Duncan’s gaze had grown intent as she talked. “I take it your niece is all right?”
“Yes, as far as I understand, she is,” Seremela said. “That girl’s got a talent for finding trouble though, and if she can’t find trouble, often she’ll create it. I’m afraid I can’t talk with you long. I’m on standby, and I’m getting ready to leave for the airport so I can take the first available flight out.”
“Your sister must be grateful you’re going with her to get Vetta.”
Seremela shook her head. “Oh, my sister’s not going to get Vetta.”
Duncan’s sleek dark brows lowered. “Excuse me?”
Seremela gave him a dry look. “Camilla can’t face conflict,” she explained. “I’m going to get Vetta by myself.”
His frown deepened. “Forgive me again,” he said. “I’m well aware of how intrusive this might seem, but I do not like the sound of that.”
“Well, it is what it is.” She twitched a shoulder. “Although I know how irritating that statement is to a lot of people too. Right now the most important thing is to get Vetta home safely, and that means moving as quickly as possible now that we know where she is. Everything else can be dealt with later.”
As she talked, Duncan turned to look out the open balcony door. She didn’t mind in the slightest. It gave her the opportunity to study his profile.
Slight lines carved the corners of his eyes and his expressive, well formed mouth. He must have been around thirty when Carling turned him at the height of the California Gold Rush in the mid nineteenth century.
While he would forever wear a young man’s face, there were subtle telltale signs that spoke otherwise. He carried a certain gravitas in his presence that simply didn’t exist in younger men. Somehow it held the weight of years and experience without seeming too heavy.
Oh, she did like him, so much. She twisted her fingers together and offered, “I also thought about asking the detective if he would go with me when I went to get her.”
Duncan pursed his mouth. The small, thoughtful expression hollowed already lean cheeks and accentuated the strong line of his cheekbones. “Most detectives won’t get physically involved, especially if it involves a family matter,” he said. “The majority of detectives work on divorce documentation, do background checks and that sort of thing.”
“I know,” she said quietly. She had also thought about hiring someone who specialized in extracting people from cults, drugs and other subversive cultures. She just wasn’t sure any professional interventionist would agree to handle something as trivial as Vetta’s sheer bloody mindedness.
Vetta wasn’t addicted or brain washed. She was just contrary to the bone. She was also twenty, which was especially unfortunate since that was well past the age of consent in most jurisdictions. Medusae aged so much more slowly than humans, and Vetta’s emotional maturity was more like a young human teenager’s than a grown adult.
“Where is your niece now?” he asked, glancing at her.
She closed her eyes and sighed. “She’s at Devil’s Gate.”
“Devil’s Gate?” He pivoted sharply to face her.
“I see you know of it,” she said, her voice flat.
“Of course I know of it,” he said. “Bloody hell.”
Chapter Two
Law
Devil’s Gate. Yes, Duncan knew of it.
That period of his life was etched indelibly in his mind. He had lived his last days as a human and his first nights as a Vampyre during the riotous Gold Rush in San Francisco. He would wake in the evenings, starving for fresh blood and newspapers. Gods, he had loved that time. It had been wild, greedy and anarchistic, and everyone had been a sculptor, carving out their futures and fortunes the best way they knew how.
He had followed the original news about Devil’s Gate in the Pacific Courier. In June of 1850, a gold nugget had been discovered at Devil’s Gate, which lay just north of Silver City in western Nevada. For ten years the entire area became the scene of frenetic mining. The gold rush in Nevada had been even wilder than the California Gold Rush, fueled by a thread of land magic that ran like liquid mercury throughout the desert mountains and rock.
Formed out of lava rock, Devil’s Gate itself had been blasted wider to create a toll road on the route to Virginia City. The narrow opening soon became notorious as a popular hideout for highwayman, and anyone who wanted to pass along the route safely had to travel armed.