Saladan’s fingers twitched, and Kal got in one good breath before the more experienced ley line practitioner flipped the polarity and it all rushed back into Kal in an agonizing flood. He couldn’t scream, couldn’t breathe. Racked with pain, he felt himself begin to fall unconscious. Trisk is going to laugh her ass off, he thought.
And then Saladan was gone, his fingers ripped from Kal an instant before the flood of ley line energy flickered and died.
Retching for air, Kal knelt on the floor, trying not to throw up as the sound of something heavy hitting the wall echoed in the small apartment. Still gasping, Kal wiped the spittle from himself and looked to see a vampire, his hundred-dollar dress shoes set firmly amid the remnants of the couch. With the casual indifference of the undead, the man watched Saladan slip down the wall and fall into a heap of black cloth and pale limbs.
“Mr. Niles,” Kal rasped as he recognized Sacramento’s master vampire. “Thank you,” he said as he sat up, hands still on his neck. “I can’t thank you enough. He’s off his rocker.”
The well-dressed, unconcerned man turned from Saladan. “That remains to be seen,” he said in his slight brogue.
Shaky, Kal got to his feet, not knowing if Niles was talking about Saladan being off his rocker or Kal being unable to thank him enough. Maybe he meant both.
“Kal. Kal! Let me out!” Orchid demanded. “You touch one hair on his head, and I’ll lobotomize you in your sleep, I promise you!” she threatened Niles.
Kal’s reach to break the bubble hesitated. She was safer in there. Uneasy, he looked at Saladan. It took a tremendous amount of skill to hold a circle while unconscious. Kal was lucky to be alive. He looked at the blood under his fingernails and hid them in a fist. So far . . .
“I have no quarrel with you, winged warrior,” Niles said to Orchid. “But I will talk to your charge before sunup.”
Shit. Something’s gone wrong. Pasting a pleasant smile on his face, Kal tried to slow his pulse. He knew Niles could sense it, and fear would only encourage the vampire to act. “You got my message, then?” Kal asked, his head hurting when he tried to tap a line and found his synapses were singed. With a grimace, Kal let the line go. He had nothing if he had to defend himself again. And though the sun would be up soon, Niles wouldn’t be standing in his front room if he didn’t have enough time to get belowground. It was likely his apartment building had an opening to Sacramento’s vast underground, dug out by a generation of Asian immigrants. Son of a bitch, I should have checked for those.
Niles turned to him, and Kal’s fist tightened, hiding the blood. “I’ve had a disturbing evening,” Niles said, eyes roving over Kal’s apartment. “It’s better now that I’m home, but I don’t like being forced to leave.”
The vampire was here alone. Could be good. Could be bad. Kal’s eyes slid to Saladan and back. “You didn’t find them, then?” Kal asked, trying not to show his fear. If Trisk blabbed, it would be twice as hard to shift the blame for the rogue virus to her or Rick.
“I did.”
Kal exhaled slowly, cursing himself when Niles’s eyes met his, recognizing his relief.
Eyebrows high in thought, Niles went into the kitchen. “They weren’t hard to find. Your suggestion that she was fleeing was correct,” he said as he used a dishtowel to open the oven door. “But before I burned her, she said something that concerns me. I think your baking is done. Let me take them out for you.”
“You burned her?” Kal asked as Niles set the tin on the stove to cool.
“I’m not sure.” Niles breathed deeply of the moist steam, eyes closing. They were pupil black when they opened, and Kal edged around his shattered couch, reaching for a tissue with which to clean under his nails. “Her truck exploded,” the vampire said as he carefully folded the dishtowel and draped it on the oven again. “But she and those with her might have escaped. We had to leave before checking for bodies, and you elves are tricky bastards.” He turned to face Kal, and Kal threw the tissue away with a wary quickness. Sunup couldn’t get here fast enough.
“She said she wasn’t in the lab when my child was burned,” Niles intoned. “She said it with such conviction that I believe her.” The undead vampire looked pointedly at Saladan, still not moving. “Why should I not believe her . . . Kalamack?”
“She’s a good liar,” Kal said, his head nearly exploding as he touched the ley line and filled his chi despite the pain.
Niles hesitated, clearly knowing Kal had teeth. “Tell me, Kal, did you know that the undead—and our living kin, to some degree—are able to see emotion after the person creating it is gone?” His attention shifted behind Kal to the brightening windows. “Your auras leave stains, and though we can’t suck them up like banshees, we can see them, sense them. At least until the sun rises and bleaches them out. It helps us find the vulnerable, the weak, the susceptible. They make me think she was telling the truth. It’s you, I believe, who is lying.”