Hearts in Darkness
Page 16

She sighed. “We'll have to rent a car. She's in Jackson Hole."
"The hotel has cars available for guests. It shouldn't be a problem getting one.” He released her waist and caught her hand, wrapping his fingers around hers. “But just remember, we may have no choice but to kill her. She's newly turned and probably not what you'd call rational." Nikki grabbed the bra as they headed out of the room, stuffing it quickly into her pocket. “But that's it,”
she said. “Rachel wasn't acting like Monica. She hungered, but not insatiably so. She took the time to seduce this guy, let him make love to her, and didn't eat until he'd finished.” And had become orgasmic while doing so.
A chill raced across her skin. Maybe it was too late to save Rachel—if saving her had ever been an option.
He frowned. “Not the normal behavior of a fledgling."
"If Monica was a sample of normal behavior, then no." They reached the concierge and made arrangements to rent a car. Five minutes later they were cruising toward Jackson Hole in a small sedan.
"Where to?” Michael asked as they approached the welcoming warmth of lights. She wrapped her hand around the bra. Images teased her mind, lust and hunger mingled with rising excitement. Rachel had found her next victim.
She licked her lips. “Take the next left, then cruise down the street until you see a bar with lots of pickup trucks parked out the front."
He turned left and slowed. The bar was halfway along the street. He parked, and they both climbed out. The breeze tugged at her hair, whipping strands across her face. She pushed them back, studying the building across the road. It looked like a leftover from the eighteen hundreds, a big, old, ramshackle construction that should have had horses lined up out front rather than trucks. Music and laughter ran across the night, and the breeze was heavy with the scents of alcohol and cigarette smoke. Michael glanced at her. “Ready?"
Ready to maybe kill another human being? No, she thought. Never. She took a deep breath. Rachel wasn't human anymore, and the longer she stood here hesitating, the more chance there was that people would die.
"You can stay in the car, Nikki. You don't have to do this." She grimaced slightly. “I owe this much to MacEwan.” Because he would want to know the truth of what happened, and would sense a lie.
Michael nodded and held out his hand. She wrapped her fingers in the heat of his, yet felt no safer for it. A chill crept down her back, spreading ice through her veins. The night air seemed suddenly heavy, thick with the scent of evil.
The same evil she'd sensed out in the field before the flame imps had attacked her.
"Something's here."
His gaze searched the darkness around them. “Yes. Come on, let's get inside and find Rachel." He hurried her across the street and into the bar. Heat and smoke hit them the minute they opened the door, so thick they could almost carve it. Music thumped, and people stomped in time, the noise so loud it seemed to vibrate through her entire being. She coughed, her eyes watering as she looked around. The place was crowded, and it was hard to move without brushing against someone. It wasn't going to be easy finding Rachel.
"Maybe we should split up.” She glanced up at Michael. He was frowning, staring at the darkness that hovered near the band. Fear thrust through her. “What's wrong?" He looked at her, his eyes midnight pools that held no emotion. Michael at his most dangerous. She rubbed her arms briskly, but the chill in her bones had seeped into her soul. It felt as if she'd never be warm again.
"There's a man cloaking himself with magic in the far corner of the room.” He squeezed her fingers, then let her go. “Stay here while I investigate."
"But what about—” She stopped. He had become one with the smoky darkness, and she was talking to nothing more than air. Cursing softly, she thrust a hand in her pocket and walked down the steps. Rachel was here somewhere. Someone had to stop her, and it might as well be her. A vampire who was little more than a fledgling she could cope with—hopefully.
The heat and noise seemed more intense on the dance floor. She pushed her way through the sweating mass of people, ignoring the curses or snide remarks, absently swiping away the hands that pinched or touched her.
In the middle of it all she saw a woman with strawberry blonde hair dancing with a tall, gangly young man. Rachel and her next victim. She was rubbing her pelvis against his, licking his neck and tasting his sweat, as she had with her last victim. Nikki's stomach turned. Death was a shadow grinning in anticipation over the young man's shoulder.
