All Hell Breaks Loose (19 page)

She let out a knowing chuckle.  “She may be small, but she’s a professional manipulator already,” she told him as she went to grab the jacket hanging from a nearby chair.  “Give her a grain of sand, and she’ll want the whole beach.”

Jonathon smiled and leaned back into the sofa, rubbing his eyes.  Gabi wasn’t sure that Vampires experienced eye strain, but didn’t comment on his affectation.  As she leaned over to gently scoop the furry critter out of his palm, she noticed the website open on the laptop.  The majority of the screen was taken up with medical jargon, but one word repeated several times on the web page.

“There are websites discussing lycanthropy?” she asked, surprised.

The doc nodded. 
“If you know where to look.
  Those of us with a genuine interest share as much information as we can.  The websites are heavily encrypted and as secure as we can make them,” he assured her.

“Wow,” she said, impressed. 
“Anything interesting?”
  She settled Rocky back into the pouch inside the jacket, and the baby squirrel hardly stirred.

“Well actually, tonight, yes,” the doc said.  “One of the contributors to this website is a friend of mine.  He’s a bio-chemical engineer, and his mother is a Magus, so he has a particular interest in the supernatural.  He was approached last week by a very shadowy organisation who wanted
information on lycanthropy.  In particular, they wanted to know what kills and what sedates lycanthropes.”

Gabi felt ice tingle through her.

Jonathon looked up at her, concern on his face.  “They were offering a large amount of money for genuine research.”

“Damn,” Gabi breathed.  “Do you think there’s a way that we can trace whoever is asking for the information?”

He grimaced.  “If anyone could’ve, it would’ve been Sebastian,” he said, referring to the Vampire computer genius who’d become a statistic in the war with
Danté
.

“If we can find another computer whizz, would your friend help us to try and track these guys?” she asked.

Jonathon nodded slowly.  “Yeah, I think he would, but you’ll need to bear in mind that he has a career and reputation to maintain.  Lycanthropes are nothing more than interesting bugs under a microscope to him.”

“Okay.”  She chewed on her lower lip, thinking.  “Tell Julius about this, and I’ll contact Byron.  If he can find someone with ace hacking skills, he’ll contact you, and we’ll see where this leads us.  It could be nothing more than one of those paranormal magazines fishing for information.”  But her gut instinct was telling her otherwise.

She stuck her head into Trish’s room before she left.
Trish was asleep, breathing lightly and evenly.  Derek was stretched out on a fold-out bed, awake but looking more relaxed than she’d seen him for days.  She remembered the conversation she’d promised him.  The fact that Julius had picked up on his feelings for her made it seem that much more important that she explain.  She moved silently into the room and pulled up a footstool to sit near him.  He turned onto his side, propping his head up on his hand.  He didn’t say anything, and he kept his features schooled, but she could feel a sense of bitterness emanating from him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t explain about Julius before you met him,” she said quietly.  “I can imagine it would’ve been something of a shock.”

“So he’s the reason you wouldn’t go out with me?”

“No.”  She shook her head.  “Things with Julius are a…fairly recent development.”

“So you’ve just had no attraction to me from the start?”  He sounded belligerent.

“No, that wasn’t it.”  She hadn’t expected his hostility.  “I just don’t date ‘norms’.  It’s too complicated.”

He let out a quiet, disbelieving huff.  “You mean if I’d become a
Werewolf
earlier, I might have stood a chance?”  He fell back against the bed, staring at the ceiling, a twisted imitation of a smile on his face. 
“Just my fucking luck.”

Gabi gritted her teeth.  Only Trish, sleeping peacefully a few metres away, was keeping a muzzle on her temper.

“It’s pointless playing the ‘what if’ game,” she said in a low voice.  “Sexual attraction to someone doesn’t mean a relationship with them would work.  I’ve got plenty of those T-shirts.  If things hadn’t gone well, we’d still have had to face each other on sets.  Would you like to have put your life in the hands of an ex-lover?  It was better this way. 
Safer.”

