Chapter Thirty-Nine
“And there you are,” Angel whispered to herself as headlights fell in behind her Jeep just after she crossed the invisible line demarking Vega territory. “Right on time,” she muttered, shaking her head. Gabriel wasn’t taking any chances at all. Not that she could blame him with the Apex loose.
Angel drove to her apartment, pulled the Jeep into the parking garage, and parked in her allotted rental space. But the space that was normally occupied by a BMW beside hers was sporting a black four-door Audi instead. She narrowed her gaze thoughtfully at the car. Had Frank purchased a new ride?
Why did she feel like she’d seen that Audi before?
Angel pulled the gun from the holster at her back and double-checked its ammunition. Then she switched the safety off before sliding it back into the holster. She straightened her jacket and got out of the Jeep.
She knew her Vega-assigned escort was still outside the parking garage, probably getting out of his vehicle right now too. She admittedly felt a little better knowing he was there as she made her way to the stairwell of the garage and peered carefully into the shadows.
But as she ascended the steps and approached the third floor where the elevators were, she became increasingly troubled. There was a vibration in the air. A wrongness. It brushed along her skin like static electricity and buzzed slightly in her ears. She felt slightly light-headed when she got into the elevator. Sugar low? Anemia?
The elevator was old, very old, created by the Otis-Fensom company in 1908. It was a “birdcage” model, with a gate that slid back and forth in front of it that had been reinforced with glass all around it in later years. Now, the elevator was no longer operated manually, so it wasn’t necessary for an operator to remain on duty twenty-four seven. But all the older panels, buttons, and equipment had been preserved and maintained for historical value alone.
Angel closed the glass behind her, then closed the gate and latched it. Then she pressed the button for the thirteenth floor. By the time she reached the hall that led to her apartment door, she was moving slowly and cautiously, the feeling that something was wrong now sitting heavy in her gut. She came to a full halt in front of her apartment door and studied the door carefully. It looked like it always did.
But something about it was also wrong.
Angel drew her gun, looking over her shoulder down the long art deco hall that stretched in either direction. This apartment building had always reminded her of the hotel in The Shining. In fact, that was why she’d rented this room. Plus, it had come a good deal cheaper because it was one of the few buildings in San Francisco that had a thirteenth floor – and in fact, her apartment was #1300.
It was a two bedroom one bath, with a balcony, and a bar between the kitchen and living room. Standard. But rather than being gutted for renovations, the older touches from yesteryear were maintained as much as possible.
Some were from when it had been a cannery, such as the hooks and exposed brickwork in the ceiling of her bedroom and part of her living room. And some were from when the building had been transformed into a hotel in the sixties. Angel loved that. The outside hall where she currently stood, along with the entryway and living room of her apartment really did remind her of The Overlook. Mostly they were reminiscent of the hotel’s smoke-filled “Gold Room,” with its flapper-style touches of soft chandelier lighting, dark detailed carpets, and intricately carved crown moulding.
She was a film buff, and The Shining was one of her favorites. Movies in general were her escape from a life that had managed to disappoint her in two different realms – that of the natural, and that of the supernatural.
Well, until today, that was.
Angel felt a twinge of soreness between her legs. She had a feeling she was going to be sore for quite some time. And that thought would have made her smile except that at the moment, the eerie aspect of the apartment building’s appearance was only adding to her unease.
The door to her apartment felt like a barrier, a thin veil separating her from something truly unpleasant, as if she was actually standing before a door marked #237.
Damn, Angel. Enough. You need to focus.
She took a deep breath and readied her weapon, adjusting her grip. Then she turned the key in the door knob and stepped to the side behind the wall before she gently kicked it open. She waited behind the wall and listened. There was no sound coming from inside the apartment. She crouched down low and leaned over to chance a peek. But the only thing she could see from this angle was the short entryway and a tiny sliver of the carpet and tile from the living room and kitchen. Everything was still quiet.
Something burned at her nose. She inhaled slowly, and realized it smelled like metal. Iron, specifically.
Blood.
Oh no…. She straightened, coming slowly to her feet before she bumped the door the rest of the way open and carefully entered her apartment. Little by little, her eyes widened with more horror and shock. Her stomach twisted into a terrible, sickening knot. The world was going red. It was deeper and more plentiful with every step she took into her home.
Blood splatters stained the art deco walls and pooled in puddles along the carpet. When she rounded the corner of the entry hall and faced the living room, she at last knew why.
Hanging from exposed beams in her ceiling were three chains that had been hung to make use of remaining hooks from the building’s cannery days. The ends of those three chains had been wrapped around the three bodies of the Vega clan’s assassins.
Ares Knight, Seth Hudson, and Mason Daniels.
She couldn’t tell if they were dead or not, but blood had pooled thick and deep beneath each of their bodies. They were covered with so much of it, she couldn’t tell where exactly their injuries were.
Angel felt instant nausea well in her stomach and climb her throat. She couldn’t help bending at the waist in response, but with great effort, she expertly quelled her sickened reaction and straightened once more.
