A Cold Day in Hell (The Hellcat Series) (3 page)

"Thanks
, Patrick," Gabi called back towards the door, "I think we're done for now." 

A grunt of acknowledgment and
his light footsteps moved briskly away. 

"I'm done for the next month," Derek declared, collapsing to the floor in exhaustion.  He sprawled on the floorboards, arms
spread-eagled, his breathing coming in short, sharp gasps.  The prosthetic leg was lying at a funny angle, but he didn't seem to notice.  Gabi hoped it had come through the fight unscathed. She’d tried to be careful about it; they weren't cheap or easy to produce.  "I guess you didn't get the memo from Jonathon about me only doing light physical activity," Derek asked, his gaze following her as she paced, walking off the pain and exertion with her hands on her hips. 

"Ha," she snorted.  "Jonathon's just too soft on his patients."  She should know
; she'd been his patient far too many times for comfort in the last few months.  He was a great doctor, though; guess that’s what happens when you've been practicing your trade for nearly two hundred years.  "It's you who'll get it in the neck anyhow; he knows better than to lecture me," she reminded him.

"I won't tell if you don't," he said, his voice heavy with conspiracy. 

"You'd better hope that your leg is still in one piece. That’ll give us away for sure," she pointed out.  Her breathing had calmed to almost normal, so she picked her way through the bits of broken furniture to the kitchenette and pulled two bottles of water out of the fridge.  She tossed one to Derek and, after a brief survey of the room didn't turn up any unbroken chairs, hopped up onto the kitchen counter instead.  After downing most of the bottled water in one go, she reached back and unbuckled Nex's sheath, gingerly flexing her back muscles as she removed it.  She was pretty sure there'd be a vivid bruise the exact shape of the sheath down her spine.

"Damn, you had that bloody knife strapped to your back all this time?" Derek asked.  He was sitting now, realigning the prosthetic and checking it over.  His hair was almost black it was so soaked in sweat
, and his T-shirt was plastered to his athletic body. 

"She's not a knife, she's a short sword," Gabi corrected.  The Kris had been the find of a lifetime when Gabi had accidentally walked into the shop of an elderly sword-maker on one of her trips to Indonesia.  The man had barely looked at her before offering her the sword to look at
; then he'd graciously allowed Gabi to trial the blade.  The Kris was a sword imbued with mystical properties, and it was said they chose their owners, not the other way around.  Gabi had been drawn to the blade from the moment she set eyes on it, and it had rarely been out of her presence since that day.  It had an uncanny ability of finding its way back to her when they did occasionally get separated. 

"Okay," he said carefully, as though talking to someone slightly unhinged, "but why didn't you use
her
in the fight." 

Gabi frowned at him indignantly.
  "I didn't come here to kill you," she said, in a tone that implied she was speaking to someone rather slow at catching on.  "I just came here to knock some fight into you." 

"I think you just knocked the fight out of me
." He began to laugh, but then choked it off, groaning.  His ribs must feel as bad as hers. Then he sighed, staring at his leg.  "What do I do now, Gabi? Being a stuntman is all I've known since I was sixteen.  I'm not cut out to be a salesman or someone who answers the telephone.  I don't have any computer skills or the aptitude to study for a whole new career.  I can't sit around and do nothing either.  I've been working since I was fourteen."

"You're being too
narrow minded," she groused.  "You need to take off your blinkers, open your eyes to the possibilities." 

He glared at her, his jaw set stubbornly.
  "What do you think I've been doing the past two months?" he growled.  "I've had nothing but time to consider the possibilities." 

"No, you've been moping around, lamenting the things you can't do anymore," she pointed out.  She knew she sounded callous, even
cruel, but he needed to hear it.  "Try it like this, then.  You must have put some thought into what you would do one day when the knocks became too much to carry on with the stunt work.  What had you imagined you would do when you retired?" 

His anger drained away
, and he cocked his head, his eyes unfocused as he considered the question. 

"Well," he said finally, "I guess I always saw myself moving into stunt coordinating or even starting a training academy.  But I needed more time to develop a name for myself before
that would be really viable.  It would take months, if not years, to get enough credibility."

"Stop wit
h the 'but' attitude," she grumbled, annoyed.  "Stop looking for reasons not to try something.  You have years of martial arts training, you've made an excellent name for yourself in the local movie industry.  There’s no reason you can't start a stunt academy or begin consulting.  If you need some cash to get yourself set up and tide you over during set-up, the SMV is always on the lookout for experienced people to work with the trainees and to set up exercise routines and training programmes.  None of the Hunters really have the time to do that kind of thing.  It would be paying work for as long as you wanted it." 

Derek
mulled this over in his mind for a short while, then nodded.  "You're right. It's time to stop acting like an ass." 

Gabi chuckled.  "Go shower, shave
, and put on some decent clothes," she told him.  "I'll leave a number here for you to call.  Go and see him today.  No more excuses." 

"Okay
."

"And don't," she warned sternly, "make me come back here."  She grabbed
her sword and waved it warningly in his direction before sliding gingerly off the counter.  As Derek made his way towards the bedroom, she scribbled down a name and phone number on a notepad, which she recovered from under a splintered piece of dining chair.  Then she dragged her weary body from the cottage into the sunlight. 

It seemed like an awfully long walk to her car, if you could call it a car.  It was parked back at the newly rebuilt manor house, about a quarter mile away.  It had taken a bit of time to get used to driving her new Lamborghini SUV, a gift from Julius after her beloved Mustang Shelby was used, Trojan-horse fashion, to bring a bomb onto Julius's estate.  It wasn't quite as exhilarating to drive as the Mustang, but it did have more storage space for her gear, as well as enough room to fit a large Rottweiler in the back when she needed to.  In fact, she could probably fit a Werewolf in wolf form in the back, and with her life as it was, there was every possibility that she might need to do exactly that one day. 

