Back From Hell (14 page)

It was Leon Varnell.

The bastard who had raped Celeste more than twenty-five years ago—the bastard who had killed her just a few years earlier.

“I’m going to kill him.”

* * * * *

Both men heard her low, furious whisper.

Turning his head, Ronan followed the path of her eyes, finding himself staring at a vampire. Ronan didn’t recognize him, but it was obvious Stephanie did.

“We’re here for Jenai,” he whispered, keeping his voice low.

Her lids barely flickered as she started forward. “Yeah. And I bet he knows where to find her.”

Ronan closed his hand around her arm, his fingers digging into her caramel-colored skin. “How do you know?”

Stephanie jerked her arm free, a snarl twisting her mouth. “He’s her fucking father—he’s the man who killed our parents. He’s the man who raped Mama—infected her. And Jenai was born nine months later.”

Beau moved up, blocking Stephanie’s retreat from the back. Lowering his head, he put his mouth next to Stephanie’s ear. Although Ronan couldn’t hear his voice, whatever Beau said had Stephanie’s eyes closing, her jaw clenching shut.

Lifting his head, he stared at Ronan. “Maybe we should have a word with him.”

But before they took even two steps, there was another face.

And this time, it was Ronan who stopped in his tracks as the short, bull-like man placed himself right in Ronan’s path.

“Brunich,” he snarled.

The older shifter didn’t move quickly enough to evade Ronan’s hands, and silence spread through the club as Ronan seized him. Lifting him up, Ronan whirled, slamming him into the wall so hard the plaster cracked above their heads.

“Hello, Ronan. My, but you moved quickly. Didn’t expect you to come looking for her quite that soon.”

The sneer that appeared on his boss’s face disappeared as Ronan drove his fist directly into the man’s nose. As cartilage and bone crunched and blood sprayed all over them.

“Get ready to die,” Ronan purred, closing his hand around Brunich’s throat and squeezing.

“You can’t kill me,” Brunich gasped out. “Who will get her back for you?”

Ronan continued to hold his thick neck in one powerful hand, but he stopped squeezing for a moment. “You couldn’t have sent her there. You’re a werewolf. You’re no witch, no psychic.”

“Maybe not. But I’m a man with a lot of power. Power can get people to do anything you want, including building a gate to the demon realms. It was supposed to be you that I offered up—but then one of my witches mentioned the pretty fair-haired lady, and how she saw the energy between you two. The connection.” A cruel smile twisted his face and the blood pouring down from his nose made his features ghastly. “I’m a werewolf too, Ronan. A full-blooded one, unlike you, you sorry mongrel. I know all about the bonds between mated pairs. And I knew you’d stop at nothing to save her. Although you did get here very fast, almost as though you are a real psychic, not just some death bloodhound.”

Ronan’s mouth twisted into an ugly snarl and his hand closed just a little more around Brunich’s throat. “If I was a real psychic, as you call it, you wouldn’t be so afraid of me. I know all about the bodies you’ve been draining. Who’s been helping you?”

“I have.”

From the corner of his eye, Ronan saw the man from the stage approaching. The crowd parted around him like the Red Sea and as he drew closer, Ronan heard a low, angry growl coming from Stephanie.

By the time he’d drawn even, Ronan had shifted, using his hand around Brunich to keep him where he could see the bastard and still see the man approaching them.

Stephanie stepped forward, her eyes narrowing, and Ronan saw the knife in her hand. It was long—a good eight inches of pure, shining silver. Where in the hell had she hidden that?

The vampire’s eyes dropped to study the blade with just the faintest hesitation before he looked at Ronan again.

“If you kill us,” the vampire said, “you’re going to have a hard time finding her, getting her out. The witch isn’t here—she won’t come here. And without her, you can’t find her. And you need the witch to get Jenai back.”

Ronan smiled. “That’s what you think.” His eyes dropped to Brunich’s face. The cocky look in his eyes faded and Ronan bared his teeth at him. “Have a good trip to hell.”

Tensing his hand, he used his inhuman strength to tear Brunich’s throat out. As the man fell bleeding and choking to the floor, Stephanie knelt and plunged her blade into his black evil heart.

