Laws of the Blood 2: Partners (28 page)

“What are you going to do?” Helene asked.

Char hadn’t realized the nest leader had followed her. She looked at Helene Bourbon. “It’s all right.”

Some of Helene’s frantic worry returned. “The mortal’s gone after Daniel, hasn’t he? Where?”

“Yes. It’s all right,” Char repeated. “I know where he’s going. Get the others back to my place,” she added. Char left the other mortals in Helene’s capable hands and took off running. She could only hope that her guess was right.

W
HEN YOU LIVED
on the street, you learned things. Sewer entrances, where holes in the walls of subbasements could be found, things like that. You found routes and roads underground, places to hide. You always needed places to hide, living on the streets. You needed to hide from everybody. The Disciple knew how to hide. And the Angel knew where he wanted to be. Both underground. They were made for each other, him and his Angel. They’d live underground now, just the two of them. He’d take care of the Angel, bring him everything he needed, and the Angel would love him.

There was a place he used to sleep, a room made of brick, surrounded by tons of earth and the city overhead. He’d left a stash of candles there, and he lit them all as soon as he settled the Angel on the floor of their new sanctuary.

A stream of water glistened in the candlelight as it ran down one of the walls, formed a pool, and drained away beneath the floor. They’d gotten in down a corridor that had been an aboveground street a century ago, through an opening that had once been a window,
half-buried now. This part of the city’s underground hadn’t been opened to tourists yet, though it could be reached from the more public, shored-up, and safer corridors, if you knew just what holes to wriggle through.

The Angel sat on the floor and held his head in his hands. The trip had tired him. The Disciple wanted to make someone pay for that. “I’m hungry,” the Angel said.

“I know,” said the Disciple. He turned to go back through the tunnel. “Stay here.” The Disciple grabbed up the jagged glass remains of a broken bottle. “I’ll bring you someone to eat.”

The one thing Haven was sure of about vampires was that they always went underground. Maybe some were smarter than others, but vermin hid in the dark. The trick was learning how to find and follow their trails. He’d been learning about magic the last few days, learning about when darkness was made rather than being real. He knew that Danny boy had escaped from the houseboat wearing a cloak of darkness. He’d learned a new way to look at the night. The dark magic left a kind of negative energy hanging in the world as it passed. Jebel Haven followed a wisp of black magic away from the lake like a hound on the scent. But he would have guessed where the vampire and the sicko that looked after him went even without the scent that led him through a sewer to a hole in a basement wall and finally into a corridor in the buried part of the city beneath Pioneer Square.

They always went to ground in the most obvious hiding places.

Thanks for the lessons, though, sweetheart
, he thought.
Thanks, sweetheart.
Not for the first time he’d had the thought tonight, Haven realized. Damn the woman—monster—girl. Nice girl. No. To think like that negated everything he needed to believe. Had believed?

Wanted to believe. Why did he want to believe?

She was right. Ambiguity sucked.

“But sometimes you have to live with it,” he murmured and pounded a fist in frustration against an old stone wall. Debris tumbled down from overhead, leaving Haven choking from a cloud of disturbed mold and dust. His lungs already ached from inhaling smoke, and his eyes stung as well. He didn’t appreciate this added discomfort, which he’d brought on himself.

He’d spent his whole life bringing shit down on himself—until he’d discovered the vampires.

His purpose and salvation was in killing vampires, he reminded himself. He couldn’t have gotten to the women on the houseboat with Char there—and not just because she was stronger and faster than he was. He suspected he hadn’t tried to do them because he couldn’t bear to see the look on Char’s face when he killed the lady vampire and her new girlfriend. But Danny boy was a different story. He’d get Danny tonight, worry about the others tomorrow, he told himself, blinking hard to clear his vision in the near darkness of the underground.

But his vision didn’t clear, and it only got darker. It was damp down here, and cold, and getting colder by the second. “Shit,” he muttered.

