Chapter 7

Leandro

I watched as the vampire hunter ran off, sprinting for the safety of the hotel interior. I could have chased her, but I knew she was likely to be staying at the hotel and I was sure I could follow her scent anywhere. I didn't doubt that I would be able to find her later.

This night had gone from bad to worse and I already wished I had never been sent on this mission. But it was one thing to not want to play nice with other vampires, it was another to disobey a direct command from my own don. I might not want to be involved in the politics but that was exactly why I had been sent to handle this.

The guild of vampire hunters obviously considered Ludis a problem as well. Normally I would be pleased about them wanting to help take out a problem in the turned community. Might even let them deal with it for us, as they had done with many a difficult vampire who thought they could do more than they ought.

But in this case, I couldn't let them take out my vampire quarry before I'd had the chance to find out what he was up to. Cutting the head off the snake wasn't going to stop it from striking. Most vampires had people to do their bidding and in this case those people might do as they'd been instructed simply to honor Ludis.

Not that I thought he ought to be honored. But I was going to have to try to find those loyal vampires as well.

Leaving the young woman who had the guts to face her vampire enemy face on, I made my way into the hotel and straight to the elevators. The casino was still busy, but I caught the back view of Ludis and two of his vampires going into the club area where he would be safe enough for now.

A part of me wished that either the girl I'd met or the shooter had killed Ludis anyway. Picking up the pieces might be the better option, but it was a big gamble. And there was already one of the Brethren dead thanks to a jumped up turned like Ludis. I couldn't let another die on my watch.

I hurried to the floor the shooter had been on, fairly sure that I had the level right. I'd not seen who it was, but Ludis had already sent two turned up here to investigate. I hurried down the hallway on the ninth floor to see one of the vampires outside a room and checking both ways down the corridor.

"Did you manage to get into the room?" I asked as I came closer, already wishing it had been any of the lackeys but these two. In my head they were Laurel and Hardy and I didn't mean it as a compliment. One of them was taller and thinner than the other and both of them were... simple.

Sometimes vampires made a habit of turning those they admired, respected, or wanted the skills of. A strategic decision to bring someone into our fold. But there were also vampires who turned humans for the fun of it, or to spite them.

When the latter happened it led to vampires like these two. Not very bright, overly confident in their abilities and generally comically bad at everything. If I didn't need them to be good sometimes.

"We're in, but there's nothing here." Laurel shrugged but let me past him and into the room.

"Of course there's nothing here," I replied. "They're not going to have slept here and then shot at us. If there is anything left behind, it will be the smallest clue."

Hardy looked at me as if I was gum he had found on the bottom of his shoe. I'd never gotten along very well with them but this was going to be a new low. They never liked it when they were forced to work with me and Ludis knew it was better if I did stuff on my own already, but this couldn't be helped.

"I'm surprised Ludis asked you to come up," Hardy said. "We've got this and he knows it."

"He didn't ask me to come up, but that girl with us saw something. I think she knows more, but I want to find out what she knows and who this was."

"So you're admitting that you brought a hunter into our group?" Hardy asked, coming closer like he was threatening to attack. I glared at him before I strode on past him and the bed toward the balcony.

"I didn't bring her into the group. I came outside to see all of you toying with her, but she's still not a hunter. She might know hunters and she definitely knows something, but she isn't a killer herself." I sniffed the air, picking up several scents. Some of them were weaker than others, but there were two distinct ones out on the balcony. Hardy and whoever the shooter must have been.

I bent down to scan the floor outside, hoping for some kind of footprint or smudge. There was the faintest outline and a part of it was smudged, but from the size of it and where it was, I had some information to work with.

The scent combined with this had me certain that this had been another woman. It made sense. The guild liked to use female vampire hunters for certain missions. Especially where the turned vampires were fond of enthralled.

Every vampire knew to be more careful, but it also meant that a lot of vampires had fallen out over the years and killed each other over the suspicion of a hunter among them. Trust wasn't maintained easily in our world. Weakness was punished and most vampires gave in to hedonistic desires and greed over being steady and strategic.

In a lot of ways it made it easy for the Brethren to stand above the lesser turned. It didn't take much restraint to outsmart them.

Not wanting to leave without being thorough, I followed the scent around the room. The shooter hadn't walked right out but paused and moved around the room. I followed her steps, trying to work out what she would have been doing. As I reached a bin, I looked down inside it. There was nothing in it, but as I moved, I noticed a small corner of something just under the dresser.

I reached down and pulled out two photos, tucking them into my hand and then up my shirt sleeve before my companions could see them.

"Find something?" Hardy asked, but I shook my head and sniffed to check the route the shooter had taken.

Ignoring the two vampires with me entirely, I continued to follow the scent in the air. If I was going to figure this out then I had to get an idea of where this shooter came from. And where she went.

The scent in and out of the room was about as strong either way indicating that the shooter hadn't been there long or lingered. They had seized the opportunity as it arose. It made it clear that they were unlikely to have booked a room, as I'd expected, but they had been aware enough of the room being empty.

I frowned as the scent continued to overlap, heading back to the elevators via the obvious route. Laurel almost growled at me as I strode past him. I didn't say anything more to the pair of vampires as I left them to decide what to do next. After going back to the elevators, I made my way down to the lobby and the one place I hoped she had gone next.

When I stepped off I could just about detect the scent again, but the trail was already overlapped well. I didn't know how long I would be able to follow it among so many others, but I wasn't going to give up until I had to. I didn't look at the photos yet, pretty sure that one of them would be Ludis. The other was likely to be the butch vamp he leaned on a lot to do his dirty work.

