He parked around back, between a rusted-out Gremlin and a lowered El Camino, and gestured for her to get out. She did, her bare feet barely registering the flattened cigarette butts and cracked asphalt as they crossed the parking lot. They entered the building, taking steps down to an area she wouldn’t have thought housed apartments. He made her go first, a smart move. It had occurred to her that she could take him from behind and escape, except that if she killed him she’d never learn the location of the hospital.
As they entered the dank bowels of the building, the gurgle of boilers and the smell of mold brought back memories of being homeless and alone, when survival had depended on sleeping in places fit only for rats. She scowled into the darkness lit by a lone, caged bulb at the end of the hall.
“This is the basement.”
“Vampires and apartments with windows don’t mix,” he said, stopping at one of three steel doors. A sensation like ants crawling up her spine made her shiver. She’d always trusted her gut, and her gut told her that something wasn’t right. When Eidolon rapped on the door, she instinctively reached for her stang, too late remembering she was unarmed.
“Do a lot of vampires live here?” she asked.
“Do I look like the landlord to the undead?” He knocked again and cursed before testing the knob and finding it locked.
He stepped back, and then, in one smooth, powerful move, he kicked in the door. Metal twisted as though a bomb had gone off, and the door jamb splintered. The strength he must possess to do that . . . it was definitely for the best that she hadn’t taken him on without a weapon. She’d put her fighting skills up against his any day, but with the strange losses of muscle control that always struck at the most inconvenient times, she wouldn’t want to risk an attack on him unless she was sure she had the advantage.
“She’ll be pissed if she was just napping.”
Eidolon snorted at that. They entered the apartment, which, though small, proved that vampires weren’t all grim and Goth. No, this was worse. The stuff of nightmares.
Shades of purple and yellow assaulted her vision, from the lavender carpet to the baby-duck-colored, fuzzy lampshade. Even the walls had been slathered with lemon paint. Christ, the place looked like a Muppet slaughterhouse. The nurse who lived here was truly not right in the head. She deserved to die for her horrible taste in décor alone.
Tayla sidestepped to avoid a particularly vile throw rug. “What did she do? Skin Barney?”
Eidolon’s sexy mouth twitched in a relaxed half-smile, though his movements were nothing but lethal grace as he moved swiftly down the hall. She watched him go, disgusted at herself for admiring how nicely his ass fit in his cargos, but unable to look away until a soft thump drew her attention to the kitchen. Once again, she reached for her stang, clenching her fist in annoyance at its loss. Whatever. She was dangerous without it, and after being held prisoner by demons, she was ready to kick some ass.
A scratching noise got her blood pumping a little faster. She followed the sound to a door just off the lilac-accented cubicle of a kitchen. A muffled moan drifted through the door. Bracing herself for battle, she turned the knob.
The door opened into some sort of dark corridor, a tunnel allowing passage for nightwalkers during the day. Blood smears left a trail from as far as she could see to the door, where a naked, mutilated woman lay at Tay’s feet.
The vampire nurse. The bubble-headed one who’d worn the fuchsia scrubs.
The nurse—Nancy—tried to speak, her lips forming words that never made it past the blood gurgling out of her swollen mouth. Her abdomen lay wide open, a gaping hole from her hipbones to her sternum. Dear God.
Tay grasped the woman’s wrists, bloody stumps with no hands, and dragged her inside. The smell of vampire blood, pungent and metallic, clogged her nose and throat until she nearly gagged.
“Hellboy!”
Nancy curled in on herself with a whimper. Tayla’s heart had hardened a long time ago, but now the shell around it cracked at the sight of the undead nurse’s suffering. Who would do this, even to a vampire? Who would disembowel her, and sever hands from limbs? Even her teeth . . . the vampire canines had been removed.
Eidolon burst into the kitchen. He came to a sudden halt, as though he couldn’t process what he was seeing. A heartbeat later, his expression became a savage, hardcore mask of everything she’d ever associated with hell. Death, pain, rage. This was the demon behind the man.
“Get away from her.”
Tayla bristled at the snarled command, but yeah, she got it; she was the enemy even if she hadn’t been the one to hurt Nancy.
He crouched beside the vampire, spoke in some language she didn’t know but understood nevertheless. The words were urgent, guttural, straight out of the Demon Dictionary of Cuss. The vamp moaned when he lifted her, carried her to the living room and laid her gently on the Barney pelt.