Chapter 21

Zylas was out of the restaurant in an instant, leaving me to rush after him. I cast a helpless look over my shoulder, meeting Amalia's surprised stare, then I pushed through the door.

"I have his scent," Zylas hissed as I joined him. "Not very old. Earlier this day he walked here."

"And you smelled him near the bathrooms?" I supposed it made sense. Fewer people walked down that hall than crossed the restaurant's dining room. But why had Claude been there in the first place? Unless he also enjoyed cheesy calzones after a hard day of plotting against his former business partner.

Zylas rounded a corner, his purposeful gait causing other pedestrians to hurriedly clear the way, and I was right behind him when a shout pulled me up short. Amalia ran to my side, puffing from her sprint. "What the hell?"

"Zylas caught Claude's scent."

"Claude?" She fell into step beside me. "No shit! I told Zora and that other guy they could have our food."

"Good. We don't want any company for this." I swallowed anxiously. "If we find Claude, we'll probably have to fight his demon."

"Unless his demon isn't with him. Seems like he sends it off on its own, doesn't it? You said there was no sign of Claude last night."

"That's true, but Claude could have been nearby."

Zylas turned into a gap between towers. Set back from the street, a nondescript entryway led into a vestibule with a security door and a panel of suite numbers and intercom codes. Zylas tried the door. When it didn't budge, crimson magic cascaded up his arm.

Three seconds later, he pushed the door open, the locking mechanism severed by his new burglary technique. He angled across the barren foyer and headed down the first hall. I tugged my infernus from under my sweater and settled it on my chest.

Zylas halted in front of a door. Nostrils flaring, he tilted his ear toward the wood.

"I hear nothing," he whispered, "but the hh'ainun's scent is strong. So is the scent of fresh blood."

"Vampires?" I mouthed silently.

With a quick spiral of glowing runes, he destroyed the bolt and pushed the door open on soundless hinges.

The interior was dim and unlit, heavy drapes covering the windows. Zylas glided inside and I inched in after him, scanning the unit. On one side, a bathroom. On the other, a dining nook converted to an office, a kitchen with a long island and modern finishes, and at the far end, a living room with a small sectional, a coffee table, and a wall-mounted TV.

Zylas ventured through a door into what I assumed was the bedroom, then reappeared. He pulled his sunglasses off. "There is no one here, but the scent of blood is everywhere."

"What is this place?" I asked Amalia. "Does it belong to Claude? I thought he lived in that townhouse."

"Crooks like him and my dad usually have a few homes," Amalia replied. "But based on this, it's safe to say this apartment definitely belongs to Claude."

She was standing at the kitchen island, where papers were laid out in a neat row. They were documents, all of them about or belonging to Uncle Jack. Tax records, electricity bills, a copy of his driver's license, lists of his relatives and business associates, and—my heart jumped—the page of emergency contacts I'd seen in the vampire's tower hideout last night. The one his demon had stolen from me.

Amalia tapped a lone page at the end of the row. Neat, masculine handwriting listed names and addresses, each one boldly crossed out.

"All places Claude has checked," she said. "Look, this one, that's a safe house we used three years ago. And that's my cousin's house. This one is my language tutor. Claude's looked everywhere."

"They're all scratched out." A flutter of satisfaction lightened my middle. "Wherever Uncle Jack has gone to ground, he's outsmarted Claude."

Amalia grinned ruefully. "Too bad he's outsmarting us as well. Where the hell could he be?" She ran her finger down the list. "Look here—Katrine Fredericks. Calgary, Alberta. Look what he wrote!"

Beside the Calgary address were five scrawled words: Confirmed decoy. Kathy is alone.

"My stepmom is in Alberta?" Amalia exclaimed. "And Dad isn't with her? Aunty Katrine is her sister, so I guess that makes sense. Well, at least I know where to find one of them now." She shuffled through a few more documents, then picked up a stack of photos. "Ha, look at this. I must be, like, four years old."

I leaned closer to see the photo of a blond girl staring aggressively into the camera. "Is that your mom with you?"

"Yep." Amalia smiled at the equally blond woman with a similarly intense stare. "She died when I was eight, and Dad married Kathy a year later. I hated him for that for a long time."

She flipped to the next photo. "That's my great uncle. Oh, and this one is a fishing buddy of dad's, but he died two years ago."

She turned the picture over. "Deceased – illness" was scrawled across the back in red ink.

"Has Claude checked all of these?" she mused as she shuffled through the stack. "He's been one busy…"

Trailing off, she stared at a snapshot of her dad beside an older man in camouflage and an orange vest, a rifle in one hand. A large, dead moose with a broad rack of antlers crowning its oblong head lay at their feet. Was it legal to hunt moose?

She checked the reverse side, which featured a single question mark in red ink, and whispered, "No way."

"Drādah!" Zylas barked.

