Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
Chiron strolled into the lobby of the hotel several blocks from Dreamscape. It was the first time he’d stepped foot into the rival resort.
Not surprisingly, it was as large as his and equally sophisticated. What he didn’t expect was the dramatic black and gold décor. His brows arched as his gaze ran over the sleek furnishings: supple black leather and steel-framed tables with smoky black glass. The floors were a polished black marble, and in each corner stood a massive, priceless vase in isolated glory.
It reeked of sex appeal. Expensive, addictive sex appeal.
Chiron was busy considering the practicality of discovering the interior decorator responsible for the design to update Dreamscape when a female vampire appeared in front of him.
She was young, at least in vampire years, with blond hair pulled into a smooth knot at the back of her head. She wore a black A-line skirt and a shimmering gold blouse. The smile pasted to her lips revealed a hint of fang.
“Come with me.”
Chiron tilted his head. He hadn’t been trying to sneak in. He was too powerful not to alert every demon in the area that he was there. But he didn’t appreciate the female’s tone.
“What if I don’t want to?”
Lifting her hand, the female held Chiron’s gaze as three large vampires in black uniforms stepped out of the shadows. They looked like clones. All bald, each packed with muscle, and all staring at him in hopes he’d give them an excuse to beat the shit out of him.
Chiron hesitated. He wasn’t a male who allowed other creatures to intimidate him. He did the intimidating. And he did it very well. But he was genuinely concerned for Jayla. If it meant indulging Emile’s need to flex her muscles, then so be it.
“Lead the way.”
The female swiveled on her high heels and led him through a side door into a narrow hallway. Distantly, he heard the sounds of the kitchen staff as they prepared for the humans who would soon be lining up at the breakfast buffet. They turned into another hallway that ended at a private elevator. The female pulled out a small card and touched it to the control panel. The gold-plated doors slid open, and she gestured for Chiron to enter.
Hesitating for only a few seconds, Chiron stepped into the elevator and watched the panels close, locking him in the six-by-six space. If this were a trap, he’d deal with whatever waited for him. If worse came to worst, he’d left word with Styx before entering the hotel. The King of Vampires would come searching if Chiron didn’t check in by dawn.
There was a woosh, and Chiron plummeted downward. Like most vampires, Emile obviously preferred to control her empire from below. Underground was the only place guaranteed to be sunproof. The doors slid open, and Chiron stepped into a vast office that reflected the décor from above. Black marble floors, gold walls, and streamlined furnishings.
The female vampire matched her theme.
A tall and proud demon with stunningly beautiful features, she had long, deep gold hair and eyes as black as a midnight sky. She wore a black silk pantsuit with a long jacket that plunged to a deep vee, revealing that she had nothing underneath but smooth, pale skin. Her heels were three inches and shimmered gold in the muted light.
“Chiron. I’m honored.” The female folded her arms over her chest. “I would have been more honored if you’d sent word you planned to visit.”
“And ruin the surprise?” Chiron drawled, closely studying the female. Her expression was impossible to read.
“I don’t like surprises.”
Chiron decided for a direct attack. “I don’t like the fact that my manager has disappeared.”
“Manager? What manager?”
“Jayla.”
Emile stood as still as death, her dark eyes narrowing. “Is this some sort of riddle?”
Chiron stepped forward, attempting to use his powers to peek into her thoughts. There was nothing. She was too powerful.
“You tell me,” he said, forced to determine if she was telling the truth by using his other senses.
Emile clicked her tongue. “The height of the tourist season is not the best time to play games, Chiron. Perhaps you could return…” She lifted her arm to look at the Rolex strapped around her slender wrist. “Never.”
Chiron wasn’t amused. “If you believe this is a game, Emile, you’re going to be very, very sorry.”
The scent of black dahlias swirled through the air, the only indication the female was at the end of her patience.
“Tell me why you’re here.”
Chiron allowed her to see his exasperation. He should be in Vegas in the arms of his mate, not engaged in a stare-down with this female.
“I told you. Jayla is missing.”
“You’re serious?”
“Always.”
“Why would you assume that I have any idea where she might be?”
Chiron frowned. Either this female was really oblivious to Jayla’s disappearance, or she was the best actress he’d ever encountered. It annoyed the hell out of him that he couldn’t be sure which one.
“Since you were the one who demanded a meeting with her, you’re the obvious choice.”
