Chapter 7
Luke shut the car door behind him and immediately got to his knees and kissed the pavement. He’d never been happier to be a vampire. Vomiting was a rare thing. The only time he’d ever done it since his death was when he’d been slipped holy water.
Clint’s driving had nearly driven him to throw up for the second time in the last hundred years.
And the bastard was chuckling as he came around the front of his car. Clint bounced his key fob in his hand before putting it in his pocket. He already had his staff in his other hand, and he thudded the end of it on the pavement near Luke’s head.
Confidence and competence were two of Luke’s bigger turn-ons, and Clint kept pressing those buttons with a firm hand.
A very firm hand that Luke wondered would feel rough or if he had softer hands.
Whether through spells, personal care products, or from never working with their hands, some mages had smooth, flawless skin.
But Luke was willing to bet that Clint had rougher hands.
He didn’t seem like the type to go in for cosmetic magic.
Though he’s older than he seems. I swear I can smell it on him.
“You’ve got your thinking face on,” Clint said. “Worried about what Price will say?”
“How do you know what my ‘thinking face’ is?” Luke sat up. He wasn’t surprised that Clint knew they were near Price’s business. After all, he’d expressed familiarity with the different illicit jobs brokers in Chicago.
“You do quite a bit of it,” Clint replied.
Luke scoffed as he stood. He knocked the dirt from his knees and shook his head. “No one accuses me of thinking.”
“Then they’re underestimating you.” And Clint strode forward like he hadn’t said something kind and wonderful.
I’m not going to get hard. I’m not going to get hard. Thank fuck I’m wearing black, even if it is tight. Luke hurried to keep up with Clint. The mage had a longer stride, but Luke managed to walk with him rather than behind. “Do you have a knock?”
“I know how to knock on this door,” Clint replied.
“Yeah, but do you have your own?” Luke asked. They turned the corner and headed down the alley that would take them to the back door.
Clint paused, then pointed at the back entrance. “Doesn’t look like we’ll need one.”
The steel door was waggling in the cold breeze. Luke’s heart no longer beat, but he swore he felt it stop cold at the sight. That door was never unlocked.
Shock still numbing his fingers, Luke raced with vampiric speed to the door and threw it open wide. Even before he reached it, he smelled blood, but revealing the site caused his stomach to turn and his thirst to burn.
Goliath was in pieces. Blood and bits of his body covered the floor and splattered the walls. The scent of blood and meat mingled with an electric undercurrent of magic.
“Luke!” Clint was running to catch up.
But Luke wasn’t built for patience. The next door was open. He hurried through it. Miranda’s chair was empty. No signs of blood or damage.
“Luke!” Clint called.
“There’s no music!” Luke shouted back over his shoulder. “No laughter, no moans. No distant sound of dice being rolled.”
Clint had reached the outer door and was taking measure of Goliath’s body.
A subtle shift in his body language made him appear all the more a magus of the Greater Circle of the Unyielding.
Some circles were barely more than social clubs.
The Unyielding was known for wading into the deeper magical shit.
They were the magical professionals for when everything went wrong.
Whatever had happened to Goliath was wrong.
I’m glad he’s here. Luke started for the staircase.
“Wait!” Clint ordered.
Ignoring him, Luke used a burst of vampiric speed to run up to the second floor.
The floor was still in a way that spoke to an absence of life.
The chill in Luke’s heart grew as he hurried to the end of the hall.
Expecting to have to break a lock, he twisted the handle hard.
It came off in his hand, but the door was already unlocked. It creaked open.
Price lay against the far wall. He had his wand in his hand, and he was braced as if he’d been going for a weapon in one of his cabinets. He had a hole in his chest. Blood had poured down his shirt, pooling beside him on the floor. It had the same burnt-ozone smell that Goliath had had.
Luke didn’t hear a heartbeat.
Price was dead.
It wasn’t Luke’s fault. It couldn’t be. Price had been the one to take the file folder first. Price had been the one who said it was sketchy.
In a world where the right thing was elusive, Price had taken the client’s job to keep it out of more unscrupulous hands.
This was the fault of whoever had given the job in the first place. Not Luke.
But if Luke hadn’t taken it. If Luke had rejected it and let Price throw it away. If … if … if…
Slowly, Luke moved to Price’s side. Careful of the pool of blood, he went to his knees beside him.
Clint finally reached the doorway. “Luke, we need to approach this with caution. The attackers might be here.”
“I don’t hear anything. Or smell anyone other than the dead,” Luke murmured.
“There could be spells—”
“Everything is old,” Luke replied sharply.
“You can feel magic?” Clint asked.
“I’m not in the mood for an interrogation,” Luke said.
He reached over and closed Price’s eyes.
Who was he supposed to contact in this situation?
The thought of police anywhere near the location was both laughable and dangerous.
They’d want to talk to him, and they’d probably keep him for hours.
Possibly longer if they assumed he had something to do with this.
No, mortal police were out of the question.
We were an item once upon a time, and I don’t know if he has any family.
Anyone that will miss him besides me and his clients.
Luke bowed his head. The best he could do was let Clint take charge.
He was certain to know what needed to happen next.
But that was passing off responsibility.
If he’d been smarter—if he hadn’t gambled his good fortune away—if … if … if …
Suddenly, Clint’s heartbeat had an echo.
No, not an echo. The sound was coming from somewhere closer. Luke snapped his attention to his fallen friend. Price trembled, a tremor that started in his chest and flowed out to his limbs. His heartbeat grew steadier, and he sucked in a deep breath.
