“I’ll show ya tae your rooms,” Rhine says. “Most of the others aren’t home yet.” He leads us to a sweeping staircase at the end of the foyer. “One of the top requirements to reside here.” He glances at me as we start up the steps. “Gotta be employed.”
“Good idea,” Noah says. “What’s another requirement?”
Rhine stops at the second floor and steps onto the landing. He grins. “Can’t be a fookin’ scaredy-cat.”
“Good requirement,” I say. Rhine inclines his head, and we follow.
“I’ll put you two across the hall from each other,” Rhine says, and looks at me as he stops. The room number is 208. The door is wide open. “I’ll get your keys whilst you both settle in,” he says, and walks into the room, sets my duffel on the floor in front of the bed, and comes back out. When he passes Noah, he grins. “Aye. You’ve plenty tae worry about.” Then he hurries up the hallway at a jog and disappears down the steps.
Noah looks at me from the hallway. “He’s a little more intense than I first thought.”
“I told you he heard you. Besides, he’s got a lot on his young shoulders,” I return. “He’s all right in my book.”
Noah smiles. “I know that.” He shrugs on his bag. “I’m going to call Andorra and give him an update. And check back with Gabriel about Carrine.”
“I’ll be over here,” I say, and turn and walk into my room. The hotel itself is old, as in a hundred years maybe, and although large, it’s modest with a blue-and-black-plaid theme, sparsely furnished, but clean. A double bed stands against one wall, a tall chest of drawers, a straight-back wooden chair and desk. Walking to the bed, I drop my weapons duffel on top of it. I unzip the bag and pull out my scatha.
“That’s a wicked piece of armor,” Rhine says at my side. I’d heard his footfalls as he climbed the steps, so it didn’t surprise me for him to be speaking in my ear. “What is it? A crossbow?”
I like the way his r’s roll and his o’s sound like ooh. “It’s an ancient device, newly built.” I hand it to him, and he palms it gently. “It’s a scatha. Medieval design.”
He turns it over, inspecting it thoroughly. “How does it work?”
Digging into a side pouch of the duffel, I retrieve one of the empty cartridges Gawan Conwyk had left me. “You take a prefilled cartridge of mystic St. Bueno’s Well holy water.” I reach over and drop the loading lever. “Load, lock, and pull back the release.” I look at him, and his eyes glint with interest. “Then you blast to hell all sorts of demons and whatever else is lurking in the shadows of the underworld.”
Rhine’s large hands move deftly over the scatha, and as if he’d been doing it all his life, he quickly unloads the cartridge and hands it back to me. “And you plan on going back into this demon-filled underworld, aye?”
I shrug, and he hands me the scatha. I run my fingers over the cool metal, then look at him. “I will if I have to.”
Understanding gleams in his eyes, and he gives a slight nod. “I hope one day your fiancé knows what he’s got.”
“I’ve always said he was a lucky fuck,” Noah says, striding into the room.
“I’ll have to agree wi’ ya there,” Rhine adds. “Ready tae meet the Crachan boys?”
“Just one thing, Rhine,” Noah says. “Something you need to know about Riley here.” He looks at me. “Besides having the DNA of four vampires, along with newly acquired traits of a fallen angel, she can move faster than any vampire I’ve encountered—myself included. She can scale a three-story building in under ten seconds. Her fighting skills are unmatched. Lethal. And she can read minds at will.” He glances at me. “Her fiancé is being controlled by the witchpire, Carrine, who has decided to crawl into her brain and try and drive her crazier than what she already is. She’s up to her eyeballs in deep, emotional shit. Just so you know.”
Rhine nods. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He inclines his head. “Let’s go.”
We follow Rhine down the corridor, and I take notice of his demeanor, his movements, and I realize that we’ve really never been completely introduced.
“You got a last name, Rhine?” I ask.
He looks down at me as we walk, and smiles. “MacLeod.”
I nod. “Poe.” I incline my head to Noah. “Miles.”
“Now we’re all like bloody family,” Rhine says. We hit the landing and I’m slightly overwhelmed by the small crowd that’s gathered in the great hall. My eyes scan the group, and including the other three I already know, plus Chess, there’s at least, I don’t know, thirty guys from what appear to be between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. They’re parked in sofas, on chairs, and on the floor. No lie, it’s a gruff-looking bunch, and if I ran into any of them on the street, I’d almost bet my life they were thugs.
I have a feeling I’m about to get schooled. Again.
Rhine jogs ahead of us and moves over to the hearth. He beckons to us, and we stand next to him and face the crowd.
“Right, then, I know some o’ you’ve already heard about these two,” Rhine says. His voice carries over the hall, a raspy sound that belies the crooning tone he creates when he sings. “Noah Miles, Riley Poe. Both from America. They’ll be stayin’ for a bit, and they need our help.”
Total silence. Not a single solitary word comes from the guys. Their eyeballs are all focused on us, interested and curious, but no one speaks. So I decide to break the silence. I glance at Rhine, just to make sure he’s cool with it, and as if he knows what I’m up to, he nods once. I face the crowd of slayers.
“You know there’re vampires in Inverness,” I begin. “Miles and I belong to an organization—Worldwide Unexplained Phenomena—and we’re assigned to take care of it.” I meet the questioning eyes of the guys. “Unfortunately, one of the vampires is my fiancé.”
A few jaws drop. A few brows furrow.
“I’m a human with tendencies. Venom from four vampires, plus a little something from a fallen angel that I haven’t quite nailed yet—no pun intended—clinging to my DNA.” I nod at Noah. “He’s been a vampire since the American Revolution.” I smile at the wide-eyed crowd. “We won that, by the way.”
“Fookin’ English,” one guy says. They all chuckle.
Scotland, I’ve noticed, is still fiercely proud and fiercely independent from Mother England.
I also notice a few of the guys getting restless, glaring at Noah. I focus, scan a few brains, search through a couple of thoughts. I point at a guy now sitting on the edge of the sofa, scowling. Young, twenty maybe, edgy. Solid as a pile of bricks. “You throw the blade you’ve got jammed into your boot there and I’ll be on you in a bad way, before you draw your next breath.”
“Fookin’ whatever—”
I fly, straddle him, and yank the blade from his boot. I hold it to his jugular. Icy blue eyes widen as they stare at me.
“Fookin’ sick,” one says beside me.
I glance at him, the blade still pressed to the throat of the one I’m straddling. “You ever hear of a Strigoi?”
His brown eyes fix on mine. “Aye.”
“I have three gens in me,” I add. “Don’t fook with me.”
The guy swallows hard enough it almost echoes.
Just that fast, I’m off the lap and handing the guy his blade, hilt first. He takes it and nods. “Sorry, then,” he says.
I look out at every single face there. “You don’t know me, and I don’t know any of you,” I say. “But we’re here to stop the killing of innocents, just like you are.”