“It wasn’t by choice,” she muttered, quickening her step in the hopes her companion would take the hint and drop the subject.
She might as well have hoped for a night with Robert Pattinson or world peace, she wryly acknowledged as the gargoyle churned his tiny legs to keep pace beside her.
“You were forced?” he persisted.
“After I was turned, it was discovered I had the heightened senses required for a Hunter,” she said, stripping her voice of emotion. It was a night she’d done her best to forget. “The Addonexus arrived at my lair and informed me I was about to become their newest recruit.”
She felt his gaze searching her profile.
“Whether you wished to be recruited or not?” he asked softly.
“Vampires have never embraced democracy. Not even with Styx as the Anasso.”
“Might makes right, eh?”
She shrugged. “Something like that.”
“So typical of that overgrown Aztec,” he muttered, abruptly turning on a dark street and leading her past the small, historic churches nestled among the taverns. “Were you held as a prisoner?”
Her brows lifted. How the hell had the gargoyle become acquainted with the most powerful vampires in the world?
A story for another day.
“Not a prisoner,” she said, “but I was ... encouraged to complete my training.”
“I can imagine the encouragement,” he muttered.
“No, you really can’t.”
A silence descended as her words sliced through the air with a bleak edge. Then, sensing the gargoyle was slowing his pace, Jaelyn turned to meet his sympathetic gaze.
“But now your training is complete?” he asked.
“Yep.” Her lips twisted. “I’m a card-carrying, full-fledged Hunter.”
“There are cards?”
She couldn’t halt her abrupt laugh. “If I told you I’d have to kill you.”
An answering smile curved his lips. “I never thought I would ever meet such a charming vampire,” her companion murmured. “You are truly unique.”
“I might agree with unique,” she said dryly, “but I’ve rarely been called charming.”
“I doubt you have much opportunity to reveal your softer side in your current profession.”
Softer?
Had she ever had a softer side?
“ No.”
“Can you quit?”
She blinked at the unexpected question. “Quit being a Hunter?”
“Oui.”
“It’s a position of great honor among vampires,” she mouthed the well-rehearsed words. It was true enough that most vampires envied those chosen by the elite Addonexus. They saw only the power and wary respect offered to the members, without ever understanding the cost. “Why would anyone wish to leave?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I can think of a few hundred.”
She came to a halt, the hair on the back of her neck rising at the unmistakable stench that filled the air.
“I smell trolls.”
The gargoyle gave a delicate shudder. “I did warn you that it was a low-class establishment.”
“So you did.” With a smooth motion, Jaelyn was bending to lay Ariyal on the hard pavement, sliding her hand over his hard body until she found one of the numerous daggers he had hidden. Gripping the ivory handle, she straightened and pointed toward the gargoyle. “Remain here with the Sylvermyst. I will return as soon as I can.”
“Where are you going?”
“To negotiate for a room.”
She had already turned to make her way down the steps that led to the cellar beneath the silent pub when Levet reached to grasp her free hand.
“Be careful,
ma enfant,
” he pleaded softly.
She glanced back in surprise. First Ariyal tried to protect her and now this creature was looking at her as if he was truly concerned.
It was ... unnerving.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said gruffly.
A faint smile curved his lips, lifting his hands in a helpless gesture.
“It is what I do.”
With a scowl she ignored the tiny flare of warmth as she vaulted to the bottom of the steps and shoved open the heavy oak door that was hidden from humans by a spell of concealment.
Dammit.
She was supposed to be terrifying others with her mad skills, not encouraging them to treat her as if she were some helpless female in need of coddling.
Thankfully she had no trouble slipping back into her I-want-to-kill-something mode as she stepped into the large room with wood-plank floors and a low, open beamed ceiling.
Her gaze skimmed over the nearly empty booths that lined the walls, where a handful of weary humans sprawled, their eyes glazed with drugs and their thin bodies barely covered. She grimaced. Even at a distance she could see the bite marks where vampires had fed on their tainted blood.
She crossed toward the bar at the back, allowing her senses to flow through the building. The fighting pits were beyond the bar as well as the cubbies for those demons who preferred a bit of privacy for their sex. Beneath them she could sense several locked cells where a troll, two ogres, and at least three curs were sleeping off their numerous injuries.
Her attention, however, was trained on the male imp behind the bar. With his long golden hair pulled from his narrow face and slender body encased in skin-tight leather, he should have been handsome, but there was a hard cunning in his green eyes and an unpleasant curl to his thin lips.
Reaching the bar, she stiffened as a half-breed troll stepped out of a cubby, his rough features almost human if one didn’t look too closely at the beady eyes that glowed red in the overhead lights or the double row of teeth that were razor sharp.
“Vampire,” the creature growled, hitching up his filthy pants that matched his too tight T-shirt. “Tasty.”
She returned her gaze to the imp even as she felt the disgusting mongrel move to stand at her side.
“I need a room,” she said.
Predictably the mongrel troll leaned close enough to gag her with his putrid breath.
“You can share mine, pretty bloodsucker.” He grabbed her hand, pulling it toward his crotch. “So long as you suck on—”
His words broke off on a high-pitched scream as she allowed her fingers to wrap around his aroused cock, squeezing until she threatened to make him a eunuch.
“Touch me again and I’ll fillet this tiny dick and serve it to you for breakfast,” she drawled in sweet tones. “Got it?”
