Blood Hunt (11 page)

The real fear wasn’t what Tori would do to others; it was what she’d do to herself.

Maybe Tynan was right. Maybe it was time to put Tori to sleep. Just for a while.

 

Hope stepped through the hole Logan had opened in the overhead door. Leather stretched over his broad back. She was sure the first time she’d seen him, he’d been thinner. Gaunt. But now he was packed with lean, athletic muscle. So much so his coat barely fit. She wanted to run her hands over him to see if it was real or just one more trick her mind had played on her. Of course, the thought of touching him made her hands shake and something hot and excited fluttered in her stomach.

She had to forcibly drag her gaze away from his back and focus on what they were doing.

The building was quiet. Dust floated in the beam of her flashlight. The scent of lumber and musty animals filled her nose. There was barely any ambient light sliding in from the windows. Several of them had been boarded up, and those that weren’t were filthy with age and neglect.

“What is this place?” asked Logan.

“The Tyler building. They built custom furniture here years ago. It’s been for sale for as long as I can remember.”

He glanced over his shoulder, his pale eyes brilliant in the dark. “How did you lose your memory?”

She didn’t want to talk about this. Not with him. Not with anyone. “I don’t know. That’s the thing with amnesia. You can’t remember.”

“Were you wounded?”

“I don’t know,” she repeated, shoving the words out from between gritted teeth so he’d take a hint.

“As you wish,” he said. “Tell me about your friend. Why are you looking here for her?”

“She lives on the streets. She’d stay here sometimes, along with a lot of other people. It’s a good place to get out of the cold and snow.”

“How do you know her?”

“Sometimes she comes to the homeless shelter where I volunteer. Picks up a quick meal.”

“Are you sure she’s missing? Could it be that she’s moved on?”

Hope sighed, gathering her patience. It wasn’t his fault he was asking the same questions she’d already answered a hundred times. “I’d like to think she would have said something to me. She knows I worry.”

“Do you worry about all the people you know?”

“Yes, but not like Rory. She was young. Too young to be out here alone. She told me she was twenty-five, but she looked sixteen.”

“A runaway?”

“Probably. She’s tough. Rebellious. That’s enough to tell me she isn’t new to the streets.”

They passed through a doorway that led to a stairwell. Logan went up. “Is she a prostitute?”

“Maybe. I don’t ask. Does it matter?”

Logan shrugged. His leather jacket creaked. “Not to me.”

A tension riding along Hope’s neck loosened at his words. He wasn’t the type of man to instantly write off another because of mistakes they’d made or the things they were driven to do for the sake of survival. That was refreshing. And unexpected.

It gave her the courage to let him in on her fears. “Have you ever had a bad feeling? One that wouldn’t go away?”

“Constantly.”

“No. I mean something that had no basis in logic or fact, but you were sure was true, anyway?”

He stopped on a landing and gave her a steady look. “The notion is not a foreign one, no. Do you have a feeling like that?”

Hope nodded, avoiding his gaze. “Yeah. About Rory. She was running from something. I’m afraid that that something might have caught up with her.”

Logan laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. She could feel the warmth of his touch sink through the puffy layers of her quilted jacket and into her skin.

“What makes you think she was running?”

“She moved around a lot. Never slept in the same place two nights in a row. Most people develop patterns. She had none that I could tell.”

“How long have you known her?”

“About a year.”

“That’s a long time for someone like that to stay in one place.”

“Yeah. I thought so, too. I asked her about it once and she said she was looking for someone. She wouldn’t say who.”

Logan’s eyes narrowed in speculation. “Did she happen to have a ring-shaped birthmark that you’re aware of?”

Hope was taken aback by the odd question. “No. Why?”

“Do you?”

“What?”

His gaze grew intense, brightening a bit in the gloom of the stairwell. “Do you have a ring-shaped birthmark?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“It would explain a lot.”

“How? All you’re doing is confusing me.”