Then Haven heard the mumbling.

A spell. Shit. Somebody was putting a spell on
him?

“Fuck that,” Haven growled, brought up the shotgun.

The attack came from behind.

Broken glass slashed across Haven’s shoulder and down his arm. It was enough to throw off Haven’s aim as he turned and fired.

“Why didn’t I drive?” Char muttered between panting breaths. “No, I had to let Mr. Macho take his Jeep tonight.”

It hadn’t been that long of a run, but she wasn’t used to this sort of exertion. Besides, she alternated cursing with crying the whole way, not to mention dodging rioters. Expending all that emotion was more tiring than the exercise. She leaned against an old stone wall, breathed in mildew, and swore silently at Jebel Haven some more. The man was stubborn and fanatical and was going to kill Daniel just because he thought he should. Just out of
habit!

“Well, I won’t have it,” she muttered as she followed him along the dark, magical trail. “He’s had his chance. He’s done his job. The next time I see the man, he’s dead. Period. It’s over. Finished.”

The darkness got darker with each step she took deeper into the labyrinth of the buried streets. Her determined fury grew deeper with each snarled word, with every inch she drew closer to her quarry. Until her diatribe was suddenly drowned out by a cry of pain and the thunderous discharge of both barrels of a shotgun.

Char’s fury shifted focus in the roaring echo that
bounced off the old walls. She shouted, “Jebel!” Pulling her dagger from its sheath, she ran.

The air reeked with blood and magic when she reached them. Sick, sick hunger hit her like a wall of flame. The men were on the ground rolling around like a pair of frenzied animals in the dark corridor. Haven’s shotgun was on the ground. The horrible battle before her was being fought to the death with mortal hands and teeth and will.

Insanity rose off Haven’s opponent like steam. Jebel’s determination to survive, to kill, was rich and red and controlled and slashed like a laser. Neither man noticed Char. Neither man was aware of anything but the other. Their intensity was painful against her psychic senses.

Char put away her dagger and jumped into the fray anyway.

The bastard was
strong
for all that he was nothing but gristle and bone and unwashed human stench. And slippery as water. Every time Haven thought he had a good grip, the wraith slipped out of it and came at him another way. Haven was hurting the man all right, but he was being hurt, and the bastard was a determined little fuck. There was no stopping until somebody was dead, and that was just fine with Jebel Haven.

He kept on fighting—until, abruptly, there was nothing there in the darkness for him to fight.

Haven didn’t know why the weight of his attacker was suddenly absent, but he sprang back into a low crouch the instant he felt the other man move. He spun and kicked, aiming for a darker piece of darkness across
the corridor. His foot caught nothing but air. He spun again at a low cry behind him. He kicked again, contacted flesh with a hard thud. Heard the loud crack of breaking bone. A whimper this time.

A plea. “Angel . . .” A prayer spoken low and raspy.

Haven moved toward the voice. The magical darkness began to blow away, enough for him to make out not one, but two figures on the ground. One of them was Char. She held Haven’s attacker in her arms.

“His spinal cord’s broken,” she said and stood, still holding the limp body. The man in her arms groaned when she turned.

Haven followed when she strode determinedly off. “Where are you taking him?”

“I smell candle wax up ahead.” They came around a corner, and Haven made out the faint, warm glow from a hole low in the wall. “There,” she said. “Daniel’s in there.”

Haven had had a pack with his toolkit when he was attacked. He’d lost it during the fight. His shotgun was back along the corridor, too. Not that he was completely unarmed now, he never was, but he’d be happier if he went to meet vampire Danny Novak better equipped.

“Why?” Char asked.

Haven pretended that she hadn’t just read his mind or emotions, and he didn’t say anything. She let it go. The man in her arms groaned again. “He’s going to die,” she said.

Haven was all in favor of that. He didn’t know why she’d brought the vampire’s minion with her. And it also
occurred to him that maybe he hadn’t been the one who’d broken the man’s spine.

