Night's Cold Kiss (17 page)

“So where does he live?” Antoinette asked as she slipped on her shoes.

“I know it’s somewhere in Manhattan—Madison Avenue I think. I’ll call to dig up his address. You two get going and I’ll text his location as soon as I know,” Viktor said. “That’ll still give us three hours before dawn. Let’s hope he’s just tardy and not something worse.”

“Right, we’ll head to the Upper East Side. Call when you’ve got something,” Christian said.

Antoinette slung a tacky beaded bag over her shoulder and led the way to the exit. Just before the door, he glanced back at Viktor, who threw down the last of the drink and placed the empty glass back on the bar.

They stepped out into the night air, Antoinette shivered and rubbed her bare upper arms. Christian took of his leather jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. She surprised him with a smile and pushed her arms into the sleeves.

As they crossed the parking lot Christian’s internal alarm bells began to clang. He glanced over his shoulder, but the darkened lot was deserted.

Still, something felt very wrong. It’d be better to get Antoinette out of here before anything went down.

The doors to the club opened and Viktor stepped through, pulling his keys from the pocket of his jeans.

Christian fumbled in his own pants pockets for the keys
to the Ford sedan before remembering he’d left them in his jacket.

He was reaching for Antoinette’s elbow when the distinctive sound of a silencer-muffled shot came out of nowhere. He pushed her to the pavement, covering her body with his.

When he was sure no more shots were coming Christian rolled to his feet. “Are you all right?”

She gave a stunned nod. Christian reached down and helped her to her feet. “We should get you out of here before they try again.”

A somber canine howl filled the night sky and Antoinette looked past his shoulder, her face draining completely of color.

“Viktor,” she screamed.

Terror gripped Antoinette’s heart and squeezed hard. Viktor stumbled again and leaned against the old pickup he’d driven. Christian reached Viktor’s side before she had a chance to take the first running step. He’d kneeled over her for a second before disappearing: there in one blink of an eye and gone the next.

With her heart pounding in her ears she reached the fallen Aeternus and fell to her knees beside him. He met her with his typical cheeky grin, but his amber eyes held pale terror. Dark blood blossomed on the front of his shirt; he held his hand over the wound.

Christian reappeared and knelt again, taking his friend’s head into his lap. He looked Antoinette in the eye. “No sign of the shooter,” he mouthed.

“You don’t have to whisper on my account,” Viktor said and then stiffened, sucking back a large painful-sounding breath.

“Come, my old friend, you’ve been shot before.” Christian’s voice quavered. “We’ll get that bullet out and you’ll be as right as rain. Let’s have a look.”

He gently moved Viktor’s hand aside to rip the fabric.
Christian’s eyes grew wide and he sucked back his breath. A cold chill crept up Antoinette’s spine. The actual bullet hole was small and relatively clean, but that wasn’t what worried her. His veins had turned black around the wound, and the blackness spread like the tendrils of an evil spider web, growing longer as they watched.

“Oh dear God,” she whispered. “Silver nitrate.”

“I know.” Viktor turned his head toward her. “I can feel it traveling through my bloodstream.”

Antoinette crouched beside him, taking his hand in hers as tears flooded her vision.

“We have to get you to a clinic.” Christian’s voice cracked but Viktor shook his head.

“It’s pure, Christian,” Viktor whispered. “I’m already dead.”

“No!” Christian shook his head and gathered Viktor under his arms to lift him.

“Christian, don’t,” he pleaded. “It will only speed up what little time I have left. I have some things to say to you…” He looked at Antoinette. “To both of you.”

“Why?” she croaked, tears creating wet trails down her cheeks.

Viktor’s face relaxed a little. “I guess we’re getting too close. That’s good news.”

With a loud shattering sound, Cerberus jumped through the car window, raining glass down on them. The large malamute came up beside Antoinette to place his muzzle on his master’s hand and whimpered. Blood streaked his black and white fur where he’d been lacerated by the broken glass.