His hand slid down her arm until he grasped her fingers. Her leather gloves warmed to his touch, and she wished she hadn’t put them on now. The need to feel his skin on hers was suddenly an overwhelming, consuming thing.

He took a small step toward her, closing the space between them. “I would very much like it if you’d answer my question.”

“Tell me why first.”

“That mark is important. It’s proof of a certain . . . genetic predisposition that identifies its bearer as a rare treasure.”

“Like some kind of blood donor or something?”

A small smile stretched his mouth, making him heartstoppingly beautiful. “Indeed. Do you wear it?”

Hope shook her head, feeling a stab of disappointment. The way he said it—that rare treasure bit—made it sound romantic and special.

What she wouldn’t give to be a good kind of special, instead of a brain-damaged, head-case kind of special.

“No. Sorry.”

He squeezed her hand before letting it go. “No worries. It simply means we still have a mystery to solve.”

“Mystery?”

“The location of your missing friend, of course,” he said, though she was certain that he’d meant something else entirely.

“Right. We should get moving. I don’t like being here. Gives me the willies.”

“We can’t have that, now, can we?” He turned and headed up the stairs, exiting the door onto the third floor. “I don’t suppose you have anything with Rory’s blood on it, do you?”

“Her blood?”

He nodded as he scanned the large open area sprinkled with wooden platforms she guessed were workbenches.

“If I had some, I’d be able to locate her easily.”

“How?” asked Hope.

He ignored her question and headed toward the far end of the room where several bare mattresses sat. “This looks like a place one would sleep, does it not?”

“How could you find her with her blood?”

Logan gave her a panty-melting grin. “There are some things even your sweet face cannot coax out of me.”

The veiled compliment slid through her, warming her down to her toes. Staring at that smile, she forgot what she wanted to know or why it mattered. His male beauty filled her head and made a pool of longing swell deep in her belly.

She stood there, staring, watching his pale eyes slide over her body. That sunshine-warm feeling he gave off blasted her front, making her nipples bead up against a shiver of need.

He pulled in a deep breath through his nose and his hands fisted at his sides. “When you look at me like that, I forget who I am.”

“Like what?”

“Like you want me. Like you wouldn’t care if I tossed you down on one of those dirty mattresses and took my pleasure with you.”

Would she care? If it meant she could get his hands on her bare skin, sliding over her. Or maybe even get his mouth on her neck again and feel that hot tugging at her throat.

The memory of what he’d done to her bloomed in her mind, only this time, there was no fear, only that languid pleasure of his mouth on her, his tongue swirling over her skin.

Her hand fluttered to that spot, feeling an answering warmth glowing there so bright she was sure he could see it.

A low hiss rose from him and his eyes flared bright, spilling light across her chest. “You should not tempt me.”

Her voice shook with need as she answered. “I’m not doing anything.”

“I am not a man,” he said, making it sound like a warning.

“Then what are you?”

“Dangerous. Hungry.”

“Then let me feed you.” She’d meant food, but the way his gaze shot to her neck made her realize the other interpretations her words might have.

“You’re too giving for your own good. I will use that against you. Eventually.”

“But not now?”

“Alas, no.”

“Why warn me?” she asked.

He shook his head, and when he spoke, she was sure she saw a white flash of fangs in his mouth. “I have no idea. You’re a weakness I can’t seem to understand. It’s best we complete our task and go our separate ways before I do something irrevocable.”

He turned, striding toward the mattresses, clearly ending the conversation.

Hope stood where she was, shaking. Now that he was farther away, she could feel her body returning to normal. Her pulse slowed, as did her breathing. The dots of sweat that had formed along her hairline evaporated into the cold night air. Her abdomen relaxed and that flush of heat dissipated from her skin.

Whoever he was,
what
ever he was, Logan was potent. Intoxicating. Hope had always abstained from drugs and alcohol, worried that such things had contributed to her amnesia. She’d never even been tempted. But Logan was a different matter entirely. She wanted him. More than she’d ever wanted a man before in her life.

