Deadly Desire (16 page)

The ache behind my eyes began to feel more like a stabbing pain, but I held firm. The probing darkness faded. Soon there was nothing but the chanting of the magi filling the shadows.

“Okay,” Marg said, what seemed like an eon later. “You can release it now.”

I did so, and it was as if all the energy drained from my body. Not only did my head feel like it was on fire, but I felt weak and shaky, and my knees refused to support my weight. I dropped to a squatting position, one hand on the floor, closing my eyes and taking deep breaths to stop the spinning.

“You look very pale,” Marg said, squatting in front of me and offering me a drink.

I took it gratefully, and felt strength flush through my body the minute the cool, tart liquid flowed down my throat. “That isn't water.”

“No. But don't worry, it won't poison you.” She studied me for a moment, her gaze searching mine, then cupped a hand around mine. “Your fingers are cold, and you're extremely pale. Is it possible you're iron deficient?”

“I eat plenty of meat.” But I also had a vampire dining on my neck, so it was totally possible he was taking more than he should. Maybe eating red meat wasn't enough anymore.

Although given Quinn had over twelve hundred years of experience behind him, he'd surely know the limits of what he could viably take before it started affecting me. So if it wasn't an iron deficiency, what the hell was it?

I hoped it
wasn't
another indication that the drug given to me all those years ago was twisting either my DNA or my psychic talents in new and exciting ways.

“Might be worth taking iron tablets.” Marg's gaze dropped down to my neck. “And talking to your vampire.”

“I will.”
If it
was the problem. I rubbed a hand across my eyes. The ache was still there, but not as fierce. Whatever had been in Marg's potion seemed to be helping it. “I think I need to go home to rest. Can you take care of the rest of this now?”

She nodded. “We'll be fine.”

“Good.” I pushed to my feet but grabbed at the wall again as the room spun around me. “I wouldn't release the mom from her bindings until the body has been removed. She's a werewolf and more than a little violent.”

“She is a mother protecting her son—or what she believes is her son. It's instinct.”

“Maybe, but I wouldn't be pouring too much sympathy her way, or you might just find an axe in your skull.”

Marg's dark eyes gleamed. I wasn't sure whether it was amusement or determination or a combination of both. “She will see the truth by the time we leave, trust me on that.”

I believed her. Marg mightn't look much of a threat, but there was an amazing amount of strength locked within her spindly body.

I got out of there. It might be the middle of the afternoon, but my bed was calling and I had no intention of keeping it waiting.

ack called about eight that evening. I'd been up for all of five minutes, but I'd managed enough swallows of coffee to get the brain cells working.

“The zombie has been magically restrained and we're making arrangements with the parents to have him reburied,” he said, without preamble. “And there's been another murder.”

Oh, fuck,.
“Not another teenager.”
Please, don't let it be another teenager.
I didn't need that sort of guilt right now.

“What teenager are we talking about this time?” Jack said, confusion evident in his tone. I didn't have the vid-phone activated—I figured he didn't need to know that I'd slept most of the afternoon.

“The one I saw in the zombie's mind. The one the sorcerer who raised him was planning to kill next.”

“You read the zombie's mind?” Surprise ran through Jack's voice.

“Well, no, because technically the zombie is dead
and doesn't actually have a mind. I encountered the sorcerer in whatever it is that remains.”

“You shouldn't have been able to do that.”

I frowned. “Do what? Touch the sorcerer's thoughts and find out her intent?”

“No, delve down into the remains of a dead man's mind. Not even vampires can do that.”

“Yeah, but vampires generally don't have my affinity for the dead.” I paused. “Besides, it wasn't exactly easy and it left me really drained afterward.”

And if I shouldn't have been able to do it, then the dizziness I'd felt afterward
wasn't
Quinn taking too much blood, it was me doing the impossible. Again.

“That's beside the point.” There was worry in his voice. “We'd better schedule some more testing.”

I rolled my eyes. “We're testing every couple of months as it is. Surely that's enough?”

“Not if you're now able to read the minds of dead folks.”

I resisted the urge to point out once again that I hadn't actually
read
the zombie's mind, and changed the topic instead. “So who is dead this time?”

“Another vampire, although it isn't one of the older ones.”

“And not someone you knew?”

“Not personally, no, though I believe the council had him marked as one to watch, as he had gained a lot of money extremely fast.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Why would that make him a person of interest to your council?”

“Because he certainly didn't acquire his wealth through any known legal route.”

I grinned. “From what I hear, that's not exactly unusual among the vampire ranks.” Hell, even Quinn had admitted to a brief life of crime.

“These days, we prefer not to draw such attention to ourselves. It doesn't reflect well on our image.”

“Boss, you're never going to change humanity's opinion of vampires. It's too ingrained. Besides, it's a good evolutionary trait not to trust things that eat your kind.”

“People once thought that vampires, werewolves, and other supernaturals would never be able to come out of the closet, too.”

“That's not the point.” Humans may have accepted our existence, but that didn't mean they had to like it. And many of them didn't. There might be laws in place to protect both sides of the fence, but that didn't stop problems from happening. And the Directorate wasn't always able to clean up the messes.

“I'm not getting into a debate about all this now,” Jack said. “I need you to get over to the latest crime scene and see if you can scent the same things.”

“So who is it this time?”

“Martin Shore. A two-hundred-year-old playboy with more money than brains, apparently.”

“The council wouldn't have done this, would they? To head off a potential problem, that is?”

“No. They would have informed me if they were planning anything.”

