How a police officer could have afforded a place like this, Daniel had no idea. Maybe Stark was right. Maybe it was Hunter money. But why? Why would a Hunter even be interested in purchasing such a residence? It had to have cost millions. Wasn’t it a well known plantation of some sort? And it was large enough for several families.
As far as Daniel knew, Jennings was just Jennings – no wife, no children, no family to speak of. What would all of the other rooms be for?
It made no sense.
But that didn’t stop him from kicking down his stand, leaping from the saddle of his bike, and charging toward the front porch, his fire arm drawn as he moved with blinding speed.
The others rushed to keep up with him. Daniel didn’t bother to knock on the door. Instead, he cocked his head to one side, listening. He turned his nose up slightly to sniff the air as he simultaneously waved several of his men around the building.
The sound of a television could be heard coming from some room deep within the home. A late afternoon sitcom. Track laughter filled the space between the television and the werewolves waiting outside.
Daniel’s gaze cut to his grandfather, whose slightly bewildered expression mirrored the Chief’s. Jonathan Kane shrugged and shook his head. There were shadows on the man’s face. He’d lost a lot today. Everything he had left was riding on this, here and now.
Something about this didn’t feel right.
His gaze fell to the floor boards of the porch as he continued to listen to the sounds of scripted banter and forced laughter from beyond. Then he lifted his head again and nodded. Once.
Instantly, the door to the old home was open and police officers were filing inside, Daniel at their lead. As he turned the corner into what was once most likely a drawing room, he found an elderly African American sitting on the couch. Daniel ordered them to the floor and they instantly complied, their shaking hands in the air.
He and the cops around him aimed their weapons down and away from the couple, but their eyes were alert and watchful.
“What the hell is going on here?” asked the old man.
Daniel didn’t answer. His eyes searched the shadows, his expression grim. “This is wrong,” he muttered. “This is the address, but this is wrong.” Frustration was riding him hard. Time was of the essence and they were wasting it. This was not the place. Jennings wasn’t here.
“We’re looking for a Caucasian man, just over six feet tall,” one of the officers began to address the couple kneeling on the floor. While Daniel would normally handle the situation himself, at the moment he just didn’t have it in him.
He turned away from the scene and left the room, his gun still gripped tightly in his hand, his eyes still relentless in their search. He felt like a man who stood on the threshold of Hell and was ready to start knocking on the door.
Knight, Stark, Angel and Jonathan Kane all followed closely on his heels, leaving the others to apologize and straighten out the mess behind them.
“Just in case, search the stairs and check to see whether there’s a basement,” Daniel ordered softly as he opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch.
Knight nodded. “I’ll take the stairs. Angel, take the kitchen and basement. Stark, check the grounds.”
The others nodded their assent and left.
Daniel waited beside his bike, trying to get his body and mind under control. A few minutes later, his pack returned. There had been no basement. There was an attic, but there was no blood anywhere. And no Jennings.
Daniel took his phone and dialed. “Nichols, give me the address again,” He ordered. He waited as a woman on the other side of the line repeated the address she’d given to him earlier. “You do realize that’s a plantation home?” he asked, his patience wearing as thin as carbon paper.
There was a pause on the other end as the officer ran a check through her data base. Daniel could hear the woman’s fingers flying across her keyboard. A mouse click. Another. More finger-flying. “I’m sorry, sir. You’re right. That address is listed under the Ambrosia Plantation off of Highway 61… I don’t know what happened.”
“I do.” Daniel muttered. He hung up.
The Hunters were a powerful organization. At their head, they were lead by an obscure figure with a seemingly endless source of finances and sway and their members numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Somewhere along the way, a kind of base had been purchased for Allan Jennings and its address had been switched – hidden – in every file that contained it.
Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. Jennings had been a cop and as such, he’d had access to all sorts of otherwise secure information. As a Hunter and a cop, that circle of access would only be greatly broadened.
Off-hand, Daniel wondered how many others in the police department were set to betray the werewolf community. Which made him wonder something else. How many officials in political positions around the world, in general, were somehow tied to the Hunters?
If Allan Jennings could infiltrate a pack as tightly knit as Daniel’s…. Where was their safe ground? Was there any?
“Think, God damn it, think!” Daniel hissed at himself, ran a hand through his blue-black hair and pinched the bridge of his nose again. He felt as if electricity were buzzing through his system. He was going to explode. He began pacing, furiously running through the information in his brain.
He now knew what Hell felt like. Because somewhere, at that very moment, Allan Jennings had Lily St. Claire, and God only knew what he was doing with her.
Chapter Twenty: Really Good Cop, Really Bad Cop
“Lily.”
Lily’s eyes fluttered open and almost instantly, her stomach cramped. Her wrists throbbed where they pulled with bruising force against the strange, strong metal of the cuffs that contained them. So, it wasn’t a dream.… Her heart sank and tears built in her eyes. She forced them back and rolled over to look up at Allan Jennings, who was standing beside the bed holding a plastic tray.
She smelled the food that was on it. There was meat.
