Souljacker Read online

  I let out a long sigh. “Yeah, I know. But chaos demons? They’re such a barrel of laughs.”

  “I know, I know…but he’s good at what he does.” She softened. “So, how are you?”

  “It goes…same old, same old.” I hesitated. Maybe it wasn’t the wisest thing to do, but I caught her gaze and asked, “So, are you seeing anybody?”

  She blinked, then slowly nodded. “Yes, actually. I am.”

  “A werewolf?”

  “No, he’s…he’s human.”

  At my double take, she shrugged. “What did you expect?” But there was an edge to her voice that told me she was bristling. No doubt she had taken a lot of flack from her friends. Weres weren’t big on interspecies marriage or courtship, either. In fact, Weres made conservatives look liberal.

  “I just…I just wondered. I want you to be happy, Jolene. I miss our friendship.” And I realized that it was true—I missed hanging out with Jolene, having a beer in the evenings with her while we sat on the porch talking about our day.

  She must have caught my mood, because she let out a shuddering sigh. “I miss it too. Maybe…maybe somehow we can get back there. Or to a new place. I’ll call you later this week. We’ll talk.” She glanced over at the window and suddenly, the Jolene I remembered vanished and the cop reappeared.

  “Okay, the coroner is here. We’ll get Tygur out of your house. Strengthen your wards and find the weak links. If you’re interested, call me for Archer’s number—I don’t have it on me.” And with that, she got back to work.

  After the corpse wagon had come and gone, and Jolene and Lucas cleared out, Nate and I sat at the table, silently bingeing on cookies and tea. Nate graciously avoided asking any questions. He had been there during the big blowup, and he knew better than to drag it back over the coals.

  But seeing Jolene had disconcerted me. I wanted to tell myself our friendship had been a train wreck—and it had been a spectacular one—but it was hard to let go of someone I cared about.

  At least the interruption had taken my mind off the hunger for a little while, but now it slammed home again. I needed to feed. If Nate left, I could head into the streets. I was about to ask him to go home when the phone rang.

  Relieved, I grabbed my phone and glanced at the caller’s name. Dani Halloran.

  “Dani, thank the gods you called. I need to talk to you, the sooner the better.”

  But she overrode me. “Lily? We have a problem.”

  Uh oh. She didn’t sound happy. Dani was Irish, with a temper to match, and when she was upset, heads rolled. Sometimes, other body parts rolled right along with them.

  “Just what I need. What’s going on?”

  “Rebecca’s dead. She’s been murdered.”

  My stomach lurched. Rebecca was a member of Dani’s coven. “Dani, come over now.”

  She paused, then said, “Before I do, I need to tell you something else. I’ve heard rumors on the street and I think they may play into Rebecca’s death.”

  A premonition swept over me. Whatever she had to tell me was sweeping in with trouble and mayhem and death. I felt like I did before a thunderstorm hit, when the air was charged.

  I steeled myself. “What did you hear?”

  “Charles Schafer escaped. They think he made his way back here to Seattle. I’ll be over in ten minutes.” And with that she hung up. I stared at the phone in my hand, very still.

  The Souljacker was back. Which meant that a whole lot of people, including Dani, Nate, and myself, were in danger. Because Charles, aka the Souljacker, was stark, raving mad. And the Souljacker? Was a vampire.

  Chapter Four

  The Souljacker. My stomach lurched. I slowly set my phone on the table, staring at it like it had suddenly turned into a snake. “Nate, you’d better stay until Dani gets here. She has some news that you should hear too.”

  Nate refilled our mugs. “Something tells me I’m not going to enjoy this little coffee klatsch, am I right?”

  I let out a soft laugh. “I’m afraid you’re right. Wait here, and don’t fall asleep. I want you awake and on your game while I’m in the other room.”

  I headed into the parlor, ready to open up a long chapter of my life I thought I had left behind. All that remained from a lifetime that seemed so very long ago were my memories, and the mementos put away in a big oaken chest. After closing the door behind me, I knelt by the massive chest. Four feet long, three feet high, and two feet in depth, the trunk had been a gift from someone I had once loved too dearly. I hadn’t opened it in seventy-five years.