My head snapped up. Red light lit his body, and he dissolved into crimson power that flashed toward me. The human clothes he'd been wearing dropped to the floor in a lumpy puddle of fabric.

The infernus was still vibrating against my chest when the apartment door swung open. I jerked back, expecting Claude to walk through—but it wasn't the summoner standing in the threshold.

Zora scowled at me, her sword case hanging over her shoulder and her leather jacket zipped up to her throat. Taye stood behind her, dark eyebrows arched high on his dusky face.

"Zora," I gasped. "How—how did you… find… us?"

"Taye is a telethesian."

My knees weakened with dismay. Telethesians were psychics with a supernatural ability to track people, especially mythics. Taye was the perfect partner for scoping the tower and searching out the vampires' new location. Also perfect for tracking a suspicious contractor and her suspicious friend after they'd ditched a restaurant and run off into the downtown streets.

"So," Zora drawled, hitching her sword case higher on her shoulder, "what's going on?"

My mind had gone completely, uselessly blank, and I was painfully aware of Zylas's abandoned clothes behind me. If Zora noticed them—and recognized them as my "friend's" outfit…

"Uh…" I mumbled.

"You haven't been part of this guild for long," she said coolly, "so maybe you don't know, but when we team up for jobs, we don't leave our teammates in the dark."

I blinked.

"Unless this isn't related to your summoner investigation?"

"Uh, it is," I stammered, "but it… it isn't vampire related, so I didn't think you—"

"It isn't?" Taye interrupted in his deep, accented voice. "There are vampire traces everywhere. Plus, Zora, you're glowing."

"I'm glowing?" she repeated blankly. "Oh!"

She stuck her hand in her jeans pocket, where a faint red glow shone through the fabric, and withdrew a blood-tracker artifact. I gasped fearfully. Vampires were nearby?

"Hmm." Zora turned in a slow circle. The faint light brightened as she aimed it toward the kitchen nook with Claude's desk. She strode closer and the glow increased. Taye, Amalia, and I followed cautiously.

Zora raised it higher, then lowered it toward the floor. The glow intensified as it drew level with the desk's bottom drawer.

"I don't think there's a vampire in there," she said dryly.

She tugged on the drawer and it slid open. Inside was a metal case similar to a safety deposit box. Kneeling beside her, I lifted it out. The latch flipped easily, no lock or spell sealing it shut. Inside, two heavy-duty steel syringes were nestled in a foam insert. A third slot in the foam was empty. Above them were three vials of clear liquid marred by tiny bubbles.

I stared at the syringes, cold recognition flowing through me. I remembered Claude's demon tossing one to Claude, the needle coated in Zylas's blood. I remembered Zylas collapsing to his knees, clutching my waist as he struggled to stay upright, and Claude's quiet, gloating words: A good summoner knows how to safely neutralize a demon.

"What on earth is this?" Zora asked, bewildered.

Amalia reached past me. She lifted a second metal case from the drawer and opened it. Instead of syringes, it held five sealed vials of dark liquid. She wiggled one out of the foam insert and held it up. Light refracted through the thick fluid, revealing its red tone.

Dark, thick blood. Demon blood.

"Zora," Taye said sharply.

As one, we all looked at the blood tracker she held. The gem-like end was glowing brighter by the second.

For an instant, none of us reacted, then Taye backpedaled toward the center of the room, facing the open door. Zora dropped the blood tracker and grabbed the zipper of her weapon bag. Amalia snapped the case of blood shut and shoved it on top of the desk as she backed away.

I didn't move, my mind spinning as pieces clicked into place—but the answers I now possessed had created more questions.

"Robin!" Amalia yelled in warning.

I looked up.

Three vampires filled the doorway. Red rings marked their eerie eyes and their fingers had elongated into deadly claws. The two males and a female, reflective sunglasses perched on top of their heads, wore jeans and jackets like every other pedestrian on the streets.

"Looky what we found," a male crooned.

Zora pulled her sword from its sheath with a slithering rasp. The blade gleamed. "Out in the sunlight, bloodsuckers? How bold."

The female vampire leered delightedly. "Not a problem… not for us."

"We were waiting for a summoner." The creepy male licked his lips. "Not pretty ladies."

"Taye," Zora called. "Get out of here. Use the patio."

The telethesian rushed toward the sliding glass doors. Amalia shot me a questioning look and I nodded. She ran after the psychic and they disappeared outside.

Setting her feet in a defensive stance, Zora raised her sword confidently—but she had no idea these vampires were nothing like the ones she'd made her career exterminating.

The three vampires smiled. They knew we didn't stand a chance.

The creepy one stepped away from the others, his weird eyes on Zora. He strolled toward her, getting closer and closer to the shining blade of her weapon.

"Ori torpeas languescas," she said quietly. A faint shimmer ran down the sword.

