That is, if Michael McCain weren’t part of the problem.
****
Baylor was livid as he stared at Toby hunched in a chair in the corner of the cheap hotel room he’d rented.
“How can you so totally screw up tailing the bitch?” Baylor asked. “You rent a black Honda that looks like a thousand othercars—and she makes you?” The whip he’d been holding snaked out close to Toby’s ear. His face went gray. “I fly you out here all the way from London and you can’t handle a job?” He hitched the whip again. “I guess I’ll have to impress on you—”
Toby gave a squeal of fear and passed out.
“Damn. Can’t even have a little fun.” Baylor spat as he recoiled the whip. Then he turned to Caldwell.
The man sat slumped in a chair across the room regarding him out of two rapidly swelling eyes. Blood had clotted from a broken nose and he had a busted lip, but otherwise he was intact. Baylor rubbed his shoulder where Caldwell had actually hit him.Hithim. He couldn’t remember a time when a mortal man dared to strike back. It was probably the reason Caldwell hadn’t suffered a worse fate. A god, even a demon one, had to respect something.
“So you still think witches just dance naked under a full moon?” he asked.
“The bitch does seem to be more elusive than any of my other marks,” Caldwell admitted. “I’m getting a little tired of it.” He touched his bruised cheekbone.
“Good. Then maybe this time you’ll get it right,” Baylor replied. “You know where she lives?”
“Yes. The GPS is accurate. I drove by the complex as she was going into her unit.”
“I take it she didn’t see you?”
Caldwell glanced over at Toby still slumped in the chair. “I was careful.”
Baylor followed his look. “Let that be a lesson to you.” He turned back to Caldwell. “Still have the key?”
“Of course.”
“Then do it tonight. The Highlander’s gone and I’ve arranged for the other guard dog’s mother to have an accident. He’ll be called away this afternoon. She’ll be alone.”
Caldwell nodded and got up to walk to the door.
“Just one more thing,” Baylor said.
“What?”
He fingered the whip and looked at Toby and then back to Caldwell. “If you fail this time, things might not go so easy for you. If you know what I mean.”
****
It was dark by the time Lucas finished the inventory and filed his report. He made his way to the hotel where he had arranged to meet Gavin and retrieve the Shield. It could protect Sara.
The vampire was waiting for him in a dark, recessed corner of the lounge, sipping red wine. Or at least Lucas thought it was wine.
“Sorry to make you travel in daylight,” Lucas said as he sat down.
Gavin shrugged. “I kept the curtains in the train berth closed on the way up. Only got a bit of a sunburn on my way to the hotel.”
“Thank the power of modern medicine then.” Lucas remembered when he’d first met Gavin wandering the streets of Jerusalem in search of an unwary soul for a meal. Lucas had been in wolf form, hunting for meat himself, since the early Templars only allowed themselves meat once a week. In those days, the vampire couldn’t face the sun at all without excruciating pain.
As they continued to meet at night and hunt together—the wolf could bring down bigger game even though the vampire could move faster—Lucas had told him how the discipline of the Templars helped him curb the beast’s killer instincts and Gavin had confessed how much he hated taking human life, even it was from murderers and rapists. Eventually, he had joined the Order as well. If the original nine Templars thought it strange that he kept himself in his windowless cell all day, they said nothingabout it, for Gavin worked the night shift, digging while they slept.
“So did you find out anything new on Balor?” Lucas asked.
“He took a flight to Dallas shortly after you did. Used the name of Adam Baylor.” Gavin pulled out a small notebook and looked at it. “He checked out of his hotel about a week ago. Flew to Nova Scotia.”
The same time Sara and he had gone to Halifax. Lucas felt the wolf tense. He had known Balor was there, but to know that he boldly used his own name and identification meant the former god had grown even more arrogant. More power-crazed.
