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“How about a return visit to Harish? If we can pinpoint when Harold started hassling Sabele, maybe that will help? And where did he meet Claudette? The Hellions sure wouldn’t be given an invitation to the Clockwork Club.” Camille sat up. “Chase, while you’re at it, look into any other missing person reports of Fae or Supe women. Or even FBHs who live in the vicinity of Harold’s house. Look back through the files for a number of years. The manacles on the wall do not bode well for the female population.”
I snapped my fingers. “The girl—Larry and Duane were talking about spiking her drink. I wonder if we can trace her down.”
“Probably not, unless someone went missing, but it gives us an idea of how they work. But the vampire—vampires aren’t affected by drugs, and they only drink blood, so how’d they get hold of Claudette?” Chase bit into his bread, wiping the butter from his chin.
“There are ways to control us,” I said. “Silver chains, garlic ropes . . . it can be done.”
Camille let out a sigh. “We’ve got too many questions and not enough answers.”
I glanced at the clock. It was nearing four A.M. Not enough time for me to go out on the prowl, and both Camille and Delilah were looking rough around the edges. “We’ll have to take this up tomorrow. Delilah, even though we chased off the Karsetii, I think you should spend the rest of the night in the panic room—”
“No.” She swallowed the last of her spaghetti and downed a glass of milk. “I’m not going to be locked up like some precious china statue. We have to take a stand somewhere, and I’m making mine here. You wounded it pretty bad. My guess is that the thing will have to regenerate before it comes back.”
Camille cleared her throat. “We can’t make her go.”
We could—or rather, I could—but I wouldn’t. I gave her a quiet nod. “All right, it’s your choice, but sleep lightly.”>Shit. We’d landed in something big, all right. Or something that had been big. It was hard to tell which. Whatever the case, the echo of voices from up ahead—faint but definite—told us that the place hadn’t been abandoned. And whatever those voices were chanting gave me the creeps.
Delilah tapped me on the shoulder. She nodded to the hallway, and I shrugged. We’d come this far. We might as well take a look at what the Dante’s Hellions were up to.
CHAPTER 20
The chanting was either in Latin or some other archaic language, and the sounds of medieval instruments joined in the harmony. As the music wove through the hallways, it pulled me in. The melody echoed through the halls like a haunted drumbeat, and the voices set me on edge.
Delilah leaned toward me, her breathing rapid and shallow. “I don’t like this.”
“Hold tight, Kitten. We can’t afford for you to transform here,” I whispered. “You’d bolt, and I’d never find you.” She looked on the verge of shifting, and the thought of a twelve-pound golden tabby by my side didn’t bode well for a fight. Not the best battle companion.
“I know. It’s the music. I can feel it penetrating my body, like mist on an autumn night.” She shivered.
I took hold of her hand and squeezed. She smiled faintly.
“Let’s go just a little farther down the corridor and see what we can find out,” I suggested.
There was nowhere to hide from here on out. We’d have to dart down the corridor and hope nobody saw us. I pointed to the first door on the left. “Let’s try for that room. We can hide in there if we hear somebody coming.” I just hoped the room was empty, or we’d be paying one hell of a surprise visit to somebody.
We dashed, racing silently for the door. I paused just long enough to press my ear to the steel but heard nothing. I swung the door open. As we stepped in, the darkness was so thick it clouded my sight, but at least I couldn’t sense anybody else in here with us nor see any heat signatures. The room smelled musty, old, and unused.
I closed the door softly as Delilah slid in behind me and waited a beat . . . two beats. No sound. “You have a flashlight?”
She didn’t answer, but within seconds, the pen-sized flashlight she kept on her keychain cut a swath into the darkness. It wasn’t a regular-sized torch, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was stronger than the dime-store variety. We glanced around the room. So far, so good. Nobody stirring.
And then Delilah froze, her beam capturing the far wall in its glow. There were three sets of manacles on the walls, and a body hung from one set of manacles. The others were empty, but beneath an empty set lay a pile of dust and some clothing.
“Oh shit. Oh no,” I said as we slowly approached. I knelt by the clothing, and Delilah flashed the light in my direction. Jeans, a pretty red blouse. Women’s clothing, about a size eight. As I shifted the cloth around, ashes scattered from the folds of the material. I knew exactly what kind of ashes they were.
“Vampire. They had a vampire chained in here, and they dusted her.” And I’d bet my fangs on who it had been.
I turned my attention to the other body. She was naked and long dead. Partially mummified, she’d been an elf. And she’d been petite, pretty, and in pain—that much was clear from the expression on her face. A few of her fingers were missing, roughly chopped off, and a gaping hole in her chest gave me the shivers. As I gazed at the weathered skin and features, my heart dropped.
“Oh great Bastus.” Delilah must have been thinking along the same lines I had. “Sabele?”
I nodded. “We can’t know for sure, not yet. But . . . yeah, I think so. And that—” I pointed to the pile of ashes. “That was Claudette, the vampire Chase told me was missing. Dante’s Hellions have just crossed the line from wing nuts to murderers.” I examined Sabele’s body. “They took her heart. It’s missing.”
Delilah winced. “Goddamn pricks. They aren’t connected with the Corpse Talkers, do you think?”
“Unlikely.” I slowly shook my head. “A number of demonic rituals call for body parts, especially the heart and blood. This is bad. Really bad. And considering what we’ve found, I think we need to get the hell out of here. We’re treading in dangerous territory, and from the sound of that chanting, there are quite a few guys involved. Maybe they’re just playing a record, but I don’t want to find out without backup, even with my strength.”
Delilah followed me to the door, where I peeked out before we slipped back down the hall. I wanted to take the remains with me, but that would alert the group that somebody had been here. Before we left, I used my cell phone to snap a couple of pictures, and then we were off. We lucked out on our way back up the passageway. Nobody heard us, nobody saw us.