  I sat down on the floor, cross-legged. The key to the chest dangled from a charm bracelet that I never took off.

  As I fiddled with the clasp, Whisky came running into the room. Sleek, with taut muscles, his coloring made him look a lot like a snow leopard, and his eyes were luminous and blue. His name was a misnomer, tricking people into thinking he was just one hell of a big, silly cat.

  “You play your part pretty good, bub.” I scritched him behind the ears. Mr. Whiskers purred. He put on a good act of being skittish around strangers. Truth was, he had a long history, and a lot of secrets. I’d saved his fuzzy butt on a cold November night six hundred years ago, and he had been my companion since then.

  Now, he nudged my leg. I tickled his chin. “Listen, I know what I said about the chest, but we’re in trouble. I have to do this.”

  He let out a purp and gazed up at me.

  I shook my head. “Sorry, bub. You can’t do much good on this one. But do me a favor?” He gazed at me, waiting. “Be careful, please? Vampires don’t like being anywhere near cats, but that doesn’t guarantee they won’t try to hurt you. And…oh, when Dani gets here, hang around and listen, okay?”

  With a chattering sound, he padded off toward the kitchen.

  I fit the key into the lock and opened it, swinging back the lid. I stared at the tray lined with red velvet. It was filled with letters, photos, and other mementos, most from the days when I had remained undercover, before the world knew my kind actually existed.

  One of the pictures caught my eye and I froze, staring at the haunted face looking back at me. I had tried to forget him for so long, but he still wandered through my dreams. Marsh. He’d been…more than I wanted to remember right now. Biting my lip, I deliberately turned the picture over. Too much baggage and too many heartaches waited down that fork of memory lane. If I was smart, I’d rip up the photograph. But then, if I could bring myself to get rid of it, I would have done so years ago.

  Shaking my thoughts away, I felt along the sides of the tray until I found the indentation containing a recessed button. As I pressed it, a click sounded, and the tray unlocked from its position. I lifted it out and set it on the floor.

  Beneath the tray, the rest of the box was full. And there was what I was looking for, right on top. Slowly I lifted out the black leather sheath and withdrew a silver dagger from the scabbard, holding it up to the light. The blade gleamed. Forged from the scales of a silver dragon, the dagger sang, the metal smooth and satin-like under my fingers. It had been a long time since we’d talked, but I could still feel the murmur of magic running through the knife into my hands. My mother had given it to me before she died, and it had served me well.

  I set the dagger aside to sift through the other items in the trunk. First, the leg strap that went with the blade and sheath, and then wrist cuffs—also forged from silver dragon scales. Together with my pentacle, the dagger and cuffs were a matching set.

  I flashed back to the years when the roads had been no more than winding dirt paths through vast fields. When small towns and villages, rather than large cities, were the norm, and women traveling alone learned to journey unseen and unheard. The wrist cuffs weren’t particularly protective, but they helped me aim my weapons and strengthened my grip. They had enabled me to survive during a time when I had to protect myself on the road. A time long before cops and locks and wards and the future had become part of my life.

  And righ
t now, with the Souljacker on the loose, I needed to jog those memories, to remember what I had once been. Replacing the tray in the chest, I closed and locked it. With a soft shush, the chest once again went back to guarding my past, and I was ready to rock.

  I strapped the dagger to my thigh, smiling softly. “It’s been a long time since we were on this road together,” I whispered, unfolding my legs as I stood.

  The moment Dani told me about Rebecca, I knew the vampire that had been in my house was the Souljacker. I had no idea why, but with the way he had paused in the hall, I knew that he had been targeting both Tygur and me. I reached for my pentacle, closing my palm around the pendant. He hadn’t counted on my dragon-scale pentacle––the one thing I owned that even a vampire couldn’t get past.

  The doorbell rang and I hurried out to answer it. That would be Dani. It was time to figure out how our past had come to intrude on our present.

  I first met Danielle Halloran the day I moved into the Blood Night District. I ran into her literally and creamed her car. I was usually a good driver, but I was tired that day; I wanted to finally unlock the door of my new home and be done with moving, so I wasn’t paying attention.

