Seduction's Shift (32 page)

For now Yuri’s thin body had been shackled to a pipe that ran down one of the back walls of the kitchen. He was gagged, his hands chained behind him, his ankles linked together with the same chain that led to the pipe. And around his neck was a brace that beeped with a red light. This was the prisoner collar Nick and Ezra had suggested to Rome a couple of years back. Rome thought they’d never need it, but Nick had wanted to be ready. It was a good thing.

The thought was that if they had to hold a shifter, they’d fit him with this collar. If he shifted while wearing the collar, the instantaneous growth of the neck would trigger electromagnetic waves from the collar; the cat would die as its paws hit the ground. They hadn’t used this on the cheetah shifter they’d held because he was never meant to live long.

Yuri wasn’t a shifter, but Ezra probably figured it was wisest to slip on the collar anyway, just for the hell of it.

“When I first came to see you, I wanted your help,” Nick said, moving until he was standing completely in the small kitchen.

The shaman gazed at him with bleak eyes. The man looked like he starved for a living instead of milking people for their money or personal belongings to give them fake-ass remedies.

In the center of the beige-tiled floor was a round table with two wooden chairs. Nick pulled one out and took a seat. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and glared at Yuri.

“This time I’m not asking for your help. I’m telling you what I want to know and you’re going to supply the information. It’s that simple.”

Yuri didn’t even blink.

“Nod if you understand.”

Yuri didn’t nod.

Nick shrugged, got to his feet, and walked over to were Yuri was propped against the wall. He punched the shaman in the gut and watched his eyes bulge a millisecond before he doubled over.

“I told you to nod if you understand.”

Yuri kind of dangled there, his head held low, the lower half of his body now crumpled on the floor.

Undeterred by the continued lack of cooperation, Nick grabbed his hair, pulling his head back until he almost snapped a neck that looked thin enough to slip right out of the collar.

“Nod if you understand.”

The shaman blinked rapidly, and Nick felt the slight pull against the hold he had on his head. He smiled. “Good.

“Now, where did you meet up with Sabar? I want to know his exact location.”

Yuri shook his head.

“Oh, you know. I’d suggest you not lie to me,” Nick warned, his claws emerging on the hand that didn’t hold Yuri’s head.

He watched as the man’s eyes closed and he heard some sort of moaning coming from him. Nick pulled on his head again then dragged four of his fingers down the side of his face. “Don’t fuck with me, old man! I want answers!”

There was a muffled scream as Nick’s claws penetrated the skin of Yuri’s face. He remembered the gag and used his claws to pull it out of his mouth. “Start talking.”

Yuri gasped and blinked, probably trying to get himself together since now he was bleeding like crazy, as well as being tied to a pipe. He coughed when Nick shook his head again.

“A house, I went to a house when I get off the plane,” he said in a hoarse tone.

“Where was the house?” Nick asked as if he were talking to a toddler.

Yuri’s eyes glassed over and his lips pursed, and Nick thought he was going to start with the smoke again. He punched Yuri in the mouth just as a warning. “All you’re going to do is answer my questions. Nothing else, just answers,” he told him.

“I do not know. I do not live here.”

Nick didn’t know if that was meant to be sarcastic or not, but it had some semblance of truth. If Yuri wasn’t from here, without an exact address he might find it a little hard to describe where Sabar lived.

“How many shifters are with him?”

Yuri’s eyes lit up then. His thin lips spread into an awkward smile considering the huge bone going through his lip. And yes, that was some disgusting shit to look at, and it would have hurt his human knuckles like a bitch if his skin and bones hadn’t thickened when his claws came out.

“New shifters are good. Souls are obedient,” Yuri said with a hiss. His tongue moved over the bone, touching lightly against his lower lip, then his top one. “It worked.”

“What worked? What did you do to his shifters?”

“He now owns the souls.”

Nick hit him again just because he didn’t like what the hell the shaman was saying. Had he blown that smoke onto shifters? Now there were some brainwashed shifters running around town? Fuck!

“I’m sick of the bull, tell me where he is. Where were you supposed to meet him again?”

“You will not defeat him,” Yuri said.

