To Hell and Back (Hellcat Series Book 4) (10 page)

“
Call Byron,” Julius told Kyle. “Have her taken to HQ, and see
what your coroner has to say about cause of death. If he agrees
with the exsanguination theory, we may need to call a meeting of
all the powers that be. It’s possible this is a bizarre
coincidence, but far more likely the beginning of something
particularly unpleasant.”

Kyle was just pulling out his phone when the attendant
re-entered the room. Kyle lowered his head, as though in grief, and
ducked out the door before it swung closed.

“
Would you like me to go ahead and arrange the DNA test?” the
attendant asked.

A tingly sensation spread across Gabi’s exposed skin as Julius
turned to the man.

“
This is indeed my wife’s sister,” he told the man, authority
ringing in his voice. “We will arrange to have her body collected
in the next few hours. There is no need for DNA tests or further
paperwork. Everything will be arranged, and you can go on with your
other work for the evening.”

“
Yes, yes, of course,” the man intoned, his face gone blank.
“I’m sorry for your loss. I have other work to attend to.” Then he
turned, his white lab coat swinging with the brisk motion, and left
the room without further comment.

“
It was easier than going through the motions of a DNA test,”
Julius explained as Gabi raised an eyebrow at him. “The Magi can
finish the job when they get here.”

Gabi shrugged. It was irrelevant to her who wiped the humans’
minds so long as it was done.

“
Now what?” she asked, chewing on her bottom lip.

“
Now, I have some phone calls to make,” Julius said, striding
from the cramped room and its disturbing inhabitants.

CHAPTER 7

Gabi hated downtown on a weekday. Parking was a nightmare, and
even finding a taxi, never mind hailing one, was a near
impossibility. People rushed in every direction, somewhere urgent
to be, something urgent to do. She’d parked the new car on the
seventeenth floor of a parking garage and now had seven city blocks
to traverse through the tide of human urgency to get to her
accountant’s offices. She seriously had to get the woman to find
new offices or stay open late.

Gabi was already three weeks overdue delivering the paperwork
Jeanine had requested, so putting it off another week was not an
option. In previous years she’d used a courier to collect and
deliver stuff in town, but last year a batch of important documents
of hers went missing in the courier system, and it’d taken six
weeks to find them. She’d vowed never again, which left her having
to make her own trip to drop off paperwork or sign
documents.

She sighed as she exited the elevator from the parking garage
and darted into the surge of people jostling along High Street. She
detested this rubbing of shoulders with strangers. Even though very
few bumped or jostled her, they couldn’t give her the breathing
room she generally enjoyed around humans. There was just something
about her that made most humans unconsciously keep their distance
from her. It’d been that way since she was a teenager, and she
still had no real idea why.

As she neared Fountain Square, the crowd thinned a little, and
she took a deeper breath, filling her lungs in relief. She hitched
the awkwardly sized box of paperwork under her left arm instead of
carrying it in front of her now that there was some room to spare.
She entered the square with its brimming, colourful flower boxes
and cherub-encrusted cement fountain and was tempted to pause and
breathe in the scent of the blooms, a pleasant counterpoint to the
scent of humanity milling around her. She shook off the urge,
reminding herself that she’d rather be done with her errand and get
home for a nap. It’d been a long night. She just barely kept the
flush from her face at the memory.

As she turned to cross the paved centre of the square, a tiny
nudge at her back grabbed her attention. She just barely controlled
the urge to viciously grab hold of the human who’d dared to brush
up against her. She had to keep her natural tendencies in check in
the daytime with so many witnesses. Still, she swung her head to
rake the nudger with a swift, assessing glance.

“
Excuse me. Sorry,” the petite young woman said. She was
dressed in torn jeans, a crude T-shirt and sneakers. She had an
iPod in her hand, a backpack swinging from one arm, and was chewing
gum. “I didn’t see ya there.” She grinned brightly. “Maybe I should
pay more attention to the people around me than this.” She
brandished the iPod in front of Gabi’s face. Without waiting for a
response from Gabi, she took two steps backwards then re-shouldered
the backpack and started to wander off.

