find a place to stash the bike.”

“There.” He pointed across the street.

Sylvia narrowed her eyes before glancing at the house. “I’m not just leaving it in somebody’s drive.”

“It’s not just somebody. It’s a local witch. I’ll tell him you’re leaving it. The bike will be fine.” He flashed a smile and there was something decidedly twisted in it. “Don’t worry, it will be completely safe. I want to ask him what’s going on around here anyway. This is the sort of thing Rafe would want to know about. And there’s no way this guy didn’t know.”

*  *  *

T

HE
door opened, revealing a brunet with cool gray eyes and a polite smile. It never wavered as he looked from Sylvia to Toronto, but she caught the slightest change in the air. Fear.

He was afraid.

It wasn’t her that bothered the man, though.

“Paul.”

Toronto didn’t wait for an invitation to enter.

Sylvia didn’t have much choice. At least the guy didn’t shut the door in her face. She suspected that had more to do with Toronto, though, than her.

And the invite didn’t come. Frustrated, she stood there as Toronto prowled around the foyer, pausing by a long slim table set under a mirror. The mirror was set in an old oak frame and looking at it made her itch. She had a hard time looking away, though.

“Don’t look at it too long, sweetheart,” Toronto said, glancing at her over his shoulder. “It’s spelled— he uses it to try and catch bits and pieces of a person’s past, of their secrets.”

Sylvia hissed and jerked her gaze away, but not before she saw the echo of something in it— no. Not an echo. A face…
her
face. But not as she was now. Snarling, she shot the witch a look. With a flick of her wrist, she dropped one of her blades into her hand. Oh, she was going to cut him for that. Cut him wide open—

“This mirror,” Toronto whispered, reaching up to touch his fingers to the smooth surface. “I wonder if it could tell you much about me.”

The witch watched Toronto with expressionless eyes. “It won’t because I don’t allow it. I told the Master I wouldn’t practice against the Hunters. I wouldn’t break the laws. I’ve kept my word.” He flicked Sylvia a look. “And I haven’t broken it. She’s no Hunter.”

“Hmmm, but she’s with me. That means no tricks, witch.” Toronto reached up and trailed his fingers across the surface. “And I have to wonder, just how well are you keeping to your
word? There are things going on here that we really should have known about, Paul. I think you even know what it is.”

Lashes swept down, shielding those gray eyes. “Human affairs belong in the human world. You shouldn’t concern yourself with them. Our worlds do not belong together.”

“He’s lying about something,” Sylvia said quietly.

Toronto smiled. “I know.”

“H

E
didn’t tell you anything.”

Sylvia stormed along at Toronto’s side, disgusted. Damn it, five minutes with him and the witch would have told
her
something.

“I don’t need him to tell me anything. I can find the place myself, and Rafe will get him to talk— he’s already en route.”

“And what if he leaves before Rafe gets here?” Sylvia asked, staring at the house. It made her hurt, she realized. Deep inside, like a sickness. Made her ache, and left her skin all tight and itchy. As she raked her nails over her flesh, Toronto reached out and caught her wrist.

“Don’t. It’s just a side effect of his magic, whatever protective spells he has on the place. But the more you react, the harder it will hit you— think of it as magical poison ivy.” With that, he let go of her wrist and glanced back at the house, a mean smile twisting his lips. “And don’t worry. He’s not going anywhere soon. Witches don’t heal as fast we do.”

Arching a brow, she waited, but he didn’t elaborate. “Rafe has to be the one to handle this from here on out. It’s his territory and this shit isn’t tolerated. Our kind know that. This witch might not be the only one involved— there were others, most likely. Once he finds them, he’ll clean them out.”

“Clean them out. As in kill them.”

Toronto pushed the bike into the driveway, off the sides out of the shadows. “You think he should live?”

“It depends on how involved he is,” Sylvia snapped.

“Hmmm. How involved.” Toronto turned and pointed off to the east. “I figure the house we’re looking for is roughly a quarter of a mile that way. Paul is a witch of pretty decent strength. From what I know about witches, a low-level witch
would feel the disturbance from as far as five miles off. Either the power would seriously fuck up the witch’s head, his power, his life… or he was waiting for it.”

“Waiting for it?” She glanced back at the house.

“Torture is a power surge.” He came to stand a few feet away. “If it wasn’t disturbing him, then that means he welcomed it. Since he didn’t report it, that means…”

“He wanted the power surge.”

“Why else do you think he was keeping so quiet?” He had a weird look in his eyes as he stared up at the house, something that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “He was feeding off it. And although I can’t find the trail myself, I bet if a witch started looking, we’d find that he might have been hiding this somehow.”

“Hiding it.” She narrowed her eyes, staring at the house as the pieces began to shift into place. As they did, it painted a picture, one that made her burn with fury. As the hunger grew, so did the rage. “He was hiding it— so close to you, so close to the people who are supposed to be able to
stop
this, but you couldn’t stop
him
. What fucking good are you?”