Viktor grabbed the front of Christian’s shirt. “You must find out what happened to Andrew…if he’s not a part of this, he may be in danger too. He may already be dead.”

He then looked at Antoinette, his eyes going soft as he squeezed her hand. A sob exploded from her, hurting her chest and head. He glanced at his faithful dog. “Take care of him for me, my Mandy-Sue.”

Antoinette smiled through her tears and nodded. “Anything, my Sammy—” She couldn’t complete the words, her head hurt with the tears she couldn’t shed fast enough.

Viktor took back his hand and stroked Cerberus’s head one last time as the silver nitrate poison turned the veins in his neck black. The dog whimpered again.

“No, this can’t be happening.” Christian shook his head, his jaw clenching so hard the muscles corded in his neck. “I won’t let it.”

“Even you can’t stop this.” Viktor smiled wanly up at his friend. “Take care of Valerica. I haven’t been a very good brother of late—I know she can be a handful, but…you know she’s going to take this hard.”

“I promise,” Christian said in choking syllables.

Antoinette held Viktor’s hand against her lips. “Thank you for looking after my father.” Fat tears dropped onto his bare chest; she wanted to wipe them away but she couldn’t let go of his hand. “And me.”

“Oh,
ma chère,
it was my pleasure.” Viktor gave her a weak wink. “When you find him, tell him he was the best human I’ve ever known, and I loved him.”

Antoinette nodded, the physical pain in her chest became almost unbearable. Her gaze locked briefly with Christian.

Grief dulled Christian’s eyes and a kind of insane calmness crept over him. She wanted to hold him, to comfort him, but he was frozen by his own emotions.

Viktor’s body jerked, spine stiffening and his head snapped back. He screamed as the poison reached his brain. Silvery black invaded his usually bright amber eyes and took away the last of his life.

Antoinette’s heart shattered and a sob tore from her throat. He was gone. Cerberus nudged his master’s leg, then threw back his head with a long mournful howl. Christian joined him with his own primal cry of grief and rage.

Viktor’s hand slipped from hers and she dried the tears on her cheeks. This couldn’t be happening, not Viktor. But it had happened and now he was dead. Murdered. Christian
squatted beside his body, then within seconds he was gone.

She bit back her sorrow and pulled out her cell to dial 911. “I want to report a murder of an Aeternus male.”

She gave them the details and the address and hung up. Now she could let her grief hit. And it did—big time. A spasm ripped through her stomach, but she was able to make it to the shadows on the other side of Viktor’s car before she threw up.

A police cruiser pulled up as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Two cops got out of the car and approached Viktor’s body.

Cerberus didn’t even look at them but a warning rumbled from his chest, stopping the policemen in their tracks. The cops exchanged wary looks and their hands move to unclip their gun holsters.

“Please,” she said, putting herself between them and the dog.

They stopped and looked her. When she explained the situation, they were more than happy to wait for backup to arrive. One of the cops climbed back into the car to call it in as the other moved to control the crowd building as curious patrons piled out of the club.

Twenty minutes later a large black SWAT-like mobile command center pulled into the parking lot and reversed close to the scene. Several people got out and started taking over the crime scene.

Paramedics pulled up beside the black van. One of the policemen led her over to the back of the ambulance and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.

“Thank you,” she said, looking into his kind brown eyes.

“Not a problem, you just sit here and wait until one of the detectives is free to talk to you,” he said and then moved off to help with crowd control.

Oberon pulled up on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
What was he doing here?

He swung his long leather-clad leg off the sleek black customized Heritage Softail and ate up the ground in long
strides as he approached Viktor’s body. Again, Antoinette found his sheer mass intimidating.

Cerberus bared his teeth but Oberon squatted down to his level and spoke softly. She couldn’t make out any of the words. Slowly the dog’s face relaxed and reluctantly left Viktor’s side. Oberon led him away, allowing the police access to photograph the body.

