The Darkest Kiss (8 page)

I just had to hope the vamps in this building feared the Directorate more than they wanted to taste Ivan’s blood.

I pounded down the stairs and out the shattered glass doors. Even against the thick reek of vampire that clung to the night, the odd scent of my quarry was easy enough to pick up. I raced across the barren ground of what once might have been a playground, and out onto the street. The vamp was nowhere to be seen, but his scent pulled me on.

“Sal, the vamp is on the run.” Headlights swept across the darkness, tearing away the shadows. The vamp became briefly visible—stringy hair flying, his legs almost a blur, arms pumping. “He’s about half a block ahead of me. If Talvin’s near, can you call him in as backup?”

“Will do.”

The car moved past, the headlights sweeping onto me. I threw up a hand to protect my eyes and kept on running. I was getting closer. Slowly but surely.

He swung right into a side street. I reached for more speed, not wanting him out of my sight for long, and felt the twinge of protest in my bruised and battered leg muscles.

I ran into the side street. The rich smell of barbequing meat filled the night, making my mouth water. The vampire was nowhere to be seen, but his lingering scent suggested he’d crossed the road and wasn’t that far ahead. I flicked to infrared, and realized the strength of the scent was misleading. His body was a fading blur up ahead. Fuck, he was fast.

I upped my own speed again, and the twinges in my legs became outright pain. I ignored them and ran on.

The vamp swung left into another side street. It was almost thirty seconds later before I skidded around the corner. Who’d have thought a vampire with such skinny little legs could have so much sustained speed?

Under the glow of infrared, the street was empty of life. I frowned, looking left and right, seeing the glimpses of life in the houses along either side of the street, but nothing that indicated my would-be murderous vampire was anywhere near.

I couldn’t have just
lost
him. No vampire could move
that
fast.

Yet his scent was not only fading fast, but dispersing in all directions. As if he’d stopped, and something had scattered the smell of him.

I looked upward. No vampire in the nearby trees, no unusual shape in the sky. Not that vampires could actually fly—not unless they’d been a bird-shifter in life, anyway.

Though with the sheer wrongness of his scent overwhelming everything else, it
was
possible for me to have missed the scent of shifter on him.

But if he was a bird-shifter, why hadn’t he taken flight when he’d jumped out the window? He could have gotten away much easier and cleaner.

Unless his intention all along had been to drag me far enough away so he could go back and finish what he’d started?

“Sal,” I said, as I turned and ran back as fast as my aching legs would allow. “My target has flown the coop and I’ve lost him.”

“Well, shit, Riley, that’s slack.”

No doubting that. “He’s five ten, gaunt build, with brown eyes and stringy hair. Can you put out a bulletin? I’ve got a bleeder in an apartment block of vamps to attend to. Send an ambulance ASAP.”

“What about Talvin?”

“Can you ask him to patrol the building’s grounds? Just in case our rogue decides to return?”

“Will do.”

The graffiti-strewn building felt no safer going in the second time than it had the first. The vamps still hovered, their hunger stinging the air.

At least there was no sense of a feeding frenzy. No overwhelming aroma of blood filling the air.

I pounded back up the stairs, wondering if I was even going to be able to walk tomorrow after everything my poor muscles had been through today.

The vamps on the fourth floor had stayed back, as ordered. I slowed as I neared the end apartment again, my breathing short, sharp gasps that filled the air. I raised an arm to swipe at the sweat trickling down my cheeks and entered the apartment.

Ben’s bloodied friend still hung by his wrists, and the odd-smelling vampire was nowhere nearby. Relief filtered through me. For once, fate hadn’t chucked me a curveball.

“Please,” he croaked, “get me down.”

“There’s a knife in the kitchen?”

He shook his head, sending droplets of blood flying from the cut on his cheek. “Not strong enough. Bedroom.”

I raised an eyebrow, though given his living arrangements, I guess it wasn’t such a bad idea. Personally, I’d be keeping a few handy stakes within reaching distance, too.

I found several large hunting knives in the bedside table, along with several smaller throwing knives. I picked the biggest and headed back out.

To find we were no longer alone.

“Fuck,” Ben said, his expression both shocked and angry as he stopped just inside the doorway. “I didn’t expect this.”

“No,” I agreed. I waved the knife in the direction of his friend. “You want to support his weight while I cut him down?”