“You’re next, Varnell,” she whispered as she rose, staring at him with hate shining from her eyes.

The people around them had fallen back, even though they milled about restlessly. The scent of blood and fresh death would drive many of them mad with hunger, but Ronan could tell by looking at them that not one wanted to be the first to move in on the three standing in front of the vampire.

“So, you know my name. I feel at a disadvantage,” he mused, cocking his head as he stared at her. “You’d be the…sister, I suppose? I heard the bitch whelped out some werewolf’s brat.”

Stephanie snarled and lunged for him, only to come up short when Beau’s hands closed around her arms. “Not yet, sugar. Not yet.”

That name…
Ronan racked his memory, trying to place the name. Finally, it came to him. Leon Varnell. The PSA had reams of paper on this bastard, but he’d evaded them like some ghost. Now it made sense how he had done that—Brunich was the how.

He had to wonder who in the hell the witch Varnell had mentioned was, but right now, he didn’t much care. Staring at Varnell, he said, “You gave your own daughter to demons.”

Varnell laughed. The look in his watery blue eyes was enough to make Ronan’s skin crawl. There was nothing decent, nothing alive in those eyes. A monster, well and truly. And he’d likely been one before he was ever changed.

“I never much thought of her over the years—I’d heard about her, but she was no use to me. Yes, I gave her to demons. If she’s mine, then I can do what I wish with her.”

Ronan took a step toward Varnell, his lips peeling back from his teeth. “You’re going to be very sorry for that.”

Varnell chuckled. “You can’t kill me. You already killed one of the three who summoned up the creatures that took her. If you kill me before you find the witch, you’ll have no chance in hell of bringing her back.”

Ronan’s mouth curled in a humorless smile. “I don’t need a witch to find her for me.”

Fear flickered for just a moment in those dead eyes. “You really think these people here will let you kill me? They worship us…what we bring them.”

Ronan turned his gaze to the people in the club, staring at them with boredom in his eyes. “They worship power. And I just proved beyond a shadow of a doubt I’ve got more power than he had.” He nudged Brunich’s still corpse with his booted foot before looking at Stephanie. “We don’t need him.”

Beau’s hands fell away and Varnell tensed as Stephanie lunged for him. He wasn’t prepared. Should have been, Ronan mused, after seeing the hatred that brewed in her eyes.

But he wasn’t. And Stephanie’s speed, combined with whatever unique talents her parents had passed on to her, was far more than a match for the vampire. Especially with a blade damn near a foot long in her hand.

With her first swipe, she tore his throat open. As the blood that gave him strength poured from him, she kicked out one leg before he could try to move away. Bone crunched and when he fell, she pounced on him. Smoke roiled from his chest as she plunged her blade into him.

He was dead before half the club had even realized there was a fight. As Stephanie rose, Ronan caught the putrid scent of death. In her hand there was a bloody, meaty mass.

Without blinking, she threw it into the crowd. It landed with a wet plop in front of one of the few witches in the place. The man stared at it for a long second, and then at Stephanie. Pointing her blade at him, she whispered, “Burn it.”

It went up in flames without even a blink from the witch. And as the three of them started forward, the witch, along with half of the clientele, rose from his seat and headed for the door.

All around them, whispers rose and fell. Ronan tuned them out, focusing on Jenai as he continued to move through the club.

There was nothing here, nothing for him to follow. Not in this room.

Not on the stage.

But somewhere… He saw the stairs and he followed the winding spiral of them, dimly aware of Beau and Stephanie behind him. But more intent on that knot inside, like some sort of beam reeling him in.

Behind him, Stephanie asked in a bare whisper, “Where are we going?”

Ronan couldn’t focus on her enough to answer, but he heard Beau’s reply, “A door, or something. There’s dark magick here…a stain. Whoever sent her to where she is isn’t strong enough to pull up and take down a gate often. I doubt she was the first one. They have some sort of doorway into the Under Realm—a way to give up their offerings to the demons they are worshipping, a way for the demons to look through into our world.”

Stephanie’s quiet question, “How do you know so much about them?” was one Ronan would have liked to hear an answer to, but their time ran out.

The tugging that had led him here finally stopped as they came to a halt in front of the door at the end of the hall.