Oberon brought the dog to her. Cerberus looked warily back from her to the forensic people a couple of times before coming around to lean against Antoinette’s side. It was like he needed her as much as she needed him right now.

This was the second murder she’d witnessed within the last week. Even though she dealt with death before, she was usually the one doing the dealing.

Oberon looked at Antoinette—pale and drawn, huddled under a blanket at the back of the ambulance with the large malamute’s head in her lap. One of the paramedics offered a thermos cup of coffee, and she smiled gratefully and wrapped both shaking hands around it.

She seemed far from the self-assured woman he’d encountered last time. Every time she looked toward the body her face filled with naked, desolate grief. And each time she got that look the dog whimpered in sympathy. It was unusual for a human to have that kind of connection with an animal, let alone one that wasn’t even hers.

He’d been in the area checking the hooker hangouts for any more missing girls when his partner, Dylan, called him with the news of Viktor’s murder. They worked as a team, Dylan listened to the police scanners and Oberon patrolled.

He’d only meant to take a look. Viktor’s dog lifted his head and regarded Oberon with huge pale blue eyes. Antoinette looked at him as well, while she continued stroking the dog.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded, shook her head, then took a deep breath and nodded again. “Yes, thank you.”

“Okay.” The girl was a mess. “So, where’s Christian?”

She took a second to steel herself before answering. “I don’t know—he just vanished, probably on the killer’s trail.”

Oberon may be an unfeeling bastard at times, but he knew what it was like to lose a partner and a friend. He felt sorry for the blood-drinker.

He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and shook one out. “What were you all doing here tonight?”

He sucked the tobacco smoke into his lungs.
Ah—that hit the spot
. He blew out the smoke and refilled them with a fresh batch of nicotine and poison. Thanks to the parahuman constitution he didn’t have to worry about lung cancer like those poor human saps.

“He just left you here—don’t you think that strange?”

“No. When Viktor die—” She chewed on her bottom lip, eyes darting, filling with tears.

Oberon didn’t know who was more surprised by her tears, him or Antoinette. He glanced around looking for someone else to deal with her but everyone was busy. He’d never been good with crying females.

When he’d had her in for questioning she hadn’t shed a tear. Instead she’d been good and mad, not close to hysterics as she was now.
Good and mad, that I can handle.
And he knew just what buttons to push too.

“Suck it up, it’s not like you were sleeping with the blood-drinker—”

Something slammed into his mouth, bursting his lip against his teeth, and he hadn’t even seen her get up. The coppery taste filled his mouth and he turned his head to spit the bloody saliva.

“Have some respect, I just lost my friend.” She glared at him, shaking out her wrist. The dog now stood beside her, hackles raised and growling in warning. The tears stopped as suddenly as they’d started, and she dried her eyes on the corner of the blanket.

“Sorry,” she said. “But you asked for that.”

Oberon shrugged and wiped his mouth. “I guess I did.”
For such a little thing, she packed a pretty fantastic punch.

“I don’t know where Christian went or why, I assumed he would be after the killer. Wouldn’t you be if you were in his place?” she said.

He guessed she was right.

She tilted her head to one side. “You don’t like me much, do you?”

“I don’t have a personal opinion of you one way or another,” he replied, taking the last drag and squashing out the butt with his boot. “I don’t trust you because you lied to me.”

Her brows furrowed. “When?”

“The other night—during questioning.”

Her eyes flicked away, the same as they had the other night. “What are you doing here anyway?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Just passing by when I heard it on the scanner.”

His cell rang. Dylan’s number flashed up on the screen. “Yes?”

“Another girl taken close to where you are now. Same profile, except she’s money, not a fang-whore, so the VCU aren’t mobilizing.”

“Where exactly?”

“The girl was abducted in the Red Hook area a few minutes ago.” The disembodied voice came through the cell phone loud enough for Antoinette to overhear. “She was roughing it down there with some friends; this could be him.”