“Demanded a meeting?” Genuine surprise flared through the midnight eyes. “Why would I want to meet with Jayla? We aren’t exactly BFFs. In fact, the last time we crossed paths, she threatened to carve out my heart and eat it for dinner.”
Chiron hissed. He’d charged into the hotel, fully expecting the female to lie to him. But he hadn’t expected to believe her. Now, he felt as if someone were trying to yank a rug from beneath his feet. He didn’t like it.
“Your emissary passed along your accusations.”
“Emissary. What emissary?”
“The one who accused Dreamscape of sabotaging your hotel. He also warned that you intended to take your complaints to the clan chief if Jayla didn’t agree to come to your office and discuss the crimes immediately.”
Puzzlement visibly changed to anger as Emile lowered her arms, her hands clutched into tight fists. At last. An emotion.
“This is bullshit,” she snapped. “If you believe you can make up nasty lies to ruin my reputation, you are sadly mistaken.”
A thick, icy mist formed in the room, revealing the female’s hidden talent. She could no doubt create a blinding fog if she needed.
“Why would I want to ruin your reputation?”
“To convince the clan chief to shut down my business.” She waved a hand around her elegant office. “It’s obviously thriving.”
“As is Dreamscape.”
She extended her fangs, her fury vibrating through the air. “I don’t have to cheat to win.”
Shit. Chiron got a quick peek into her mind as she struggled to control her temper. She had no idea where Jayla was or who had taken his clanswoman.
“You didn’t send an emissary.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No.”
“You didn’t make accusations of sabotage.”
She pursed her lips. “If I thought Jayla was attempting to destroy my hotel, I wouldn’t have sent an emissary to confront her. I would have come myself.”
Chiron spun away, trying to imagine what had happened. “So, who would have pretended to be speaking for you?”
“Only someone very stupid. Or with a death wish.”
He nodded. The room pulsed with her frigid power. She wasn’t a vampire he’d want to take on in a head-to-head battle.
“It had to be a trap for Jayla,” he muttered in absent tones. “Why else create such an elaborate ruse to get her out of the hotel?”
“Or for you,” Emile countered.
He turned back to meet her dark gaze. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve acquired a number of enemies over the centuries.”
Chiron shrugged. He hated to brag, but his list of enemies was impressively long. “I try.”
She looked as if she were resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “They would be fools to attempt to attack you in your own lair.”
He followed her logic. “So they kidnapped Jayla to lure me to Hong Kong.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“Possibly,” he slowly agreed, a whisper of unease making him hesitate. It was the most logical conclusion, yet… “No,” he abruptly burst out, hit with a sudden realization.
“You have another theory?” Emile demanded.
“They could have kidnapped Jayla without involving you,” he pointed out.
“True.”
“But making me believe you were behind her disappearance was guaranteed to cause trouble between us.” He recalled the large vampires with bad attitudes who’d been in the lobby. “Perhaps even a war.”
Emile blinked. “Who would want that?”
“Who wouldn’t?”
* * *
Levet ignored the nearby building’s open door. It was a red heifer. Non . Wait. That wasn’t right. A red herring. Oui . A red herring.
The vampire they were chasing had pretended to duck through the door, but Levet could sense the creature beneath their feet. Bending low, he moved along the alleyway. At last finding the small grate set in the ground, he pulled it off.
Bertha bent down beside him, her nose wrinkling. “You’re certain he went down there?”
“ Oui ,” Levet assured her, not giving himself time to consider the possibility that it was a trap.
He’d discovered that assuming that something great was about to happen made life much nicer. Could there be a clan of rabid bloodsuckers waiting to do terrible things to him? Possibly. But it was also possible that a K-Pop group used the tunnels to hide from their rabid fans, was it not?
Dropping through the opening, Levet landed on the hard cement far below. He grimaced, holding his wings off the damp ground as he glanced around the massive tunnel. Thankfully, they used it for drainage and not sewage, but it was still dark and dank and boring. A long tube of cement with cement pillars and occasional ventilation shafts. Why couldn’t the vampire have hidden in a nearby resort? Perhaps in the kitchens, where there would be platters of roast goose and fried rice and hot, braised abalone. Mmm. His stomach rumbled.
Bertha landed lightly beside him, the air stirring as she used her invisible wings to break her fall. “I smell him,” she announced with a sparkle in her eyes. “This way.”
She darted off before Levet could halt her, and he was forced to scramble to keep up. It was annoying. He should be the one recklessly charging into danger. She was stealing his swagger. Rude.
