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Shane had reached the empty elevator shaft and shot me a glare for breaching his cone of silence. Admittedly, it
looked a lot more menacing with the coating of red all over him. Adding a splash of gore made a man much…manlier.
Something was very wrong with me.
“You don’t want to know where this blood is from,” he answered.
“I’m not in the habit of asking questions I don’t want the answer to. ”
Shane checked his gun—a stupidly large revolver straight out of Dirty Harry—and glanced up the shaft of the elevator rather than down. “He ripped a dude’s head off. This was the result. ”
Provided with such a lovely visual, I sort of regretted asking. “Did you—?”
“There were no witnesses. Wardens were called to clean it up, but God only knows when they’ll show. ”
Bless my twisted little soul. He was learning. I might make a real bounty hunter out of the boy after all.
I tucked my gun into its holster and jumped across the hole, bypassing the questionable plywood altogether. Below us the screaming had faded to whimpers, meaning we were running out of time. Soon the screaming would start again, and when it did, it wouldn’t be from fear anymore.
Inside the belly of the elevator shaft the rust-coated cables started to wobble and sway. I stopped next to Shane and followed his gaze upwards.
Siobhan slid down the cable and jumped between us, shaking her hands and swearing. Her palms were bloody, and the front of her dress had been worn threadbare in places from the friction of the cable. “Remind me never to do that again without the proper equipment. ”
“Is your mountaineering gear in your other purse?” I asked.
“Har-har. ” Siobhan wiped the blood on her dress. “The upper floors are clear, no additional guards. If he has anyone protecting him, they’re downstairs. ”
This girl was nuts. I liked not being the craziest woman in the room for once. “Don’t suppose either of you have any special skills that might help us figure out how many we’re up against?”
“At least two,” Shane said, still the only one whispering. “I used my special skill of seeing. ”
I arched a brow at him. If Siobhan was responsible for him growing a pair, I had to give her props. I’d always assumed Shane had no backbone, but maybe I scared him. I was a fan of him coming out of his shell, but perhaps the sass could wait until after we’d killed some vampires.
There was only room for one person to be sassy on the job, and I already filled the quota.
Right now, though, I had to worry about the fact we had at least two more vampires on our plate in addition to the already challenging rogue we’d come for. Not that I was worried or anything, but having a vampire sentry with us might come in handy.
Thanks to the paranoia for my personal safety, my irritatingly modern phone had been outfitted with a panic button that sent a message right to Holden with my GPS coordinates. There really was an app for everything, as it turned out.
I pulled out my phone, hit a button on my home screen, and it made a happy boop noise in return. The sound was a bit too cheerful to be attached to a kidnapping tracker app, but I wasn’t the one who’d designed it.
“Is now the most ideal time to be updating your Facebook status?” Siobhan pulled her weird black baton from a sling on her back. She’d managed to remember that but hadn’t considered the advantages of pants?
“Actually I was—”
Glass crunched near the window, and the three of us turned. Holden dusted bits of glass and wood off his suit jacket and cast a disgusted look around the room. “Cavalry is here. And he’s thrilled. ”
Chapter Three
Holden was a fish out of water in the dilapidated interior of the abandoned complex. The former GQ editor was wearing a gray Hugo Boss suit worth about a thousand bucks—he’d narrow down the price range for me if it was damaged somehow—and looked peeved.
His dark brown hair was brushed back from his face, curling slightly behind his ears and long enough to tease his nape. Brown eyes managed to convey his absolute disdain in a way words never could.
But it was the faint turn of a smile on his lips that hooked me. Holden had a way of taking the most terrifying situations and twisting them on their heads to distract me from the danger. Either by annoying me so intensely I wanted to murder him, or making me forget there was any risk by charming the pants off me.
Sometimes literally.
Even when he was being a snob, he made me feel safe.
