Chapter Eighteen
I braced myself against Seb’s frame as best I could as he tore out of the parking lot doing what seemed like a hundred miles per hour. “Why are you going so fast?”
“He can’t follow us!” Seb shouted over the snarl of the engine. “Even a Soul Stealer can only run about forty miles an hour.”
“He followed us to the hotel,” I objected.
“He’s got his domain wallpapered with spies. He didn’t actually follow us, or he would’ve found us sooner. And he won’t find us until it’s too late.”
“Unless he has a car.”
“Or a bike or a helicopter. We’ll have to trust that his ego wouldn’t let him think he’d lose us again.”
Still, he rolled on the accelerator until we were just short of taking off like a jet. I don’t know how he evaded the police. Once out of range of the hotel, Seb spent an hour checking for tails, executing stomach-spinning double-backs and sudden turns. Finally, close to eleven p.m., he pulled to a stop, so fast I flattened against his cliff of a back, in front of a set of four four-unit townhouses running the depth of their lot.
Julian and Nixie Emerson’s townhouses. And from what Sera had told me, the master vampire’s household.
“We need to be careful now.” Seb drew me by the hand onto the sidewalk.
Good thing his hand was strong, because the anger that had galvanized my muscles before had been ripped away by terror. My legs were trembling—and when the tension in his grip said he was actually worried, I began to shake.
“What’s wrong?” I asked sharply. “Julian’s expecting us. Isn’t that why we stopped, for you to make arrangements?”
“Yes. My kind is…hot tempered. Quick to solve problems with violence. Even quicker to defend, with deadly force. This is Emerson’s home ground. We must be on our guard, ready for anything.”
The outside lights sprang on the instant Seb crossed the sidewalk into the yard. I welcomed the brightness, but if anything, his hand on mine tightened more.
While we were still fifty feet away, Julian Emerson flung open the front door of the anchor townhouse. His hands were empty, but behind him bristled his right-hand vampire, Spartan mountain Nikos.
Julian put up a palm. “Stop right there.” His voice was dark with suspicion.
Seb stopped with me slightly behind, without releasing my hand, and held up his free hand in clear sight. “I apologize for coming covertly into your territory. I had a job to do and didn’t want undue interference. I’m not Cadre, I’m unaligned…”
He trailed off because Julian, after a sniff of the air, was frowning. “What have you…oh.” The frown cleared and Julian looked between Seb and me, taking special note of our joined hands. “Oh.”
Seb winced.
Julian grinned viciously. “You’re in trouble now, Son.”
To me, Julian’s hostile attitude evaporating was good news. But from Seb’s braced stance, he expected the worst. Mildly, he said, “I’m hardly your son.”
“You are in this matter. All right, you’d better come in and tell us what the hell is going on.”
Seb, practically crushing my hand with his tight grip, started toward the door, towing me in his wake. “If you have a safe place for Brie to wait—”
“Ha. That loner shit’s not going to fly anymore.” Strangely, Julian switched his grin to me.
Seb winced again.
I frowned at Seb. “What’s with all the winces?”
He cut me a glance with a sick little smile. “I’ll explain later.”
“You’d better.”
“What I really want to talk about is the head of the Chicago vampires.” Still holding my hand, Seb followed Julian downstairs. “Now going by the name Cleomenes.”
“Has he actually surfaced?” Julian started along a long, paneled basement corridor studded with doors. “I thought Aiden kicked his ass so hard he’d never trouble us again.”
“He’s become a Soul Stealer.”
Julian whirled, eyes wide. “Come again?”
“He bought himself some ancient blood and has become nearly immortal. And now he’s trying to capture me, to trade me for cash.”
“Fuck.” Julian’s jaw clamped so tight only his lips moved as he spoke. “I fought a Soul Stealer once. Never again.” He continued down the hallway. “Tell me from the beginning.”
Seb started explaining. “It started when a vampire named Owun approached us—”
“Owun Smith?” Julian stopped again. “The hits just keep on coming.”
“Owun Umbras, apparently,” I said. “He said something about taking his true name as a vampire.”
Julian did a double-take. “He’s a vampire now?”
Nikos, who’d accompanied us downstairs rumbled, “How?”
Julian explained. “We were there when Owun died—as a human, I mean. He was killed by a SMAW charge, not vampires. I’ve never heard of conversion by bazooka. You’d better wait on the whole story until you can tell everyone.”