Hope burgeoned to life within her. Her plan was simple. Get him to take off the cuffs. Eat something. Get her strength back. Trick him. Overtake him. Kill him.
She waited. If she didn’t say anything, maybe he would think of taking the handcuffs off himself.
Jennings stared down at her for several long, silent moments. His expression was unreadable. But she knew that the sheet over her had been pulled to the side, exposing half of her naked body. She could hear his blood rushing and could smell his arousal. It was pre-cum. She could see the bulge in his jeans.
It was strange how she didn’t care. Brazen. Insane. I’m as nuts as he is….
The damned dizziness was back and she closed her eyes. “Are you going to stand there and tease me with the food, Allan, or are you actually going to let me eat it?” she found herself asking. Her voice sounded different. Lower. Sultry. More sexy.
With that, he seemed to compose himself and pulled the stool closer to the bed. He set the tray down on the bed and Lily turned to face it, managing to raise herself onto her elbow in order to get a look at it.
He must have ordered out, she thought. It was a steak and it was actually rare. Just as she’d imagined it. It smelled better than anything she’d ever smelled in her life.
There was nothing else with it. No bread, no potato, no vegetable, as if he knew she wouldn’t have touched anything but the meat. Of course he knows, she thought. He knows everything about werewolves. He’s been tracking them and killing them for years.
Her gaze flitted from the steak to Jennings again. He was pulling a small set of keys from his front pocket with one hand. And then he pulled the gun out of his waist band with the other.
Lily stiffened.
Jennings saw this and held the gun up with his fingers splayed placatingly as if to show her that he wasn’t planning on using it. Not yet, anyway. “I don’t want to hurt you again, Lily,” he told her. “So just make sure you
don’t do anything stupid, and I won’t.” At that moment, he reminded her of John Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank. He acted like he was making a reasonable request. As if there was justification for shooting someone thirty times.
She stared at him for a long, silently seething while. And then, forcing a defeated expression onto her features, she nodded. Once.
In turn, Jennings placed the barrel of the gun – gently – against her chest and, with his other hand, he reached over her and unlocked the cuffs.
Lily didn’t even dare to move once he’d unlocked her. She really didn’t want to get shot again.
When he finally stepped back, taking the gun and the cuffs with him, she slowly pushed herself into a seated position. The steak was already cut into little pieces, and there was no fork.
Lily kept her eyes trained on Jennings and his gun as she reached out, picked one of the pieces up with her thumb and forefinger, and brought it to her lips. She opened her mouth and set the piece on her tongue. It was so good that she had to force herself not to moan or close her eyes. She simply chewed and swallowed. Then she took another piece. And another.
All the while, Jennings watched her as carefully as she watched him.
In a few moments, Lily could feel her strength returning. The dizziness subsided. The cramps in her stomach lessened and then went away.
“Your color is returning,” he told her. There was no discernable emotion in his tone.
She didn’t answer him. She finished the meat and then licked her fingers. She couldn’t help it. There was a glass of water beside the plate on the tray. She lifted the glass and brought it to her lips. Before drinking, she slowly breathed in. Scenting.
It was just water. She gulped the water down, emptying the glass, and then returned it to the tray. Then she waited, watching her captor carefully, weighing her options.
“Lay down,” Jennings told her.
She stared at him, her gaze narrowing ever so slightly.
He raised his arm, training the gun on her once more and expertly notched the cuffs open with his one free hand. “I said lay back down, Lily.”
Lily’s fingers tightly grasped the side of the bed. “You can’t keep me here like this forever, Allan. What are you going to do? Do you have a plan yet?” she asked softly. Again, she was surprised at the change in her voice - and in her courage. She felt more angry than afraid. Which was just nuts. He could have her unconscious in seconds. And then he could take off her head. Or burn her body. Or whatever other grisly methods there might be of killing werewolves that she didn’t know about.
“Tomorrow I will go back to work and, when Daniel Kane is at his weakest – brought to that state through the death of his uncle and the abduction of his true love – I will kill him,” he smiled a nasty smile.
Lily’s eyes went wide. “His uncle?”
Jennings nodded slowly. “It had to be done. And just in the nick of time, too.” He shook his head at that, as if he was amazed at how close a call it had been, and then he shrugged, all nonchalance. He sighed and went on. “After that, I will find someone who can reverse this process within you.”
Lily straightened. Her heart skipped a beat. “That isn’t possible.”
“Oh no?” He raised an eyebrow. “There is quite probably a lot about Kane’s world that you aren’t aware of.” He studied her for a moment, as if trying to decide on something. “Do you think that he or any of his demons would ever let on to you that you didn’t have to remain a monster once they had turned you?”
“I….” She didn’t want to think about his words. Didn’t want to consider them. But they were important. She pursed her lips and then shook her head, once. “I don’t believe you.”
He cocked his head to one side, his expression softening just a touch. “Of course you don’t,” he said, calmly. Under different circumstances, his confidence and the slight smile he now wore would have been very attractive. As it was, however, she felt that he was mocking her.
