Vampire in Geek's Clothing (Psy-Vamp Book 6) (3 page)

Four hours later, Isaiah had nothing on Nikki. It wasn’t
just a matter of not being able to find out what kind of trouble she was in; he
couldn’t even find out
who
she was. Finding the coffee shop’s employee
records had been easy since their accountant wasn’t doing much to secure the
information. After that, he’d come to the conclusion that Nikki must be getting
paid under the table. The shop was owned by a guy named Michael Tanner, and
there were three employees on record. The first two were men, so they were easy
to eliminate. He’d assumed that the only female employee, Paula Nicole Davidson
had to be Nikki, but he’d been wrong. Paula was Michael Tanner’s married
daughter. She was in her forties and looked nothing like Nikki. In the three
weeks he’d been going there, Isaiah had never seen Paula in the shop. In fact,
it was rare for anyone other than Nikki to work the times Isaiah had gone in.

“Whatcha doin’, cuz?” Drew asked, plopping down uninvited on
the sofa in the sitting room Isaiah was using—the one tucked away at the far
end of the house where he’d hoped to avoid interruptions.

Isaiah had his own place, but he still spent most days at
Nathaniel’s home where his brother, Justin, lived. Since Isaiah’s mental
breakdown, Justin didn’t trust him on his own—not that Isaiah blamed him. To be
honest, he didn’t usually mind it here. Most days, it was pretty peaceful. At
least, it had been before Drew had moved back to the house.

“I’m a little busy,” Isaiah muttered, pulling up a satellite
view of the coffee shop where Nikki worked. She planned to meet with this Brian
guy after work, and the best way to figure out what she was doing was to follow
her. With any luck, she wasn’t planning to drive to the meeting point. Having
no idea where that meeting place was, he couldn’t be sure when she’d leave the
shop or how she’d get there.

“Looks like you’re stalking someone,” Drew remarked, and
Isaiah’s reaction must have given him away because Drew laughed. “When I said
that, I figured you were just working on some job, but you really are stalking
someone, aren’t you? You’re stalking a woman!”

“No. Okay, maybe I’m stalking her a little.” Isaiah knew
he’d regret admitting that to Drew later.

Instead of teasing him like he’d expected, Drew moved around
behind him and tapped a pizza place across the street. “You’ve been studying
the little coffee shop, so I’m assuming that’s where she is. If you hang out in
this place across the street, you’ll be able to see her leave, unless there’s a
backdoor.”

“There is a back entrance, so it’s possible she’ll exit that
way and cut through the alley,” he mused.

“So, is this where you kicked some guy’s ass earlier today?”
Drew asked.

Isaiah blew out a frustrated breath, figuring the only way
to get rid of Drew was to share some information. “Yes. I’m not sure what came
over me, but I acted without thinking.”

“You’ve got a thing for coffee shop girl, and some asshole
was yelling at her,” Drew stated with a shrug. “Makes sense that you’d fuck the
guy up. Even an asshole like me would have done it.”

Isaiah laughed. “Watch what you say, Drew, or I might start
liking you.”

“Good, then you can help me,” Drew said with a clap of his
hands.

“What exactly do you need help with?” Isaiah asked
suspiciously.

“Aren’t you going to promise to help me?” Drew asked.

Isaiah snorted. “Not a chance. Only an idiot promises to
help a sociopath without finding out what the sociopath wants.”

“Like I said earlier, I want to find the kid’s mom,” Drew
replied somewhat impatiently.

The kid Drew referred to was Hunter, Drew’s son. They’d only
learned of Hunter’s existence recently, and Isaiah had never heard Drew refer
to Hunter by name. He always called him the kid. Since Drew was a total psycho,
Hunter didn’t live with Drew or even see Drew very often. Instead, their uncle,
Alek, and his fiancée, Trish, were happily raising Hunter.

No one had even considered locating Hunter’s mom, a hunter
Drew had slept with believing she was human. She’d gotten pregnant and then
ditched the baby with Drew’s psycho mom, who had tried to train Hunter to be a
little serial killer. The fact that Drew had killed his serial killer mom to
save Hunter was one of the only reasons Isaiah was putting up with his cousin’s
presence lately. While he didn’t believe Drew had suddenly become a good
person, he’d proven he wasn’t a complete waste of air. Then a thought occurred
to him.

“You aren’t thinking about taking Hunter away from Alek and
Trish, are you? Is that why you want to find Hunter’s mom? Are you suddenly
having some crazy dream of being a happy little family?”

“Fuck no!” Drew replied immediately. “Alek and Trish are
perfect for the kid. We all know I can’t be a father, but I have this nagging
feeling that his mom might be in trouble.” Drew sounded embarrassed by that
admission.