He moved forward quickly, his big arms going around the waist of his smaller friend and taking the weight off Ivan’s torn and bloody wrists.

Ivan groaned, though I wasn’t sure whether it was in relief or pain. I dragged a kitchen chair up to them both and climbed up.

“There’s an ambulance coming. It should only be a few minutes.”

“Good,” Ben muttered. “But what about the vamp who did this?”

“Lost him.”

“Shit.”

“Putting it politely, yes.”

I raised the knife and began to cut. The blade was razor sharp, and sliced through the thickly twined layers of rope with little effort. Ivan didn’t say anything, and his gaze seemed a little unfocused. Maybe shock was starting to set in, either through blood loss or the sheer trauma of what he’d been through. His body had been shredded front and back, the rents jagged and uneven. No knife had caused them, that’s for sure.

The last of the rope strands gave way. Ben carried his friend over to the ratty-looking sofa and gently put him down. Ivan hissed, his expression contorting with pain.

“Sorry, mate,” Ben said, then looked at me. “You think he’s going into shock?”

“Yeah.” I glanced at my watch. “The ambulance shouldn’t be far, but maybe we should give him some water to sip. If it’s the blood loss causing the shock, we need to replace some of his fluids.”

“I’ll go get some.” He rose and walked past me, smelling of blood and anger.

I knelt down in front of Ivan. He didn’t react, so I touched his swollen fingers. He jumped, and his gaze swung to mine, momentarily filled with fear before he realized who it was and that he was still safe.

“I need to know what happened,” I said softly.

He licked his lips and swallowed heavily. “He came in about an hour ago. Said he needed to talk.”

“So you know him?”

He shook his head. “But he looked vaguely familiar, and Vinny had cleared him, so I thought he’d be fine.”

I frowned. “Who’s Vinny?”

“The head of the vampire group living here,” Ben said, as he came back into the room. He squatted down beside me, the heat of him rolling over me, thick with the scent of barely controlled anger. He dribbled some water onto Ivan’s lips, then looked at me. “Ivan’s undergone the blood ceremony to become a vampire, which is why he’s living here with Vinny and the vamps.”

Confusion swirled through me. “Taking the ceremony doesn’t mean he’s going to die straightaway. Not unless he intends suicide.”

And I very much doubt that had been his intent here. He wouldn’t have called Ben for help, if that were the case.

“He’s got cancer. Inoperable. He’s been given a year to live, at most.”

“Ah.” At least that explained his living arrangements. It made sense to be close to his maker if he went sooner than expected. I glanced at Ivan. “So Vinny might know who the vampire is?”

He closed his eyes, took a shuddery breath, then whispered, “I don’t know. But there was no intervention.”

And
that
was the cruncher.

The majority of vamps tended to be protective of their young—or soon-to-be young—at least until they were old enough to control the bloodlust and know the tricks of the trade, so to speak. They had to be, because the Directorate held them accountable for their young’s actions. It was only once they had a handle on being a vampire that the young were let loose into the big wide world. Vampires tended to be territorial, and two fully grown vamps generally couldn’t live together. Which made what was going on here a whole lot stranger. They simply couldn’t be all young ones. No vampire alive could control
this
many young.

Or so I’d thought.

Ben gave Ivan a few more drops of water. I waited until he’d swallowed, then asked, “Why did you invite him over the threshold if you didn’t know him?”

“Because he went through Vinny. I thought he was okay.”

Seems Vinny had a few answers to provide. And maybe it was Vinny, rather than my badge, that had kept the younger vamps at bay. Which meant, given the number of vampires living in this old building, he had to be fairly powerful.

But it was interesting that our rogue vamp had known enough about this building and its occupants to go through the protocol. Unlike me, who’d just charged in.

Of course, that’s what we guardians were supposed to do. Charge into places the dead feared to tread. Lucky us.

“Has Vinny got a last name?”

“Castillo.”

Hopefully, Sal hadn’t become bored by proceedings and was now doing a check to see what we had on one Vincent Castillo.

“Did your attacker say what he wanted to talk about?”

“No, he just started attacking, telling me he’d make me pay for hurting him.”

I raised my eyebrows. “So you do know him?”

“No. He was fucking crazy. I’ve never seen him before in my life, I swear.”

I could sense no lie in his words, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t. I mean, why would a vamp go to so much trouble to get in here just to attack a complete stranger?

“So if he attacked you straightaway, when did you get the chance to call Ben?”

