Secrets in the Shadows

  Jules’s hands clenched into fists, and a muscle ticked in his jaw, but he didn’t respond. Gabriel nodded, satisfied with himself, then left the room.

  “He probably wouldn’t do it,” Hannah said, staring at the door through which he’d exited. “I think he kinda likes me.” Gabriel wasn’t exactly what she’d call a good guy, but she had a definite sense that he followed some code of honor. Of course, not being certain what that code was, she wasn’t eager to test him.

  Jules swept the covers aside and headed for the bathroom. “We’re not going to find out,” he said with finality.

  Once upon a time, his tone would have sparked her to argue just for the sake of arguing. She wasn’t sure her uncharacteristic acquiescence was an improvement.

  THE DOOR To DRAKE’S room opened shortly after sundown. He’d been awake for almost an hour, pacing the length of the room, trying the door once or twice just to make sure someone hadn’t unlocked it without his noticing. Apparently, Eli’d had no success talking Camille into releasing him. Not a good sign at all. He’d tried a couple of times to eke one more call out of his cell phone, to let Jules and Hannah know what was going on, but the battery refused to cooperate.

  He stopped in mid-pace when Camille stepped into his guestroom-cum-prison-cell. No elegant opera dress for her tonight. No, tonight she meant business. A finely tailored, pinstriped pants suit clung appealingly to her curves, and her hair was swept up into a tight bun at the base of her neck. Even her makeup was understated, though no less perfect than usual.

  “You will find my son and his fledglings for me,” she said when she stepped into the room.

  “Excuse me?” It wasn’t exactly what he’d expected to hear from her.

  “You work for the Guardians. You’re an expert at tracking down Killers. My son may have been subtle about his own kills, but fledglings have little self-control. Wherever they’re hiding, they will have left evidence. Find that evidence for me. Find Gabriel.”

  “What about my friends?” he asked quietly. “I thought you wanted me to find them and—”

  “Find Gabriel.” She stepped closer to him, baring her fangs, her eyes glowing with a hint of madness. “When you find him for me, I’ll set you free and you can do whatever you want. Search for your friends. Go home. It doesn’t matter to me. But until then, you’ll do as I command or I’ll send you back to Eli in bite-sized pieces.”

  He held up his hands in surrender. What did he care if Camille and her son fought to the death? As long as he could get out of this house, he’d be happy to hand Gabriel—or whoever the maker of those fledglings was—over to her.

  “Do you have a computer with Internet access I can use?” he asked.

  The blandness of his tone seemed to calm her some. She retracted her fangs and took a step backward. “Of course. This way.”

  She turned on her heel and strode out of the room. Drake had to hurry to keep up. Below, he sensed the presence of eight vampires and realized Camille had called her fledglings to her. She must be worried about another attack. Any faint hope he’d harbored of escaping the house died. He wasn’t getting out of here unless Camille set him free.

  She led him to a surprisingly Spartan office, considering the opulence of the rest of the house. She gestured him into the chair in front of her computer, then hovered over his shoulder. He bit his tongue to suppress the urge to tell her to give him some space. He suspected it would take only the slightest provocation to inspire her to a fit of fury such as she’d demonstrated last night.

  Trying to ignore the dangerous, unstable creature who lurked behind him, he started searching the local newspapers for clues.

  THINGS WERE HAPPENING WAY too fast for Jules’s taste. He’d hoped to have another couple of days to plot strategy, to figure out how he and Hannah were going to get out of town without betraying the Guardians. He cast a surreptitious glance at Hannah as they nervously waited for Gabriel to show up again. Jules might have believed in his ability to withstand Gabriel’s interrogation methods, except that Gabriel so clearly knew how to get to him. All he had to do was threaten Hannah, and Jules knew he’d do anything the bastard wanted. If only Hannah had kept driving last night!

  It was when Hannah tucked her gun into the pocket of her coat that he realized what he had to do.

  “May I have the gun please?” he asked quietly.

  She blinked at him. “Why?”

  Of course he should never expect Hannah to comply without an interrogation. “Come sit down,” he said, patting the bed beside him.

