InsistentHunger (26 page)

“So, how do you get a job thugging for a vampire? Did you
get fired by the local meth dealers?” Paige asked as they got to the lobby
again.

“She’s not a vampire. She’s a demon.”

“Yeah, yeah. Look, does she drink blood or suck life or
touch people and drain life?” The definition of vampire was actually a little
more complicated than Paige had thought.

There was a pause before the thug answered her and Paige
stopped in front of the stairs down to the basement level, looking back at him.
She supported most of Brady’s weight and she didn’t know how they were going to
climb down the stairs without ending up in a broken pile at the bottom.

“Yes. Now down.” The thug raised the gun a fraction of an
inch.

“No problem. Down it is,” Paige agreed. She glanced toward
the front door, hoping Brady would take a hint. “A demon that drinks blood is
pretty much a vampire,” Paige argued with the guard, giving Brady time to get
the hint. He continued to lean into her.

“Vampires are the guards. The master is stronger, but you
don’t understand anything about demons. You shouldn’t talk about it.”

“I know you’re human. You do know she considers you a cow
and potential food source, right?”

“Yes.”

Paige stopped, temporarily unsure about how to handle this
man. More than one person in this house had a trolley that didn’t go all the
way to the station. “So how exactly does that work?”

“I’m not a demon. They are.” He prodded her in the back with
the gun and Paige realized she was out of time. With one hand around Brady’s
waist and the other on the thick banister, she started the long descent back to
the little prison room.

“Um…yeah. I figured that out on my own. The part I need help
figuring is why you would work for them. Seriously, are the health benefits
that good?”

“She protects me.”

“From her guards that want to eat you. If you weren’t around
her and her guards, you wouldn’t need protection. You know that, right?” He
didn’t answer. Paige panted with the effort of trying to get Brady down the stairs
without dropping him on his head. He was a big guy. “You’re an idiot for being
here,” Paige pointed out. It wasn’t very tactically smart to insult the guy
with the gun, but she’d had a shitty day.

“I’m smarter than you,” he answered, and she couldn’t really
argue with him on that one. Saving her breath, she focused on getting her and
Brady down the stairs without any more broken bones.

Chapter Nineteen

Paige stood next to the bed and tried to put on a pleasant
expression—something that hid her growing horror over his condition. The fight
might have been short, but Brady had managed to lose rather spectacularly and
his skin was starting to show the bruises.

“Do I really look that bad or are you practicing faces to
make during the next apocalypse?” Brady asked. He shifted in the bed and a
pained hiss slipped out.

“You don’t look good. Are you going to heal okay?”

He sighed. “I have no idea. Paige, this didn’t come with a
manual. If it had, I might have known I was in for an ass-kicking.”

“You’re healing some though. That’s good, right?” Paige let
her fingers trail over his side. The ribs were a more natural shape now.

“I hope so. It hurts like hell.” Brady sounded weary.

“You’re remembering more now,” Paige commented. She pulled
her hand back. Despite the fact that Brady didn’t look his best, she could
still feel a nagging desire tugging at her. She wanted a clear head.

“Some,” he agreed.

“Did you eat Hunter?”

Brady’s mouth fell open. “Did I—” His voice failed him.

“You think more clearly after feeding and you’re thinking
more clearly.”

Brady propped himself up on one elbow. “Yes, but there’s no
way I would eat Hunter. If I catch him, I’m going to hit him. Hard. I might hit
him hard enough to kill him. However, I don’t plan to eat him.”

“Didn’t you chase him here?”

Brady blinked at her. “Yes, but I got tired. I had to slow
down. He got out here before me. I never saw him.”

“He’s still out there?” Paige felt a new spark of hope. She
hated relying on someone else for rescue, but at this point, Hunter looked like
their best option. Relying on Hunter worked better than dying.

“Probably. I thought I smelled at least one boat coming
through the area within the last few days.”

“Smelled it?” Paige looked at him. “I am the first to admit
that you’ve gotten some upgrade, but exactly how do you smell a boat?”

