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Camil e was sipping a cup of steaming tea. Dressed in a black filmy gown, she had a cozy fleece robe thrown over the top. She was gorgeous. That raven hair of hers seemed to be getting longer, and her curves fil ed out the night-gown and robe nicely. Good thing we’re sisters, or I might not be able to keep my eyes to myself, I thought.
Delilah, on the other hand, was wearing a pair of pink flannel pajamas with a kitty on the front, and fuzzy slippers that reminded me of tribbles. She was nursing a glass of warm milk and munching on cookies.
I took off my boots and jacket and sat cross-legged in the big overstuffed chair that Smoky had bought for the living room to replace one of the chairs damaged when the demons trashed our home. Most of the furniture was new, actual y, and there were stil gouges on some of the wal s where the Tregart demons had punched holes through the drywal .
The guys had repaired al of the outside damage and were slowly working their way through the inside of the house now, taking care of the detail work.
“We’ve got a problem. Chase cal ed me over to HQ tonight. It looks like we have ourselves a vampire serial kil er on the loose.” I leaned back against the cushions, closing my eyes. It felt good to be home. I loved clubbing, loved hanging out on the dance floor with my girl, or at the bar with my staff, but at the end of the night, I wanted to be home, to play with Maggie, our cute little calico gargoyle, to chil with my sisters and Iris, and just . . . just to be.
“Great. Another Harold, only after vampires instead of Fae?” Camil e grimaced. Harold Young stil sat uneasy on her mind. Al of our minds, actual y. He’d been the worst of the monsters, even though he’d been an FBH. In fact, that was what made him so horrible—he had been al human by blood. But pure demon into the depths of his soul.
“No—not a serial kil er after vampires. A vampire serial killer. He’s kil ing young women.” I gave them the rundown on what Chase had shown me. “He has to be either a fairly new vampire or new to the area, unless there was a trigger to set off this spree.”
The doorbel rang and we al stared at the hal way for a moment. It was three in the morning.
Who the fuck would be at our door at this time?>He thought for a moment, then led the way to the morgue. “We’ve kept the bodies. We stil don’t have IDs on three of them. The other one, we know who she is but can’t find any family to notify.
But word is getting around on the streets. I’ve got to warn the streetwalkers soon. They deserve to know if there’s some nutcase out there targeting them.”
I stared at the bril iant white wal s of the morgue, the shimmering stainless steel of the sinks and tables. This was my domain—the domain of the dead. Had Dredge not brought me back to life, I’d have walked the hal owed hal s, crossing over to the Land of the Silver Fal s.
Every time I came face-to-face with mortality, I remembered my own immortality and once again had to face the fact that I was a predator. A creature who belonged in the shadows. Never again would I walk under the sun, not until the day I was ready to give it al up and go home to my ancestors. Until then, there was only the moon for me.
Four bodies were laid out on tables, covered with white sheets. Spotless sheets, like freshly fal en snow against a barren background.
“I take it you’ve watched them for any signs of rising?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Nothing. I think they’re truly dead.”
I approached the first one and pul ed back the sheet. She was unearthly in her silence, in her stil ness. Like a statue, or a figure frozen in ice, she lay there, pale from the lack of blood. I leaned down and examined the puncture wounds on her neck. Vampire. I could feel him. Smell him. The vamp who’d kil ed this woman was male and fairly young—at least as a vampire. That much I could tel . Quickly, I checked the other bodies, startled by the similarity of their looks. They could have been sisters.
In a way they are, I thought. Sisters in death. They were kil ed by the same vampire. I could smel him on them, his breath, his scent, his . . .
Oh crap. I jumped back, trembling. Very little set me off, but this—this was too familiar, stil too stark in a memory that I’d never, ever shake.
“Did you check to see if they were raped?” My voice was sharper than I meant it to be, but I couldn’t help it.
Chase looked at me, his expression slipping from neutral to pained. “Yeah, we did. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to tel you. I know what that does to you.”
“They were, right? You wouldn’t find semen, but they were torn and bruised. I can smel it. I can smel the blood-lust . . . not just around the puncture marks.” As I felt the room spin, my fangs came down and I began to panic. I had to get out of there. “Chase, I have to get up to the surface. Now.”
“Come on.” He guided me out but wisely didn’t touch me.
When we came to the elevator, I held out my hand. “You’d better not ride up with me. It’s too dangerous right now. I’l meet you out front.”
He didn’t question, just stood back, letting me board the car without him. I punched M for the main floor and counted the seconds as they ticked by. The elevator wasn’t slow, but by the time it reached the main floor and I managed to haul ass outside, it felt like I’d spent a thousand years locked in the car.
A thousand years of memories, a thousand years of wanting freedom, a thousand years of wondering if we had another Dredge on our hands.
CHAPTER 2
Chase fol owed me outside. “You okay?”
I slowly looked up at him, letting my fangs show. “No, not total y, but I wil be. Just . . . some memories you never shake. Some deeds are never undone. Dredge was a horror beyond anything you can imagine. Karvanak might have come close, but Dredge—he thrived on the pain of others. On humiliation and degradation. He laughed as I screamed, Chase. He laughed like he was watching some stupid sitcom. And then he . . . when he . . .”
I was awash in the sudden memory of his laughing face as he mounted me, raped my bleeding body, tore at the lacerations that he’d spent hours carving into my skin, and for a moment everything shifted beneath my feet. I wanted to hunt, to chase, to kil —but he was dust. I’d already toasted him and there was nothing left I could do to him.
“Menol y, Menol y—snap out of it. Listen to me!” Chase’s voice cut through my bloodlust fog like a razor, slicing the veil of hunger so quickly it felt like I’d been ejected from a womb.
