Vampires Dead Ahead

SEVEN



I STOPPED FIGHTING MY INNER DEMONS

WE ARE ON THE SAME SIDE NOW





“Do those inner demons like being spanked, too?” I said with a grin when I got a look at Olivia’s T-shirt as she walked in the door of our PI office.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Olivia smirked and tossed her Mets sweat jacket onto her desktop, causing a dozen sticky notes to flutter on the surface of the desk. A towering stack of thick folders teetered.

“Heh.” I closed the file folder on a Metamorph case I’d been dealing with and set it beside my large-screen computer monitor. “Truth is, I’m not sure I want to know.”

I should have known better. Olivia took that statement as a challenge.

“You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about a little tie-up play.” She flopped into the chair behind her desk. “Considering where you’re from and all.”

“All the more reason to avoid it.” I grimaced. “In my world it’s not a choice. It’s an expected way of life in the Drow culture. I only escaped it because of my human mother’s influence over my father. I guess it might be different to give up control out of choice. In my world, it’s taken. That is not alluring to me.”

“That doesn’t mean you haven’t thought about it. Besides, you can be the one to take control, which might be what you need.” Olivia put her elbows on her desk as she leaned forward. “Be honest. You’ve thought about it with Colin.”

Unexpected warmth crept into my cheeks. “I take it you got over being mad at Scott after Colin and I left.”

A sly grin crept over Olivia’s face. “Let’s just say he made it up to me. Although I told him he has more making up to do. I’m not letting him off that easy. We started again where we left off and then—”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough details,” I said.

“Hey, the rest was even more creative.” Olivia had a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “If you don’t want any new ideas for you and Colin, that’s fine. Change your mind, just ask.” She loaded an eraser, aimed, and missed badly.

“Colin and I … we’re not that far into a relationship.”

“Well,” she said, “my ideas will help jump-start it.”

I thumbed through one stack of files on my desk, looking for a case on a pair of Pixies gone bad, and changed the subject from me and Colin back to Olivia. “Colin thought it was funny that you weren’t even a bit embarrassed.”

Olivia snorted. “Hasn’t he ever seen a nearly naked woman before?”

“Apparently not one tied to a bed, ball-gagged, and blindfolded. Either that or it had been a while.” I shook my head at the memory of a very indignant, very pissed-off Olivia DeSantos. “I told him he didn’t know you very well if he thought a little thing like that would embarrass you.”

Olivia gave a rather wicked smile.

“Haven’t seen you in a relationship in a while.” I braced my elbow on my desk, my chin in my hand. “And definitely not one where you’ve moved as fast as this.”

Olivia shrugged. “Scott gets me.”

“He gets you?” I grinned. “The guy takes off to get Chinese food and leaves you practically naked, tied up, and gagged, and you’re saying he gets you?”

“Not everyone’s perfect. Just needs a few rough edges shaved off here and there,” Olivia said. “Besides, after I got through with him I don’t think that’s going to happen again. New rules for the fun-and-game times.”

“I have to agree with Colin,” I said. “That was one of the most entertaining scenes I have ever witnessed.”

She patted the side holster she was wearing. “Tell Colin he’d better not breathe a word of that story or I’ll find a way to douse his flames.”

I grinned. “I have no control over a Dragon.”

Olivia loaded a rubber band with an eraser and aimed it at me. I caught the eraser along with the one that followed. “Find a way,” she said before she shot at me with another.

My XPhone played “Runnin’ with the Devil” by Van Halen, one of my favorite 1980s hair bands.

RODÁN came up on the caller ID screen.

I caught the last eraser lobbed at me at the same time I brought the phone to my ear.

“Hello,” I said as I flung an eraser back at Olivia, who ducked behind her monitor. Chicken I mouthed to her as she reappeared.

Fighting words.

“Nyx.” Rodán’s tone was not normally so grim sounding.

I lost my focus on the eraser war and one pinged off my temple as I frowned and spoke to Rodán. “What’s wrong?” My instincts told me something was wrong and my instincts were usually pretty good.

“The situation with the missing Trackers has gotten worse.” Rodán’s words sent a chill through me. “There is of course the one missing Proctor, Monique,” he said. “An additional ten Trackers are now unaccounted for.”

My lungs burned as I sucked in my breath. “Eleven total are missing?” I looked at Olivia who now wore an intent expression as she listened to my end of the conversation.

“Dopplers, Shifters, Werewolves, and a Witch are among those who cannot be located. They are not just any paranorm Trackers. They are some of the best at what they do,” he told me.

“And one of the Light Elves,” I said, more to myself than Rodán as I mulled over his statement. “The San Francisco Proctor.”

“Yes.”

“Is there any evidence?” I tapped my fingers on the desktop. “Anything at all?”

“No evidence,” Rodán said. “However, in most cases, humans have disappeared in the general vicinity of where each Tracker went missing.”

