Gesturing with one hand, he said, “Of course.”
“I was hoping you might help with increased patrols at the Nightkind border.” She paused, rubbing her forehead. “I know your resources must be strained at present.”
That was her way of referencing the trouble in his own demesne. “Yes,” he told her. “But I can still put out increased border patrols. I’ll also issue a confidential demesne-wide alert for the Nightkind police to keep an eye out for any sign of Melly.”
Her raw gaze dampened. “Thank you. Could you also make a list of places you think should be searched? Bailey and I have been writing down every place we can think of – if you could just take a look at the list and let us know if there’s any place else you think we should add to it.”
“Of course,” he said again.
Bailey approached him, holding the notebook in one outstretched hand. From her rigid features, and tight mouth, he was willing to bet she hadn’t agreed with her mother’s decision to call him for help.
Ignoring her hostility, he took the pad of paper and turned away again as he scanned the places they had jotted down. It looked comprehensive to him. In fact, there were several places on the list he wouldn’t have known to suggest, but then he and Melly hadn’t been together in twenty years.
Had she taken lovers to these places? How many lovers had she had since Ferion? His mouth tightened at the thought, and the old resentful anger tried to resurface.
His skin prickled as a whirlwind of Power swept into the room again. A moment later, Soren reappeared. While the Djinn and the two women began to talk about search strategies, Julian jotted two places down on the paper.
One was a cabin at Lake Tahoe, where he and Melly had spent some time together. The winter that year had been so cold, the lake had turned into a sheet of ice, and he and Melly had made love over and over again in front of a roaring fire.
The other was a winery in Napa Valley. It had been a spur-of-the-moment trip.
That time had been much like the trip to Lake Tahoe. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Her curves had felt like heated silk, and he had lost himself in voluptuous sensuality, drunk on the wine in her blood and a desire that burned away everything and left him feeling burnished and new again.
His lip curled at the memories. He shoved them aside. If he could burn them out of his head, he would.
Both places were so far-fetched as possibilities, he couldn’t imagine they might still be relevant. But until they had a search strategy defined, they had no idea what might be relevant or not.
His phone buzzed. Pulling it out of his pocket, he checked the display.
It was a text message.
From Justine.
The old general in him roused, readying for battle. The waiting and strategizing was over. It was time to engage. He thumbed open the message.
If you want to see Melly alive again, meet me in one hour outside the de Young Museum in the Golden Gate Park. Say nothing to anyone. Come alone.
Well, that narrowed down the search considerably.
Rage and renewed fear roared inside as he stared at the text.
He was not surprised. He was not. Yet having the confirmation in writing felt like another blow to the stomach.
The Nightkind King did not negotiate with terrorists or kidnappers, but Julian the man was another matter entirely.
Thumbs flying over the tiny keyboard, he punched in a reply and hit send. I’m in Los Angeles. I can’t make it to San Francisco in an hour. You’ve got to give me more time.
Her reply came swiftly. I am amused. Did Tatiana ask you for help?
Yes.
Behind him, Bailey said in a tight voice, “Can’t you focus on something else besides yourself for once?”
“That’s enough, Bailey,” said Tatiana sharply.
He didn’t bother to look at either Bailey or her mother. All of his focus strained on his silent phone, gripped so tightly between both hands.
Come on, Justine. Come on.
His phone vibrated as her text appeared on the display. You have three hours. Better get a move on.
Goddammit. The flight alone from LA to San Francisco took an hour and a half. Even with his authority to expedite his flight and commandeer a police cruiser to cut through city traffic in San Francisco, meeting her deadline was going to be close, very close.
He knew she kept the deadline tight in order to keep him from making some kind of countermove against her. And of course the whole thing was some kind of trap, but that was the least important part of their exchange.
In a clench, he forced himself to tap out the next words. I need proof of life or there’s no deal.
Justine must have been waiting for that one, because almost immediately, her next text came, and it was a photo.
In the image, Melly stood in front of a man, looking both furious and terrified at once, her hands bound in front of her. The man’s hands were sunk deep in her long, disheveled hair. Was he holding her hair back for the camera? Melly’s face was tilted up at an uncomfortable angle, as if he had yanked her head back.
As Julian stared at the image, his emotions bled out – all the bitterness, resentment, regret, fear and rage – until he felt empty of everything, except the need to commit violence.
You, he thought at the unknown man restraining Melly. You are a dead man. You and Justine have just become my life’s mission.
Soren said, “Julian?”
At the same moment, he received another text: That photo is from early this morning. Do we have a deal?
He replied, I’ll be there in three hours.
Ticktock. Remember, not a word to anyone. I’ll find out if you do.
He knew she could too. Justine was a talented liar. She also had a keenly developed truthsense. All she had to do was ask him a direct question and listen carefully to his reply.
A hand touched him on the bicep. Startling, he whirled to look into Tatiana’s gaze. The Queen still looked frightened, but she was beginning to show signs of other emotions as well – worry and confusion, along with the beginnings of anger and distrust.
Distrust for him.
“Julian, are you paying attention at all?”