Isaiah took a moment to consider Drew’s request. He honestly
doubted it was a good idea to hunt down a hunter. The hunters weren’t killing
their kind anymore—at least not without provocation. Still, Drew getting a
hunter pregnant might be considered provocation. Despite any issues he’d had
with his cousin in the past, he didn’t want Drew getting himself killed.

“You do realize how dangerous it could be looking for a
hunter, don’t you?”

“I get it,” Drew assured him. “Before you ask, I also know
that it would be very bad for the hunters to know the kid exists, but I can’t
stop thinking that she ran because she’s in some kind of danger.”

“You don’t know that she ran,” he reminded Drew.

“You’re right,” Drew agreed. “There’s always a chance she
ditched the kid and returned to her old life, except she didn’t want that life.
She didn’t tell me what she was trying to avoid, but she was going to run even
if she hadn’t gotten pregnant.”

“What do you know about her?” Isaiah asked.

“Her name is Molly; and she lived in Seattle,” Drew told
him. “She also has a sweet ass—the kind you could really hold on to while
fucking her. She could have stood to gain forty pounds or so. Not gonna lie.
I’m getting hard just thinking about what Molly’s ass would have looked like
with a little more padding. Damn! I’ll bet her ass filled out more after having
the kid. That happens with some chicks, and if her ass got any finer, I might
explode just from seeing it.”

Isaiah held up a hand to stop him. “I get the point.”

“I don’t think you do,” Drew insisted. “With those extra
forty pounds, I might be willing to drop to my knees and worship her ass.”

“Great,” Isaiah grumbled. “I’ll just plug that into my
computer now, and I’m sure we’ll have her identity in a minute. Listen, there
are many women named Molly in Seattle, and none of the databases I use have ass
profiles.”

“No need to be an asshole,” Drew told him. “I’ll try to
think of something else, but honestly, she didn’t tell me much.”

Isaiah shut down his computer and grabbed his phone. “Get me
more, and I’ll see what I can find. For now, I’m going to grab a slice of
pizza.”

Drew laughed. “Say hi to the barista babe for me! At the
very least, try to get some pictures. I’m dying to see the chick who’s turned
you into a stalker.”

Phoenix found that most days the shop was dead after three,
but today had been an exception, proving this was not her day. Brian was
skittish enough, but he’d be climbing the walls if she got there any later.
Finding a witch capable of weaving this type of spell into a tattoo hadn’t been
the tricky part—at least not in this area. For whatever reason, witches
gravitated to this area, and most were trained to cast this type of spell since
hunters paid good money for it when they retired. That was a carryover from the
old days when hunters and vampires had killed each other on sight. Naturally,
hunters hadn’t wanted to have to watch their backs constantly after retirement.
Even though vampires couldn’t easily recognize hunters, being around a vampire
without having any sort of reaction to their presence could be difficult for
hunters. Plus, other hunters could give away your presence if they recognized
what you were. Basically, the tattoo did more than cover the hunter’s mark; it
made them invisible to other hunters and muted their powers. What she’d needed
from a witch was a little more complicated because she wasn’t a retired hunter,
just one in hiding.

Her first ride on a BART train into the city had been the
one to set everything in motion. Brian had taken a seat beside her and asked if
she was okay. Apparently, she wasn’t very good at pretending everything was
fine. It had been Brian who’d done her spelled tattoo and gotten her a job that
paid under the table. He’d even hooked her up with a fake ID and a lead on an
apartment that would take her with no credit check. That beat sleeping in her
car, which is what she’d been doing her first month on the run.

Brian had been a good friend to her, and that’s why she’d
ended up revealing more than she should have about her true identity. He was
the only person who knew why she’d really run from Seattle, and she was kicking
herself now, knowing that knowledge might put him in even more danger.

Rushing down the street, Phoenix hurried into the BART
station just in time to catch a train heading toward Millbrae, glad to be
traveling the opposite direction of most commuters. Of course, she’d be smashed
in between them later, after her meeting with Brian. After that meeting, she’d
probably need to head home to pack her stuff and get the hell out of this area.

Exiting at the 24th and Mission station, she ran up the
stairs to the street. One thing she’d noticed in her four years of taking BART
was that the escalators were frequently broken. Hurrying down the street, she
rushed into Brian’s shop. Meeting here, when Hayden might have found her, was
probably stupid, but she had no choice. Brian was her friend, and she owed him
too much to just take off. She already knew, if she refused to meet Brian, he’d
go to her.

Brian was bent over a table sketching when she walked in,
and he didn’t react to her entrance at first.

“You’re late,” he accused without looking up. Brian had a
spell that caused a tingling sensation on the back of his neck whenever the
shop door opened.

“I had trouble getting people out of the coffee shop at
closing today,” she explained without removing her hoodie. It was best to keep
her face hidden.