She peered around the apartment, her gun up and ready. The hallway leading from the living room was dark; the lights had been shattered.
Angel double-checked behind her, then backed up to the wall, her heart racing so fast she was half afraid she’d have a heart attack before facing whatever evil had done this. But she kept her gun trained on the hallway, figuring the killer probably wouldn’t have bothered with the lights if he hadn’t planned on hiding there.
She was right. The killer stepped out with the absolute calm of an utter psychopath.
But what she hadn’t expected, not in a million years… was that the killer would be Dmitri Voronin.
“No….” Her voice was too soft, too filled with disbelief, too close to the dizzy weakness that accompanied absolute shock. She had to be dreaming. This didn’t make any sense. Maybe… maybe she was still in Jake’s arms. She was asleep and imagining all of this.
Dream or not, she pulled her trigger, thankful beyond measure that she’d taken the trouble of loading the gun with special bullets. They were meant to slow down vampires, but would work to some extent on Apex as well.
As ever, her aim was spot-on. But also as ever, Dmitri was faster than her. He was even faster than her bullets.
His tall, beautiful form was standing in front of her one tiny fraction of a second, and gone the next. In the living room wall behind where he’d just been, four bullet-sized holes appeared.
“It’s a good thing the apartment next to yours is empty, isn’t it little one?”
Angel spun, thinking fast. He was right – in one direction, there was no one who could accidentally catch friendly fire. But in the other, there was. She instinctively lowered her weapon. Rather than use the gun this time, she shoved it into the holster at her back at the same time that she broke into a hard run for the hall that was now clear.
In the closet down that hall was a scimitar, one of many weapons she’d learned to use over the years as a warden. It was particularly useful for beheading vampires.
She’d almost made it to the hall door when the door itself was ripped from its hinges by an invisible force and tossed down the hall toward her. She ducked, dropping to her stomach just in time to keep from catching a face full of wood as the door sailed over her head and slammed into one of the men hanging from the chains in the living room.
Her nausea was back, and accompanying it was the sound of laughter, low and wicked. As she pushed herself up from the blood-stained carpet, Angel hastily spoke the words to a spell. The first one that came to her mind was a transport.
But she’d only muttered two words when the now-open closet was molested once more, the unseen force now withdrawing the very same blade she’d been so determined to go after. It emerged from the small room, floating into the hallway blade-down. But as she watched, it began to spin end-over-end, and Angel knew there was no way she could avoid it in the hall.
She shoved herself off the nearest wall for momentum, pulled her gun from its holster once more, and dropped into a roll in the living room as the scimitar sailed past her. When she was behind it, she raised her gun, took calculated aim, and pulled the trigger several times consecutively.
The sound of bullets striking metal was followed by the sound of metal embedding itself firmly in something solid. Angel got to her feet, her gaze trained warily on the deeply buried sword sticking out of her stainless steel refrigerator.
“This brings back memories. But it’s somewhat anticlimactic knowing you will successfully avoid everything I throw at you. And of course I know you will, Angel. I watched you fifteen years ago. And I’ve been watching you ever since.”
No. Angel swallowed hard. Gods, no. She closed her eyes and tried to quell the frantic beating of her heart. Dmitri’s words were impossible. All this time…. But even worse was that his voice had come this time from directly behind her. No more than a foot away.
Very slowly, she lowered her weapon and turned around. And there he was. As tall, as beautiful, and as terrifying as ever. Dmitri had once been a king of sorts, long, long ago. And even now, dressed in expensive dark slacks and a long-sleeved gray shirt and black vest, he looked every bit the royalty she knew he’d at one time been.
His brown hair was thick and looked soft to the touch, cut so that it appeared effortlessly perfect. Strong chin, broad shoulders, narrow waist, impossible grace. And she could smell him now as he drew closer. She remembered that scent. He wore fine, expensive cologne and the indescribable aroma of night. His electric blue eyes were shot through with so much innate power, they were as starkly vibrant as shattered sapphires. They gazed at her with unseemly depth that felt far too much like compassion.
She wasn’t dreaming after all. She couldn’t be. This hurt too much, it was entirely too real.
“You survived,” she said numbly. Her voice was as soft as it had been on that fateful night. The room around her threatened to go dark. She was overwhelmed by what she was seeing, hearing, smelling – feeling.
“Shhhh,” he urged gently, his deep voice painfully beautiful. “Easy, now.” She felt fingers of his power snake around her. But they didn’t harm her. Rather, they pushed the darkness away from her, keeping it at bay as if to protect her.
Angel tried to understand, but she just couldn’t. Nothing made any sense any longer. “The fall into the river,” she said, her words trembling as Dmitri stepped forward and his blue eyes anchored to hers. “The poison.” She shook her head. “You somehow survived.”
Dmitri Voronin watched her intently, patiently, as she spoke each word.
“Oh, yes,” he said with a secret, beautiful smile. “And then some.”