When he didn’t answer her, she whirled around and glared at him.

His blue eyes swirled, spiked as their gazes locked, but that was the only sign of emotion— the only damn flicker.

“Well?” she demanded. Stalking closer, she glared at him. “You’re supposed to stop this. Why didn’t you?”

“We didn’t know—
I
didn’t know. But we’re stopping it now.”

“We?” Sylvia shook her head. “No. Not
we
. I’m working a job and it’s not fixing
your
fucking mess.”

She would have turned away but his hand caught the front of her jeans, hauled her close. “Sweetheart, in case you haven’t noticed, your job and this mess seemed to be pretty closely involved. And you’re either working this with me, or you’re
not
working it.”

“Let me go.” Her heart slammed against her ribs as she stared into his blue eyes, and she tried to figure out just what it was about him that made that useless bit of flesh react so strongly. Just what was it about him that made
her
react so
strongly? Yeah, he was a bigger, badder predator, but she’d
killed
bigger, badder predators before. She did it by being smart. Sylvia wasn’t so certain that would be the case here. Those lazy smiles he flashed hid a burning intelligence— she’d seen it gleaming in his eyes.

This mess aside, Hunters weren’t exactly known for being slackers.

More, though. It was more than that.

You just want to jump his bones.

Okay, there
was
that. She definitely wanted to jump his bones. That was an image that had planted itself inside her head and just wouldn’t let go. But she wasn’t doing this.

Reaching down, she curled her fingers around his wrist and pulled. To her surprise, he let her go. “I don’t want to work with you. I don’t want to have anything to do with this mess you’ve let happen.” She turned her back on him, on the house that whispered of a power that made her skin itch. And a mirror that had showed her a ghost. “I have a killer to find.”

“And we’ll find him together.”

She could argue. And take that much more time to track Pulaski down. She’d taken too much time already.

“M

Y
first day as a student and I have homework out of my butt.” Angel lay across the bed, staring at the math problems and wishing she was just a little less obsessive. A little less anal. Because then she could just not worry about the work.

But if she did something, she did her best. And that included being a student.

“Ugh.”

She was halfway done when she felt him. And a smile curled her lips as she felt his frustration— they were in a witch’s home, and Kel hadn’t ever been inside. He was a vampire— he needed an invitation, and since it was a witch, there were specific wardings on the house anyway.

It had been a weird thing to discover there was actually truth to the threshold and invitation legends about vampires.
A home
was
a place of safety… or at least, an apparent place of safety. After a period of time, a person’s very presence sank into the ground and became a static spell on its home. A spell of life, so to speak. A
thing
of life.

Vampires weren’t of the same breed anymore and that threshold spell didn’t recognize them. For them to pass inside that first time, they had to be invited.

There were ways around it. Every damn thing came with loopholes, it seemed. If somebody hadn’t been in a house very long, it wasn’t a home, and it didn’t offer the same protective aspects. If somebody wasn’t there very often, the same deal went. And older vampires were better at “camouflage”—pretending to be something they weren’t. Even alive.

So while Angel lay upstairs, doing the schoolwork that she really didn’t need to do, her husband was downstairs knocking on the door and dealing with the witch’s inquisition.

By the time he made it upstairs, Angel was grinning ear to ear.

And he was scowling.

Bunch of stupid-ass bullshit, why the hell do I gotta… shit, she’s beautiful…

She looked up at him through her lashes and smiled. Kel stood in the doorway, his dark eyes locked on her face, dark hair spiked and disheveled. He’d been running his hands through it again. He did that when he was distracted or irritated. Or both.

He was so damn pretty. Before he’d been bitten, his skin had been a light gold and the more time he’d spent in the sun, the deeper it had gotten. Now it was a strange shade between ivory and gold, stretched over a long, lean body that was just a little too skinny. He’d never change. He’d been bitten young. The two of them had been in college, and his Change had halted him forever.

But he was still beautiful. To her, he was perfect.

Even with that grim look in his eyes and the frustration she could see written all over his face, hanging around him like a cloud.

Propping her chin on her hand, she smiled at him. “You
know, if you’re nice to me, I might let you talk me into making out. But we have to be quiet… my mom’s downstairs.”

Kel came inside and shut the door. “Screw being quiet.” He stripped off his jacket and tossed it on the chair.

Her heart fluttered as he came for her.

S

HE
made him ache.

Not just physically, but in his heart, in his soul.

As he moved to the bed, Angel pushed onto her knees, a smile curving her lips, while her gaze heated. “You in a mood, Kel?” she asked softly.

“You’re here. I’m here. Damn straight I’m in a mood.” Sliding an arm around her waist, he pulled her against him. “I want you naked.”