A hand grabbed hers, spinning her away. Nikki yelped and lashed out kinetically. A cowboy went flying, a surprised looked on his face.
"Hey, he only wanted to dance,” a woman wearing a floral shirt said. “You could have just said no."
"He could have asked first,” she muttered and spun around, looking for Rachel. The man was leading her toward a side exit.
She cursed and pushed through the dancers. Michael? He didn't respond. Maybe the link didn't work when he was little more than a shadow. She continued anyway, just in case he was listening but not answering. Rachel's heading out the side exit with her next victim. I'm going after her. Silence shimmered down the line. Frowning and wondering what he was doing, she bounded up the steps and out the side door.
Rachel and her next meal were heading around the back of the building. Nikki closed the door, then hurried after them. The wind slapped against her as she came out of the building's protection. She hesitated, scanning the darkness, until she found them. The young man was fiddling with his keys, trying to open the door of a white van. No time , she thought and broke into a run. Her footsteps echoed across the night. Rachel spun. Moonlight gleamed off her canines as she snarled. Nikki slid to a stop, energy dancing across her fingertips.
"Let him go, Rachel. You've had all you're going to get tonight, I'm afraid." Rachel looked her up and down, a slight sneer touching her blood red-lips. “Who do you think you are, telling us what we can do? We can break you as easily as a twig."
"I think you're overestimating your vampire abilities.” Nikki glanced at the gangly young man. His eyes were wide, his gaze flicking between the two of them, as if trying to decide whether he should be scared or not. “Run, while you still can."
"Crazy. Both of you.” He backed away several steps then turned and ran. Rachel leapt after him. Nikki hit her with kinetic energy, holding her still. She screamed in frustration, twisting and kicking in an effort to be free. Sweat trickled down Nikki's forehead, but her net held. Finally, Rachel stopped moving and contented herself with glaring. “You will pay for this." Nikki crossed her arms, trying to ward off a deepening chill. The scent of evil was beginning to saturate the night breeze again. It was coming here. Coming for Rachel. “No. You will. MacEwan sent me here, Rachel."
Surprise ran briefly through the other woman's eyes. “How did he know we were here?"
"That doesn't matter. What does is the fact he knows what you are. He knows what you are capable of. He will kill you if you continue down this path."
"He will never find us.” She shrugged. “And you will be dead the minute you release me." Nikki frowned. Surely such confidence was out of place in a vampire only a few months old. Something was wrong. “Who is the man you refer to as he in your thoughts?" Fear touched Rachel's expression, darkening her blue eyes. She licked her lips. “How do you know about him?"
"He's here, Rachel. Looking for you."
It was only a guess, but terror replaced the fear, contorting the young vampire's face.
"You have to let us go. Please. We can't stay with him. He makes us do things.” She wrung her hands, shifting from one foot to the other, her whole body quivering with the need to run. Nikki bit her lip, battling for the strength to keep the leash intact. An all too familiar ache began in her brain. Sweat trickled faster down her face. “Tell me about him, then."
"We can't."
She frowned. Why was Rachel continually referring to herself as we rather than I ? It was odd—especially given Ginger spoke in much the same manner ... Nikki stared at the young vampire in sudden realization. When she'd searched earlier this afternoon for Rachel, she felt heat, sorrow, and chains made of words. A flame imp had been bound in the young vampire's body. She shivered. What sort of monster cared so little for life that he destroyed two at a time?
"Then we wait for the man who comes,” Nikki warned, though it was the last thing she really wanted to do. Still, Rachel didn't know that.
"He's evil,” Rachel said, her voice little more than a desperate hiss.
"But does he have a name? What does he look like?"
"He is called Randolf Cordell. He is tall, with blonde hair and green eyes. Now let us go." It sounded like the man she'd seen in those first visions, the man who had turned Rachel. Was their magician also a vampire? “Why is he using the flame imps? Why is he forcing them into the bodies of others?"
Rachel spat. “We don't know, do we?"
The sense of evil was a blanket threatening to smother her. Across the silence, she heard a door open. He was coming their way.
