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“A number of murders have occurred, and the only link we can find, besides the manner of their death, is Dark Earth, a vampire establishment in Brunswick.”
I frowned. I knew Brunswick fairly well since Tao, Ilianna, and I had lived there for a few years during our university years, and I certainly couldn’t recall a place called Dark Earth. “I gather it’s new?”
“No, old,” she said crisply. “But it’s one that only vampires know about.”
“Ah, an underground club.” There’d been talk about such clubs existing over the years, but no evidence had ever been uncovered and the vamps certainly weren’t forthcoming with any information.
“Figuratively and physically,” Hunter said. “If it sat at street level, humanity would be aware of its existence and that could be dangerous for everyone.”
Which only made me wonder what the hell went on in the place—although I had a bad feeling that I was going to get a firsthand answer to that one.
“In the last week,” she continued, “there have been five deaths. All were low-level vampires, as Dark Earth caters to a particular type of clientele.”
A type she clearly wasn’t going to tell me about right now—and that only made me more nervous about going to the damn club. “That doesn’t explain why you want me to investigate rather than the Directorate.”
“The Directorate is brilliant at what it does, but it is too large an organization to guarantee the utter discretion this investigation requires.”
“In other words, I’m to shut my mouth about what I find and report only to you?”
“That goes without saying.” She paused, and her expression intensified. Trepidation shivered down my spine. “And if you breathe a word of this to that reporter you talked to this morning, he will discover a whole lot more about the dark edges of this world than he might wish to.”
The chill got deeper. “How do you know I talked to a reporter this morning?”
Her sudden smile was anything but pleasant. “I did warn you that we intended to keep track of your every move.”
But how? Cazadors were vampires, and no vampire, no matter how old, could stand the sun between noon and one o’clock. Although some—like Uncle Quinn and Hunter herself—could walk around at any other time, thanks to their age.
And if a Cazador had been following me, why hadn’t I sensed it? At the very least, I should have been able to smell his presence, even in the human-drenched confines of the café.
Unless… Could the dream walker Azriel had mentioned have been a Cazador? There were Cazadors capable of astral travel—Hunter herself had told me that. And an astral-traveling vampire would not be restricted by the noonday sun, because it was only their flesh that burned. Their spirit—soul—did not.
Shit. We were going to have to be very careful about what we said when that traveler was near. Especially if we wanted to ensure that the keys didn’t fall into the council’s hands.
“If you know anything about my history with the reporter I talked to, then you’ll realize I wouldn’t want to tell him anything I didn’t have to.”
Her smile lightened. The same could not be said for the look in her eyes. “Yes, he did gain himself something of a reputation after the rather nice story he did on your mother. I must admit to some surprise that you’d even meet with him again.”
To call it a “nice story” was something of a misnomer, given that it had become a staple for gossip mags for several weeks. “If you know about the meeting, then you’ll undoubtedly know the reasons behind it. Can we get back to the reason for this call?”
She did so. “As I’ve mentioned, we can find no real connection between the victims besides the club and the manner of their deaths, no apparent motive for the murders, and no trace evidence to suggest who or what might be behind them.”
A chill ran through me as images of Mom’s murder ran through my mind again. My mouth dry, I asked, “And just how were they killed?”
“They were eaten.”
Eaten? Good lord, I did not want to go after something that would eat vampire flesh. “I can’t imagine a vampire sitting around letting someone munch on him.”
“They didn’t. Whatever this thing is, it scratched them first. We found traces of venom in the wounds and further analysis revealed that it contained powerful inhibitors.”
I frowned. “But vampires don’t actually need to breathe.” It was more an instinctive reflex left over from the time before they’d been turned. “And I’ve never heard of a poison capable of killing a vamp.”
“The venom wasn’t what killed them,” she replied, neatly skirting the issue of poisons and vampires. Which to me suggested there were poisons capable of doing just that. “The inhibitor prevented reaction, and the killer simply ate them.”
While they were alive? Oh god, this was getting worse and worse. “If it scratched them, surely there was some DNA evidence left in the wounds?”
“None, other than the venom, which we have not been able to trace to any source so far.”
I released a somewhat shaky breath. “This really does sound more like Directorate business than anything I could help with.”