  He could only describe the look on her face as suspicious. But she came to sit by him anyway. “I have a feeling I’m not going to like this,” she said.

  He managed a faint smile. “I have to admit, I don’t much like it myself. However …” His voice trailed off. He wished he had a better alternative to offer, but a sense of doom hovered over him.

  “What is it, Jules? You’re scaring me.”

  He swallowed hard, then forced himself to look at her. From the pallor of her face and the worry in her eyes, he suspected she knew what he was about to say.

  “If we can’t get out of this somehow,” he said, “Gabriel’s going to interrogate me. And I have a feeling that with five hundred years of experience, he’ll know how to break me. I can’t betray the Guardians, Hannah. No matter what my differences with Eli.”

  “So you want the gun … why?”

  “Are you going to make me spell it out for you?”

  She shook her head and looked away. “There has to be some other way. Gabe is powerful, but he isn’t omnipotent.”

  “He might as well be, where we’re concerned.”

  “We’ll find a way,” she insisted. “And I’m keeping the gun.”

  Impossible female! “I can take it from you by force.”

  “You do and I’ll tell Gabe you have it.”

  He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her till her teeth rattled. Somehow, he resisted the urge. “Don’t take away my one and only chance to do the honorable thing.”

  “Call me a hopeless optimist, but I’m not buying the ‘one and only chance’ thing. If all else fails, I’ll give you the gun. But for now, it’s mine.”

  “By the time you’ve decided all else has failed, it’ll be too late!”

  “The subject is closed. And don’t think I’m making an empty threat. I will tell him if you take the gun.”

  He suspected she meant it. She’d do it for his own good, of course, to stop him from shooting himself. But it meant that taking the gun from her wasn’t an option after all. He considered telling her exactly what he thought about stubborn, foolish, willful females, but a knock on the door interrupted him before he got started. Giving up on talking sense into Hannah, he went to the door to let Gabriel in.

  There was a noticeable flush to the older vampire’s cheeks. Jules gritted his teeth, hating the knowledge that some poor fool had just died and he’d done nothing to prevent it. One corner of Gabriel’s mouth rose in a sneer. Then he licked his lips, and it was all Jules could do not to attack.

  Gabriel chuckled, his amusement just another irritant. Jules supposed he’d learned a little self-control over the last couple of days or he’d be at the bastard’s throat right now.

  “You might want to step aside just now,” Gabriel said, smiling. When Jules didn’t immediately obey, Gabriel put a hand on his shoulder and gave a little push.

  It wasn’t until that moment that Jules realized Hannah had her gun out and was pointing it at Gabriel’s head.

  What the hell did the damn fool woman think she was doing? Gabriel’s glamour would never allow her to pull the trigger.

  Gabriel smiled even more broadly, spreading his hands and taking a step closer to her. “Go ahead and shoot me, my dear.”

  The gun wavered, and Jules realized that Hannah wasn’t under the influence of glamour. His heart pounded as he silently urged her to pull the trigger and get them out of this mess.

  ?
??You couldn’t shoot Ian when you had the chance,” Gabriel continued. “What makes you think you can shoot me?”

  She forced a grin that looked more like a grimace. “Keep goading me. That’ll make it easier.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re not the type to commit murder. No matter what I am, no matter what I’ve done.” He flicked a glance over at Jules. “Besides, without my protection, Ian would make short work of your lover.”

  “I’m sure with you out of the way, I’d be able to talk Jules into giving up the vendetta.”

  Gabriel shook his head, his smile fading away. “We’re wasting time. Put the gun down and let’s take a ride to the country.”

  Why wasn’t the prick using his glamour? This whole standoff could have been finished before it even started.

  Hannah was wavering, indecision clear in her eyes. Surely she had to know Gabriel could stop her if he wanted to. Gabriel took another step toward her. Jules wanted to go to her, shield her somehow, but Gabriel’s glamour froze him in place.

  Her finger flexed on the trigger, but still she didn’t shoot.