She couldn't stay here, nor could she let Rachel go. And she couldn't hold the kinetic net for much longer. Nikki bit her lip, knowing there was only one real option. Gathering what was left of her energy, she thrust Rachel back, smashing her skull against the car. The vampire slumped, her weight tearing at the net. Pain shot through Nikki's head. Blinking against the sting of tears, she released the kinetic cage and ran forward. Though unconscious, Rachel's pulse was as steady and as strong as a vampire's ever got. She hadn't really hurt her then. Good.
She rose and scanned the parking lot. There was a Dumpster near the back fence. Perhaps she could find something there to restrain Rachel—at least until Michael got here to help her. She grabbed the young vampire's hands and began dragging her. The wind chilled the sweat dripping down her cheeks and back, and the sense of evil was so thick she could barely breathe. It seemed to take hours to reach the bin. Her arm, leg and back muscles were all protesting fiercely by the time she got there. She leaned Rachel against some boxes that had fallen from the bin, then thrust a hand through her sweat-tangled hair and scanned the night. No sound, no movement. The sense of evil was unmoving, as if he too stood listening.
The flame imp in Rachel, she thought suddenly. They'd told her that he couldn't see them, that he could only sense their power. That's what he'd been following. When she'd knocked out Rachel, she'd also knocked out the flame imp, and the man Rachel had called Randolf Cordell had lost all sense of them. But if he was a vampire, he only had to come around the corner, and he'd find them. Her heart was a rapid drumbeat that would call him toward them.
She stepped over Rachel and peeked inside the Dumpster. Luck was with her. The bin was not only filled with boxes but used packing tape as well. She grabbed as much of it as she could reach, then quickly wrapped it around Rachel's feet and hands. For good measure, she wound some around the vampire's mouth.
Then she squatted next to her, listening to the wind moan through the trees behind them. The sense of evil was still stationary, still centered on the left-hand alley. Why didn't he move? What was going on?
Pain hit her then, pain so fierce it burned through her brain and knocked her sideways. She gasped, holding her chest, feeling as if she'd just been hit by truck.
Only it wasn't her pain.
It was Michael's.
Chapter Fifteen
Nikki scrambled to her feet. Michael was hurt. She didn't know how or why, but she had to find him. Help him.
She reached for the link. Pain pulsed, a red-hot glow that burned through her. She bit her lip, gaze sweeping the night. He was in the left-hand alley—right where the evil was. She ran. Her footsteps echoed across the night, a rhythm oddly in tune with the thumping beat of the music coming from the bar. She rounded the corner of the building and slid to a stop. A pair of hands hovered above the ground, seemingly unattached to anything but the night. Lightning arced from them, leaping across the darkness, a ragged, blue-white streak of energy that hit Michael in the chest and threw him backwards. He hit the wall with a crunch and slid down to the ground. He didn't move.
She couldn't tell if he was alive or not. No , Nikki thought wildly. No . Energy surged, burning through her, crackling at her fingertips, sparkling like fire through the night as she hit the shadows that hid Randolf Cordell with everything she had. The hands disappeared into night and something heavy hit the trash cans, scattering them.
Pain seared through her brain, almost blinding in its intensity. She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. Energy still tingled across her fingers despite the fire lances in her brain. She watched the shadows and waited. The hands appeared again, ghostlike in the night. She hit them kinetically, flinging him away. For an instant, a figure appeared, sprawled across the sidewalk—a long, lanky body above which a flame imp rotated. It looked washed out, gray, as if every ounce of energy had been sucked from it. Maybe it had. Maybe that was where the lightning originated.
The shadows closed in again, concealing Cordell. She clenched her fists and waited for an attack, be it physical or magical. Nothing happened. The sense of evil that was Cordell dissipated, and the night became friendly once more.
He'd gone. She heaved a sigh of relief and ran to Michael. Kneeling by his side, she touched his face, his neck. His color was abysmal, even for a vampire, but his pulse was steady and strong. Relief surged so fiercely that tears stung her eyes, blurring her vision