Not a word to anyone, Justine had said.
Staring at Tatiana’s distrustful expression when he had done not a goddamned thing in the world to earn it, he decided to take Justine’s admonishment literally.
Pivoting on one heel, he snatched his cloak off the back of a chair and strode for the hallway, ignoring the calls and questions that flew after him. With one slicing gesture, he pointed at his two guards then at the floor at their feet, ordering them wordlessly to stay where they were. They remained in place, immobile.
As he strode toward the front door, he slung the cloak over his shoulders and pulled the hood over his head, holding it in place with one fist. The two Light Fae guards stepped aside at his approach.
The last thing he heard before he left the house was Bailey, as she said bitterly, “I knew you should never have asked him to come.”
Then he stepped out into the sunlight. Searing pain stabbed the skin on the back of his hand, and he broke into a lope that brought him to the car.
The keys were in the ignition. Lunging into the driver’s seat, he slammed the door, started the car and gunned down the driveway. A glance in the rearview mirror showed Tatiana, Bailey, Soren and the Light Fae guards, all standing on the front doorstep and staring in his direction.
He was fleetingly pleased to see that his two guards were nowhere in sight. They were following orders, at least for now.
The others had to have realized something was seriously off, but he couldn’t count on them piecing things together in the right way. Even if they did, and they attempted to do something to help, they might just make matters worse.
If they didn’t… well, fuck them.
He dismissed them from his mind. He had a plane to catch, and a deadline to keep.
Like Justine
said, he better get a move on.
Four
L
ying so far north of Los Angeles, San Francisco had a much cooler climate and entirely different weather patterns. As the Nightkind plane taxied into SFO, beads of moisture gathered on the outside of the windows from the dense, heavy fog that had rolled in some time earlier that day.
Julian welcomed the fog. It provided an effective cover from the deadly sunshine. From long years of experience with living in the Bay Area, he could tell that he would be able to walk outside freely without needing the cloak, at least for the next couple of hours, and the fog might actually linger until nightfall.
During his trip to LAX, and the subsequent flight, he had received several calls and texts. None of them were from Yolanthe or Xavier, the two people he would have actually chosen to talk to, in case they had discovered any leads on Justine’s whereabouts, so he ignored all the messages and let the phone calls roll over to voicemail. Maybe if enough people took note of his prolonged silence, they would start talking to each other and figure out that something had gone wrong.
Once the airstair had been put into place, he exited the plane, strode through the massive, overcrowded airport to the area allotted for pickups, and approached the first parked police car he saw.
Putting a hand on the edge of the roof, he leaned close to the window to look inside. No key in the ignition.
“I’m going to have to ask you to step away from the car, sir,” a male said severely from behind him.
Straightening, Julian turned to face a young human, one eyebrow raised.
The cop’s expression changed drastically. “S-sir,” he stammered. “I mean, your majesty. No wait, that’s English royalty. You’re a–a–‘your grace,’ right? Or are you a ‘my lord’?”
There was no way Julian could maintain silence after that. On the plus side, the cop would definitely remember every detail of their meeting. He said dryly, “ ‘Sir’ or ‘sire’ will do just fine. I need your keys.”
“Certainly, sir. Sire.”
He was too preoccupied to be amused. “One or the other. I don’t need both at once.” He held out his hand peremptorily, and the cop dropped his keys into the palm of his hand.
“Where shall I go to pick up the vehicle, sire?” the cop asked.
Without replying, Julian climbed into the police car and, switching on the vehicle’s siren, he drove off. He had very little time now to get to the Golden Gate Park, and the museum.
Cutting sharply across the highway, he settled into the fast lane and shot the car’s speed to over a hundred miles an hour. In the heavy fog, it was a suicidal pace. What saved him were his preternatural reflexes.
The other vehicles on the road moved out of his way as drivers responded to the siren, but still there were times he had to slow as he waited for the traffic to shift to the right.
When he turned onto John F. Kennedy Drive, he had five minutes left.
Then four minutes, three.
Two.
He could tell by the line of red lights glowing up ahead that traffic was heavy at the intersection. He wasn’t going to make it if he continued to the intersection to turn onto Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, the road upon which the museum was located.
He had no doubt Justine would kill Melly without a moment’s hesitation if he were late. None at all.
Yanking hard on the steering wheel, he drove the car over the shoulder and onto the grounds of the park. He could feel the wheels of the car digging into the dirt, and he gunned the engine to compensate.
When the distinctive shape of the museum building loomed out of the fog, he opened the car door and leaped out while it was still running, leaving it to slow to a stop on its own. Blurring into his fastest sprint, he raced around the corner of the building just as the stopwatch on his phone started to chime.
He snatched the phone out of his pocket and texted, I’m at the front of the museum. Where are you?
Justine replied, Stop. Wait.
Coming to a standstill, he did as she ordered, studying his immediate surroundings with a soldier’s sharp eye. Palm trees dotted the area, and despite the heavy fog, there were several people walking along the sidewalk. He focused on their conversations. All of them sounded innocuous enough.