Slowly coming out of the trance he’d fallen into, his spine went stiff as he felt the eyes of many, and all focused on them. Anger, worry, hate. Directed at them.

They hadn’t shown this much interest when two people had fallen dead just minutes ago.

But as Ronan, Beau and Stephanie moved closer to the door that led to the creatures these people worshipped, they got worried.

All around, people were staring at them. From doorways, from the end of the hall where they gathered as more and more people trickled toward them, staring at Ronan, at Beau, looking from the men to the doorway behind them, then back. Ignoring Stephanie.

Ronan had to smile at that. She was the last person they should ignore, especially with blood still staining her hands and the long, wicked blade still out and bare. But they didn’t have time for a fight. Jenai needed him. And Beau—the blood of this place was getting to that man, Ronan could see it in the tightening of his eyes, the way his face paled ever so slightly.

Slowly, Ronan said, “Get Stephanie out of here while you can still focus.”

Beau shook his head. “I’m fine.”

Ronan said quietly, “You are…for now. But your gifts are too close to that of the witches—I can feel it. Unless you’re one to embrace it, dark power sickens and weakens you. Get out while you can. This is where it happened. Whatever it was.”

“And if you need help?”

Ronan shook his head. “I don’t think I will, and even if I did, I doubt anybody could help. You came looking for me because I’m the only one who can do this. That’s what I am going to do. Now go. They aren’t going to just keep standing there.”

Beau’s eyes moved to the people watching them and a sigh escaped him as he nodded. “Be careful.”

A wry smile quirked Ronan’s lips. “How careful can I be, walking into hell?”

With that, he turned and placed one hand against the door, focusing on what lay behind it.

Dimly, he heard Stephanie’s furious shout, but the door swung open under his touch and he stepped through, and found himself facing a great, gaping maw—the air, dark and flat, was shot through with red bolts and streaks of color—hell didn’t look as bad as he’d thought it would.

Stephanie lunged after Ronan but Beau caught her, whirling her around and pinning her to the wall. “You can’t help her—only he can.”

Glaring up into Beau’s calm green eyes, she struggled, shoving against him. He
should
have gone flying through the air, but he only stood there, continuing to pin her against the wall.

“You can’t help her, Stephanie. Ronan has to do this.”

“Why in the fuck can’t I go?” she snarled.

“Because he can’t afford to have to worry about you.” Beau’s eyes were implacable, calm and unbelievably cool. It infuriated her.

Curling her lip at him, she hissed, “Don’t you know what I am? I’m no soft, malleable mortal. I’m a Night Stalker, and I damn well know how to take care of myself.”

“But you can’t feel her, can you?”

“What in the hell does that have to do with anything? I don’t have to feel her to follow his ass!”

Beau smiled, a sad little smile. “You can’t follow him through a vortex. There is no sight, no sound, no touch. Nothing. The only thing that will guide him is her presence. And if you get lost in the void, you become like one of the creatures that dwell within it. Do you really want to become a demon, Stephanie? Cut off from light, from laughter, from pleasure, from love…for all time?”

She stilled. Licking her lips, she opened her mouth but found she could hardly speak. “But…damn it, if it’s that hard to travel through, how will they get back?”

The hard hands that had pinned her to the wall gentled and started to stroke up and down her arms in slow, soothing motions. “Hope and a prayer or two. I don’t know. I’ve only heard stories of people who had to travel into the void.”

She wanted to ask more. She needed to know more. Why in the hell hadn’t she ever heard of anything like this?

But before she could form any kind of question, she finally grew aware of how many people were around them, of how many unfriendly eyes watched them. Beau moved away from Stephanie, aligning himself to her shoulder as they stared at the men gathered at the end of the hall.

They didn’t bother asking questions.

As surely as Beau and Stephanie registered them as evil, the men registered them as the enemy and they wasted no time talking. Brandishing her blade, Stephanie snarled at them, her lips peeling back from wickedly sharp teeth, her eyes flashing. The hot bloodlust of battle was already pumping through her veins, but before she could lunge at them, Beau took her arm and jerked, pulling them both into one of the rooms along the right.

Stephanie struggled against him but he was strong. Damn it, how in the hell could he just move her around like a fucking rag doll?