He took one more step—then blurred almost out of sight as he lunged for Zora.

She wheeled sideways, saved by her combat reflexes. The vampire shot past her, spun, and halted, leering tauntingly.

"What the…" She adjusted her grip on the sword. "This bastard is a fast one."

I grabbed my infernus. "They're all fast."

Red light flared across my pendant and all three vampires attacked at once.

The creepy one charged Zora again while the other two came straight for me. Zylas materialized with his dark claws slashing. He sprang between the two vampires, striking both simultaneously. A whirling kick sent one vampire flying past me. She hit the refrigerator headfirst and bounced off, the dented door swinging open.

Zylas exchanged swift blows with his second opponent. As the first one climbed to her feet, shaking her head back and forth as though stunned, I threw my full weight into the fridge door. It slammed shut on her head.

Across the living room, Zora darted side to side, frantically evading her adversary. A spell glowed on her left wrist, not doing anything as far as I could see. The vampire circled her, his attacks swift but playful. He was toying with the petite sorceress.

As the vampire pounced again, laughing nastily, she whipped her sword around. The tip of the blade nicked the vamp's arm—and a shimmer ran up the length of steel. Silver runes flashed across the vampire's arm and over his shoulder.

Beside me, the female vampire pushed backward off the fridge, wobbling unsteadily after the second impact to her skull. Before I could panic, Zylas slid across the island counter. He slammed both feet into the vampire, knocking her back into the open fridge. Condiment bottles tumbled to the floor.

He grabbed the door and swung it shut on her torso—but with exponentially more power than I had. Plastic shattered, metal warped, and bones crunched.

At the other end of the room, Zora's opponent was no longer playful. Silver runes glowed on his side and he kept lurching and stumbling, one half of his body moving much slower than the other.

The third vampire leaped over the counter. Zylas met him with open claws and tried to ram his fingers between the man's ribs. The vampire twisted away, then struck Zylas in the chest. The demon slammed into the fridge, crushing the female vampire all over again.

With a furious shriek, she flung the door open, throwing Zylas forward. Unhampered by her broken bones, she lunged for his back. The other vampire sprang at his front.

The terrifying memory of pointed fangs sinking into his skin flashed through me.

"Ori eruptum impello!" I yelled.

My new artifact flashed brightly and a dome of pale light burst from it. It expanded outward—and everything it touched was flung away from it: a toaster, a knife block, a drain tray full of dishes—

—and the two vampires and demon in front of me.

The vampires slammed into the counters on either side while Zylas was blasted across the length of the kitchen. He landed hard on his back, ten feet away. The fridge door slammed yet again and all the glass inside shattered.

My mouth hung open.

The vampires jumped back up, and Zylas rolled to his feet, shooting me his meanest glare. I winced guiltily.

Note to self: don't use spell against my demon.

Exchanging a look, the vampires split—one facing me and one facing Zylas. My face went cold. My artifact needed time to recharge before I could use it again. I was defenseless, and I couldn't even use the sidestep evasion technique Zylas had taught me because there was nowhere to go.

The two vampires charged.

Daimon, hesychaze!

Zylas dissolved into red light. The blaze of power streaked across the kitchen, passing right through the vampires, and hit the infernus. He reformed in front of me, claws flashing. He caught the vampire's reaching arm, planted his foot on the man's side, and wrenched.

I almost passed out on the spot when the vampire's arm tore off his body.

A shriek jerked my attention away from the bloodletting. I expected to see Zora on the floor, but it was the vampire scuttling backward, spitting with rage and bleeding from multiple wounds he seemed unaware of. The spell that had slowed him down had faded, but one of his legs was dragging awkwardly, half severed.

He shuffled backward and Zora, several spells glowing over her wrists, drove him into the bedroom. They disappeared inside. A heartbeat of silence—then a burst of golden magic. The wave of force caught the bedroom door and swung it shut with a bang.

I whirled back to Zylas and the remaining two vampires. Now! Quickly!

Crimson magic blazed up his arms. Six-inch talons extended from his fingers, and he buried them in the nearer vampire's chest. As the creature fell, the female vampire backpedaled in fright. Zylas stretched out his hand and two glowing triangles snapped around his wrist.

Power blazed and a spear of red light shot across the kitchen and struck the female vampire in the chest. She keeled over backward, a hole through her heart.

The bedroom door remained safely closed, and I let out a relieved sigh as Zylas banished the telltale glow of crimson from his hands. Stepping over the mess, I headed toward the bedroom to check if Zora was okay.

I got two steps and froze.

Zora was okay. I could see she was okay because she was standing in the bathroom doorway. The bathroom. Not the bedroom, even though I'd seen her go into the bedroom. The two rooms… they must be connected.

She was standing in the doorway, sword in hand and her face deathly white. If I'd had any hope she hadn't seen Zylas's magic, her horrified expression immediately dispelled it.