He closed his eyes. “I didn’t.”

I looked at Ben, who said, “Maybe the shock and blood loss is affecting his memory.”

Maybe. And maybe he was telling the truth and something strange was going on.

Footsteps echoed down the hall, and as I looked toward the doorway, a voice said, “Ambulance officers. Who needs the help?”

“Down here,” I shouted.

The footsteps drew closer, and a second later two men appeared. “Well, that was a hairy experience,” the first man said. “Never been in a place where so many vamps haunted the shadows.” He glanced at Ivan and clicked his tongue. “The vamps do this?”

“No. They just didn’t stop it.”

“Vamps tend to be like that,” he said philosophically. “It’s all about their needs, not others’.”

And that, I thought, as I rose to get out of his way, was the best summation I’d heard of vamps in quite a while.

I followed Ben across the living room. He crossed his bare arms, his blue T-shirt straining across his chest as he leaned a shoulder against the wall. He must have left the bike leathers at home in his haste to get here, but the T and the jeans were a damn fine look.

I tried to concentrate on the business at hand. “Does Ivan work at Nonpareil as well?”

Ben shook his head. In the bright living room light, his blue eyes looked almost sapphire with the anger that still overwhelmed his scent. “He’s an investment advisor.”

“Then how did you two meet?”

“We go to the same gym, and became friends a few years ago.” He hesitated. “Why?”

“Because I think it’s odd that two people you know have now been attacked in an identical way.”

He frowned. “Why would either of the attacks be related, let alone related to me?”

“Well, you’d have to tell me. Why would someone want to get back at you by attacking your friends? Because one thing I’m sure of is the fact that they’re related.”

His frown deepened. “Impossible. I mean, Ivan and Denny didn’t even know each other. And why do you think it was the same killer going after them both?”

“Because I recognized the vampire’s scent. The vampire who was in Denny’s bedroom—and who might well have killed him—is the same vampire responsible for stringing Ivan up by his wrists and slicing him open.”

Chapter 4

H
e stared at me for a moment, his expression neutral. But his blue eyes were even darker than before, and the sense of his anger increased. This time, it was aimed at me.

“Are you sure?” he said eventually, and the effort of control was evident in the burly, thick notes invading his rich tones.

“Yes.”

“Then why in the hell did you let him go?” He said it with such force that it blew the sweaty strands of hair away from my face and had the ambulance guys looking around sharply.

I waved a hand to tell them it was okay, and met Ben’s anger head-on. “Because he was a fucking vampire who jumped out the window and then probably flew away. I’m many things, Ben, but I haven’t quite learned to fly yet.”

He looked at me for a moment, then took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Sorry. You’re doing me a favor by even being here, and I shouldn’t be taking my frustration out on you.”

I smiled and touched his arm lightly. Warmth tingled through my fingers—a reaction not so much to the heat of his skin as to simple contact. I might have denied my need for it over these past few months—well, as much as any wolf could—but the hunger would always be there.

And I was beginning to doubt whether it could be restrained for much longer.

“It’s okay. I’m well acquainted with the need to lash out when people you care about are hurt.” Hell, I’d done it myself often enough.

Amusement crinkled the corners of his eyes. “I don’t care about them
that
way, if that’s what you’re implying. They were just good friends—people I could trust—and that’s rare in this cynical world of ours.”

“True.” I let my hand drop from his arm, but my fingers still tingled from the contact. I resisted the urge to clench them in an effort to retain the sensation for that little bit longer. My hormones didn’t need that sort of encouragement. “I think my next call of duty should be our local vampire master. Are you going to accompany Ivan to the hospital?”

“I’d better, at least until his family get there.”

“Keep me updated, then.”

“I will.” He touched my cheek lightly, briefly. “See you tomorrow.”

“You will.” I stepped away from the lure of his closeness, then turned and walked out the door. Once back in the darkness of the corridor, I said softly, “Hey, Sal, you got any information on one Vincent Castillo?”

“No details on either a Vinny or Vincent Castillo. If he’s the head of that little shindig over there, he’s kept himself under our radar.”

Which wasn’t to say that Jack didn’t know about him, just that there was nothing on record. “You want to ask the boss about it when you see him?”

“He’s not coming back in until tomorrow, but I’ll leave a note.”

“Thanks, Sal.”

“Don’t thank me, wolf girl. Thank the gods I’m feeling helpful right now.”