“I’m five minutes away, how long will it take you to get there?” Oberon turned and started to walk away.

But Antoinette had heard enough. Dante had taken another victim and Oberon knew where. She reached into her pocket and found Christian’s keys.

“Come, boy,” she said to Cerberus.

The car was outside the area cordoned off by the police. They were all too busy to notice her leave.

She let Cerberus jump in first. He immediately climbed into the passenger seat and sat, almost like he was just as anxious to get going as she was.

Antoinette turned the key in the ignition and waited for Oberon to climb on his motorcycle and start it.

As he pulled away, she followed close enough not to lose him but not so close as to attract his attention.

He led her through the city streets down toward the waterfront. The other victims had been found floating in and around the Red Hook area.

It was him. Fear and excitement warred in her gut for dominance. She would have the advantage this time; she was hunting him and not the other way around.

Rain started to fall with heavy fat drops, making visibility difficult. She missed the corner when Oberon turned right into a narrow one-way street. She pulled over to the curb.

The streets were deserted in this industrial part of town. She turned around and came back, turning off her lights before rolling to a slow stop across the street. He’d climbed off the bike and was leaning against it, waiting. Probably for his partner.

She flipped open the glove box and took out her gun, which she’d left there earlier tonight—just in case. Now she was glad to be prepared. Antoinette looked down at her bare feet. The heels she’d been wearing would hardly have been suitable, even if she hadn’t left them back where Viktor had died. She swallowed her grief.
Later.

There was nothing she could do about the shoes now; and she hadn’t thought to bring a spare pair. A car slowed and pulled in behind Oberon.

Cerberus sat up in the passenger seat with ears pricked.

“Stay!” she said.

The dog groaned and lay back down, cocking his doggy eyebrow as if accusing her of being mean.

“Good boy.” She ruffled his head and climbed out of the nice dry car into the pouring rain.

Dylan got out of the black Jeep Wrangler, checked his gun, and stashed it in his shoulder holster. “The police got a call from a witness about a woman being dragged into this alley.”

“Let’s get moving then, the Slasher may like to take his time, but we don’t have that luxury.” Oberon sluiced the water off his face. “It’s time to hunt.”

“Do you think he’s still near?” Dylan asked, rain plastering tendrils of hair to his cheeks.

“I don’t know.” Oberon turned to his partner. “We can only hope.”

The rain lessened as they entered the alley but the ground was flooded. Blocked drains backed up, preventing the runoff of the water gushing from down-pipes from the rooftops above. Oberon cursed as it washed away the scent trail.

Dylan squatted to pick up something—a delicate gold chain too short to be a necklace.

“I’d say we’re on the right track,” he said. “This anklet looks pretty expensive. Not something that would go unnoticed for long around here.”

They moved down the alley checking the side doors for signs of entry. A shoe lay half hidden under a Dumpster near the other end of the alleyway. By some miraculous piece of luck, it had landed in the only dry spot in the entire alley, sheltered from the rain and not floating in a puddle. Oberon held it to his nose.

A soft footstep landed in the wet ground and he spun around to find Antoinette following behind with a 9mm handgun.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he growled.

“Neither should you.” She straightened. “But I want this guy as much as you do. You’ll have to physically restrain me to stop me.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Oberon growled.

“We don’t have time for this, we’re gonna lose him,” Dylan said. “You may as well let her come. Besides—she’s a licensed Venator, not a civilian. Hi, I’m Dylan Jordan—his partner.” He stretched out his hand in greeting.

Antoinette smiled and shook it. “I know who you are—the felian, right?”

Bloody human. And why was Dylan being so civilized?

“Ahhhh!” Oberon slammed his fist into the wall. The pain shot up his arm, clearing the rage from his mind. “As much as I like the idea of locking her up, you’re right, we don’t have time.” Oberon flexed his hand as the bones popped
back into place, healing in seconds. “The woman’s scent from this shoe is fresh.”

