I sighed and pushed up out of the chair. “Yeah. I’ll get on it right away.”
“I’ll help,” Mason said, following me.
I shot him a grateful smile as we left the office and entered the main control room. We pulled up chairs to an available workstation, and I opened a blank report.
“What do you think the Council will do?” Mason asked in a low voice.
“I have no idea,” I admitted. “But we probably won’t like it.”
“What do you mean?”
I turned to look at him. “A demon they tried to wipe out hundreds of years ago suddenly popped up in a nightclub in L.A. Mark my words. In twenty-four hours, this place will be taken over by one of the Council’s special investigative teams.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
I huffed softly. “Mason, the Council interferes in my life enough as it is. The last thing I want is them stepping in and telling me how to do my job.”
He bumped me with his shoulder. “I don’t know. It might be fun to watch someone try to tell you what to do.”
A smile tugged at my lips as I focused on the report again. They can try.
* * *
I was wrong. The Council didn’t send someone in twenty-four hours. Their people showed up less than eight hours after Raoul made his call. They hadn’t even reacted this fast when they found out we had an active Lilin in Los Angeles, which made me suspect there was more going on here than the discovery of a supposedly extinct demon.
When I entered the control room the next morning, I found a blonde female and two dark-haired males I didn’t know sitting around the small conference table with Raoul. They stood as I approached them.
“Jordan Shaw, this is Vivian Day, Aaron Lee, and Eugene Harris,” Raoul said. “They were sent by the Council to investigate the Hurra incident.”
Vivian held out a hand to me. “It’s good to meet you, Jordan,” she said in an English accent. “Raoul’s told me all about you.”
I slid my gaze to Raoul as I took her hand. “I’m not sure whether to be flattered or worried.”
Raoul chuckled, and amusement lit up Vivian’s eyes.
“It was all good,” she said. “Although, now I’m thinking he might have left out some things.”
I merely smiled and turned to greet her two companions. I had a feeling I was going to like Vivian Day, but she was here on behalf of the Council. I decided not to disclose too much until I got a better feel for her.
After the introductions had been made, we all sat and the three investigators got down to business, drilling me about last night.
“How did the victim look when she first entered the restroom?”
“How many strikes did it take to kill the Hurra?”
“Would you say it moved quickly or slowly?”
“Did you observe any other humans displaying similar symptoms?”
I held up a hand after I’d answered half a dozen questions. “All of this is in the report I wrote up last night.”
Vivian smiled. “We like to get a firsthand account of these things.”
“Why did I spend over two hours working on a report when no one is going to read it?” I asked irritably, thinking of the countless hours I’d wasted doing reports since I came to Los Angeles. Did anyone even read those?
“Reports are mainly used for research material in future jobs,” Eugene said unhelpfully. “And they allow the Council to keep track of statistical data such as how many vampire kills took place in a geographical area in one year.”
I wanted to tell him I already knew this, but a warning look from Raoul kept me quiet. These were Council investigators, and I was going to have to play nice with them. For now. Hopefully, they’d wrap up their job here in a day or two and be on their way.
Vivian wore an amused smile. “You remind me of Nikolas. He always hated doing reports, too.”
“You know Nikolas?” I asked, and then I did a mental eye roll. Of course, she knew Nikolas Danshov. Who didn’t?
Her smile grew fond. “Since we were children.”
“Wow.” She was the first person I’d met who had known Nikolas that long, and I bet she had some stories to tell.
“About the reports,” Eugene cut in.
“Yes.” Vivian got back to business. “We read your report, and we appreciate the level of detail in it. But memory can be tricky, especially when it comes to situations like this. Asking the right questions might help you recall something you didn’t think of when you wrote up the report.”
“Okay,” I conceded because what she’d said made sense.
Over the next hour, I answered every question they asked. Eugene took notes while Aaron mostly nodded thoughtfully at every answer. Vivian did most of the talking, and I found myself appreciating the way she filtered through the details, focusing on what she clearly thought were the more important ones.
“I think we have everything we need,” Eugene said at last. “Thank you, Jordan.”
It sounded like a dismissal. A polite one, but a dismissal all the same, and I felt my hackles rising again.
I looked at Vivian, who appeared to be the leader of their team. “Now that we’ve told you what we know, why don’t you tell us something?”
Her expression was open and friendly. “What would you like to know?”
“I get that finding a live Hurra demon is a little exciting, but there seems to be more behind your questions. This isn’t an isolated incident, is it?”
