Chapter 37
“Well, this is romantic,” Whitby said, sitting in the middle of the two-man boat, a look of disparagement on her face as De Luca rowed them out to sea. “There’s nothing like a sunset sail in—AGH!”
Water splashed up over the side of the boat, spattering her in a fine mist. She pawed her face while emitting a low grumble in her throat, and Bastian couldn’t help chuckling.
“It’s only a bit of water, Whitby. Don’t make a fuss.”
“If it’s so harmless, why don’t you just throw yourself in it?” she hissed, shaking out her fur.
“Tried that,” Bastian said, his gaze lifting to De Luca’s.
The inspector looked back at him with soft eyes, and Bastian knew he was thinking about their kiss.
The first time they had touched each other, really touched each other, without an undercurrent of distrust or violence, alone out there with the sea.
The kiss had been clumsy and heated, their bodies humming with desire, and Bastian would gladly take more.
He had no idea where they stood now, though. De Luca had said they were better off as friends, but did he really think that? Or was he just protecting himself, the way he had done for years?
Bastian wasn’t sure what it was about De Luca that drew him in and lit him up with such bewildering frequency. Physically, he was a catch, and his love of Bronski Beat was a delicious surprise. Plus, he could dance.
But there was something more. Bastian felt safe with De Luca. The inspector had shown himself to be fair and thoughtful. Open-minded. He was dedicated to doing the right thing—to bringing justice to those who inflicted hurt on others.
And then there was the rage that Bastian sensed in De Luca.
The anger. They were both smalltown boys who had faced hardship and prejudice; they both lived with anger in their blood.
They were different in so many ways, but there were certain places where they aligned, and those places felt magical. Fortuitous. Rare.
Bastian tried to focus. He supposed he should wait to see if they survived the night before thinking about the future.
“Whitby, what are you muttering?” he asked.
“I’m trying to create a bubble around me to keep out the wet.”
“A bubble, dear?”
“Shhh, you’re making it difficult to concentrate.”
Bastian watched De Luca drag at the oars with a grimace.
“Would you like me to row?” he offered.
“No. I’m fine.”
Bastian could see the tendons in his neck standing out with effort, though. His shoulders strained against the fabric of his shirt, and Bastian sensed his worry. He reached over and touched De Luca’s knee, his fingertips warming at the contact.
“We’re going to get him back, De Luca. Enzo is going to be okay.”
De Luca nodded, his features softening. Bastian felt good knowing his words had helped, if only a tad, but he worried that they were already too late. Enzo was unwell. His blood condition was serious. If Matteo had taken him, dragged him all the way out here, the stress of it could prove too much.
“Oh god,” Whitby said, and Bastian saw that they were approaching a gaping black hole in the cliff face. Water sloshed into the opening, splashing up and around the rocks, and the dark within was impenetrable, even with Bastian’s sight.
“Here we go,” he said.
Cold fell like a net the moment De Luca steered them into the darkness.
Bastian’s skin prickled and he shivered.
Vampires really did need heat, contrary to popular belief.
Intense cold could be fatal, do permanent damage, and in only a matter of hours.
He couldn’t tell De Luca that, though, because he was sure De Luca would only worry.
He rubbed his hands together, listening to the sound of gently moving water that echoed around them.
“I don’t like it,” Whitby said. “Why would anybody come in here?”
“To hide,” Bastian said.
“Couldn’t they find a more comfortable hiding place? Somewhere with cushions and central heating?”
The boat juddered as it struck something solid. Bastian saw they were back at the spot he and De Luca had moored the previous day, when they searched the caves the first time. A second boat bobbed there, secured to a rock. It must be Matteo’s.
De Luca got out onto the uneven ground, tying the boat to a large boulder.
“Thank the sorceress,” Whitby said, springing onto dry land and shaking out her back feet as she hopped from stone to stone, as far from the water as possible.