  On the other hand, Dani was barreling down the street too fast. She had a lead foot and admitted to being a speed demon. As I turned the corner, she shot through the stop sign. While technically she crashed into me, my car survived and hers didn’t. Together, we turned her vintage VW Beetle into a crumpled mess.

  Dani escaped with a broken arm, and somehow, during the mess of medical bills, we realized that we hit it off. She wrote me a check for damages, and we started getting together for coffee several times a week. Within a month, we were best buds. As an added benefit, she stopped driving like a maniac, and I made it a point to look both ways at intersections, even when I had the right of way.

  Danielle Halloran was five-three at her tallest. Plump and curvy, she ran the Wandering Eye—a witchcraft shop. Her hair was shoulder length and smooth, black as ink. Irish by blood, she had a temper to match. I often joked to Nate that Dani might look soft and huggable, but woe to the person who laid a finger on her without her permission.

  Now she was waiting at the door, a stark look of terror on her face. Dani handled crises well. She was fearless to a fault. But tonight? She looked like she’d tangled with a ghost and had come out on the wrong side of the battle.

  I blinked. “You look like I feel. Get your pretty ass in here and sit down.” As she shrugged off her velvet jacket and hung it on the peg by the kitchen door, I noticed the new dress. Dani had an eye for fashion, except that she created trends rather than following them. “New?”

  “Yes, you like?” Dani slipped into a chair, looking exhausted. She was wearing a shimmering, plum-colored dress. With a deep, plunging neckline on the bodice, and the skirt cinched at her waist and flared out. She’d paired it with a silver-studded black belt and chunky heels. The heels gave her a good four extra inches of height.

  “I like it a lot. It wouldn’t fit my style, but it’s gorgeous on you.” I was five-ten, and while I was curvy in my own way, my figure was more athletic than anything else. I envied hourglass figures, but then, I could run without a bra, and Dani couldn’t. “Nate, pour Dani some tea?”

  As he filled the kettle again and replenished the cookies, Dani set her huge handbag on the floor next to her seat. The smile vanished from her face as, one finger at a time, she removed her gloves, laying them neatly over the handbag.

  Nate set the tea in front of her and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. She air kissed him in return. Dani never went out without her makeup. While her lipstick was smudge proof, she had perfected the art of the air kiss and golf clap for use with some of the social elite who came to her for tarot readings.

  “Hey, Gorgeous.” Nate winked at her.

  “How’s it hanging, Chiphead?” Dani winked back, but her sparkly nature was subdued tonight.

  “Low and lonely.” He sighed. “Low and luh-ohhhn-leee.”

  I motioned for Nate to top off my mug and, once more making sure the door was locked, sat down.

  Dani’s gaze went directly to my dagger. “You’ve been in the chest.” It was a statement, not a question. While I had never shown her the blade, I had told her about it.

  “Yeah, we’re going to need all the help we can get. My wards are fucked up, Dani.”

  “What do you mean? I made those myself.”

  “There’s a problem. Something happened to them. Dani, tonight a vampire got through the wards and killed Tygur Jones in my salon. I saw it leave through the wall when I went back upstairs after getting a drink. It started to come after me, then stopped and fled. I know the only reason I’m not dead, too, is because of my pendant. Dragon silver trumps a vampire every time.”

  Dani paled, and on top of her porcelain complexion, she looked like smooth alabaster. “Vampire? You’re certain?”

  “I smelled anise. And the black shadow passed through the wall.”

  “Lily, was there anything…missing from Tygur?”

  I frowned. “You mean was he robbed? His clothes and wallet were still here—”

  “No, what I mean was…” She let out a sigh. “When they found Rebecca, a strip of skin was missing from her shoulder. The shoulder where Charles tattooed her spirit leopard. The skin had been carefully excised, and the tattoo was gone.” She leaned forward. “Tygur was part of our group, wasn’t he? He had a tattoo, didn’t he?”

  “Damn it, now I remember what I was trying to tell Jolene.”

  Nate was leaning forward, a worried expression on his face. “Which was?”