He shifted the muscles in his face, elongating his jaw and nose, but he didn’t do a full transformation. He only needed to use his bear-enhanced olfactory abilities for now.

The victim’s human scent was ingrained into the leather with traces of a floral perfume, possibly moisturizer or a hand cream of some kind. Again it seemed expensive and out of place for this part of town. It hadn’t been in the alley long enough for other smells to taint it, so a good bet it belonged to our victim.

This was no spiking fang-whore.
This victim had money. Her scent lingered in his nostrils until his brain processed the pattern and then he could “see” her trail—flashes of reddish orange where her skin had brushed the wall or a line where a foot had grazed the cement pavement as she was dragged. One of her hairs stuck to the brickwork, long and fair just like the rest.

The rain beat a constant tattoo all around him. Antoinette pushed up the arms of an oversized jacket to reveal raised goose bumps. Puffs of visible white breath erupted from her blue-tinged lips. At this rate she would catch her death before they caught the killer.

“You should go back,” Dylan said to Antoinette. “You don’t even have any shoes, you’ll catch pneumonia.”

The girl shook her head violently, her teeth chattering as she swiped her wet hair out of her eyes. “I’m fine. Just keep going. I have a feeling we’re close.”

Stubborn bloody human.

They left the alley to come out in front of a large multistory abandoned building with one of the large front doors slightly ajar.

Oberon brought two fingers to his eyes and then pointed to the gate. He glanced at Dylan, hit his chest then pointed at Dylan and Antoinette. She didn’t look happy but they both nodded. Oberon would go first.

He pulled his 9mm and Dylan unholstered his Desert
Eagle, and they crossed the street quickly and took up position either side of the door.

Antoinette gripped the pistol, the excitement of the hunt rising in her veins. She looked to Oberon, waiting for his signal, and was impressed he still had the head of the bear while his body remained human. It took great control to maintain a partial transformation. He nodded his large head and held up three fingers, then one by one he put them down. On the last finger they entered the building. Antoinette didn’t mind being tail-end charlie—it was Oberon’s turkey-shoot after all.

The drumming of the rain receded the further they made their way toward the center of the building. Water dripped from the ill-maintained ceiling above, forming puddles on the floor.

Oberon led the way through a maze of debris and rusted metal. He seemed very confident of the direction, stopping occasionally to sniff the air and then set off again. For a large man, he was remarkably light on his feet. He called for a halt and nodded toward Dylan, who took off up a set of stairs leading to the naked support beams of the collapsed floor above.

Dylan flowed in and out of the shadows as silent as the felian he was. He ran with ease along a thin metal support beam and stopped halfway, looking down. Oberon snapped out a few tactical hand signals Antoinette didn’t understand. Dylan responded with a few of his own then dropped eighteen feet to land silently beside her.

Oberon took them deeper into the dilapidated building toward a stairwell leading down into the basement. This had an all-too-familiar feeling, though usually she did it alone.

Oberon’s face began to twitch and shrink; hair sucked back into his skin, leaving only his goatee beard before he stretched his jaw, snapping it into place.

He leaned in close to her ear. “He brought the girl in here,” he whispered against her ear. “I can smell his scent as clearly
as hers now, even in human form. Dylan says there are no lookouts or guards. He’s working alone.”

When he pulled back, he held his forefinger to his lips then pointed down the stairs. She gave him the thumbs-up, and with a nod from Dylan, Oberon led the way down to the soft glow coming from the floor below.

The foot of the staircase opened out onto a cavernous basement floor filled with hundreds of candles. In the center of the room was a large ornate stone platform. The woman lay bound hand and foot to the altar, the candlelight flickering over her naked body.
Dante really took this melodramatic shit a little too seriously.

The woman turned her head, her eyes widening when she saw Antoinette. When Oberon placed his forefinger against his lips, the woman’s face relaxed with hope. Her eyes darted to the other side of the room and she twisted her head toward a door. That must be where Dante had gone.