The manor house was also something to get used to.  The previous building had been several decades old, with a 'ye
olde' country house feel, complete with ivy growing over the brick walls, and rose bushes out front.  The new building, completed in record time with teams of Vampires and Werewolves working on it day and night, was much more modern, with clean lines, large windows, elegant balconies and more integrated technology than anyone knew how to control.  It oozed modern, understated wealth.  Gabi didn't like it much from the outside, but inside, once she could feel Julius's presence, it felt like her second home. 

Thinking of Julius made her glance up towards a large bay window on the third floor.  Julius would be falling into his daysleep behind the special sunlight
-blocking blinds and thick curtains.  She could feel his reluctance to relent to the daysleep, wanting her to come back to him.  Memories of the early hours of this morning made certain things deep inside her clench with renewed desire.  It was a good thing that her fight with Derek hadn't caused any of her clothing to tear; her body was covered in small red and purple bruises as well as a couple of neat puncture marks. Julius's presence was suddenly strong in her mind; her desire had been strong enough for him to sense it. He sent her images of the empty space in his bed, waiting for her.  She smiled, drew a determined breath, wincing at the pain in her ribs, and sent him a mental kiss.  She had work to do today. 

She climbed into the SUV and pressed the ignition button.  The car purred to life as she felt Julius finally capitulate
, and his presence in her mind dimmed to gently glow in a back corner.  Feeling like she’d accomplished something with Derek left her with a sense of contentment.  Then she noticed the dark sedan tailing her as she drove out of the estate.

CHAPTER
2

The dark car behind her held two occupants, both of them Werewolves working for Julius.  Now that he was asleep and she was driving, she finally had time to mull over something that had been yammering for her attention for several days.  After being relieved of her Hunter duties for the SMV and Derek's near-death-experience, she'd thrown herself into the first movie jobs that had come her way.  There was never a lack of animal handling and training work for her, and she'd been neglecting her day job for several months as she, Julius and the SMV had dealt firstly with Dantè, the Vampire who'd tried to flood the City with Demons, and then with Jason King’s campaign to create as many Werewolves as he could. 

In many ways it felt good to be working with animals again, they were her respite in all the chaos sometimes, but it a
lso meant she had to deal with norms, and that meant she had to rein in her normally blunt attitude and volatile temper.  It became tiring after a while, keeping up the charade.  And then there was the part of her that simply craved excitement.  She supposed some might call her an adrenalin junkie.  Unfortunately she was a high-end junkie; jumping out of a plane or taking a racing car out onto a race track or skiing down a double black diamond slope just didn't do it for her.  Even a training session at her local dojo didn't do more than take the edge off.  She needed to get back to work with the SMV, but she wasn't sure that she wanted to, even if they exonerated her or decreed her suspension as sufficient punishment.  She knew in her heart she wouldn't feel comfortable supporting them until they resolved the issue she felt so strongly about.

So, being consumed with her own inner conflicts, she hadn't taken as much notice as she should have of Julius's state of mind.  He was such a powerful presence, so supremely confident, that it was hard to think of him as still having human emotions sometimes.  To think that he may have problems he couldn't deal with alone seemed almost like an insult.  In her defence, it was largely his own fault; he was well schooled at hiding his own internal conflict, in not sharing his problems with anyone.   

In the last few days his disquiet had grown to proportions that he couldn't hide from her.  It'd begun leaking through his mental defences into her mind.  He'd been protective of her from the very beginning, even though both of them knew full well that she didn't need protecting.  They'd discussed the topic and come to an agreement.  She accepted that he was going to feel the need to protect her, and he was going to work hard at keeping his protective streak to within reasonable boundaries.  He knew she would never give up the fight against evil in the City, and he wouldn't stand in her way when it was time for her to resume her Hunter duties.   In a fight he treated her as an equal, trusting her self-taught skills and innate Dhampir talents to get her out of a tight spot.  But lately his security measures were betraying a previously unseen level of paranoia.

He'd started off trying to be subtle about it, but the past week she hadn't been able to turn around without tripping over a Werewolf or Vampire guard.  She'd initially dismissed it as post-Jason reaction; they still weren't sure they'd caught every one of his Werewolf recruits, and there was also the
furtive stranger who’d been working with Jason, the one that pricked Gabi's extra sense, the sense that told her non-norms were close by.  Whoever, or whatever, it was hadn't been at the compound when they attacked.  The only things they knew for sure was that it was female, she wasn't human, and she liked to stir up trouble in the City. 

Gabi's gut told her
it was Mariska, a Dark Magus who'd helped Dantè bring Demons across the Void and through the Veil into their world.  The Magi High Council had declared her Maleficus, a term they gave a Magus who’d turned to Blood Magic, gaining power from the sacrificial deaths of living creatures.  The declaration carried with it a death sentence by the High Council’s hand.  But so far, they hadn't been able to trace the female that triggered her alarm bell.  It seemed she'd disappeared as quickly and silently as she'd arrived. 

But when Gabi put all of those things into a mental
list titled 'Current possible threats to my safety', it didn't seem nearly enough to warrant Julius's attitude.  Even if she added in her ongoing PTSD problems, it just didn't add up.  She and Julius had started working on curing her of her manic reaction to being held down by her wrists, a residual effect of being captured and tortured by Dantè several months ago.  They hadn't made much progress, and Julius was becoming more insistent that they seek professional help.  She'd told him that would happen over her cold, dead body and not a second before.