The trail led out into the main casino and there it became impossible to follow. Leaving, she had definitely woven through the casino floor, making her way among the rows of slot machines and gaming tables. I could catch snippets of her scent here and there, but I couldn't be sure where it had gone after a while.

Whoever it was knew that vampires could track like this and they were doing everything they could to make sure they weren't followed.

I backtracked, not sure if they had been careful enough to do the same thing on the way in. If I couldn't follow them to where they had gone, then I might be able to track them to where they'd been.

After reaching the lobby again I made my way along the front of the casino, beginning to feel smug. They hadn't been as careful on the way in as they had on the way out and had walked right across the main walkway. Of course, plenty of people had already walked here since.

The path they had taken on the way to the elevators and the room had gone very close to the back exit that I and the other hunter had taken to go out to Ludis and it made it clear this shooter had known they were all out there before going up to the room to take the shot.

Given that their scent overlapped my own from earlier and the girl I wanted as an enthralled, it had also happened quickly. Still, I tracked it back to the area where the elevators were again and then I had no idea where it had come from. I tried to get out of the elevator on several floors.

Eventually I found it again, but my victory was short lived. I traced it to the drop off area of the parking lot. Someone had driven the hunter here and dropped her off and I had no way of knowing who she was and where she had come from.

With enough time I might have been able to get CCTV footage from security, figure out who it was from the main different cameras and go through the video feeds to find the car. After that it would only be a problem if she took a taxi and the taxi hadn't properly logged the fare or she had paid in cash and come in without showing her face.

But I didn't have that kind of time. Not when Ludis was almost certainly going to want to leave in the morning. Or at best the following nightfall. Whatever was going to happen, I needed to get answers faster. And that meant going back to the first hunter.

It wasn't difficult to make the decision to change track and try to follow the other one. I was almost certain I had already picked up on her scent as she had been moving about the casino. Not only old trails, but fresh ones. There was something about the way she smelled that made it easy to pick out.

She had a room, of that I was already sure. She had come and gone to it at least twice already this evening. One of the scents was significantly fresher than the other and only had her leaving recently. From what I could tell, she had come here after fleeing from me, but she wasn't in her room anymore.

I went to her room anyway, needing to be sure of what she was before I made my next move. If she was a hunter and in on this, then I was going to have to tread very carefully. I made my way to her room and stood outside her door for just long enough to check no one would see me before I used a fake key card.

Although I might not want to be on this mission, my don owned this hotel and it was easy to get a master key card to all the rooms. I didn't doubt that Laurel or Hardy had one between them as well, having been able to get into the shooter's room without trouble.

A single glance at everything laid out on the bed told me everything I needed to know. This woman was a hunter and she had come here for Ludis.

There were weapons laid out on the bed, more than a few of them. Crossbows, holy water and plenty of silver blades over various sizes. Beside them were several different outfits and her smell was on all of it. This was hers.

I let out a growl and rushed back out of the room, shutting the door behind me. I needed to find her and I needed to know what she did. There was no more time for games or being coy. She was here to kill vampires and I had to know if this was her team, or if more was going on.

Given how much time I had spent following the trail of the shooter instead of her, I feared she would also become lost in the crowd, but when I rode down the elevator to the lobby again, I couldn't detect a trail that led out. She was still in the hotel or casino and she hadn't left yet.

With her job not being done, it appeared as if she still wanted to carry it through, but the shooter had left. The knowledge that they were acting independently as far as I could tell had me hoping that they weren't working together, but I knew hunters often worked in teams.

That said, there had been something desperate about this woman. Almost cocky. She had known what level of danger she was in, yet she had faced it anyway. That much I had to admire.

Eventually, I found her trail, back on the level of the shooter and heading toward that room. My anger grew as I retraced my own steps from less than an hour earlier. This whole situation was seeing me on a wild goose chase it seemed.

There was no trail of her scent coming back again, but the other two vampires had either given up their investigation or left to try to follow the shooter as well. I didn't know which, but I knew I was the only one following the hunter from earlier.

When I reached the room to find the door shut and still no trail that left I paused. The hunter was on the other side of this door, I was sure of it.

As I reached for the key card, the photos I had tucked into my sleeve shifted, reminding me that they were there. I pulled them both out, knowing I should be sure of the second target.

My confusion only grew as I stared at the two pictures. One of them was Ludis, confirming that he was being hunted. But the other was the girl. Her beautiful face was looking at someone just off camera, her eyes lit up in a smile. Whoever had taken this photo had captured a stunning moment in her life.

But the most important element of this discovery was knowing that she had been a target. Whoever this shooter was, they had wanted Ludis and the hunter dead.

In all my experience I had never seen hunters turn on each other and it made me fear this wasn't a hunter, but if the woman wasn't a hunter, what was she?

There was only one way I was going to find out. After stuffing the photos into my pocket, I put the master key card into the door and yanked it open. She was standing in the middle of the room, her eyes wide as she saw me sweep in.

I moved swiftly, going straight for her. With one hand I grabbed her throat and with the other the hand that went for the blade concealed against her leg. My momentum carried me forward, pushing her back until I had her lifted up against the wall, my body pressed against hers and my fingers a single squeeze away from crushing her throat.

Inhaling, arousal flooded through me. She was intoxicating and I was instantly torn between devouring her and taking her body over and over again.