Oberon tapped Antoinette’s shoulder and signaled for her and Dylan to go after the girl. The felian dropped to a squat and drew a knife from a sheath around his ankle before signaling he was ready.

As they neared the altar, she smelled the decay of old blood. Symbols and ancient text were carved into the surface of the stone altar and grooves ran along the length to channel the blood toward the feet for collection.

“He’ll be back—” the girl started to say.

“Shh,” Antoinette hissed, cutting her off.

As Dylan sliced the bonds tying the girl down, Oberon moved closer to the other side of the room. Suddenly the door burst inward from its hinges, hitting Oberon full on and knocking him backward.

Antoinette glanced up as Dante filled the doorway and the girl screamed, tugging at the last of her bonds. Antoinette moved toward him. With a flick of his wrist Dante sent Dylan flying back and pinned him high on the wall behind.

Calmly, she raised the gun and fired twice in quick succession. The shots took him in the left side of the chest. She
took two more steps and fired again. This time she got him in the right side, in the heart she was sure, but she continued to empty the gun into his body. The force knocked him onto his back.

Something growled behind her and she spun in the direction of a whirlwind of fur and rage. Oberon’s clothes were shredded remnants of leather at the feet of one gigantic and extremely pissed-off grizzly. She pointed the gun back at Dante’s body, only to find it gone.

“Noooo,” she cried, running through the doorway into the room beyond.

Drops of dark blood lay on the bare floorboards where Dante had fallen, more was smeared by fingerprints a few feet from that. Abruptly she was shoved aside by the solid wall of muscle and claws, landing on her ass. The bear stopped and sniffed at the floor then turned to her and snarled.

This was the first time she’d seen Oberon fully transformed, and while she knew he’d be big, the sheer size of him kept her on her butt looking up at him. Swirling patterns rippled through his brown fur too neat and precise to be accidental.

He tilted his head to the side, and his strangely human eyes stared at her until she stood up. His lips peeled back, she could swear he smiled. He wanted her to follow.

Even with all that bulk, he moved fast through the rabbit warren of rooms and hallways until they reached another staircase leading up. It was too small for him in his current form, but not for her. She raced past him and up the stairs two at a time. At the top she slammed through the fire escape doors, bringing up the gun and aiming first left, then right, and then left again. Further down the alley red taillights flared and with a screech of tires shot down the alley toward the street.

Fuck!
She lowered the barrel of the gun.

Two seconds later a very naked human-form Oberon burst through the same doors.

“FUCK!” he screamed echoing her thoughts as the car
disappeared around the corner. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He kicked the nearest Dumpster, sending it skittering several yards down the filthy alleyway.

Tribal scarification marked his skin in Celtic patterns all over his upper arms, back, and thighs. Antoinette couldn’t tear her eyes away from the intricate work cut into his skin. Diluted silver nitrate solution was the only thing that would stop the skin of an Animalian from healing completely to its natural state, but it would hurt like hell.

“Well, fuck me sideways, Dante Rubins,” he growled, staring down the street after the car with his hands on his hips and his back to her. “I never would have believed it in a month of Sundays if someone told me Dante Rubins was still alive.”

“So it just wasn’t my imagination?”

Oberon shook his head. “If it was, he sure packed a punch for an illusion.”

“One thing’s for sure, he’ll be out of action for a while,” she said.

“Why’s that?” The ursian paced back and forth.

“This pistol was loaded with silver-encased rounds.”

He glanced at the weapon in her hand. “So he’s going to be very sick, even if he can find someone to take out the slugs straightaway.”

Antoinette averted her eyes from his full-frontal nudity.

Oberon took pity on her. “Do me a favor, go see to the girl downstairs. I think I frightened her.”

No shit!

The ursian put his hands on his hips. “And if you have a cell—call this in. I think I stood on mine in the transformation.”