  “Tygur had a tattoo. And yes, the skin had been flayed from his body. Jolene said a professional had to have done it. Or someone who had a steady hand and plenty of practice. Remember, Tygur was with us when we all decided to get ink during that big party when we were…celebrating Greg’s victory. It was his mother’s name tattooed on a rose. That was before he became one of my clients.”

  And that was what I had forgotten.

  Dani pressed her hands against the table. I suspected my mention of Greg’s name hadn’t helped matters. “This can’t be a coincidence. The Souljacker escaped from WestcoPsi two days ago. That gave him two days to hide himself in Seattle. And now we have two dead ex-clients of his? Both members of the India Ink Club.”

  Nate sputtered. “Wait just a minute! Charles is still alive? You told me he was dead, Lily. What the hell is WestcoPsi and why did you lie to me?” He looked like he might throw up.

  “I’m sorry. I just…” There was no good answer except that I knew how terrified Nate had been when Charles was turned. Since he had been locked away, it seemed easier to let Nate believe the Souljacker was dead. After all, WestcoPsi never let anybody out.

  “WestcoPsi is the West Coast Psionic Asylum—it’s a few hours away from Seattle, toward the mountains. It’s for nonhumans who are considered criminally insane. They hardly ever take vampires because they’re so hard to contain, so I have no idea why they let Charles in, but once you’re there, you never get out.”

  “Unless you escape,” Dani mumbled.

  “So they sent Charles there after he murdered that entire family? But the cops stake bloodsuckers who are mass murderers, if they can catch them. Now you tell me that he’s not only alive, but on the loose?”

  I reached out, about to use my powers to calm him, but stopped myself. Dani noticed his discomfort and leaned over to rest a hand on his arm.

  “I’m sorry, Nate. We didn’t tell you because…well, he was locked up, and we just wanted to put it behind us. I only found out that he escaped about an hour ago.” She stroked his arm for a moment and he began to breathe normally again. Dani might not be a succubus, but when she put her mind to it, she could make people relax.

  “You said Rebecca is dead, too? And that her tattoo was excised just like Tygur’s?” Nate leaned his elbows on the table, staring at his hands, anger and sorrow crowding out any sign of
his usual good nature. “She was nice. I liked her.”

  Dani ducked her head, her long lashes fluttering softly. “Yeah. She was killed last night, but they just found her about two hours ago.” She glanced over at me. “I don’t even want to know what he could be thinking.”

  “This is leading us down the rabbit hole. A long, dark, dank, terrifying pit. And we really don’t want to go tumbling in.” I glanced outside at the sky. Though it wasn’t full dark—the snow put up too much of a reflection against the silver clouds for that—I really didn’t want to think about what was waiting out there in the night for us.

  Apparently, Nate didn’t want to think about it, either. “Before we jump to conclusions, we need to calm down. Maybe…maybe we’re wrong. This could just be one hell of a wild coincidence. They do happen, you know.”

  “Maybe, but you know this isn’t one of those times.” Dani shook her head. “Face reality now and it might save our skins, because you know the cops won’t have any hope of protecting us, even if they had the resources to guard us 24/7.”

  “Let me think,” I said, holding up my hands. “Yes, I do think this is the Souljacker’s work, but we have to know for sure. Tell you what. Jolene promised to hook me up with a PI. He might be able to help us out. Because Rebecca and Tygur? Their murders are closed cases. The cops just don’t have the ability to handle vampire kills, no matter how much they want to. Jolene pretty much told me that if we want any more answers, the ball’s in our court.”

  “You called Jolene?” Dani’s voice was soft. She knew all about my friendship with Jolene and why it had gone south.

  I nodded, biting my lip. “It wasn’t an easy call to make, either.”

  I glanced down at my leg. Beneath my jeans, a beautiful phoenix in blue and orange trailed down from the top of my left hip to encircle my ankle with its tail. It brought out my inner self. When I looked at it, I felt like all my masks had been lifted. “So…the Souljacker escaped…”

  Silently, Nate pulled up his sleeve. On his left bicep, a brilliant purple skull shimmered under the light, encircled by a sleeping gray kitten. Dani shrugged the shoulder strap of her dress down, exposing a forest nymph on her right breast. It held a bottle of poison in one hand and a glowing orb in the other.