“I smell the bilge,” Brady answered. “My dad used to take me
out on his sailboat he rented. The bilge pump took water out of the bottom, but
there was always this faint smell, like the stink a few days after a flood. I
smelled bilge, so there are boats large enough to smell bad.”

“Which would explain how they’re getting in and out.” Paige
scratched her arm. “This place is so isolated I’m not sure anyone other than
the vamps even saw my light show. But if there are boats, Hunter’s smart enough
to figure out a way in and out.

Brady didn’t look convinced. “Do you really think he’s
coming back for us though? Paige, think about it. He was driving a blue sedan.”
Paige knew that. It was certainly suspicious, but just because he drove a car
that matched one seen at the scene of several of the crimes didn’t mean he was
involved. Sure, there was a possibility that Hunter was involved with the rapes
or Brady’s attack, but it was also possible that the blue sedan was a false
lead. Most of the leads in any given case ended up being crap and coincidence.

In other words, they knew exactly nothing.

“None of this makes any sense,” she complained. “Was Hunter
at the house when psycho-bitch first took you?”

“I’m not remembering the night that clearly, but…” He
shrugged. “I don’t think so, but I wouldn’t swear to that. I still don’t trust
the guy. He was in a blue sedan, Paige.”

“I know.” Paige’s gut told her Hunter kept his own secrets,
but she needed to hold on to some sort of hope. Hunter was it. He was a
pathetically faint hope, but she took what she could get.

“And he drove straight here,” Brady said. “He knew about
this place. So I think we’re on our own.”

Paige made a face. On their own, neither one of them was
doing all that well. “Wait. If you didn’t see Hunter at all, how did the psycho
upstairs get you?”

Brady’s cheeks colored.

“What did you do?” She sat down on the edge of the bed.

He didn’t answer immediately. She poked him in the side that
looked less battered, and he let out a big sigh. “When I got close to the
house, I could feel something.”

“Something?” Paige prompted when he fell silent for too
long.

“I actually walked in here trying to figure out what I was
sensing,” he admitted with a sheepish expression.

Paige stared at him for a long minute and then she reached
out and punched him as hard as she could in the arm.

“Hey! What was that for?” Brady rubbed his arm and Paige
felt a little guilty about hitting a man when he was down. His arm was about
the only part of him that wasn’t bruised, though, so she didn’t feel too
guilty.

“Being an idiot. I thought I taught you better.”

“Maybe you aren’t that good of a teacher,” he snapped back.

Paige closed her eyes as she thought about all the mistakes
they’d both made. “Maybe I’m not,” she said wearily. She gave Brady an
apologetic smile and Brady opened his mouth like he was going to argue with
that, but Paige didn’t have time for arguments.

“What are your chances of breaking down the door?”

He eyed the heavy wood. “Right now? Not good. Very not
good.”

She really looked at him. He was pale and his eyes were
brilliant red. She was pretty sure that meant he needed blood. She sucked in a
breath as she realized why the psycho had put them in the room together. Brady
needed food and she was the one source around. She swallowed. “And your chances
of dropping dead? Deader?”

“You mean, am I about to head back to hell?” Brady
swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I don’t know.” His voice had a quiet
tremor.

“How serious are your injuries, Brady?” He started to
answer, but he was answering too fast and his grin was too wide. “Brady, stop.”
She put her hand on his shoulder. “How serious? Honestly?”

His grin faded. “Too serious to heal, and I’m afraid…” He
stopped.

“Afraid of what?” Paige could feel her heart thumping
painfully in her chest.

He looked up at her. “If I can’t heal the body, the
injuries, they could get worse, like gangrene setting in.”

A sigh slipped out of Paige as she realized what he was
saying. If he couldn’t fix the body, it might start falling apart and then he
really would be heading back to hell. Or maybe it was just another dimension or
another world. All she knew was that he was in danger of not being here
anymore.

Brady pressed his head back into the dirty pillow.

Life had just handed them a big pile of steamy shit. Psycho
had locked her in here to be the entree, and Monagas was out there free to
rape. Given that the head demon-bitch was a woman, Paige hoped that Monagas was
some sort of freelance demon because she really didn’t want to think of a woman
having a rapist like him on the payroll.

