“He’s dead,” I said. “We should probably call the cops. I think this was one of the guys who killed Winslow and his friends.”
Josh nodded and pulled out his phone as he sidled toward the front door. His eyes never left Trevor.
Roisin showed up at about the same time as the ambulance and the police. She walked through the police barricade as though it didn’t exist, and in through the front door. Squatting down next to Trevor, she touched his head, and I saw his body relax.
Putting her hand under his chin, she pulled his head around and stared into his eyes.
“Listen to me closely,” she said in a voice that didn’t carry more than a couple of feet. “You must make a decision, and make it quickly. I can heal you, but I can’t grow you a new hand. Human doctors may be able to reattach your hand. It will be a long and painful recovery, and not without danger of infection and death. If you choose that option, I will help as much as I can, but you will never have full use of the hand. If I heal you now, you will be well in a couple of weeks and can get one of their mechanical hands. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Trevor licked his lips. “No more pain?”
“If I heal you, there will be no more pain.”
A bit of a smile played across his mouth. “I can still do computers with one hand.” A tear slipped free and ran down his cheek. “Heal me. Please.”
Roisin placed her hands on his stump. I saw the glow and felt her alien Fae magic, then Trevor jerked, stiffened, and slumped. The tension and pain flowed out of his features, and his eyes closed. She took her hands away, revealing new smooth pink skin at the end of his shortened arm.
Turning to Jolene, she said, “Let the doctors take him to a hospital and give him blood to replace what he lost. He’ll sleep for a couple of days. When he wakes up, take him home. He will be up and around and recovered in about two weeks.”
Roisin stood, turned and reached up to lay a hand on my cheek. Then she walked out the door without a word and disappeared.
Trevor was loaded into the ambulance, and Jolene and Josh took off after it, leaving Michaela and me to deal with Blair and Frankie, who showed up as the ambulance was leaving.
Frankie stood in the house’s living room and looked around, taking in the broken furniture, the lightning-scorched walls, and the pool of blood on the floor. Blair walked in, coming from the kitchen, and I assumed from the backyard.
He looked back and forth between Michaela and me. “Why can’t you just throw wild, out-of-control keg parties like the other kids?”
“I work in a bar, Lieutenant,” I said. “I prefer quiet, intellectual pursuits in my spare time. Did I tell you that I got my GED?”
Frankie and Michaela both snorted.
“Okay,” Blair said. “What happened?”
“My fault, Lieutenant,” Michaela said. “Someone kidnapped two of my sisters and demanded a ransom. I engaged Jolene to help find them. There was a bit of a disagreement as to whether the kidnapper should let them go.”
“And I assume the dead man in the backyard was the kidnapper?” he asked.
“Yes, a thoroughly unpleasant man. Very rude and with terrible manners.”
“And why are you here?” he asked, turning to me.
“Moral support. One of the women who was kidnapped is Liam’s girlfriend.”
Blair nodded. “And who killed him?”
Michaela and I looked at each other.
“Someone with a great big magical sword,” I said. “Huge sword. Green. Looked like green liquid fire. Damnedest thing I have ever seen. Have you ever seen anything like that, Michaela?”
“Nope. It was really amazing. Like something out of Star Wars. They were throwing energy bolts at each other, too. Do you want us to make a formal statement? Testify at a coroner’s inquest or anything?”
Blair glowered at us. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it and glared at us some more.
Finally, he said, “There’s a sword out there that’s been sheared in half.”
“Yeah, that’s what he used to cut off Trevor’s hand,” I said. “And poor Trevor was just minding his own business, trying to protect Michaela’s sisters.”
“So, other than needing an ambulance, what made you decide to call the police?”
“Because I think that guy outside was one of the people who broke into Winslow’s place on Thanksgiving. Just like Lizzy showed us—black uniform, big sword, magic user. Seems like too much of a coincidence, don’t you agree?”
“First the Columbia Club, now the waste disposal company?”
Michaela shook her head. “You didn’t ask me about the ransom. He wanted me to lure Gabriel Laurent into an ambush.”
Blair’s response was unsuitable for mixed company, but Michaela and I let it go.
“Destroy order in favor of chaos,” I said. “Create a power vacuum. Sounds like what the last Hunter was doing.”
I called Sam and told him what happened, and assured him that Liam was okay.
“Liam did great,” I said. “He did exactly what I told him to and really helped in keeping the Hunter off balance. His girlfriend is fine, though a little shook up. Michaela said she would take care of him tonight.”