I grinned. No doubt she’d be her regular snarky self tomorrow, but that was okay. I don’t think I could handle too much of the super-efficient, super-pleasant Salliane.

I touched the com-link lightly, switching off voice but not tracking. It was doubtful the vampires would attack us now—if for no other reason than the fact they’d draw too much attention from the Directorate.

The vampires at the other end of the corridor still hadn’t moved. I strode toward them, noting for the first time the fact that all five seemed to have been turned around the same age. They all had that lanky, almost awkward look boys seemed to get in their late teens. They were all blonds, too.

I stopped in front of them and tried not to breathe too deeply. “I need to speak to Vinny Castillo.”

They glanced at one another, then one said, “Top floor. You’re expected.”

“Great.” Though I wasn’t sure it was.

I headed for the stairs and began to climb. The unwashed scent of vampire began to fade the farther I went up, so that by the time I reached the eighth floor, it had all but disappeared. In its place was a mix of blossom and pine that reminded me of springtime and made my nose twitch with the need to sneeze.

I stopped on the landing and looked around. Darkness haunted the corridor to the left, but the right was lit by a series of red candles in stylized, rose-shaped sconces. The flickering light danced warmly across the graffiti-strewn walls and gave the hallway an oddly forbidding feel. Given that Ivan still had power in his apartment, the candles were obviously for effect rather than a necessity.

At the far end of the corridor, a woman waited. Like the vampires on the floors below, she was young and gangly. But unlike them, her blond hair had been recently washed, and shone like pale gold in the flickering candlelight.

Two things were obvious—Vinny liked them young and blonde, and it didn’t seem to matter whether they were boys or girls.

I lowered a shield and reached out carefully, feeling psychically for those in the room beyond. I might as well have been trying to source out a big black hole. It didn’t feel like there were psychic deadeners involved, nor did it feel like any kind of natural psychic wall I’d ever encountered. It was just a hole. Or maybe it was more like a black star, because it seemed to suck away any sort of mental resonance.

Even the kid at the door wasn’t showing up on my psychic radar, though she didn’t look like an old enough vamp to block even a weak telepath.

Weird.

I strode toward the guard. Little emotion showed on her pale face or in her dark eyes, but her wariness stung the air. She was dressed casually—jeans, sneakers, and a pale pink tank top—but there was a suspicious-looking bulge on her right side. I wondered if the bullets were the regular kind, or if they’d just happened to have some silver ones hanging about.

“I’m Riley Jenson.” I stopped just in front of her and dragged out my badge. “I’d like to speak to Vinny Castillo, please.”

Something flickered through her eyes. Amusement, perhaps. “You’re expected.”

She opened the door, revealing a plush room that was nothing like the rest of the building. The graffiti was nowhere to be seen here. Instead, the walls were covered by thick velvet drapes in a dark, dramatic red. The carpet was thick and lush, and the color of rich sand. And there were chandeliers, for heaven’s sake—two big ones that sent rainbow-colored sprays of light scattering amongst the shadows. The rest of his gang might live in squalor, but old Vinny was living it up like a king.

I stepped inside. Saw the thickly stuffed black leather chairs and sensuous-looking chaise sofas before my gaze was drawn to the small circle of people at the far end of the room.

Half a dozen toga-clad boys and girls—I refused to call them anything else, because not one of them looked to be older than seventeen—stood around a mahogany-and-leather chaise lounge. Draped over it was a woman.

A woman who reeked of power and sensuality.

I stopped. I couldn’t help it. The force of this woman was unlike anything I’d ever come across. I knew vampires who were either close to, or older than, a thousand years, and neither of them had the immediate impact this woman had. And yet I doubted whether she was anywhere
near
their age.

Hell, I’d put money on the fact that she hadn’t even reached triple figures yet—if only because vampires with any sort of years behind them would surely be able to afford better accommodation for themselves and their get.

She wasn’t anything stunning to look at. I guess she could be classed as average—not pretty, not ugly, just normal. A medium-height, medium-built woman with dark brown hair and chocolate-colored eyes.

But in her case, looks didn’t matter. Her power lay in her essence. In her very nature.

Werewolves had auras that were totally capable of seducing anyone, willing or unwilling. We weren’t allowed to use it on any other race but our own, of course, but that didn’t mean it didn’t occasionally happen. The energy she was putting out was similar to a werewolf’s aura. It was all heat and need and desire, and it spun around me sensually, making my pulse race. My body hunger.