“And you will not live to see another sunset. Tell me where the fuck he is!” He pulled Yuri up so that his feet dangled off the floor. Nick held him by his hair, and the shaman yelled in pain as he was hoisted up higher.

“Talk!”

“D,” he hissed. “It is on a road called D.”

Nick released him immediately, not giving a rat’s ass about his body slumping to the ground. “If you’re lying I’m coming back here to rip your guts out.”

He grabbed the rag off the floor and stuffed it back into Yuri’s mouth. “Sit tight, I’ll be back.”

Chapter 31

“You’ve got ten minutes,” the short, pudgy man told Kalina. “I could lose my job doing this.”

Kalina smiled and rubbed the guy’s arm. “Thanks a lot, Pete. I really appreciate your getting us in. We’ll only need five of those minutes. Right?” she asked Ary and X, who stood behind her waiting to get through the double swinging doors.

Ary was anxious, had been since last night when Kalina had announced they’d be able to get in to see the latest corpse today. Weeks had passed since this female had died. According to Pete, no one had claimed the body and the police were still investigating. The truly astonishing fact was how well the body had held up. Decomposition should have already started, but it seemed as if the body had been frozen in death. If Sabar’s drug was capable of what Ary thought, it was going to be a catastrophe once it went global. X had that same fear; that’s why he was here with them. The fact that Rome had doubled both their security was another reason X was tagging along. Jax and Leo were both standing right outside the front doors of the city morgue just in case anyone tried to come in while they were there.

“I’ll wait right out here,” Pete told Kalina, his chubby cheeks flushed red at her touch. “Ten minutes.”

Kalina smiled and gave Ary and X a nod as she moved through the double doors. From behind, Ary heard X growl at the man who was no doubt still watching Kalina with his big blue eyes.

“You’re an agitator,” she told him once they were walking down a short hallway that lead to a second set of double doors.

“What? He was looking at her like he wanted her for his breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She is the First Female, you know,” he said in his defense.

“Whatever,” Ary said with a chuckle. “Bully.”

“It should be this one,” Kalina said once they were through the doors and near a wall full of handles and tags with dates on them.

Ary came up beside her as she reached for the handle.

“I’ll get it,” X said, motioning for both of them to move out of the way.

Ary immediately unzipped the black body bag, pushing it to both sides.

“Goddammit!” X yelled.

Both Kalina’s and Ary’s eyes shot up, wondering what had happened to make him explode like that.

“You okay with seeing a dead body?” Kalina asked.

X was rubbing his eyes, the veins in his neck bulging, his bald head glistening with tiny beads of sweat.

“I know this girl,” he said before taking a deep breath. “I just spoke to her a few weeks ago. She’s a stripper from that club Athena’s.”

“Oh,” Ary said for lack of anything better.

“Was she the one you thought had information on Sabar’s drug?” Kalina asked.

X nodded, looking down again at the girl, reaching out to close the one gray eye that was still open. The other eye wasn’t exactly in a position to be closed since it barely hung in the socket while the rest of her face had been ripped off.

“Her name’s Diamond,” he said, clearing his throat. “The drug didn’t do this to her,” X finished adamantly.

“I agree,” Ary told him, wanting to touch him, to console him in some way but refraining. X did not look like the type of man you consoled. Cussed out or punched, maybe, but not hugged and consoled. “There are scratches over here on her arm as well.”

“So a Rogue did this? Why?” Kalina asked.

X cursed. “They don’t need a reason, the filthy bastards!” He looked like he wanted to say more but squeezed his lips until they were in a tight line as he kept staring down at Diamond.

“Maybe the Rogue is infected,” Ary suggested.

“You mean the Rogue took the drug, too?” Kalina asked Ary.

“No. I mean, maybe Yuri was able to perform the ayahuasca ceremony and opened the Rogue’s soul. He could be controlled and made to do anything for any reason, without a second thought.”

“Rogues don’t second-guess anything. They decide and they act. Period. And they don’t hesitate to kill. The other females were mauled, too,” X said.

“Not in the face like this,” Kalina said.

“And look here.” Ary parted the legs of the female; thick, deep scratches had ripped her skin there as well. “Give me a hand,” she said to Kalina.