He turned his head to look at her now, his look resentful.  “Better for
who
?
You?
  So you could find yourself a Vampire lover?  I can smell him all over you, Gabrielle.  I could smell your arousal as soon as you saw him tonight.”  His voice had become guttural, his
Werewolf
scent stronger.

“It doesn’t matter what you scent, Derek.  You have no claim over me,” she hissed, standing up in annoyance.  “I hope you know what your friendship means to me, but I’m not hanging around to be
pissed
on by a dominant wolf.  Call me when you get control of your hormones,” she said coldly over her shoulder as she stalked from the room.

Damn, damn, damn, she cursed herself as she pulled the Mustang onto the dark winding street.  It was after three a.m., and she was exhausted.  She should never have tried to have that conversation with Derek when they were both tired and she was exuding a post-coital glow from being with Julius.  What had she been thinking?  That was part of the problem, after being with Julius she found it hard to think straight.  One of these days she’d learn to not let her
temper get
the better of her.  The only thing to do now was to give them both some time to cool down and
see if the friendship was salvageable in a day or two.  With a sigh she called Byron’s number.  His phone went straight to voice message, which was unusual, but Gabi hoped it meant he was asleep.  She didn’t leave a message; he’d call her back as soon as he saw the missed call.

When she got home, she spent a few minutes with Roman before going inside.  She filled Razor’s and
Slinky’s
food bowls before taking a quick, hot shower.  She settled Rocky in with the other two on the bed and had just picked up her phone to call Julius when it rang in her hand.  It was Byron.  When she answered, he sounded tired and flustered, but insisted he was fine and just heading to bed.  Gabi explained what Jonathon had told her, and Byron agreed that it was worth following the lead to see what it produced.  He told her to leave it in his hands.  She wished him sweet dreams, but when she disconnected, she couldn’t shake an increasing sense of disquiet.

She called Julius to say goodnight.  Jonathon had told him what he’d told her, and they discussed the possibilities.  Julius agreed with her that this event was too coincidental not to be linked to the rest of the
Werewolf
unrest.  After a few minutes, however, the conversation degenerated into dirty talk.  Gabi slipped into sleep with some very naughty thoughts in her head.

Chapter 10

Gabi revelled in her morning run.  A solid six hours of sleep had cleared her mind and left her feeling vibrant and energised.  The small intake of Julius’s blood the previous night probably had something to do with it as well.  There was a rough, cross-country track hacked through her forest and around the edges of her property.  It was one of the attractions of buying a house with several hectares of land attached.  The morning was crisp and clear without even a hint of a breeze.  And it was surprisingly pleasant to have some company.  Even better, it was company that didn’t talk back.  Roman was enjoying the run every bit as much as she was.  He bounded ahead, scenting animal trails, splashing through the stream, setting pheasants and rabbits scattering.  He always stayed in visual contact with Gabi, though; his protectiveness utterly ingrained.

As she ran, she thought about the injuries Doug had sustained.  She’d called Ian before her run, and he’d assured her Doug was out of danger and healing well.  But it would be weeks, if not months before he was fit enough to rejoin the Hunters; a bullet to the chest was no minor matter.  She’d checked with Byron, and Tim was fine—a little shocked, but no long-lasting damage.  They’d come scarily close to losing two of their own last night.  The thought was a sobering one. They’d lost a Hunter shortly after she’d joined the team, and the memory of his death was still vividly etched in Gabi’s mind.

Roman pulled her out of her dark thoughts by charging after a wild
hare
and sneezing from the dust his paws threw up.  It made her laugh.  She realised that she could get used to this and was suddenly reluctant to think about finding a new home for him.  She seriously began to wonder if Razor could get used to the idea of having the big dog around.  She sure could.  Near the end of her run she chose to let Roman decide for himself.  She would keep him for the next two weeks and see how things panned out.  If he coped with the comings and goings of
Werewolves
and Vampires without it affecting his confidence and if he could play subservient enough to Razor to satisfy the cat’s sense of proprietorship, then she’d adopt him.