A young girl came running toward him. Perhaps twelve years old, she wore a school uniform and she carried a laptop. He had dismissed her as harmless while she was standing in a crowd of schoolchildren several yards away, but as she came closer she caught his attention again.
Several dangerous creatures could masquerade as an innocuous school-age girl, and he tensed.
“Hi!” she called out as she ran up to him. “The lady from the museum said you left your laptop. She asked me to bring it to you.”
Catching a hint of the girl’s human scent, he relaxed somewhat. “Did she?” he asked, glancing behind her at the museum’s entrance. “What did she look like?”
The girl gave him a bright smile. “Oh, she’s very beautiful, and she has red hair. Is this yours?”
“I guess it is.” He took it from her. “Thanks.”
“Have a nice day!” She raced off again, heading for a yellow school bus where several other children in the same uniform were climbing aboard.
His phone vibrated. Did you get my present?
Tucking the laptop under one arm, he texted, Yes. Quit texting, dammit. Pick up your phone and call.
Oh, we’ll talk, she sent back. Just not by phone. Open the laptop and click on the Skype window. It’s logged into the museum’s Wi-Fi. Don’t move away from the building, or you’ll lose your connection.
Furiously, he yanked open the laptop and clicked on the Skype window.
Even though he braced himself for what might come next, the image that appeared made him go more than a little insane.
The scene was the same as the photo Justine had sent him. The background looked like rough rock, as if it might be a cave, or perhaps an unfinished basement. There were no windows or other potentially identifying characteristics. The lighting was odd and inadequate, and very slanted, as if it came from a lamp set on the floor.
This time there was no sign of the unknown male. Justine stood with Melly in front of the camera. They were both near the same height and size, but Melly was no match for Justine’s far superior strength and speed. Melly had a bunched cloth stuffed into her mouth in a simple, brutal gag. The Vampyre held the younger woman in a tight clench, and in one hand, she held a knife.
Julian ran his gaze compulsively over Melly. By some trick of nature, she was ridiculously photogenic. Even in such a horrible setting, with bad lighting, no makeup and a great deal of stress and danger, the camera loved her features and figure.
She looked disheveled, furious and scared. Her bare arms showed a few smudges that might be either dirt or bruises, but other than that, she didn’t appear to be seriously injured or abused.
Yet.
Their gazes locked. Even through Skype he felt such a strong connection to her, for the tiniest moment nothing else mattered. All his anger and bitterness fell away. She looked at him like she used to with her beautiful eyes so full of emotion. Light glimmered in the wetness of her gaze, and in that moment, he would have given anything, anything at all, to be able to put his arms around her and tell her that everything would be okay.
Anything, just to feel her in his arms one more time.
“First things first,” Justine said. She smiled into the camera. “I want you to tell me you didn’t say a word to anyone.”
He snapped, “I didn’t tell anybody anything.”
“Excellent. Put your phone in your pocket and leave it there. Remember – I have eyes on you right now, and I don’t mean through our Skype session. If you try to do anything stupid, I’ll carve off Melly’s face and make it into a mask to wear to our next encounter.”
His own truthsense told him that Justine wasn’t making an idle threat. He hadn’t targeted anyone suspicious when he’d studied
the scene, but that didn’t mean that watchers weren’t there.
Hissing, he jammed his phone into his pocket. “I’m not going to try anything stupid.”
Justine laid her cheek against Melly’s golden hair and rocked her back and forth. “I guess we have an answer to our question, don’t we, kitten? Apparently he does have some feeling left for you after all.” Her smile widened. “Julian, you might want to compose yourself. Remember, the fog offers you some cover, but you’re still in public. Those fangs and red eyes are sure to bring you more attention than you want right now.”
He hadn’t been aware that he had lost such control, and he struggled for some measure of composure. It was difficult, when the need for violence filled his mind with a red haze.
“You’re going to be okay,” he told Melly. “Remember that.”
Briefly, she closed her eyes. When she looked at him again, she did so with a steely calm. Good girl. Gods, she might be faithless, but she was damn brave.
Only then did he turn his attention back to the psychotic bitch holding her captive. “I’m here, just like you wanted,” he said in a harsh voice. “Let’s get on with this.”
“Don’t be so hasty,” Justine said with evident relish. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve looked forward to doing this – or something like this, anyway. This specific scenario is a surprise, but I’m excellent at improvising when I have to. I just want you to take a moment to really appreciate everything I’ve set up here.”
He said between his teeth, “Believe me, nothing you’ve done in the last few days has escaped my notice.”
She batted her eyelashes at him. “I’m so glad. This wasn’t easy to do on short notice, you know. We’re in a remote enough location I had to use a couple of relays just to establish a Wi-Fi connection. You can’t imagine the hassle.”
“You want me to tell you it’s really fucking amazing?” he said flatly. “Okay. It’s really fucking amazing. Justine, you’ve screwed up. Forget about me for a moment – take me out of the picture completely. If you do anything to hurt Melly, Tatiana will never rest until she has you hunted down and staked.”