Then again, this woman didn’t seem to mind torturing humans.
“Great. We’re in here and Monagas is running around out there,” Paige
complained. It was an incredibly ungracious change of topic, but she really
didn’t want to discuss her partner on dying on her for a second time.

“If Monagas is our rapist,” Brady said, doubt in his voice.
“It might just be his human partner doing all this,” Brady said without opening
his eyes.

“His human…what?” Paige felt like she needed a score card to
keep up with this case. She was starting to think she would have a quieter life
working New York City.

Brady opened his eyes. “At the safe house. There was a human
staying there.”

Paige mentally ran through the scene at the abandoned house.
She hadn’t seen anything that suggested two people had used it. “And how do you
get that?”

Brady just stared at her for a second. “From the big pile of
shit, maybe.”

Paige waited for some other explanation, but Brady kept on
staring at her with this expectant expression. “And that means the human had to
be there?” she asked.

“Human shit usually equals human.” He frowned so that two
wrinkles formed between his eyebrows.

“Brady, you eat. That means you must shit. Therefore, demons
shit.”

“Well, actually….” Brady cleared his throat.

Paige pulled back in surprise. “Really? Not even once?”

Brady shook his head.

Every time Paige encountered another piece of evidence that
Brady wasn’t human, it left her a little off-balance. He didn’t shit. “That’s
actually a little gross. No, I’m going to amend my statement. That’s actually a
lot gross.” She really didn’t want to think about how demon digestion worked.

Brady raised an eyebrow at her. “So let me get this
straight. You’re more grossed out by me not going to the bathroom than you are
by a pile of human shit left behind by some homeless rapist?”

Nodding, she answered, “Completely.”

He sighed and gave her a sad smile. “You’re odd, Silver.”

“No, odd is not having to shit. Do you plan on waiting a
hundred years and exploding?”

He tried to glare at her, but there was a grin pulling at
the corner of his mouth. “I haven’t really thought about it, but thank you for
that cheerful thought.”

“That’s my goal in life—to spread cheer everywhere I go.”
Paige studied Brady carefully. His normally tanned complexion had turned an
alarming shade of gray and he wasn’t moving around much. He hurt. If he were
human, she’d know the signs when he was in real danger of dropping dead in the
next five minutes, but she’d made too many mistakes and there was too much she
didn’t know. She couldn’t afford to put off the inevitable, even if Brady was.

“You know, I’m not getting out of this,” she told him.

Brady visibly cringed. “Yes we will.”

“You might, Brady. In case you haven’t noticed, the
fruitcake up there has a thing for you.” As long as Brady played nice, he’d
have a chance to look for another opportunity to escape. He just had to play it
cool and not pick any more fights.

“Trust me, I noticed.” Brady got an expression on his face
like he’d bit into a lemon. “I’m guessing she has issues with whoever turned
her and I’m just inheriting them.”

“Well, you can use that to your advantage,” Paige said.
“However, if you’re dead, there’s not going to be a lot of advantage to be taken.”
She stopped. She wanted to give him a full-on lecture about de-escalating
violence and talking to a suspect. She wanted to be the training officer
because that was familiar territory, but they weren’t on familiar territory.
Besides, he was smart. He’d figure out how to deal with Miss Psycho on his own.
“We only have one choice.”

Brady narrowed his eyes and glared at her. “Exactly what are
you trying to say?”

Her mouth was dry, but she had to look at this logically.
“Actually, we have two choices, Brady, but only one makes any sense. Either you
get out of this alive or neither of us gets out of this alive”

“If those are the only two choices, I’ll take door number
two. However, I’m still holding out for a third option.” Brady shifted up on
the bed so he could brace his back against the stone wall. His gasp suggested
he felt more pain that he wanted to admit.

“Like?”

“Maybe Hunter can stage a rescue.” Brady couldn’t even
pretend to believe that, not convincingly anyway.

“So, Hunter the demon hunter is going to rescue the demon
from the other demons?” Paige shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense at
all. Not even a little, Brady. If Hunter showed up, he might save me, but he’d
blow a hole through your head.”