“Whitby, don’t go too far,” Bastian called. The boat rocked and he seized the side, almost falling into the water again. He only just steadied himself and smiled as he saw De Luca’s hand outstretched.
“And they say all the gentlemen are dead,” Bastian said.
De Luca gave him a weak smile. “Some of them are.” He frowned, squeezing his hand. “You’re cold. Really cold. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, it’s just the temperature in here.”
De Luca rubbed his hand, then his arm, bringing some warmth back into Bastian’s bones.
“The tide will flood these caves soon,” De Luca said. “We have to be quick.”
Bastian nodded. He was about to thank the inspector for warming him up when a scent tugged at his nostrils, turning his head toward the pitch dark of the cave where Whitby was poking around grumbling to herself.
“What is it?” De Luca asked.
“Matteo,” Bastian said. “I can smell him.”
“Smell him?”
“He has a particularly ripe kind of B.O.” Bastian shrugged. “Quick, before I lose it again. Come on, Whitby.”
The cat strutted ahead of him, leading them into the caves, and Bastian blinked in astonishment as a beam of light swept the rocks ahead of her. The cat’s eyes were shining like a car’s high beams. She must have cast a spell to turn herself into a walking flashlight.
“How very ‘Leave a Light On’ of you,” Bastian said, Belinda Carlisle’s voice filling his head. “A little help back here would be nice, too, Whitby.” His vampire vision could only achieve so much, especially with Whitby’s eye-lights interfering.
Whitby flashed a blinding look back at him, then muttered under her breath.
As she spoke, a dozen golden orbs no bigger than fireflies popped into existence, floating in the air.
They hovered in a group for a moment, then scattered, flurrying in different directions around the inside of the tunnel, bumping into rocks and each other as they roved about, lighting their surroundings in a drunken, haphazard manner.
“Grazie,” Bastian said, picking his way over the rocky ground, De Luca beside him. He followed Matteo’s scent, and Whitby must have smelled him, too, because she seemed to know exactly where they were headed.
“We didn’t go this way earlier,” Bastian noted as they turned left into another tunnel, the fireflies whirling with them. “I don’t think I even noticed it last time.”
“Me either,” De Luca said.
“You were probably too busy smooching.” Whitby’s voice echoed back at them.
“We smooched in the boat, not in here,” Bastian corrected her.
De Luca didn’t laugh. He was giving Bastian an anxious look. “Do you smell—”
Bastian raised a hand, cutting him off, because Matteo’s signature had grown stronger, mixing with another scent. One that was sharp and metallic.
“Blood,” Whitby said, slowing. “I smell blood.”
“So do I.”
A new seam in the rock face had appeared: a craggy opening into darkness. Bastian heard the flutter of a heartbeat, smelled Matteo and blood, and he plunged forward into the space that lay beyond the opening.
The fireflies came in with De Luca and Whitby, illuminating the small cave.
Whitby cast around her eye-lights and Bastian saw water trickling over the rocks, beginning to pool across the ground.
It must be entering the cave from another point.
A few candles were dotted around the cave, emitting a sputtering glow.
Bastian barely noticed the rest of his surroundings, though. He was too focused on the body.
A body on its side on the ground.
Whitby’s light picked out dark hair that crept over the rocks in serpentine tendrils. One pale arm lay unmoving, the other bound in white plaster cast, and Bastian recognized the cat-ears headband stuffed into the back pocket of his jeans.
“Matteo,” he whispered.
He was about to go to the unconscious—dead?—waiter, but then a shape moved in the dark at the back of the cave, as if disturbed by Bastian’s voice.
A shadow came into focus, stepping forward.
A second figure stood over Matteo. Lean and hunched and edged in darkness, as if he had been sketched with charcoal. The fireflies circled the figure momentarily, then scattered, disappearing into a crevice.
“Oh my god,” Whitby said. Her eye-lights flickered and extinguished, plunging them into a candlelit gloom.
But Bastian knew what he had seen.
Standing over Matteo’s body was De Luca’s brother.