And it was beginning to piss her off.
“As I said Lily, Kane wouldn’t have shared this information. But think about it for a minute. You already know that witches exist and you know what they’re capable of doing. How far of a stretch is it that they take it a step further?”
Lily blinked at that. She glanced down at her right arm and, for the first time since she’d been with Daniel, she noticed that the mark he’d placed there a few days ago was now gone. No thin blue line. Nothing. It’s gone now. It must have disappeared when he turned me, because I don’t need it any more.
Because I’m his.
She also noticed that there was no blood on her body. She was sure that she had been covered with it after being shot. He cleaned me, she thought. The realization was disgusting; she didn’t want to consider Jennings with his hands all over her body.
She looked back up at Jennings, who was watching her with deft interest. She shivered. He looked like he actually knew what was going through her head. That was unnerving.
She swallowed and cleared her throat, finally pulling the sheet protectively to her chest. “I don’t understand,” she shook her head. “Why me? Why not just kill me too?” She really couldn’t wrap her head around his actions. He had killed Daniel’s uncle. His hatred for werewolves was clearly extreme.
Allan made a small bewildered sound and shook his head. “You really don’t know?”
She waited.
“Lily, everything about you screams goodness. Light. Salvation. I know you better than you think I do. I’ve – ” He brought himself up short, as if he had been about to give something away that he didn’t necessarily want her to know. Then he swallowed hard and continued. “I know what is in your heart and I can’t let Kane and his monsters take that from you. I can’t let them change you. I won’t let them win. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make sure that they don’t.”
Lily sat there on the edge of the bed, her fist clenching the mattress so tightly that the springs groaned beneath her grip. She was utterly thrown by what Allan Jennings had just told her.
She wasn’t stupid. She was familiar enough with men like him; had dealt with them in her line of work. The signs of obsession were clear to her. He was crazy all right, but it was worse than that. He was crazy about her. And he was smart and he’d been in a position of authority for a decade. She wondered exactly how much he really did know about her.
I’ve gone from Malcolm Cole to Allan Jennings, she thought. From the frying pan and into the fire.
Lily figured that she had two options at this point. She could fight him, which she desperately wanted to do, and she would probably lose. She might even make him angry enough to kill her.
Her second option was to pretend to be on his side. Go the Stockholm Syndrome route. Or the route of the helpless female who neither wants nor deserves the curse that the evil, horrible, no-good werewolf has placed upon her.
The second option sort of made her feel like biting off her own tongue and chewing it up and swallowing it. But it was also probably the smarter choice.
“Allan, I’m cold.” She made a show of wrapping as much of the sheet around her body as she could. “And those cuffs hurt,” she nodded toward the impossibly strong handcuffs in his left hand. “Please just let me sit here. Give me back my clothes – or a blanket.” She spoke softly and pleaded with a smooth, yielding tone. She wanted him to think that the fight in her was gone. She even glanced at the gun a few times, nervously, as if all she could think about was the fear of getting shot again. As if she would do anything to prevent that from happening.
Jennings peered down at her, his gray-blue eyes looking like stormy skies.
“You honestly think I’d fall for this, Lily? We’re both smart, remember? You’re a social worker who knows how to negotiate with people.” He gave his head a small shake. “And I’m a cop.” He smiled a wry, admonishing smile. “I’m also a Hunter, Lily. I know how the demon works inside your head.”
Lily bit her cheek. “An
d how exactly is that?” she asked, desperately trying to keep the conversation going. Anything to forestall the handcuffs.
“How does it work?” He laughed at that, a dark chuckle. “Like poison.” He shrugged. “But I’m a little surprised by how fast it’s working on you, Lily. I thought you were stronger than this.”
You want to see how strong I am? she thought. Come on over here – without the gun.
“Still, you’re not as far gone as some of the Made wolves I’ve hunted. I could tell you some stories.”
Lily squelched the nauseating disgust she felt at his murderous admission and took the opportunity he presented. “So tell me then, Allan. What has Kane done to me? What exactly am I in for?” Her tone was even. She’d successfully kept the icy chill of hatred she felt from entering her voice. “Tell me,” she repeated.
Jennings seemed to consider this a moment. His smile was still cruel and his stormy eyes glittered in the fluorescent lights.
Lily tried to calm her racing heart. Surrender, she told herself. Play stupid. Play nice.
Then he seemed to come to a decision. The storms in his eyes darkened into thunderheads and his jaw set. “I’d be happy to. But not before you lay back down and raise your arms over your head like a good girl.” His tone had lowered. It was probably the tone he used when telling drunk drivers to get out of their cars for sobriety tests.
Lily’s own golden gaze narrowed dangerously. She felt her fangs lengthen once more in her mouth and strange lights danced before her eyes. She wondered if she was about to flash into wolf form. No one had told her how to do that. She had no idea what to expect. And she knew that if she went – he would shoot. And she wasn’t sure she would ever wake up again.
“Now, Lily.” He cocked the gun with his thumb. “I won’t tell you again.”