Seb frowned. “Who’s everyone?”
“Just a minute.” Julian strode another few feet then stopped, strangely not at one of the doors, but before one of the panels. He hummed a tune. The panel shooped open, revealing a dark passage.
Seb peered inside with interest. “Are there traps?”
Julian nodded. “Two steps, pause, then leap forward a yard. You’ll want to carry her.”
“Got it.” Seb swept me into his arms and plunged into the dark opening after Julian. We were going to have to have a future talk about him scooping me up all the time without even a “May I?”
Not that we had a future. My chest plummeted.
The panel shut behind us. I held my breath in the close, absolute dark.
My eyes adjusted. No, not complete dark. Two red lights glowed near me. My heart jumped.
The lights…had irises. They were Seb’s eyes.
Okay, I’d seen his eyes glow red and knew that vampire eyes made their own light. But this was my first stark experience of it.
Seb took two steps, paused, and leaped. A flurry of thwits, like dozens of darts flying, came from behind us.
The low lights came up to reveal Julian standing before what looked like a retinal scanner mounted beside a metal door.
“Can’t you turn it off?” Seb asked him.
“No. It’s a feature, not a bug. At least, that’s what my security consultant says.” Julian caught Seb eyeing the scanner. “We beefed up security measures recently. No vampire can get through without knowing exactly what to do, not even a Soul Stealer. Plus, you have to be in the system to get past this point. You’ll both need to be scanned in.” He pressed a couple buttons on a control panel beside the scanner. “Rikare first.”
Seb set me down and bent his face to the scanner. An LED clicked from red to yellow then back to red. He backed away and I stepped up to the machine. I looked into the sweep of light. A moment later the LED clicked to yellow then green.
Julian knocked on the door three times.
“Penny,” I said. “Penny. Penny.”
Seb quirked questioning eyebrows at me, but Julian laughed. “The Big Bang Theory. My wife makes me watch ‘educational’ television. That is, anything to educate me on pop culture. She says the show is perfect for learning what she calls the Geek-O-Sphere.”
The metal door opened to a shadow—brandishing a knife pointy enough to make me freeze. Seb’s arm shot out to bar me.
“Who are you?” The shadow’s voice was a dangerous purr.
“It’s okay, Aiden.” Julian introduced us as the shadow stepped back, the room’s light revealing him as a tall, well-built man with black hair, black eyes, and cheekbones like Benedict Cumberbatch. At least part Native American, I thought. “Aiden Blackthorne and his mate head the Northwest vampires. She stayed in Wisconsin to mind the shop.”
I followed Seb over the threshold.
I entered what might have been a war room. The walls were festooned with armaments from the Middle Ages to the future. Though it might have been a boardroom as well; a large table studded with black executive chairs filled the middle.
Only three other people were inside, chatting near the table. One was bar-owner Camille Lebeau. One was little Nixie Emerson.
But what snagged my attention was the dark giant standing beside Nixie.
And giant was exactly the right word. I’d thought Seb was big. This man’s black head was alarmingly close to the eight-foot ceiling, topping Seb by several inches. Nixie cleared the giant’s waist, but not by much.
That wasn’t the only thing startling about him. High, cutting cheekbones combined with a honed jaw, classically cut lips, and a smooth forehead, a lock of black hair curling carelessly over it, to produce a face that was almost boyish in its beauty. That face contrasted sharply with the heavily muscled body, acres of grace barely concealed by a dark suit, very proper clothing that did nothing to mute the dark sexuality the man exuded.
His gaze cut directly to me. My breath left me like I’d been punched.
Brilliance gleamed from those black eyes—and something ancient lived just behind them.
Ancient, wise, and infinitely sad.
Not man. Vampire.
He sent an intense shaft of contradictory feelings through me, stabbing my gut with the most confusing emotions I’ve ever experienced. Icy fear at being in the presence of, not just a predator but the apex predator. Bright excitement at meeting him, hearing what such a wise being had to say. Intense need to discover what made him so sad. Yearning to hug him, comfort him, and make it better.
And a recognition that he could have any unmarried woman—or man—he wanted in his bed with the mere snap of his fingers.
Instinct turned me toward my lover.
Seb’s face, staring at the male, had drained of blood.
“Elias.”