Together they pushed the body—already in rigor—until they could see more scratches up and down her back, deeper and longer ones on her buttocks.

“You think he raped her?” Ary asked.

Kalina shrugged. “If she’s a stripper, he might not have had to.”

“She was a good girl,” X said, his voice sounding more than a little agitated.

“In a very bad place and at a very bad time,” Kalina told him as they lowered the body again. “Maybe she did know about the new drug. Maybe she knew Sabar and this is what she got from having that knowledge.”

Ary was shaking her head even as X reached down and began zipping the body bag closed.

“Sabar wouldn’t infect himself. He has to remain in control at all times,” she said.

They took a step back as X closed the drawer with a solid click. He hadn’t told them to watch out or even that he was putting the body away. But both of them were wise enough not to question him.

“He has to rule,” Kalina began. “So he would want everyone who worked with him to be under his complete control.”

“Owning their soul would be equivalent to having complete control,” Ary said.

Kalina shrugged as she followed behind X, who was already moving toward the doors. “You’re right.”

Ary followed, walking besides Kalina. “I wish I wasn’t.”

*   *   *

“Why aren’t you eating?” Nick asked Caprise when they were all seated around Rome’s mahogany dining room table.

Custom-made blinds were closed tight at each window, drapes closed. The FL didn’t want to risk anyone seeing what went on in his house. Especially since it was now filled with shifters.

“I don’t eat meat,” Caprise said, her facial expression conveying her discomfort at being here.

“That’s why you’re so bitchy all the time,” X grumbled.

Nick shot him a warning glance to which he only shrugged.

“You,” Carpise said, using her fork to point at X. “Are a pain in the ass!”

He dropped his fork and glared at her. “Let me tell you—”

Rome cleared his throat loudly. “Children, please. We’re having dinner.”

Kalina chuckled. Ary simply shook her head. It did feel like they were having a family dinner, and at such siblings did usually bicker. Younger siblings, that is; X and Caprise were too damn old for this. But anytime the two were near each other they were ready to bare claws and go at it.

“I’m not hungry,” she said, pushing her plate away.

“You’re too skinny,” X replied.

Caprise’s gaze shot straight at him again, glowing with the tawny glow of her cat’s eyes.

“So we went to the morgue today,” Ary put in.

Nick smiled at her in thanks.

Kalina joined right in. “The latest body wasn’t killed by the drug.”

“What happened to her?” Rome asked.

“A cat killed her,” Ary said. “Half her face was ripped off, and there are scratches all over her body. He just tore her to shreds.”

“Like he was super pissed off,” Kalina said before taking a sip of her wine.

“So you think he took the drug first?” Nick asked Ary.

She shook her head. “No. I think he was infected with the ayahuasca.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” X asked. “Shifters don’t need a reason to kill.”

“Let her talk,” Rome interjected.

Nick looked at X, who didn’t look like himself at all. Yes, his friend was usually a mean SOB, even more so than Nick most days, but when he was with them—meaning him and Rome—X was usually a little more laid back. Tonight he was edgy. And that had Nick concerned, because dealing with an edgy X was like walking into the middle of the jungle with blinders on. There was no telling what would happen next.

“There’s a distinct difference between the drug and the ayahuasca itself. If it’s mixed with the damiana and the cocaine, its effects are out of control. Alone, the ayahuasca takes a more dominant role. A shifter with his soul altered and controlled by someone else—it’s like having a terrorist for a neighbor. You know something bad’s going to happen, you just don’t know when, where, or why.”

“Sabar could build one hell of an army with shifters like that,” Nick said.

“Exactly what I’m thinking,” Ary added.

“So the drug is what? A distraction?” X asked.

At the far end of the table where it had been quiet for the last few minutes came a loud sigh. “It secures him a spot in the human world as a dominator. He has to lead from both sides, remember? Baxter told you this already. If he controls shifters, that makes him a leader among the cat people. Cornering the drug market gives him street cred to rival any power that politicians or cops could ever garner,” Carpise said shooting an evil glare at X.

Before X could reply, Rome spoke up. “She’s right.”

“So playing both sides, he figures he’s a winner either way,” Ary said.