“I’m going to need more than a gun and an iron stake,” I muttered, shoving the stake into my pocket. A deadly looking curved blade caught my eye, and I grabbed it before Nicky could voice the protest I saw forming on his lips. “Don’t tell me I’m not going. We’ve already had that discussion.”
He turned his eyes to the building, searching the shadows as he closed the hatch with a quiet click. “Shit,” he muttered. “They’re going up to the roof. I gotta get up there.”
We padded across the street on silent feet until we reached the alley between Happy Endings and the massage parlor next door. He motioned for me to stay put and be his eyes and ears. Then, before I realized what he was doing, he fired a grappling hook gun, sending the hook flying up three stories.
“Where the hell did you get that?” I whispered.
He shrugged. “I know a guy.” Then he was scaling the bricks like something out of a freaking comic book.
“Okay,” I muttered. “The whole Spider thing makes sense now. . . .”
Beatrice . . .
I whirled around with a startled gasp at the sound of the voice behind me, my fear instantly replaced by irritation. “Where are you, damn it?” I mumbled under my breath, searching the shadows with narrowed eyes. Suddenly, the shadows shifted and a figure emerged—just an amorphous dark mist at first, but as it drifted closer, the mist began to solidify and take form before my eyes.
As it moved closer, I slowly edged back, the desire to finally get a glimpse of my mystery stalker keeping me from calling out for Nicky. But when my back hit the brick wall, I began to seriously rethink the wisdom of keeping quiet. I snatched the iron stake from my pocket and opened my mouth to yell for Nicky, but the shadow was on me in an instant, its hand muffling the sound of my scream.
Be still, he said, his voice in my head even though a full mouth began to take form in the mist. Then his dark gaze locked with mine. In the next moment, the man stood before me, fully formed, his black shirt gaping to reveal a sculpted chest.
“Come to me, Beatrice,” he said, his velvety soft voice working its way under my skin and into every fiber of my being. A fog began to descend upon me, making the world around us go hazy, the edges blurry and indistinct. “I need you. . . .”
I tried to respond, to tell him to piss off, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. And that gaze . . . it was infinitely dark and deep, and I felt myself drifting into it, a connection between us pulling me in.
No, no, no . . .
I tried to break away as ghostly images, mercifully indistinct, drifted to me. Scenes of violence and gore were lurking just on the periphery, but I couldn’t quite make them out.
His icy cold fingertips lightly skimmed down the curve of my cheek to beneath my chin. His touch was tender, airy—and not quite solid. With a shock, I realized that the man standing with me was a creature of fog and mist. He wasn’t really there.
The realization seemed to break whatever spell he had over me, and I blinked, severing the connection from my thoughts to his. And with an energy that erupted from deep within the center of me, I screamed, lashing out with the iron stake. He burst apart in a million atoms of shadow, and re-formed a few feet away, a smug smirk curling his lips.
“That’s my girl. . . .” he taunted, slowly backing away. Then, with a quiet chuckle, he spun around and hurried down the alley.
Oh, hell no!
I’d be damned if he was going to get away that easily. I ran after him, my legs pumping as I raced to catch up with him. As the shadows in the alley began to grow deeper I slid to a stop, giving myself a mental smack upside the head. What the hell was I doing? Hadn’t I just walked into a trap two nights before doing the same damned thing? I wasn’t about to brand myself too stupid to live by falling for that trick again.
I glanced around, searching for any sign of movement. As I slowly began to back toward the street, I shifted the stake to my left hand and palmed the gun Nicky had tucked at the small of my back. “This isn’t over!” I called into the darkness. “I’ll find you, you son of a bitch!”
“Trish!”
I spun around with a start, gun out in front of me, ready to open fire. Nicky’s hand shot out, grabbing the gun from my hand before it’d even registered that he was standing there.
“What the hell’s going on?” he demanded, dragging me into his embrace. “Are you all right? I heard you screaming.”
I nodded against his chest, which was damp with what I realized must’ve been vampire blood from his altercations on the roof. “He was here, Nicky,” I told him. “Dracula was here.”
Chapter Twelve
Nicky was pacing furiously, a dark scowl on his face. “You should’ve told me.”
“Why?” I asked from my seat on the sofa. When he came to an abrupt halt and pegged me with a withering glare, I didn’t even flinch. Meeting his gaze, I clasped my hands between my knees to hide the fact that they were still trembling.
“Why?” he repeated. “Because Dracula’s been in your head, Trish! You know I’ve been tracking him for two years—you didn’t think to mention he’s been chatting with you?”
“We haven’t been chatting,” I corrected, trying to keep my voice level but rapidly losing my patience. “He’s been intruding. It’s not like I invited him in. Besides, I wasn’t even sure who it was. I’ve never met Dracula—I have no idea what his voice sounds like!”
“You still should’ve mentioned it!” he raged, jabbing a finger at me. “Did you ever think that maybe we could’ve used this connection to draw him out? That we could’ve lured him into a trap?”
“No, Nicky,” I spat. “I was a little more concerned about my sanity. So forgive the hell out of me for not thinking about how this development could’ve benefited you.”
He ran a hand through his hair, his anger almost a palpable force in the room. “This is seriously fucked up.”
“Tell me about it,” I snapped.
He shook his head. “I have to catch him, Trish.”
“I know.”
Nicky cursed roundly, then strode over to the fireplace and slammed his hand against one of the bricks. A large section of wall slid away in response, revealing a room that looked like the freaking Bat Cave. I hurried in after him before the wall slid closed behind him. As I stood there in the center of the room, slowly surveying the massive cache of weapons that took up pretty much every square inch of the wall, he began to strip off all his weapons in short, angry motions.
“Are we not going back out?” I asked as Nicky packed away the last of his weapons. “I’m fine. We can try to track down the vampires you had to give up on the roof when you heard me scream.”
He shook his head. “No, I won’t find them again tonight. I have a feeling they were only that obvious to draw me away from you.”
“I’m sorry, Nicky,” I said, shoving my hands into my pockets. “I don’t know how many times I have to say it.”
He shrugged and slammed one of the display case doors. “Forget about it.”
I wanted to forget about it, to feel like I hadn’t just been a liability to his efforts that night, but his perma-scowl made it tough. The minute we left his weapons room, I made for the stairs, figuring it was probably best if I made myself scarce and let him brood in private. I had just changed into a T-shirt and pajama pants and was pulling back the covers to slip into bed when there was a tentative knock on the door.
I opened it, expecting to see Nicky in all his gear, prepared to tell me he’d changed his mind and was going out on the hunt again. But, to my surprise, he was leaning against the door frame wearing nothing but his jeans, as if he’d been in the process of undressing when he’d suddenly decided to drop by.