Michaela dropped me off at my apartment earlier than I would normally have gotten off work, so I took a long, hot bath with a glass of wine and went to bed. To my surprise, my dreams weren’t troubled by Hunters. Instead, the look in Trevor’s eyes haunted me.
Chapter 14
The following morning dawned bright and clear. Although it was cold, the sun was shining, and the wind wasn’t blowing. Vowing to take advantage of it, I ate a quick breakfast and went out for a long run.
I was halfway through my planned route when my phone rang.
“Monsieur Laurent,” I answered. “What can I do for you?” It was bright daylight out, a strange time to get a call from a vampire.
The voice on the other end wasn’t Laurent, but instead it was Constance Gardner. “Master Gabriel would like to speak with you,” the dhampir said. “We’ll send a car for you this evening.”
“No, thank you. If he wants to get together, I suggest a neutral location.”
There was a long, long pause. I gathered that she hadn’t expected me to say no.
“Considering recent events,” she finally said, “the master is a bit wary of going out in public.”
“And I’m wary of meeting with him in private. He hasn’t done much to encourage my trust.”
Another period of silence, then, “Where would you suggest?”
“Necropolis.”
“Hmmm. I shall call you back if that’s not acceptable. Nine o’clock.”
“I’ll see you there.”
Eileen Montgomery owed fealty to Laurent, but that was political. She didn’t love him in the way a normal child of the city’s Master would. She and I got along well, and I didn’t think she would see any advantage to her if Laurent killed me. But I also didn’t plan on walking into the club alone.
If there was anyone Laurent might walk softly around, it was Michaela, since she supplied his funds. So, I called her, told her about Laurent’s call, and asked if she could give me a ride to the club.
When Michaela came to pick me up, she arrived at the head of a small caravan. Four of her dhampir sisters rode in a second car, and two cars full of burly werewolves accompanied them. During the vampires’ internecine wars to establish dominance, Michaela negotiated an alliance with one of the local packs. She played kingmaker, helping Laurent to take power, and the majority of the workers hauling away the city’s garbage changed from vampires to werewolves.
“I didn’t expect all this,” I said as I surveyed my escort.
“I think I owe you for last night,” Michaela said. “Besides, I don’t trust vampires. Do you?”
I figured she should know better than anyone, having lived with the bloodsuckers all her life.
As a single young woman, I normally had no problems getting into Necropolis, although I usually had to stand in line. Michaela, however, was well known to the bouncers at the door. Our party marched past the line outside, Michaela kissed the bouncer on the cheek and whispered something in his ear, and our entire party was ushered into the club.
Eileen had a favorite table on the mezzanine where she sat and surveyed the club’s activity, but it was empty. Michaela led me to the bar while our escort fanned out to provide a discreet protective cordon around us. She spoke to the bartender, who made a phone call.
“Miss Montgomery said for you to go up to her office,” the bartender said.
We climbed the stairs, walked past Eileen’s normal perch, and into a dark hallway. Our escort stopped there, except for two dhampir who followed Michaela and me. Vampires and dhampir didn’t need lights, but for me it was pitch black, and I kindled a small magelight. Another short stairway led to a door guarded by two vampires. One of them silently opened the door, and we stepped through into a small foyer with a lovely nineteenth-century parlor beyond.
“Come in,” Eileen practically beamed at us. I found her fangy smile rather unsettling as she briefly embraced each of us with a buss on both cheeks. “It’s been far too long, Michaela. You do need to get out and visit more. And Erin. I don’t believe you’ve ever been to my home, have you?”
Compared to the previous times I met Eileen, she fluttered around like a nervous housewife entertaining royalty. I assumed that Gabriel Laurent, seated in a beautiful Louis XV armchair, was the reason for her nervousness rather than Michaela and me.
It wasn’t a small room, but it seemed rather crowded. In addition to the butler, there was a vampire standing guard at each of the room’s two doors. Constance Gardner, David Cunningham, and two more vampires stood in the shadows behind Westport’s Master of the City.
Michaela bowed her head toward Laurent. “Gabriel.”
I simply took a seat without invitation, crossed my legs, and picked up the teacup Eileen’s vampire butler poured for me. I gave Laurent a small smile and took a sip while watching him over the teacup’s rim. Turned in his mid-thirties at the end of the thirteenth century, Gabriel Laurent had been a French nobleman. A little shy of six feet and stocky, he had the build of a swordsman who had spent most of his life on horseback. His dark curly hair covered his ears and brushed his collar, making his pale complexion even more noticeable. Other than his eyes—so dark brown as to almost being black—there wasn’t anything about his face that a person would find memorable.