I raised my eyebrows and wondered just how many
of the unsolved cases we had on our books were unsolved because they were actually looked after by the vamp council. A council I hadn't even known actually existed until recently, let alone knowing that Jack was in constant contact with it.

“When was the body discovered?”

“About six. One of the women he shared the apartment with came home and found his remains. I doubt she'll be able to give you much, but you might as well talk to her anyway.”

“I will. And I'm going to send through the description of the teenager I saw in the zombie's mind. She's obviously next on the hit list, so we'll need to find and protect her.” She might also be able to give a clue as to why the witch was sending the zombies after her. “Hopefully, you'll be able to track them down through license records or something.”

“We'll give it a try. Cole and Mel's reports are through, too, if you ever want to make a reappearance in the office to read them.”

“Boss, it's almost the full moon, and I'm afraid having me and Kade in the same small room is not a good idea.”

“You've survived it before.”

“Because the moon heat isn't always as strong as it is this time around.” I probably wouldn't be kissing Kye if it
was
just a normal moon heat.

Probably
being the operative word there.

Jack grunted. “The address has been sent through to your onboard. Get there fast.”

I hung up and headed for the shower. Thirty
minutes later I was pulling into the underground parking lot beneath the Eureka Tower, which had once been the world's tallest residential building. Of course, these days, ninety-two stories wasn't much to crow about, but it had been back then. And unlike many of the older buildings that dotted the city, the slim elegance of the Eureka's design still managed to catch the eye, as did its golden top, which still shone as bright as the sun on a summer day.

Martin Shore lived on the seventy-sixth floor, in one of the larger, and more expensive, apartments. The express elevator zoomed me straight up to the floor, leaving my stomach somewhere down on the lower levels. It stopped smoothly and gently, but even so, my nerves faltered. I'd never liked being in tall buildings, and that hadn't really changed with the advent of wings.

I could smell the blood as soon as I got out of the elevator. In the pristine whiteness of the foyer, the scent seemed to hang around like some gigantic cloud of doom.

I followed my nose and discovered Cole and his team hard at work.

“Don't you guys ever sleep?” I said, stopping several feet behind a kneeling Cole.

“Not lately we don't.” His voice was little more than a tired growl. “Though if you could catch at least one of the murderers we're after, our lives would be much easier.”

“If it was that easy to catch these bastards, they wouldn't need us guardians. You guys could do it.”

My gaze went past him to the body slumped across a
sofa. He was naked, his flesh almost as pale as the white leather couch. He was also very hairless. His chest, his arms, even the top of his head—which lay at the base of the sofa like some forgotten ball—was as smooth as alabaster. It was creepy looking in death, and I very much doubted it would have been that attractive in life. But then, the Goth look was apparently making a comeback, so what did I know?

I flared my nostrils, sucking in and sorting through the differing scents, this time finding the touch of roses winding in between the scents of blood, death, and that intensely “wrong” scent that had been present before.

“It's definitely connected to the other two vamp murders,” I said.

Cole glanced at me. “You can smell the same scents?”

“Yeah.” I nodded toward the piece of china he held in one hand. “You found something?”

“A thumbprint. It probably belongs to those who live here, but we might get lucky for a change.”

I snorted. The chances of us getting lucky right now were about as good as the chances of me ever having kids. “Where's the girlfriend?”

“Second bedroom down the corridor,” Cole said, returning his attention to the broken vase. “Her name is Anna.”

“Ta.” I turned and headed that way. The first bedroom was obviously Shore's. It was masculine in design—all brown leather, dark wood, and a bed that came complete with black satin sheets. Why anyone would prefer them over Egyptian cotton I'll never
know. I knew from experience that everything just slid around too much on satin.

I paused to smell the room. That “wrong” scent was stronger in here, just as it had been in the bedrooms of the other victims. It had to be a clue. We just had to find the key.

I continued. The second bedroom was definitely more feminine. The walls were a very pale gray, and the furnishings a mix of white leather and linen, with hot pink accents.

A thin, pale young woman with fiery red hair and large breasts looked up as I entered, her blue eyes red rimmed and mouth trembling. “I don't know anything,” she said. “I really don't.”

“Anna?” When she nodded, I couldn't help adding, “How old are you?”

“Seventeen.” She sniffed. “Almost eighteen.”

I was betting her eighteenth was farther away than what she was admitting. Hell, I'd be surprised if she was even seventeen. She just didn't look it, despite the almost weary light in her eyes.

I sat down on the white cane chair nearest to the bed, then reached out psychically and lightly linked to her mind. Not so much to read it—not exactly, anyway—just enough to tell whether her vampire had placed her under some sort of geas. After all, she was human and young, and while the age of consent was sixteen, vampires weren't legally allowed to have a relationship with anyone under the age of eighteen.

Not that it ever stopped them.

Sifting through the layers of her mind did indeed
reveal a male imprint, so he'd definitely been messing with her thought processes. Which meant she'd have to go to the Directorate for deprogramming. I might be strong enough to do it myself, but it wasn't something I actually knew how to do. I could control or read minds right up there with the best of them, but undoing the damage others had done was work for a specialist. And that wasn't me.

But I'd been right about one thing—she wasn't seventeen. She was barely even sixteen.

“How long have you been living here?” I asked.

She sniffed and wiped a pale hand across her nose. “Nine months. He treated me very nicely.”

He'd have to, given she was underage when they first became lovers. The vampire community might look the other way when it came to sex and youngsters, but only for as long as there was nothing that could draw attention to themselves or their community. A mistreated underage lover would certainly do that. “And you were lovers?”