It wasn’t right. She sensed that there was some reason he kept his distance.

Perhaps he was married.

The thought shriveled something small and hopeful in her heart. She’d never poach. Not even for a man as beautiful as Logan. It was best they kept their distance and stayed professional. She wouldn’t turn away his help to find Rory—she couldn’t do that to her friend—but she could keep things light. Stay detached.

With that decision made, Hope felt better. Stronger. She pulled in a deep breath and went to Logan’s side where he was staring down at the floor.

Silvery light spilled out over the dusty mattress. It was coming from Logan’s eyes.

He appeared to be in some kind of trance, his focus beyond the floor. His face was lax and his breathing slow and even.

A moment later, he blinked several times and crouched next to the mattress. “Someone was killed here.”

“How can you tell?”

He gave the mattress a hard shove and it slid over the floorboards, leaving a trail in the dust. There was a dark, irregular stain on the wood, several feet across. Hope shone her flashlight on it and saw the rusty brown of dried blood.

“Is that what I think it is?” she asked.

“Blood. And whomever it belonged to couldn’t have survived that kind of loss.”

Hope didn’t ask him if he was sure. She guessed he knew what he was talking about in this area of expertise.

“It looks old,” she said, trying to convince herself it was true. It had been only a few days since she’d seen Rory. It couldn’t be hers.

“A couple of days at most.”

Worry tightened Hope’s throat. “How can you tell?”

“The smell. She was healthy at the time of her death.”

“She?”

“It’s a woman’s blood,” he said.

“You can’t know that from the way it smells.”

He stood suddenly, his eyes darting to the far side of the room. He grabbed her arm and pushed her behind him. “Someone’s here. Stay silent. I’ll shield us from sight.”

She had no idea what he meant, but a second later, she felt a stirring of something around them. It brushed her cheek, but felt nothing like wind. The fine hair along her arms lifted as a silvery light slid up from the ground in a cylinder.

It surrounded them both, pulsing and fluttering with what looked like bits of glitter. The effect was oddly like being trapped inside a snow globe.

Hope didn’t dare ask how he’d done it. She worried her voice would give them away.

What if it was the killer coming back?

A door on the far side of the room opened and Hope saw the faintest edge of an aura slip through a moment before a man entered the room. From this distance, with sparkling flecks blocking her vision, she couldn’t see him clearly, but his aura was familiar.

Faded with time and bent with age, the halo of color surrounded the man, gliding along as his constant companion. Red streaks of pain slid through swaths of cool green acceptance. Pale golden strokes of happiness hovered behind him, and ahead of him was calm, fearless, brilliant hope. Sections of color were simply missing, as if his aura was too old and weary to fill in the gaps.

Hope had seen this before. It was the aura of the elderly—of those who were ready to go to meet their maker.

The man shuffled forward, a paper sack clenched in his gnarled hand. His plaid coat hung open, showing off baggy clothes beneath. He lifted his head, giving her a glimpse of his face.

“It’s Charlie,” she whispered close to Logan’s ear. “I know him. He’s harmless.”

The glittering column dissipated, taking with it the odd tingling energy that had created it.

“Hello, Charlie,” said Logan in a low, calm voice.

The man stopped in his tracks, clutching his sack to his chest. “Who’s there?”

Hope stepped forward so he could see her clearly, shining the flashlight on her face. “It’s me. Hope Serrien.”

The man sagged in relief. “Hell, girl. You nearly scared me out of my skin.”

“Sorry. What are you doing here?”

“The shelter was crowded. I couldn’t take it tonight, so I thought I’d slip up here for a bit. Who’s the fella?”

Logan ignored his question. “There’s blood on the floor. Do you know how it got there?”

Charlie’s rheumy eyes narrowed. “Son, you’d best leave that alone if you know what’s good for you.”

That sounded suspiciously like he did know.

Hope crossed the space, hurrying to his side. “Was it Rory? Was she here?”