“Wait,” he warned as he caught the sound of voices. “The leech is near. And he is not alone.”
Together, they pressed against the cement wall and inched toward the side tunnel just ahead.
“Escaped?” The voice was muffled as if they were behind a closed door. “What the hell are you talking about? You promised she would be dead before dawn.”
Levet leaned toward the opening of the tunnel, struggling to hear the conversation.
“We were just a block away from the ambush we’d set up when a car stopped, and a vampire grabbed her off the street and drove away,” a second voice said.
Levet arched his brows. He’d assumed he was following whoever had snatched Jayla. Instead, it appeared the vamps had intended to ambush her, but someone had gotten to her first.
“Why didn’t you follow, you incompetent idiot?” voice one demanded.
“We were attacked.”
“Attacked? By who?”
“I don’t know. They were vampires, but they weren’t local. I’ve never seen them before.”
Levet exchanged a glance with Bertha. Why would strange vampires travel to Hong Kong to kidnap Jayla just seconds before she was to be ambushed and killed? Even among the convoluted vampire politics, it seemed…convoluted.
“What happened?” voice one snapped.
“After the female was snatched off the street, a half-dozen vampires swarmed out of the shadows and grabbed my brothers. There was nothing we could do.” Even though it was almost impossible to make out the words, Levet could smell the tinge of irritation in the air. It smelled like charcoal.
There was a long silence as if the first vampire was considering the ramifications of Jayla’s kidnapping.
“She must have been warned,” the voice said at last. “One of your crew is a traitor.”
“Impossible. If she discovered the plan, then it didn’t come from us.”
“You would say that, wouldn’t you?”
The scent of charcoal disappeared only to be replaced by… Levet wrinkled his snout. It wasn’t fear. Unease.
“What do you mean?”
“You were the only one not captured by the mysterious vampires,” vampire one pointed out.
“I told you, I was monitoring the situation from the gardens.”
A layer of ice coated the cement walls. One or both of the vampires was pissed off. Levet was betting on both.
“Tell me about the vampire who took Jayla.”
“I don’t know. He was big, blond hair.” There was a pause. “I think he had something tattooed on his neck.”
“That’s it?”
“I only got a quick glance.”
There was another layer of ice, and this one crawled over Levet and Bertha, coating them in frost. Levet flapped his wings, getting rid of it.
“What about the car?” It was vamp one again.
“A big, black limo.”
“And?”
“And that’s it.”
Levet flinched. He wasn’t the most perceptive creature. Hard to believe, but with all his other skills, there was bound to be one talent that was less than awesome. But even he knew that was a terrible answer.
“Either you betrayed me or you’re completely incompetent.” Vamp one was barely speaking over a whisper. Levet took a step down the side tunnel, straining to hear. “It doesn’t matter which one it is. I no longer need you.”
“Wait…” Levet didn’t need to strain to hear the shrill scream of fear. It came through loud and clear. “No, we had a deal.”
“Consider it canceled.”
Levet hissed as the presence of the second vampire simply disappeared. Poof. He was gone.
“Umm.” Bertha took a step backward at the sound of a door being pulled open. “I think it’s time to leave.”
“Good idea,” Levet muttered.
The click of leather soles against cement echoed through the tunnel, and Bertha reached out to grab Levet by the wing, dragging him farther down the main tunnel.
“Let’s leave faster.”
Levet clicked his tongue. Had she seen his legs? They weren’t built for speed. “I am going as fast as I can,” he protested.
There was a blast of icy air from behind. Levet didn’t turn his head. He assumed the vampire had caught sight of them and was now hot on their trail.
“This way.” Bertha tugged him into one of the side passages.
They sprinted through the darkness, attempting to stay ahead of the pursuing vampire. But just as Levet dared to hope they might avoid a painful death, a solid cement wall appeared ahead of them.
“Uh-oh,” he muttered. “Dead end.”
Turning to discover if they had time to escape, Levet searched for their pursuer. There was nothing. Just a thick, empty darkness. Was it possible they had shaken the vampire? Just as he dared to hope it was possible, he heard a dull, ominous thud overhead. As if someone above them had dropped something. Something really, really heavy. Like the Eiffel Tower. Seconds later, the ceiling began to form fissures that spread from side to side. Dust filled the air, and the fissures widened to cracks. The next thing Levet knew, the cement turned to rubble.
“Well, this is a bummer,” Bertha said a second before the ceiling collapsed on their heads.