A glance at Raoul told me he thought the same thing. Unlike him, I wasn’t content to let the Council take over without pushing for answers.
Vivian exchanged a look with Eugene and Aaron, and then she shook her head. “We’ve had two other incidents, one in Florida a week ago and one in Alaska three days ago. The Florida one was a Hurra demon. The one in Alaska was a Geel.”
I sucked in a sharp breath and heard Raoul do the same. A Geel was the kind of thing you’d find in your worst nightmares. It was a lower demon that attached itself to its victim’s face and laid its eggs in their throat while they were fully conscious. It took two days for the eggs to hatch, and then the offspring consumed the victim.
Resembling large worms, Geel lived in the deserts of Africa because they could only survive in a hot, dry climate. Even if someone had captured one and taken it to Alaska, it would die within a day.
“Was the Geel alive?” Raoul asked.
“Yes.” Vivian clasped her hands on the table. “And it was already attached to a host when our people got there. We were able to extract it and save the human. Fortunately, we were also able to erase his memory of the attack. No one should have to live with that.”
“Christ,” Raoul muttered.
I folded my arms across my chest. “Time for the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. How does a desert demon end up in Alaska, of all places?”
“That is what we are trying to find out,” Vivian replied. “The Council’s lead investigator is there now.”
“You’re not the lead investigator?” I asked.
“No. I was called in to assist on this one until he is free. As you can imagine, these incidents are troubling and of great concern to the Council.”
It all made sense. No wonder the Council had jumped on this so quickly. “So, what happens now?”
“Our next plan of action is to look into the victim…” Vivian glanced down at a notepad on the table. “Chelsea Head. We’ll check out her home and try to retrace her steps over the last few days to see if we can discover how and where she came into contact with the Hurra demon.”
I leaned forward eagerly. I might not be the Council’s biggest fan, but this was definitely not an ordinary investigation. I was more than a little curious.
Vivian picked up on my interest, and she gave me a knowing smile. “If Raoul can spare you, you’re welcome to come with us.”
“Really?”
“You bagged the demon, so it’s only fair that you get to be on the job,” she said. “But we’ll take the lead.”
“Sure,” I agreed readily. “When do we start?”
Vivian laughed. “I’ve been traveling all night, so I’m going to freshen up and eat something first. We’ll head out at noon.”
“Are you staying here?” I asked her as we stood.
“If you have room. I normally stay at hotels, but I thought it would be better to be at the command center for this job.”
“We can sleep on couches if there are no available beds,” Aaron offered. I figured that in his job, he’d probably slept in a lot less comfortable places.
“We have one bedroom available,” Raoul said. “Vivian, you take that. Aaron and Eugene, we have couches or some army cots you can use.”
“I’ll show you where it is,” I told her.
We left the control room and walked to the main entryway to grab her bags. I grinned when I saw the large suitcase and a smaller carry-on. Unlike most warriors, Vivian Day apparently didn’t like to travel light. I might have found a kindred spirit in her.
I led her to the other end of the Spanish-style villa where the bedrooms were. One room was Raoul’s, and next to it was mine. I’d moved into Sara and Nikolas’s old room after they left because this place was a lot less crowded than the safe house.
Brock and Mason shared a room with twin beds since they were hardly ever here. Those two lived like college kids, and all they cared about, outside of being warriors, was surfing. If it had been safe to sleep on the beach, I think they would live there.
I showed Vivian to the room across from mine and left her to settle in. An hour later, I found her in the kitchen making a cup of tea.
“I always carry some Earl Grey with me,” she said as she added milk and sugar to the cup. “You never know if you’ll be able to find good tea.”
“I guess not.” I sat at the breakfast bar, resting my elbows on the granite counter. “So, you knew Nikolas when you were kids? What was he like back then?”
“I met him when we were sixteen, and we trained together. We were very competitive with each other, and I think that’s how we became such good friends.”
I tried to imagine Nikolas as a boy in training. “I wish I could have been there.”
Vivian smiled over the top of her cup. “I have a feeling you would have given us both a run for our money back then.” When I raised an eyebrow, she chuckled softly. “I read your file on the way here. You already have an impressive record for such a young warrior.”
I tried to hide my surprise. I didn’t like the idea of the Council having a file on me, but they probably had one on every warrior, even Nikolas.
“I started younger than most.” I grinned. “Thanks to Sara.”
“Nikolas’s mate? I’ve heard a lot about her, and I’m looking forward to meeting her.” She sipped her tea. “I work mostly overseas, and every time I plan to visit them, a new job comes up.”