Blood Song

“You’ve been here about six hours. It’s around ten A.M. And a month didn’t work perfectly. No.”



He didn’t elaborate, and his tone was absolutely neutral. Too neutral. Sometimes the absence of something tells me more than its presence. My guess would be that the mission he’d been referring to went very bad, very quickly. It might even be the source of the scarring on his neck. Or not. I wouldn’t ask. It was rude. Yes, since I apparently was an abomination I should probably find out as much as I could; and I would … eventually. But right now I needed to find out what had happened in the hours I’d lost. Because I hadn’t just lost six hours. The last I remembered was getting ready to visit Vicki.



“Can you sense your sire?” Jones’s words brought me back to the situation at hand.



I thought about it. Nothing. There was no sorrow or rage or even happiness connected to the lack of a connection. Just bland neutralness. “No. Is there a trick to doing it?”



“No. Generally the connection’s just there.” He seemed genuinely puzzled and not particularly pleased.



“That’s not terribly helpful, you know,” Emma said coldly. She wasn’t looking at him as she said it. Instead, she was very carefully cleaning and putting away every bit of equipment they’d used. In moments there would be no trace of my having been here at all. Except, of course, for the video camera.



“Make sure they keep the film of my being brought in.”



“Why?” Emma sounded surprised.



I wanted to look at it, to see if the video prompted any memories. But that’s not what I said. “The police may want proof that I didn’t leave the crime scene under my own steam.”



“No police.” Jones sounded as though he were scolding a particularly dim-witted child.



“Look, it’s fairly obvious I was attacked, and I wouldn’t have gone down without at least a few shots having been fired. That gun on top isn’t even mine, so weapons were used. The police have ballistics on most of my weapons from a couple of previous incidents. They’re going to match up the pieces when they start digging through the scene. They know what I do for a living, so it isn’t usually an issue. It isn’t a crime to kill a vampire, but people are generally supposed to report that sort of thing.”



Jones shrugged. “Ah. A good, law-abiding citizen.” There was a hint of condescending amusement.



To my surprise, his tone didn’t irritate me. Probably because he was trying too hard. I do have a short fuse, but I don’t like playing into people’s expectations. So I smiled and spoke sweetly. “It makes life easier. I like easy.”



Emma gave me an odd look. She knows me well enough to have expected me to put up more of a fight. I saw her open her mouth as if to speak, then close it, compressing her lips tightly.



I looked from one of them to the other. “Here’s what I propose. I call the police, arrange to come in and make my statement.” Not that I could say much, with no memories of whatever had happened. But I might be able to get some information. They might even do a memory enhancement for me. Or not. That sort of thing was only used as a last resort—too traumatic to the witness. Besides, the courts were split on whether or not the evidence obtained that way could be used because of proven cases of mental manipulation. Still, worth a shot.



“After that I go to Vicki, see what she knows, maybe see if she can help me track my sire’s daytime hidey-hole. If that doesn’t work, we go back to wherever you found me and see if we can find any clues.” If my sire was going to be stalking me with death or undeath in mind, I wanted to get the jump on him. Preferably in full daylight with as much specialized weaponry as I could carry. I’ve fought vamps. I’ve killed them. But mostly they’ve been babies, new to the game. Vampires that are old enough to actually bring humans over are good. Scary good. They’ve got strength, magic, mind games, the works. I was going to need every advantage I could get to get close enough to kill the bastard, before he killed me. Vicki has a better than 99 percent accuracy rate. Odds are she either knew what was going on or could find out. And it certainly wouldn’t hurt to try.



Emma nodded, which I expected since she knows Vicki nearly as well as I do. But I hadn’t expected Jones to speak.



“I’d recommend that. But I’d suggest you see Vicki first. The police are open twenty-four/seven. Birchwoods isn’t.” That was interesting. How did Jones know about Vicki? While it was possible Emma or Kevin had told him, it didn’t seem likely. No, I was betting that Jones had found out the information on his own. If so, he’d been researching all of us. Maybe he’d done it after Kevin had called him. But I doubted it. He’d have had to work fast and be amazingly good. Because Birchwoods takes confidentiality very, very seriously. If a starlet or executive wants sympathy, they check into one of the other rehab facilities. If they want secrecy to the grave and beyond, they choose Birchwoods. It’s pricey as hell, but for folks who value their privacy Birchwoods is worth every penny. And there was no way Vicki’s parents would leak she was there. It would be too damaging to their lily-white reputations. Hell, they’re so worried about their image that they hire a double to impersonate her for the press. So how had Jones known?