  Moving slowly, Gabriel reached out and put his hand on her arms, pushing downward until she lowered the gun. His smile when she did so was surprisingly gentle.

  “It’s not a bad thing that you can’t shoot someone in cold blood,” he said.

  “It is when that someone is you,” she grumbled, shoving the gun into her coat pocket.

  He laughed and released Jules from his glamour.

  “You’ve found yourself a remarkable woman, Guardian,” Gabriel said. “I suggest you take good care of her. Now, let’s go.” He turned toward the door, beckoning them to follow.

  Jules met Hannah’s gaze and shook his head, though relief coursed through his system. Thank God Gabriel hadn’t decided to punish Hannah for her nerve. He could only hope Gabriel’s apparent fondness for her meant that when the final showdown came, he would leave her out of it.

  Settling his arm around Hannah’s shoulders, Jules followed Gabriel out the door.

  18

  THEY DECIDED TO BEGIN their search in the town of Fallston, which was just inside the circle Hannah had drawn on the map. The ride from Baltimore seemed to take about three hours, though with the streets deserted at this late hour Hannah was sure it wasn’t more than thirty minutes. Jules sat beside her in the passenger seat, the map spread across his lap as he plotted their zig-zagging course. Gabriel sat in the back seat, his eyes closed as he concentrated on his psychic search. His range stretched over a couple of miles, which seemed like a long way until you considered how much ground they had to cover.

  Why hadn’t she been able to shoot him? Sure, it was hard to shoot an unarmed man in the head, but he was worse than any human serial killer in history. How many people had he killed in five hundred years? Even if he only fed once a month—and she was quite sure he fed more often than that—that would mean six thousand people had died at his hands. She shuddered.

  Jules must have noticed, for he reached over and put his hand on her thigh, giving it a firm squeeze. She glanced over and met his gaze for an instant before returning her concentration to the road. It was dark out here in the boondocks, with no streetlights. She hated not being able to see beyond the glow of her high beams. She was tired enough that she could easily drive off the road if she wasn’t careful. Not to mention the deer she felt sure were lurking behind every bush, just waiting to hurl themselves into her path.

  Time dragged, and Hannah’s eyelids were heavy with exhaustion. She drove like a robot, turning when Jules told her to, no longer having any sense of where they were or how far they’d come. Everything looked the same out here in the dark of the night. Sleepy farmland and even sleepier little towns, with the occasional lighted window or lone car the only signs of life. Hours passed in excruciating tedium, and still Gabe sensed nothing. She’d have thought he’d fallen asleep, sitting back there with his head resting against the back of the seat and his eyes closed, but a creepy sense of danger lurking behind her told her he was wide awake.

  “Maybe I got it all wrong,” she said, stifling a yawn.

  “We’ve still got a lot of territory to cover,” Jules said, holding the map close to his face. “I’d say we’ve only covered about half the circle so far.”

  Hannah glanced at the dashboard clock. It was almost five already. “It won’t be long before the sun comes up. Maybe we should call it a night and get you back to the hotel.”

  “No,” Gabriel said. “I’m sensing something up ahead.”

  “Bully for you,” she said, pulling onto a side road and doing a U-turn. “We can pick up from here tomorrow. Jules needs to be back in the hotel by the time the sun comes up.”

  Gabriel leaned forward. She felt his eyes on her, though she refused to look in the rearview mirror to see what he was doing. “If the daylight becomes a problem, we can always put him in the trunk,” Gabriel said.

  “Sounds like fun. But no.”

  “I’ll be fine, Hannah,” Jules said.

  She shot him a death glare.

  He shrugged sheepishly. “He’ll just use glamour to get his way, so it’s not worth fighting.”

  “Dammit!” God, how she hated vampires!

  As usual, Gabriel was amused by her outburst. She flipped him the bird as she made another U-turn. Beside her, Jules winced, but Gabriel ignored her gesture.

  Hoping she wasn’t about to run into any speed traps, she put the pedal to the metal in the vain hope that they could find Ian, kill him and his fledglings, and escape Gabriel all by the time the sun rose high enough to put Jules into his coma-like daytime sleep.