“It’s not a good idea for you to be walking around out here
at night with hunters on your ass,” Brian remarked, finally standing to his
full five-foot-two inches. Having a different father than Mitch, the two looked
nothing alike. His long black hair was pulled back from his face, revealing his
wide forehead, large nose, and nearly black eyes.

“I’m really sorry they came after you,” she told him,
fighting back tears.

Brian snorted. “Coming after me isn’t the problem. It’s my
family I’m worried about. They weren’t in the picture when I found you, so I
didn’t have much to lose. Now, there’s a weapon they can use against me. I
wanted to let you know in person that I’m taking off before things get too bad
around here.”

“That’s a smart plan,” she agreed, hating herself for
forcing her friend to run. Brian still hadn’t given her a good reason why he
needed to see her in person, but she figured he’d get to that.

“You should take off, too,” he told her. “I’m pretty sure
those assholes who came by here believed me when I told them I’d never seen
you, but why risk it?”

She nodded. “You’re right. It’s about time for me to leave
this area. I never expected to be here this long.”

“We have a safe place, and you can come with us,” he
offered.

“No,” she insisted. “If I go with you, then you’ll just be
in more danger.”

At this point, she had no clue where she was going next. She
needed to take a few days to come up with a plan. Brian and Mitch were the only
ones who knew her true identity, so she should be safe here a little longer.
Brian wouldn’t betray her, and she was pretty sure Mitch wouldn’t once his
brother was safely out of the area.

“I heard from some other witches that these hunters are on
the other side of the bay trying to figure out if any of the witches helped
you. We have enough witches around to keep them busy for weeks. You might even
get lucky, and they’ll figure you aren’t here and move on, but I don’t think
you should risk it. Go someplace where there aren’t many witches. I was an
idiot for convincing you to stay here, assuming it would be harder to find you
in a big city.”

“This isn’t your fault, Brian,” she assured him. “This whole
situation is totally fucked up!”

“I won’t argue about how fucked up this is,” Brian said.

“What do they look like?” she asked.

“There were three of them,” Brian began. “Two big guys with
dark hair. Both kept their sunglasses on the entire time, probably trying to
intimidate me. The third guy did all the talking. That one was a little under
six feet tall with blond hair and blue eyes. He had a pretty look to him, but
he’s the one who scared me the most. The guy seemed unstable. They said their
names were John, Dave, and Mike, but I think they were lying. I almost forgot.
The blond hunter has an eye-twitch when he’s angry.”

The eye twitch, Phoenix was all too familiar with.

“The blonde guy’s name is Hayden, and he’s not a hunter, but
that doesn’t mean he’s not incredibly dangerous.”

“You say he’s not a hunter?” Brian seemed surprised.

“Yes, but don’t let that out or he’ll know I’ve been in
contact with the witches in this area, which will make him more dangerous to
the witches he’s questioning. Did they say they were hunters? Or, did you just
assume they were hunters because they’re looking for me?”

“The blond said they were hunters, and I saw the mark on one
of them,” Brian confirmed. “What I don’t get is why hunters would be letting
the blond guy do all the talking. Hunters have always struck me as arrogant. No
offense,” he added as an afterthought.

“None taken. I’m well aware of how arrogant hunters can be,”
she assured him. “The whole thing doesn’t make any sense. I get why Hayden
would be looking for me, and I get why hunters from Seattle would be looking
for me, but they are far from the same reasons.”

The hunters weren’t likely to want her dead just for
refusing to train as a hunter. They’d made some ugly threats, but none had
involved violence. Hayden was another story; he wanted to hurt her, possibly
kill her.

“I get the hunters looking for you, but why is the other guy
after you?” Brian asked.

“He thinks I betrayed him, betrayed our kind.” Phoenix
thought for a moment. “Actually, I don’t think he cares if I betrayed our
kind.”

“Did you kill anyone?” Brian asked.

She shook her head. “The only people hurt by my actions were
my parents. They had to leave everything behind because of me.” That was only
partly true, but there was no way she could tell Brian certain parts of the
story. It wasn’t her story to tell, and it involved the one truly innocent
person in all of this, the one she’d die to protect.

Brian moved forward and hugged her. “I’m going to do some
work on your ink before you leave today, just to make sure you’re well-hidden
until you can find another witch to help you.”

“Thanks, Brian.” The spell would lose power over time, so
she’d need to find another witch to work on it if she planned to remain hidden.
Some days, she wondered if it was time to just face her destiny—either with the
hunters back home or with Hayden. Either way, she’d hate the outcome. The only
reason she hesitated was that one innocent who might be hurt if she let
something slip.

Brian put up the sign to let people know he was working on a
tattoo, which he always did when he was in the shop without an assistant. Then
he locked up and led her into the back room.

Hopefully, helping her wouldn’t get Brian killed.