I turned toward him, my expression studiously blank. “Are you in this for the duration?”



He shrugged. “I owe Kevin Landingham a significant favor. Helping you will repay that.”



“Fair enough.”



I turned, giving Emma a long, hard look. What I was about to do was virtually guaranteed to annoy her, but it was necessary. If she came along, she’d get in the way. Besides, I didn’t want to wait for Kevin, but I wanted him riding shotgun as soon as possible. Call me paranoid, but I didn’t trust Jones with my back. I just didn’t know him well enough. “When your brother gets back—”



“I’m going with you—,” she interrupted, but I kept talking over her.



“—tell him where we’re headed so that he can catch up.”



“We can leave him a note. I’m going with you. I am not sitting here and waiting like a good little girl.” She wasn’t shouting, wasn’t hysterical. In fact, there was a level of cold, hard determination I’d never seen in her before. It made no sense. Why now of all times, and about this?



“Em—”



“I’m not.”



“You’re not what?” We turned in unison at the sound of Kevin’s voice.



He stood outlined in the doorway, looking better than any man had a right to. My heart sped up at the sight of him. At the moment, his sandy blond hair was just a little long, so that it fell in front of eyes the color of a perfect summer sky. His T-shirt and jeans were faded and worn, and just tight enough to show off a body to die for. I never managed to look at him without my body reacting. It’s not just his looks, either. He’s the whole package, brains, body, and a sense of humor. His strong jaw is softened by the deepest dimples. He has a smile that could make the clothes melt right off my body. I’ve wanted him from the minute I first laid eyes on him. I wouldn’t have done anything about it when I was with Bruno, but that’s been over for a long time now. But Kevin’s with Amy. I don’t know if she’s a werewolf or not, but it doesn’t matter. I have ethics. Besides, that woman is scary.



“What are you doing up?” The words were directed at me. The look, however, was for Jones first, then Emma.



“I did it,” Jones said. He gave Kevin a broad smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s necessary. We have to find her sire. Doing so in daylight, when he’s helpless, would be preferable, don’t you think?”



“Not if it kills Celia in the process.” Kevin snarled.



The smile grew, and Jones’s eyes started to twinkle. “Well, you’re in luck. She’s not dead.”



I let out a very unladylike snort of laughter. I couldn’t help it. I’m a sucker for sarcasm. Besides, he was right.



All three of them turned to glare at me. I not only didn’t wither, I didn’t even flinch. Bully for me. I held up a placating hand. “There’s no point in arguing. I’m up. No harm done. And I’ve got work to do.”



Kevin’s expression grew stubborn. He crossed his arms over his chest, his stance balanced and solid. “Tell me what you remember.”



Shit. He would ask that. “Not a damned thing.”



“The fourteenth,” he said with significance. Should that mean something? I already knew I’d lost a full day.



Well, crap. Yesterday had been Vicki’s birthday. I’d gotten ready to go, but had I even visited her? I didn’t remember it. She’d be upset that I was injured. But she’d be hurt if I forgot her birthday. And I wanted her to have her gift. I mean, that present had taken months to find and get the spells worked. But she wouldn’t know that if I hadn’t made it out there to give it to her.



Kevin stared at me for a long moment, as though he were reading my mind. “You think you’re fit to go out hunting your sire, when you can’t even remember a birthday?” He didn’t bother to hide his derision, which raised my hackles.



“I think I’m not going to have much choice, Kevin. Jones just told me I’m going to feel compelled to find him pretty soon. I’m not just going to sit around waiting for him to hunt me, and would rather go looking before I turn into a drooling idiot. You don’t go after a master vamp after dark, and if I don’t find and kill him first, he’s going to be stalking me just as soon as the sun goes down—unless your friend Jones over there was lying.”



“He’s not,” Kevin admitted grudgingly. “But you don’t have to be the one to hunt him.”



“Did you have any luck tracking him back from where you found Celia?” Jones’s tone was deceptively bland.



Kevin answered Jones’s question with one of his own. “It’s broad daylight. Celia. Do you even know if you can go outside?” Kevin’s voice had softened just a hair, as if he sensed the distress I wasn’t willing to show. Maybe he could smell it? I didn’t know enough about werewolves to know one way or the other. I’d passed up on that class in favor of two semesters of history of magic.