“What the fuck!” Luke flung himself backward and smacked into the edge of Price’s desk.
On Price’s second breath, he lifted his head and opened his eyes. The hole in his chest was gone, though the blood remained. With a grimace, he pulled the pearl ring from his pinkie. The pearl fell away into dust as he did. “Damn.”
“Damn lucky,” Clint said solemnly from the doorway.
“Prepared, more like.” Price stood. He stripped his jacket off and started to take his blood-soaked shirt off as well.
“You were dead!” Luke sprang up and knocked his head on the edge of the desk. He swayed and had to hold on to the wood. It helped ground him.
“Not for very long,” Price replied. He ran his gaze around the room and sighed as if his empty cases were a bigger inconvenience than having been dead a minute before.
Wait, all the cases are empty. Luke tried to recount how many weapons had been in the room before. Over a dozen. Maybe as many as three. And each had been a powerful tool for casting destructive arcane magic.
“Well, Ravenwing, you haven’t killed Luke. I suppose you are as moral as they say,” Price said nonchalantly.
“Hold on,” Luke said. “You knew whose place I was going to rob?”
“You had a slightly edited version of the file.” Price opened his drawer and scowled. “They took that too. Not a surprise. Let’s see if Miranda is as clever as she thinks she is.”
Price removed a different drawer and pressed a switch inside his desk.
An audible click resounded, and then one of the empty weapons cases slid to the side.
In the revealed room was a small wardrobe, a set of metal drawers with runes carved all over it, and a computer with a bank of monitors.
The room wasn’t much larger than a closet, so Price was the only one that went into it.
However, Clint strode into Price’s primary office and stood near Luke. He put his hand on Luke’s shoulder.
Physical contact heightened Luke’s ability to read fears and desires. Just as he was about to roll his shoulder to disengage from Clint’s touch, he felt a bubble from him. Clint was seeking calm. He wants to go at the problem with a level head. He wants to lead.
Fine. Luke crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against Price’s desk. Impulsiveness had led him to bet too much, to take a bad job, to nearly lose his freaking head to a fire spell. He could listen to the guy that had managed to put a demon in a box.
“Did you know about the crew?” Clint asked Price.
“I did. I put them together.”
Luke bit his tongue to keep from demanding answers. His fang cut in and drew a few drops of his own blood. The tang had the lightest zing of energy behind it. A sharpness like a winter wind on a fall day.
“Did you set Luke up?” Clint said.
“I thought Luke might be able to slip in and out,” Price replied.
He was typing at his computer, but Luke was too far away to see what he was doing.
“Honestly, I was hoping Luke would be successful and the others would get caught. When the client expressed dismay, I was going to feign ignorance. He only gave a description of what he wanted from your vault, but knowing you, I figured it wasn’t anything worth letting out. ”
“Did this client ask for Luke?” Clint continued.
“No. All he cared about was that I tell him when to expect delivery,” Price said. “Took me a week to pick out a crew. I was straining to think of who might be good enough to complete the tiara part, and Luke walked through my door. I figured it was a sign from Lady Luck.”
Price’s confession only strengthened the sting in Luke’s soul. Despite Price’s apparent effort in sidestepping his client’s intentions, he’d still sent Luke into Clint’s dangerous tower without all the information. He’d used him and his situation.
What else could I expect, considering how I came to him? If I hadn’t been so desperate, he wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of me. Luke tightened his grip on his arms.
A wariness flickered in Clint’s eyes. When his gaze met Luke’s, he reached out and squeezed his shoulder.
I tried to rob him, and he’s trying to comfort me. Luke swallowed past the knot in his throat.
“You’re awfully cooperative for a man who admitted that he aided in creating the break-in,” Clint said to Price.
“They did murder me. That wasn’t part of the agreement,” Price said.
“Goliath’s dead,” Luke added.
Price stiffened. “He is?”
“Shredded with magic,” Luke said. “Possibly an explosive spell. A mortal caster.”
“You can tell what sort of supernatural cast a spell?” Clint asked.
“Pretty common trick for a vampire.” Luke tapped his nose.
“Hmph,” Clint replied, an element of disbelief in his voice.
“I’m not lying,” Luke snapped.
The whir of a printer sounded in Price’s hidden office. After another moment, Price emerged with papers in his hand. “I’m certain Clint doesn’t think you’re a liar. He’s probably trying to piece together why you’re strange.”
“I’m not strange,” Luke said.
“The fact that you don’t even know how weird you are is part of your charm.” Price held the papers out to Clint. “Since Miranda was with them, I assume this has something to do with Valgaruz?”
“It does,” Clint said.
Price frowned. “You’ll find her picture in that stack.
This boy here, with what looks like Luke’s bite mark on his neck, was her suggestion.
I think his name is Joseph Grange. The other three didn’t come into my office with them.
They’re warlocks from Pendragon’s neighborhood. I can give you their names—”
“Sounds like I can deal with that later.” Clint went through the papers and swore. He flashed the last picture at Price. It was of a man in his thirties who radiated anger even in an image. “Do you know who this is?”
“I assumed the name he gave me was false,” Price replied. “Which is common in my line of business. I don’t give a rat’s ass if the money is good and his deposit was.”
“Who is it?” Luke asked.
Clint folded the papers and put them into his pocket. His jaw and shoulders were tight, and he didn’t look Luke’s way. “That would be Oz Drelich. I killed his brother.”