  ALTHOUGH DRAKE WAS FAMILIAR with how the Guardians hunted their quarry, he’d never done the tedious task of searching through the newspapers for clues. He didn’t work on cases until well after the Guardians had confirmed the existence of a Killer and narrowed down his hunting grounds. Given Camille’s state of mind, however, he didn’t feel inclined to inform her of his lack of experience.

  Even if he’d been a veteran at the job, he doubted he would have had an easy time of it with Camille hovering over his shoulder. The fledglings gathered downstairs weren’t much help, either. With their maker under attack, the fledglings were on edge, fighting amongst themselves, their raised voices breaking his concentration.

  It was perilously close to dawn when he felt he had sufficiently narrowed down the possibilities to report his findings to Camille. A strange glow lit her eyes when she snatched the map from his hands.

  “You’re sure he’s around here somewhere?” She studied it as if she could discern her son’s whereabouts just by looking.

  Of course he wasn’t sure! It wasn’t like vampire hunting was an exact science.

  “It seems highly likely,” he said.

  Her eyes fixed on him and narrowed. “But would you stake your life on it? Because that’s what you’re doing.”

  He’d have been alarmed, except his instincts had already told him this. “What about your agreement with Eli? I’m helping you in good faith, but I’m hardly infallible.”

  “Eli and his high-handed tactics have cost me my son!”

  “Gabriel hasn’t made all those fledglings in the last week. Whatever’s brewing in his heart was brewing long before Jules and I came to Baltimore.”

  “That’s right, Drake. It’s been brewing ever since Eli broke our family apart and drove me and Gabriel from Philadelphia.”

  He stifled any number of curses. Whatever arrangement Eli’d had with Camille, it was shattered now. And that told Drake more than he wanted to know. He wasn’t staking his life on this hunt. Camille was going to kill him anyway, to hurt Eli. And she’d kill Jules and Hannah, too, if she could get her hands on them.

  “Come now,” Camille purred. “You must be getting tired. I’ll see you to your room. And then I believe I’ll have Roger take me on a relaxing drive to the country.”

  Drake was powerless to stop her from locking hi
m in his room once more, so he preserved what dignity he could by not resisting. He hadn’t wanted to die one hundred and ten years ago, when he’d become a vampire. And he certainly didn’t want to die now. But unless Eli personally came to Baltimore to rescue him, he didn’t see how he could avoid it.

  HANNAH GLANCED OVER AT Jules and was alarmed by what she saw. He had ducked his head and hunched his shoulders in an attempt to keep himself in the shadow of the brim of his hat, but she could have sworn the sun was rising faster than usual. His eyes were heavy-lidded with impending sleep, and his skin seemed to have a rosy cast that was all wrong.

  “Please, Gabriel,” she said, hating to beg. “We’ve got to get Jules out of the light.”

  Gabriel sighed. “Very well. We’re almost there anyway.” He leaned forward, putting his head between the two front seats and pointing. “Pull in to that driveway.” He was pointing at a picturesque white clapboard house, complete with a white picket fence and a red barn in the back. The place belonged on a postcard, though she’d seen more picturesque farmhouses in the last few hours than she could count. This just wasn’t the kind of area you’d picture when you thought about vampire hunting grounds. All the more reason why Ian’s kills stood out like the proverbial sore thumb.

  Obediently, Hannah pulled into the driveway, but she frowned at Gabriel in the rearview mirror. “What’s the plan here, Gabe?” Surely they weren’t going to go knocking on the door and ask if they could take shelter for the day here!

  “There’s no one home,” he said. “Park the car around back and we’ll spend the day in the barn. There shouldn’t be much sunlight in there, and we can cover Jules with some hay just to make extra sure he doesn’t fry.”

  If she weren’t so worried about Jules, she might have objected to the plan. As it was, she pulled in and practically leapt from the car in her hurry to get him out of the light. He was alert enough to get his door open but faltered when he tried to get out. Hannah ran to his side, but Gabriel beat her there, dragging Jules’s arm over his shoulders and hauling him out effortlessly.