“I’m going to dress and go after the rogue. As far as the cops are concerned, I was never here. Okay?” When she looked uncertain, I said, “If I’m in a holding cell for questioning, I can’t be chasing the rogue. I want to find his lair and stake his ass.”
Her face cleared. “I never saw you.” She looked at the wall and yelled to it, “Tia, it’s safe. You can come out now!” A small, hidden door opened in the wall, about four feet off the floor. Tia’s delicate face ducked down and out. “Get the door and bring the ambulance drivers in here,” Indigo said. “Don’t let them into Katie’s office. Not for anything. And Jane is going after that thing. So we’re not going to mention her. Okay?” Tia nodded with childlike certainty. Indigo was clearly at the top of the pecking order. “Go get the other girls out of hiding. Then open the front door, but only to the cops,” Indigo added. She looked at me. And unexpectedly grinned. “You’d better get dressed or some cop is going to think you’re one of us.”
I looked down, nodded, and lifted the stake in my hand as good-bye. I skirted out of the house, avoiding the broken glass, blood and gore. As dawn traced pink and purple and golden streaks across the sky, I jumped the wall and headed home.
I showered off fast to get rid of the scent of Katie’s blood and dressed for vamp hunting in jeans, leather, boots, silvered vamp-killers, crosses, a vial of holy water. Studded gloves and a collar made of sterling silver jump rings overlapping like chain mail, extra ammo, my Bible, and extra stakes went into the bike’s saddlebags. Within ten minutes after I entered the house, I was helmeted, the Benelli strapped to my back. I kick-started the bike and whipped around the block, past Katie’s front door, past the rolling, siren-screaming emergency vehicles. I picked up the rogue’s changing scent, the face shield of the helmet shoved up, out of the way, sunglasses protecting my eyes.
How did he change his scent? If he changed it so easily, and I lost it on the wind, I might not find him again. For that matter, if he could change it totally, maybe I had been near him and not noticed. I wondered why it changed as well as how. Like, maybe it wasn’t something he could consciously control. Like maybe Beast wasn’t totally wrong about the liver-eater stuff. Maybe he wasn’t just a rogue. Maybe he was something more.
Not only humans were being targeted by the rogue, and every rogue vamp in every case I knew of drank exclusively from humans; but here, at least one vamp had gone missing, the woman vamp whose disappearance had made Katie weep with grief. Ming. Then he went after Katie. Maybe there had been others. Or . . . maybe the rogue wasn’t just crazy nuts; maybe he ate livers for a medical reason. Maybe his diet lacked something that human blood wasn’t providing. Maybe he needed blood-rich vital organs like livers to stabilize him. And maybe vamp organs were better than human organs for that. Did that make him a liver-eater from legend? Crap, no. Part of his compound scent smelled like vamp. Ergo, he was a vamp.
The vision of the rogue flashed into my mind. Eating Katie. Like a wild animal tearing at prey, ripping into the organs. Upper and lower fangs. Beast was silent though I knew she was awake. And I knew she agreed. Beast ate that way, liver, heart, kidneys, lungs first. The most protein-, fat-, and mineral-rich parts first. So, he wasn’t a vamp?
I finally had to admit it; I had no idea what I was hunting. I filled my nostrils with scents as the city came to life, stirring for morning business, school, jobs. I tracked the rogue as he all but flew through the streets, the sun chasing him. If I didn’t lose his scent, I’d find where he slept today, maybe his main lair. And kill the bloody bastard. Collect my bonus. And get gone.
CHAPTER 16
Are crosses weapons?
The rogue’s scent continued to change, growing hotter. I remembered the way Leo smelled when he flew through with the sun touching him—scorched meat tainting his usual peppery-almond-papyrus smell. In one way, the heating scent made the rogue easier to follow; in another it was harder. Breakfast smells of bacon and sausage sizzling were hitting the air too, obscuring the warm meat stink of the rogue. I wasn’t as good at parsing smells with my human nose, but I breathed through my mouth gently as I rode, and found the vamp’s scent evolving, like licorice, but more delicate. Maybe hazelnut.
And a hint of sweetgrass. At the thought, I slowed, breathing through my open mouth and nose, straining to find and separate it from the mix of city and river stink. Sweetgrass. One of the ceremonial herbs most loved by The People. I remembered the glimpse I had of his blood-covered face, eagle-sharp chin and nose. Yeah. Tsalagiyi: The thought burbled up from the dark of my mind. He could be a Cherokee turned by a vamp. I could be chasing someone like me.
I pulled onto the shoulder, stopped the bike, and put my boots to the pavement for balance. Closed my eyes. Smelled with everything I had in me, Beast alert and tense, her claws pricking my mind. Sweetgrass . . .