“
Wait,” Gabi snapped.

The girl ignored her and stuck an earphone into each ear as
her stride became more hurried.

Gabi caught up to her in three steps and swung her around by
her elbow. “I’ll have my things back before you leave,” she
growled.

The girl shrieked in shock and stumbled back from Gabi, eyes
wide. “Don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt me,” the girl yelled
loudly, attracting attention from passersby. The shock was gone
from her eyes, replaced by cunning. “Take whatever you want. Just
don’t hurt me.” She continued to overact her part.

Immediately Gabi scanned the gathering crowd. In a few seconds
the one she was expecting appeared. A tall, heavily muscled man a
few years older than the girl pushed through the onlookers, a
stormy look on his face.

“
Hey, you, leave the girl alone,” he spluttered.

Gabi ignored the command and hung onto the girl’s elbow with
bruising force.

“
I said leave her alone,” the brute repeated loudly, looking
around himself as though expecting others to join him in
protesting.

“
I will as soon as she gives back my possessions,” Gabi said
through gritted teeth.

“
Help me. She’s hurting me,” the girl shrieked, a little more
earnestly now, trying to pull from Gabi’s grasp. The brute stormed
towards them threateningly. Gabi let the girl go with a little
shove, to keep her in Gabi’s line of vision, while she swiftly put
her box of paperwork on the ground and turned to meet the girl’s
partner in crime.

“
I’d stand down if I were you,” Gabi said in a deadly, cold
voice when he got to within a few feet of her. She flattened her
gaze and allowed him to see the implicit threat in her eyes.
Warning him to take the chance she was offering him to walk away.
It wasn’t that she was afraid of the idiot. Though he towered over
her by more than a foot, she could take him down with one arm tied
behind her back, blindfolded and drunk (if she could actually get
drunk). She was more concerned about taking a
six-and-a-half-foot-tall slab of testosterone-filled male down in
front of human witnesses. There would be questions, and she didn’t
have the patience for police interrogations today. “Even an
imbecile can see the two of you are working a scam here. I’m not
going to be today’s patsy.”

She turned back to the girl. “Hand back my wallet and phone,
and I’ll give you a two-minute head start before I phone the cops.”
She wasn’t going to call the cops, she had far more effective means
of dealing with lowlifes like these, but they didn’t need to know
that.

“
How dare you accuse us of something criminal,” the man spat,
taking another threatening step towards her, his fists clenched at
his sides, his eyes blazing.

“
Make your pretty little cohort hand back my things, and
nobody gets hurt,” Gabi growled, only barely holding onto her
temper now. Mr Tall-muscled-and-stupid was either too witless or
too unobservant to take the hint. He took another step closer,
actually lifting his right hand as though ready to backhand
her.

“
What you going to do?” Gabi challenged him snarkily. “Assault
me in front of dozens of witnesses. Gods, you’re even more moronic
than I originally thought.” It seemed there was only going to be
one way to conclude this little set-to, but she wasn’t walking away
from her wallet and phone.

The man raised his eyebrows incredulously, shocked that she
hadn’t backed down from his aggression. Then, emboldened by the
gathering crowd’s lack of action against him, his eyes narrowed
deviously.

“
Twenty bucks on the lady,” a rough, gravelly, masculine voice
called lazily from her left.

Gabi allowed her attention to dart in that direction for a
fraction of a second, assessing the newcomer. He’d shouldered his
way through the crowd to stand a foot closer than the rest of the
humans, with his arms loosely crossed. He was a tall, older man,
maybe in his fifties. Grey flecked the dark brown hair at his
temples and punctuated the five-day-old stubble on his chin.
Grizzled was the word that popped into Gabi’s mind, the sort of man
you expected to see playing the lead in a fifties Western. While
there was nothing overtly dangerous about the man, even his casual
dress code of jeans and a button-down, checked shirt didn’t detract
from the air of unconscious swagger that marked the man a fighter
to Gabi’s experienced eye. Mr Stupid seemed confused.
Again.

