I forced a smile, then walked toward the woman and held out a hand. “I’m sorry to intrude like this, but I’m looking for Vonda Belmore. I don’t suppose you know where she is, do you?”
The woman didn’t shake my hand—she didn’t even look at it. Nor did she immediately respond to my question. She just stared at me in an oddly dead way.
I let my hand drop to my side and stopped just beyond her reach. But it was still close enough that I could smell the wound on her forehead, and it was rank. It was almost as if her flesh had rotted away rather than burned.
My gaze swept the rest of her. She was statuesque, with fine, almost regal features and silvery hair that was cut short but well styled. She was also a vampire, which, when combined with the wound on her forehead, meant this was more than likely Vonda. But I wasn’t about to admit that knowledge. Better to play the game, whatever the hell the game was.
“I do know Vonda,” the woman said eventually. Her voice was whispery and, like her gaze, lacked any sort of life or warmth. “She faces you.”
Vonda might be facing me, but she wasn’t the one forming the words.
He was doing that.
He was in her mind, controlling her. Maybe even seeing what she saw.
It was certainly one way for a blind man to check out his adversary.
Azriel, are you able to get into her thoughts? Can you catch anything about the man we hunt?
I am only able to read the minds of those who are in the same vicinity. She currently has no thoughts of her own, and while he may control her, he does so from a distance.
I guess I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, and barely resisted the urge to run from this freak show. Or at least run from the freak behind it. The only reason I didn’t was because it wouldn’t help—this was a game and, for whatever reason, it was one he wanted to play with me.
“And why are you here rather than in your own house, Vonda?”
“I knew you were clever. I just wanted to see how observant you were.”
“So I’ve passed the test?”
“Yes and no.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you found one, but you did not find the other.”
I stared at him—her—for a moment, my stomach churning as I remembered that Vonda didn’t live alone. “You’ve taken her sister?”
“You weren’t paying attention, huntress. Did I not say victims, plural, last time we spoke?”
Like I was supposed to understand the nuances of every word spoken by a crackpot? “Taking two women at once doesn’t follow your usual pattern, and I suspect you’re a man who likes his patterns and rules.”
“Indeed, I do. But I have never come across twins such as these before.”
“What is that supposed to mean? And what have any of these women done to you?”
“They are not what they pretend to be. They are Kudlak, and therefore must be destroyed. That is my destiny, huntress. It is my task by birthright.”
It was his birthright to hunt harmless women? Sanity and he really weren’t on speaking terms. “I have no idea what a Kudlak is, but I know these women are vampires—and harmless ones at that. You’re mistaken—”
“No, I am not. Nor am I about to argue.” The words were snapped, the tone annoyed. “The sister has an hour left.”
And with that, the woman collapsed.
I lunged forward and caught her just before she hit the floor. The mark on her forehead was even more putrid this close, and her breathing was shallow and uneven, even for a vampire.
“Rhoan, we need an ambulance.” I lowered her gently to the floor and looked up at Azriel as he materialized beside me. “Is she going to die?”
“Yes,” he said. “He may not have drained her blood, but he has drained her spirit.”
I closed my eyes and fought the useless rise of anger. Vonda’s sister was still out there, and getting angry wouldn’t find her any faster. “Is there anything left of her mind now that he has released her? Or has he drained that, too?”
“She is mentally present.”
“Can you read her?”
He hesitated. “No. Her thoughts are blocked. I would damage her mind further if I broke past them.”
She was dying anyway, so it wouldn’t really have mattered, but I guessed it came down to reaper rules. He couldn’t do anything that might harm an innocent.
Which meant I had to do this the hard way. I pinched her pale cheek as hard as I could. It was a mean thing to do to someone who was dying, but I really had no other choice. She might just hold the key to finding not only her sister but the crackpot behind these murders. “Vonda, wake up.”
She murmured something that sounded decidedly unladylike, and made a weak movement with her hand, as if trying to swat me away.
I pinched harder. “Vonda, your sister is in danger. We need your help to find her.”
Her eyes fluttered briefly open, but there was little life or understanding in the green of her gaze. “Dani?” she murmured. “No.”