“Got it,” he squeaked, his round face flushed as he danced on his tiptoes.
For a minute she considered simply carving out the bastard’s black heart. Trolls, even those of the mongrel variety, possessed an insatiable appetite for rape and she didn’t doubt he would have thrown her to the floor and forced himself on her if she hadn’t fought back.
Then, with a disgusted hiss, she shoved him away, barely noting his glare of hatred before he was scurrying toward the door.
The imp flashed a mocking smile. “That time of month?”
Jaelyn narrowed her gaze. “You next?”
“Here.” The man slapped a key on the counter before pointing toward a narrow door carved into the paneling. “Vamp rooms are down the stairs, last door on the left.”
“How much?”
“One hundred pounds for the room and another hundred for a host.” He nodded toward the pathetic humans. “Top of the line.”
She rolled her eyes. “More like scraping the gutter.”
The imp shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”
Jaelyn reached beneath the neckline of her spandex top, pulling out a folded bill.
“Fifty American bucks for the room.” She dropped the money on the bar. “I brought my own host.”
The green eyes glittered with a sly greed. “Seventy-five and I don’t let every demon in the place know there’s a female in the basement.”
Jaelyn smiled as she moved with a blinding speed, pressing the edge of the dagger against the imp’s throat before he could blink.
“Twenty-five and I don’t cut off your head.”
“Deal.”
An abandoned church west of Chicago
The neglected ruins on the outskirts of the ghost town only hinted at the once-proud beauty of the Victorian church. Now the stained-glass windows were shattered and the hand-carved pews empty, while the attached graveyard was a pitiful shell of tumbled crypts and tenacious weeds.
Beneath the piles of stone and forgotten corpses, however, the vast catacombs had been tended to with scrupulous care.
Or at least the majority of the tunnels, Tearloch acknowledged.
Weeks ago the lower chambers had been nearly destroyed by a series of violent explosions that had had collapsed tunnels and filled caverns with rubble.
Making his way through the unnaturally smooth passageway, Tearloch grimaced. It wasn’t just the evil the pulsed through the air, or thick silence that made him twitchy as hell.
No, it was the sensation he was once again trapped against his will that made his skin crawl.
With an effort he leashed his instinctive urge to charge out of the claustrophobic catacombs and instead forced his feet to carry him to the large cavern where the spirit of Rafael hovered in the center of the stone floor.
He shuddered at the sensation of icy power prickling over him as he stepped past the barrier that the wizard had conjured to protect them from intruders.
If his mind hadn’t been clouded by his growing madness he would’ve been horrified by the spirit’s increasing strength. It was always a delicate balance between a summoner and the summoned, and Sylvermyst were taught from the cradle to keep a careful leash on their spirits.
Otherwise the master could all too easily become the slave.
As it was, he felt more annoyance than anger as Rafael drifted toward him, his skeleton-thin fingers caressing the pendant hung around his neck.
“The mage?” he questioned softly.
Tearloch’s lips flattened. He’d just wasted the past two hours searching the tunnels for Sergei Krakov. It was more than a little irritating that the bastard managed to elude him.
“He’s managed to cloak his presence,” he snapped.
“You are certain he went through the portal with you?” Rafael demanded.
Tearloch scowled. “Of course I’m certain. Do you think I could mistake hauling a grown man through a portal from London to Chicago?”
“Then he no doubt has used his powers to escape.” The wizard dismissed his rival with a sneer. “He always was a coward.”
Tearloch hissed at the arrogant claim. He agreed that Sergei was a spineless fool, but that didn’t mean he didn’t need the mage. His gaze stole toward the bundle of blankets that hid the child in the corner of the cavern.
“He might be a coward, but he told the truth when he claimed that he was the best equipped to resurrect the Dark Lord.” His gaze shifted back to the spirit. “He has prepared far longer than you have.”
Rafael tilted his chin to a haughty angle. “He is unworthy to perform such a holy ceremony. I have warned you from the beginning that—”
“I think you’re forgetting who makes the decisions, wizard,” Tearloch interrupted the increasingly familiar complaint.
Rafael had been whispering that they had no need of Sergei since Tearloch had managed to capture the child along with the mage. It was blatantly obvious he wanted Tearloch to get rid of his magical rival, just as he had wanted him to turn his back on his tribesmen.
He’s isolating you... .
Easily sensing he’d pushed too far, the spirit was offering a deep bow of apology.
“No, Master.”
“Don’t call me that,” Tearloch snarled.
Rafael bent until his hairless head scraped the floor. “As you wish.”
With a growl, Tearloch twirled away from the wizard, shoving his fingers through his hair.
“These tunnels are suffocating me,” he rasped. “I need fresh air.”
“You cannot leave the caves. Do not forget you are being hunted.”
Tearloch jerked back toward the wizard with a fierce glare. At the moment he was hot, frustrated, and in the mood to blame the damned wizard for all his troubles.
“I’m not likely to forget. Not when I’m being buried alive like I’m a damned rock troll.” He shuddered. “Why did you insist we come here?”
“These caves were my home for centuries.” Rafael’s own expression was ... loving, as he glanced around the smoothly carved room. Of course, he’d spent the past months in hell. Anything was bound to seem like the Ritz. “My power is greatest here as well as my ability to protect you.”