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“Then tell me what happened.”
“We were drinking and joking around. I think Martinez passed around a joint…” The words died on Jerry’s lips.
“Go on,” Valen commanded, startled when the man’s memories began to fade. As if they were being obscured by a reddish mist.
Jerry’s hands clenched and the veins in his neck protruded as he struggled to dredge up the events of the night.
“I can’t,” he at last conceded. “Everything went black, and when I woke up the EMTs were there loading people into the ambulance and I was tossed into the back of the sheriff’s car.” He shook his head, something that might have been genuine regret darkening his eyes. “They said I shot my friends, but that’s bullshit. I might punch them in the face, but I’d never kill them. Even if they deserved it.”
“Think about the moment right before you passed out.” Valen mentally probed against the darkness in Jerry’s mind. It wasn’t a gaping hole caused by sleep or unconsciousness. It was as if the reddish mist had shrouded the memories, obscuring them from view. Valen had never encountered anything like it. “What was happening?”
“Nothing.”
The bars iced over as Valen struggled to contain his impatience. “No one came into the bar?”
Jerry shrugged. “Lots of people.”
“A stranger?”
“Here? You gotta be shitting me. Why would a stranger come to this town?”
“You’re sure?” Valen pressed.
“I’d remember,” Jerry insisted, his thin face flushing. “It was the same stupid crowd of losers. Christ.”
Without warning the memories shattered as a tidal wave of emotions crashed over the human. Spinning toward the back of the cell, Jerry hunched his shoulders and covered his face as he burst into loud, gut-wrenching sobs.
Valen broke his connection to the man’s mind. Jerry was too busy wallowing in self-pity to think coherently.
“I doubt there’s any point in continuing this conversation.” He turned toward Peri, who watched Jerry with a frown. “Something’s tampered with his memories,” he told her. “Could it be magical?”
She considered the question before answering. “There are spells and potions that can cause a human to forget certain events, but none that would erase the memories of so many people at one time.” She arched a brow. “Only a vampire has the ability to manipulate human minds.”
Valen glanced back at the sobbing man. “I would have seen in his mind where the memories had been erased. These memories were coated in some sort of magic.”
He didn’t add that a vampire capable of wiping the mind of so many would have been sensed by Gabriel this close to his Gyre. And that the attack would have been an open declaration of war.
Vampire politics were Cabal business. No one else’s.
“What if a vampire was infected with the miasma?” Peri demanded, her eyes shimmering the precise shade of turquoise in the harsh lighting. “It might disguise his presence.”
It was doubtful. Vampires were immune to most spells and potions. Only one of many reasons they’d earned the right to control the Gyres. Then again, the miasma wasn’t normal magic, Valen reluctantly acknowledged. It would be foolish to dismiss a potential threat out of sheer arrogance.
“Do you think it’s possible?” he asked.
“Anything is possible.”
That was painfully true. “Let’s hope that theory stays nothing more than a wild guess. A rogue vampire would be bad enough. A vampire with toxic magic?” Valen’s fangs lengthened. He’d been in his current body for several centuries, but his inner demon was ancient. It’d gone through the age of dragons, andlater the demon wars that had created a wasteland across the world. He couldn’t dredge up the precise memories—they were erased when a vampire was destroyed and reincarnated in a new body—but he retained a stark desire to avoid the bloodbaths that had nearly destroyed his people. “Armageddon.”
As if sensing his reluctance to discuss the horror of a crazed vampire on steroids, Peri glanced toward the prisoner.
“Should we ask him about the bartender?”
“I don’t think we’re going to get anything else out of him tonight.” Valen abruptly headed toward the door. He wanted to be away from the human who reeked of stale alcohol and a fear so pungent it soured the air. “According to Gabriel the woman had a small apartment above the bar. We can check there for more information.”
Chapter 10
Peri allowed Valen to take the lead as they headed out of the sheriff’s office and down the street to the bar. Not because she needed a man in charge. The day that happened, she’d hang up her mage card and retire to a vineyard in France. But she wanted to concentrate on what they’d discovered from the eyewitness.