I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Yes, Dani. Where is she? Where did she go?”
“Club.” It was so softly said it was little more than a sigh of air.
“What club, Vonda?” I looked around as Rhoan came in. He glanced from me to the woman, and motioned me to continue. “You need to tell us or Dani dies.”
Distress ran briefly across her pale features. She made a couple of attempts to speak before finally saying, “Underground.”
Underground? Oh fuck, I thought. Surely she couldn’t mean those clubs—the ones that catered to vampires who were addicted to feeding from blood whores, humans whose whole life revolved around the ecstasy of a vampire’s bite. The council had no intention of ever allowing the rest of the world to know about those clubs; the only reason I did was because one of the clubs was haunted by those who’d been killed there, and their anguish had summoned a Rakshasa—the same Rakshasa that had given me the scar down my spine before I’d killed it.
God, surely fate couldn’t be so cruel as to send me into one of those places again, could it?
“What club, Vonda?”
Her mouth opened and closed again, and though I leaned closer, I barely caught her reply. It sounded like “the Crimson Dive,” but I wasn’t completely sure.
“Where was she planning to go after the club, Vonda?”
Her eyes rolled back into her head and a small sigh escaped her lips. She was leaving us. I shook her again. “Damn it, Vonda! Who was your sister planning to meet? Where did she plan to go after the club?”
“Hartwell,” she murmured. “Zane . . .”
Her words faded away and her head rolled back. Azriel touched my shoulder, but it was a warning I didn’t need. I released her and closed my eyes. She was gone, and I really didn’t want to see the reaper who’d come for her. Didn’t want to see her soul—and any real chance we had of saving her sister—rise and walk away.
Rhoan squatted beside me and pressed two fingers against her neck. “Damn.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Hartwell and Zane aren’t much to go on, either.”
“It’s better than what we had, and at least we now know the reason behind the forehead branding.” His gaze met mine grimly. “I’ve called in a cleanup team. We’ll sort out the father and son, and go through the sister’s room—maybe we’ll find something to clarify what she meant.”
“We only have an hour.” I rose and rubbed my arms. “Do you know what a Kudlak is?”
“No, but I will soon enough.” He eyed me thoughtfully. “Did you catch the name of the club?”
If he was asking that, it meant the mike on the earpieces hadn’t been strong enough to catch Vonda’s whispered reply, and for that I was suddenly grateful. “I think it was Red something or other, but I couldn’t guarantee it.”
“We’ll run a scan and see if we can find anything that matches.” He thrust a hand through his short hair. “Can you hang around, just in case we find something?”
“I’ll wait outside, where it’s warmer.” I paused. “Does Dani look like her sister?”
He nodded. “They’re identical twins.”
Which might explain our killer’s statement that he’d never come across two such as these before. Identical twins who were also blood-whore-addicted vampires surely had to be a rarity.
Rhoan walked out. I pressed the left ear stud to deactivate the earrings, then headed back across the road to watch the sudden influx of Directorate people from a safe distance.
“Why did you not tell him about the club?” Azriel asked as he sat down beside me.
“Because of Hunter. I’m not going to risk giving him information that may well get him killed.”
“But it may help solve the case.”
“It may. Which is why I’ll ring Hunter myself and ask.” It wasn’t something I really wanted to do, as I was rather enjoying the brief respite from her overbearing presence in my life.
I dragged out my vid-phone, said, “Hunter,” and watched the psychedelic patterns swirl across the screen as the phone made the connection.
“Risa,” she drawled. “What a lovely surprise.”
“Considering you’ve got Cazadors following me around reporting every little twitch, I seriously doubt that it’s either a surprise or lovely.”
Amusement gleamed in her cold green eyes. “They do not report every little twitch—although Markel is more circumspect than some.”
Which wasn’t something I wanted to hear. With some trepidation, I asked, “Just how detailed do the others get?”
She gave me that smile—the one that reminded me of a shark about to consume its prey. My stomach sank. Obviously, they followed where Markel did not—and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it, which was infuriating.