She left Roman out of the cage to see how things went between him and Razor.  She gave the Rottweiler a mental nudge to stay away from the front of the house, where Razor liked to sun himself, and left him to explore the rest of the garden. Rose was in the kitchen with Rocky perched on her shoulder and Slinky on the counter watching her work.  Razor was sprawled on the floor in a ray of sunshine streaming through a window.  Gabi smiled at the sight of the domestic bliss.

“You don’t have to try to work and keep the little rascal amused at the same time.  You should make Razor look after her; he brought her home, after all,” she told the housekeeper.

Rose smiled back.  “You know I don’t mind,
sweetling
.  I think she’s even cuter than Slinky was when he was a wee thing.  How was your run?”

Gabi grabbed a sports towel from the hall cupboard and began to dry off.  “It was great, and I really enjoyed Roman’s company,” she said.

Rose smiled knowingly, as Gabi grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge.  When she turned back to the older woman, she was surprised to see a concerned look on her face.

“
Sweetling
,” Rose said, “I don’t want to put more on your plate than you already have, but…”  She hesitated, obviously reluctant to burden Gabi.

“What’s wrong, Rose?” Gabi asked, steering the other woman to a seat at the counter and sitting down herself.  “Tell me.  You know I have a big plate.”

That brought a hint of a smile to Rose’s lips; it was an ongoing joke between them that Gabi could eat so much.

“It’s Mr Byron,” the housekeeper finally said.  “Meryl is worried about him.”  Meryl was Rose’s cousin by marriage and Byron’s long-time housekeeper.

“What do you mean?” Gabi asked, a tight band of anxiety suddenly clenching her chest.  “What is she worried about?”

Rose reached out and patted her hand.  “Oh, I’m
sorry,
I didn’t mean it to sound so melodramatic.  Don’t get upset.  It’s just that she thinks Mr Byron is taking on too much at the City Board.  There are big problems there, and it’s stressing him, and he’s not getting enough sleep.  She mentioned it to me the other day and thought maybe you would be able to talk him into letting go of some of the responsibility.  Maybe get him to delegate more and get some more rest.  She had thought to maybe phone Ian or Laura, but she didn’t want to get everyone worried, so she thought maybe it would be better if you spoke to him.”

The band of anxiety loosened a little, and Gabi breathed easier, but
the niggle
at the back of her mind got worse.  “So Meryl also picked up that there are problems at the City Council?  Did she say what the problems were?”

“Not too many details, just that someone is trying to make his life difficult.  Someone powerful and well-connected is going out of his way to go against things that Mr Byron and Miss Olivia are trying to carry out,” Rose explained.

“So it’s not just Byron, then, but more about thwarting things for the SMV?” Gabi asked.  Olivia was Byron’s protégé, a very capable woman with a background in law and a father who was an influential Magus.

“I’m not sure,
sweetling
, but that’s what it sounded like.  Meryl doesn’t know much, just what she has heard when Mr Byron is on the phone and some rumours running through the Community grapevine,” Rose said.

Gabi stood to toss her bottle in with the other recycling.  “Leave it with me, Rose,” she assured the housekeeper.  “I’ll talk to Byron and see what can be done to help.”  Then she glanced at the kitchen clock.  She just had time for a shower, and then she should catch Byron coming out of his weekly SMV Council meeting.  It was time to pin him down and find out what was really going on.

Gabi made it to Byron’s office a few minutes after the weekly meeting was due to end.

“Hey, Hazel,” she greeted Byron’s secretary.  “Will you see if he can fit me in for a few minutes?”  While she knew Byron would never turn her away unless he had an urgent appointment, Gabi had learned to play the game with his often over-protective secretary.