“How do trained, skilled beings like Trackers and a Proctor disappear like that?” I glanced at Olivia as I spoke. Her forehead was wrinkled, and she looked deep in thought. “I would have thought it impossible a couple of months ago, before this all started.”

“We can’t sit idly by. I want to assemble two special teams,” Rodán said. “And I want you to lead one of them.”

“Okay.” I said the word slowly. “What is our purpose? To solve the mystery or to make sure this doesn’t happen to any of our own Trackers?”

“Both,” Rodán said. “You will lead the team investigating what you can of the disappearances from here, while setting up measures to safeguard our own New York team. We must be proactive in ensuring none of our own join the ranks of the missing.”

I nodded to myself. “Got it.”

“We will keep each of the fifteen territories guarded,” he said. “I will set up a meeting with other Proctors, but before that, I need someone I trust to begin looking into this.”

We’d only had twenty-four Trackers until Tristan joined us, replacing Meryl. She was dead thanks to Zombies and the same Sorcerer who had imprisoned Tristan in a stone for twenty-two years.

“Even though he’s not a Tracker—yet—I think Desmond would be a tremendous asset,” I said. “I’d also like Olivia, Joshua, and Colin.” My reasons for wanting Colin and Olivia were purely professional. You couldn’t beat having a Dragon and a former NYPD officer on your team. Olivia’s skills in tracking down people and information were exceptional, which made her an incredible PI, too.

“Excellent,” Rodán said. “I would only have expected you to choose those who will most benefit your team.”

“Is drawing the team together after tonight’s Tracker meeting soon enough?” I asked. “That’s still a good eight hours off.” The Trackers met almost every night at nine at the Pit, and right now it was only one in the afternoon.

“Yes.” He added, “I would like to meet with you alone tomorrow around four o’clock to see what you and Olivia have come up with between now and then. I’d also like to talk with you about the duties of your new position, should you decide to take it.”

I appreciated the fact that he hadn’t assumed. “Sounds good.”

“I need to speak with Desmond,” Rodán said, “so I’ll invite him to tonight’s Tracker meeting.”

“Great.” It would save me time trying to locate the Sorcerer. Rodán had much better methods of getting ahold of anyone than most of us.

“In the meantime,” he went on, “I’ll send you a list of the Trackers, the locations they are missing from, and the name of their Proctor, whom you need to contact to begin your investigation. Gather all the facts you can. Since Monique is a Proctor, I would like you to talk with her special team’s leader, Rodriguez.”

“Got it,” I said. “Olivia and I will be all over this.”

“Check your e-mail,” Rodán said. “And Nyx … watch for anything unusual. Be on guard. You’re good, but so were the Trackers who are missing,” he added before he signed off.

I gave Olivia the details of my conversation as I took a look at the e-mail Rodán had sent. I brought up the document on the huge wall of monitors. It had recently replaced my collection of Otherworld weapons, which included Drow-forged arrows with diamond arrowheads.

With my go-ahead, Olivia had removed the collection and brought us up to date with current technology. I had to admit that the monitors were pretty cool.

Olivia hadn’t stopped there with her technological revolution. Wireless headsets and direct access to major government and law enforcement databases were also among our upgrades into the modern and out of the Middle Ages, as Olivia liked to say. I’d told her many times that I came from a world forever locked in that age; compared with what I’d grown up with, we’d been cutting edge in our PI office.

We reviewed the document that I’d brought up using two of the monitors to make one supersize copy for us both to read. In the document, the missing Proctor and all ten Trackers were listed, as well as what race of paranorm they each were.

The information for each Tracker included his or her last known address, contact phone number, Proctor’s name and phone number, the territory the Tracker had covered, and the date that each of them had disappeared.

Olivia’s gaze swept over the document as she read it. “This gives us some basic information but doesn’t tell us a whole hell of a lot.”

I studied it and instinct kicked in. “It tells us that no Fae are missing, which could be significant. Of course that could mean nothing, too.”

Olivia used an electronic pointer to highlight the timetable. “In every single case, the disappearances happened ten days apart, from the beginning of January to mid-April.”

“With the exception of the two Los Angeles Trackers who vanished the same night.” I nodded as I spoke. “The territories of those two were close to each other. One was a Shifter, the other a Witch.”

“Two disappearing the same night,” Olivia said. “That doesn’t really fit the MO of the other seven.”

“What’s the significance of a ten-day lapse between disappearances?”

“You’ve got me.” Olivia slipped on her phone headset. “Ready when you are.”

I picked up my own headset. “I’ll take the Proctor and the first five Trackers on the list.”

She nodded. “I’ll get started on the others.”

I came to a complete stop and Olivia did, too. “It’s been exactly ten days since the last disappearance,” she said, saying what I was thinking.

“We need to have Rodán send a warning to all Proctors.” I reached for my phone. “If that is significant, someone could be in danger tonight.”