The desire to run forward, to caress her pale skin as the others caressed it—lightly, reverently—hit like a wrecking ball. Sweat began to dot my skin, and the thirst to touch her, kiss her, make love to her, was so strong that I took a step forward.

But it wasn’t
my
desire, wasn’t real, and I wasn’t about to become some young vamp’s plaything. Especially not a young
female
vamp’s plaything. So I clenched my fists, digging my fingernails into my skin, using pain to overwhelm desire. In any other situation, I would have thrown up my own aura to battle hers—but I was standing in the middle of a den of vampires, and that might cause a whole lot more problems.

“Stop it,” I said, voice sharp, “or I’ll get the Directorate to do a sweep and clean out this whole damn place.”

She laughed, a sound as rich and as warm as the room, and the swirling heat of desire abated. Not completely, but enough that it was ignorable. “I have no wish to antagonize the Directorate. Please, step forward, so that I can see you better.”

I felt like saying that, as a vamp, she should be able to see me perfectly fine just where I was, but that could have been seen as churlish. Which I certainly could be on more than a few occasions, but I had a feeling that this was one of those times when it was better to play along.

At least until I got the feel of things.

I walked forward. The scent of blossom and springtime got stronger, mixing warmly with the heavy scent of desire still stirring the air. The toga-clad teenagers watched me with almost languorous expressions, but their pupils were extremely dilated. I would have guessed they were high on something, except for the fact that they were extremely still.

My gaze went to the woman. Maybe the only drug they needed was closeness to their maker. Maybe touching her was akin to a sexual or drug high. Just because I’d never heard of a vampire capable of getting someone off on the merest contact didn’t mean they weren’t out there. And hell, this woman had made
me
want her. If skin-to-skin contact with her was as powerful as her aura, then their expressions were understandable.

I stopped when there was still a good ten feet between us. This close, her skin looked almost luminous, as if the richness of the moon itself glowed from deep within her…I blinked. Reapplied my nails to the palm of my hand. Saw that her pale skin was just that. Pale skin. Nothing luminous and beautiful about it at all.

Anger swirled through me. As a werewolf, I’d been taught restraint almost from the beginning. Oh, not sexual restraint, because to a werewolf, sex was life. But the aura was a different matter. From the time I’d been a pup, long before my aura had even begun to develop, we’d learned that it was wrong to force another—both morally and legally. The fact that a werewolf’s aura could make the unwilling willing
didn’t
make it okay, because the end result was the same—you were forcing an action on someone he might not have taken otherwise.

Of course, I
had
done it, as a guardian, just to gain some advantage over a foe. But I’d never done it to force sex on someone otherwise.

This woman had been taught no such restraint.

“I did warn you to stop it.” I turned on my heel and walked toward the door.

She laughed again, a sound that shivered warmly up my spine. “Please, I’ll behave. You have questions about Ivan Lang, no?”

I turned around again. “Yes.”

“Then I will answer them. But please, come closer. I had a degenerative eye disease before I was turned and, as a result, my eyesight is not good.”

I studied her for a moment, seeing no lie in her brown eyes, and not sure if I would even if she were. “What is your real name?”

“Vincenta Castillo. Please, I assure you I will not play games with you again. Come closer.”

I hesitated, then did. Odd to think that this woman had me wanting to run, and yet I’d faced things a thousand times stronger, and far more dangerous. Hell, I had a permanent reminder of one such encounter on my left hand, which was now missing a pinky finger thanks to the hunger of a death god.

She smiled. It was just an ordinary smile, which meant she was keeping her word. For the moment, at least.

“If Ivan has taken the ceremony to become a vampire, why didn’t you protect him?”

“Because I was paid not to interfere in any way.”

Surprise ran through me. “You took money over protecting your get?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Look around you, guardian. These premises are more suitable for street scum than an upwardly mobile vampire. But I am young in vampire terms, and therefore have not yet accumulated the sort of money I require.”

Meaning she was earning her cash legally? Somehow, I doubted it. A vamp with the sort of seduction skills she had could entice all manner of things out of her bed partners.

“So you were just going to sit back and let a rogue vamp kill Ivan?”

She gave an unladylike snort. The toga-clad kid nearest her shoulder trailed his fingers up her neck and across her cheek, in what I supposed was a soothing gesture. “He’s not dead, is he?”