“
I’m not sure there are any ladies here,” Gabi quipped, buying
time to work out if the older man was in on the con. He was human,
so no real threat to Gabi, but if he was on their side, things
weren’t looking good for the recovery of her personal
items.

A slow, wry grin broke through the stubble on the man’s face,
and he inclined his head ever so slightly. “I use the term
loosely,” he conceded.

“
What the fuck do you want, old man?” Stupid
snarled.

Gabi noticed that the girl was trying to back away from the
fray. She could run, but she couldn’t hide, not from Gabi, so she
could try. The chase might be fun.

“
Hey, it’s your funeral. I just thought it was fair to warn
you, you know, man to man?” the newcomer told him. “You see, this
lady,” his lips twitched in amusement, “works out at a dojo I used
to do maintenance work for. She’s pretty notorious there; not too
many women achieve black belts in three different martial arts, and
she has a reputation for a pretty short fuse. I think you’ve caught
her on a good day if you’re still standing here arguing with
her.”

Gabi was hard-pressed to keep back the snort of laughter that
bubbled up from her chest. Did this man have any idea of how close
to the truth he’d just hit? Or did he? Still keeping half her
attention on Stupid, she flicked her gaze back to the older man,
studying him more deeply, trying to discern if she’d ever come
across him before. Aside from his fighter’s bearing, nothing about
him seemed familiar to her.

With a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders, he turned
dismissively from Stupid. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Then he
lifted his leather-booted foot onto the lip of a sturdy, cement
flower box and leaned one elbow against his upraised knee as though
preparing to watch the showdown.

Something must have finally penetrated Stupid’s thick skull
because he looked around at the gathering crowd, took a couple of
steps back from her, and twitched his head at the girl. She gave a
sullen snarl and threw the wallet and phone at Gabi before the two
of them took off at a dead run, straight towards the nearby train
station.

Gabi caught both items before they hit the ground. With the
situation uneventfully defused, people quickly moved off back to
their daily grind. In a few minutes only the grizzled man
remained.

“
I owe you my thanks, Mr…” She left it hanging, waiting for
him to supply his name as she approached him.

“
Maclary, Joshua Maclary,” he obliged, offering her his
hand.

She shook it; it was a firm confident grip, without making any
attempt to overpower or challenge her. He released her hand and
lifted his to scratch his stubble contemplatively. She was almost
sure she could detect a twinkle of mirth in his eye.

“
What?” she asked warily.

“
Well, it’s not every day you get to shake hands with the
great Angeli Morte, and honestly, you’re quite pretty for a
monster-slaying badass.” His lips curled into a mischievous half
grin, showcasing uneven but surprisingly white teeth. His statement
should’ve shocked her, but she’d already known that he was more
than just your average-joe norm.

“
Can I buy you a cup of coffee to show my appreciation?” Gabi
asked the man. She was in a hurry, but he was an enigma she
couldn’t possibly walk away from.

“
Why not? It’s not often you get asked to coffee by one of the
most notorious Vampire Hunters in the world.” His accent matched
his appearance and attitude, a lazy drawl with a bit of a twang to
it.

Gabi rolled her eyes at the gentle teasing, picked up her box
of paperwork, and led the way down the street to a tiny,
Cuban-style café. It looked more than a little dodgy from the
outside, but she knew from previous experience that they made a
decent cup of java.

They chose the only table set away from the others at a tiny
window overlooking the square and took their seats. A burly waiter
appeared, though he was probably also the chef, as he wore a
stained apron that must’ve once been white, but was now
predominantly the colour of heavily creamed coffee. He shoved two
well-used menus down in front of them and waited. There wasn’t much
choice of coffee here, with cream or without was the only option.
Gabi ordered with cream; Joshua ordered black. Blessedly short on
chatter, the waiter made a gruff noise in this throat and left
without comment.