“Char?”

They’d reached the half-sunken opening, and she ignored him to lower the limp body through what might have been a window a hundred years ago. She followed the body inside, and Haven followed her. The candles gave a cozy glow and a small amount of warmth to a small, filthy, littered den.

Haven got a good look at the vampire in the corner as Danny Novak lifted his head. He was blond and blue-eyed, handsome but for the prominent front teeth. He looked a lot like his mom.

When Char grabbed the injured man again, it wasn’t gently. She dragged his body across the small room and tossed him in Danny Novak’s lap. “This is yours,” she said.

She stood over the young vampire, harsh and angry, and Danny slowly looked up and up to meet her gaze. She was not a tall woman, but from that angle Haven thought she must look pretty impressive—like an avenging angel or a judge.

“Mine?” Danny Novak asked. He didn’t seem to notice that he was stroking the other man’s hair.

“Your companion,” she said. “He’s insane. Dangerous. Filth. He’s a killer and the willing pawn of killers. This is not good, Daniel, and it’s your fault.”

The boy blinked slowly. “Me?”

“Do you know what an Enforcer is? What I am?” Danny stared at her for a while, but he finally nodded.
She nodded decisively back. “Why did you do this, Daniel?”

“Do?”

“Why did you make him your companion? You don’t have that right. You’re too young.”

“He’s my companion? Somebody told me about compan—” Danny’s stunned expression turned to one of disgust. “Him? Blech. No.”

“Your blood fills him. Smell it.”

“My blood? Yeah. I fed him, but not ‘cause. . . I don’t want a companion!”

“Then why did you share your blood with him?”

“He took care of me. The others kept me sick, wouldn’t let me go.” Danny kept stroking the man’s hair. “They made it dark around me.” He blinked. “Like I had fog in my head . . . not so bad now.”

“The spells they used to imprison you are wearing off. And you seemed to manage to survive teething on your own. It won’t be so bad after this, Daniel. If you make it to morning.”

“Big if,” Haven added. Char didn’t act like she heard him.

The dying man opened his eyes and ate Danny with his gaze. He didn’t move, though. Couldn’t move. And his breathing was ragged and growing weaker.

“He wouldn’t eat,” Danny explained to Char. “He was always hungry, but he wouldn’t eat. I didn’t want him to die. You can’t let someone die if you can do something to help them. Unless they’re evil, and it’s a hunt.” He sounded like he was repeating a catechism lesson.

Char nodded at his answer, satisfied. It made Haven
think briefly of her as Sister Mary Charlotte, mother superior of some weird order of fanged nuns.
Unless they’re evil and it’s a hunt.
Haven rubbed his jaw. What kind of monsters lived by rules like that? “Monsters aren’t supposed to be ethical,” he muttered.

Char continued to ignore him. “He belongs to you, Daniel,” she said, gesturing at Danny’s companion. “There’s another lesson you have to learn right now. A very important lesson. A very simple one. And that is, if you make a mess, clean it up.” She took a step back out of the corner. “He’s served you the best way he could, as damaged and warped as he is. He deserves to die, but
you
have to make it the best death you can.” Finished with what she had to say, she gave him one long, hard look, then turned her back on him and took one more step away.

Danny boy looked after her for another confused moment, then down at his companion. The man stared back with complete worship in his fading eyes. Danny smiled gently at him, and breathed a soft, comprehending, “Oh.”

Haven saw the shift in Danny’s features, saw Danny’s lips pull back, the bright white fangs grow. He should have been repulsed, but the change made Danny Novak
beautiful.
He looked like an angel when he lowered his head to the man’s throat.

Haven stayed where he was, next to the entrance, and watched. What he saw was a vampire feeding, but this time he thought it was
right
. Acknowledging the rightness of a vampire draining the blood from an already dying human disturbed him, but Haven would have been
more disturbed if that particular sick piece of human shit lived to fight another day.