There'll be Hell to Pay (Hellcat Series Book 6) (10 page)

“
We’re working backwards, trying to trace which direction the
van came in from,” he told her, handing over a steaming
mug.

Gabi accepted
it gratefully and wrapped unusually cold fingers around the warm
ceramic. Razor pressed more firmly against her right leg, his
fervent purr reassuring. Julius and Alexander took seats at the
long narrow table, and Fergus crossed his arms over his chest and
took up sentry position near the door.

“
Sash is already working on tighter security measures around
your stepfather and Byron. Is there anyone else you’re worried
about?”

His partner in
crime and ex-girlfriend, Lady Helsing, aka Sasha Beecham, was
equally as useful as Murphy, but a lot trickier to handle. Gabi was
happy that she’d become Nathan’s problem. As Julius’s security
manager, Nathan, in conjunction with the ex-military Werewolf
Patrick, oversaw every aspect of Clan security, both personal and
business related. Before the Kresniks were disbanded, Sasha had
been managing a city-fringe nightclub. She was astute when it came
to sniffing out the rabble-rousers and had an almost preternatural
ability to sense trouble before it erupted. As an ex-career
criminal, she could also spot the potential for security breaches
no one else would know to look for. Learning how to harness her
gifts for good was a work in progress, and one Gabi certainly
didn’t have the patience or fortitude for. Fortunately, Nathan had
the patience of a saint and an unflappable, easy-going nature that
allowed him to work with the platinum blond force of nature without
actually strangling her.

“
And have you traced the van?” Alexander asked. “Far enough
back to be useful?”

Murphy set his
mug on the table and reached for a stack of printed A4 sheets. He
spread them over the table in front of his audience.

“
It came in from the outskirts of the City, the same way the
unmarked van left the City.” He pointed to the van with its
illegible logos in several black and white pictures. “Giving more
credence to our theory that the unmarked van is the one we’re
looking for. The license plates are, of course, fake, but there are
a couple of distinguishing features that would help us positively
identify it if we found it.” He turned away and tapped rapidly on
one of several keyboards strewn haphazardly across the workspace. A
printer hummed to life on Gabi’s right, and Murphy grabbed the
emerging sheets. “We also managed to get a clear image of the fake
logos. We’re following up with sign-writing companies to try to
track the printer, but it’s the wrong time of night. We may have
more luck in the morning.”

“
You’ll do well to extend your search beyond the City limits,”
Alexander said. “These guys haven’t put a foot wrong yet; I doubt
they’d make the mistake of using a local firm.”

Murphy’s lips
pulled into a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Already taken
care of. We have a team ready to start canvassing in the
morning.”

“
Are there any other avenues we can investigate now? Anything
we can follow up?” Gabi asked. She was desperate to actually do
something. Sitting or standing around waiting for something to
happen, waiting for the kidnappers to reach out was slowly driving
her crazy.

“
If you’ve got any ideas, we’ll gladly work on them,” Murphy
said.

She didn’t and
the frustration of that… A dull crack followed by heat across her
hand and down her pants leg made her jump back, almost tripping
over Razor. Julius was beside her in a flash, catching her fall and
prying the broken remains of the coffee mug from her hand. “Shit,”
she hissed under her breath as Alexander and Murphy both leapt to
grab handfuls of paper towel from the kitchenette. Julius quickly
dried the cooling liquid from her hands and arm, and Razor set to
licking himself clean of the drops in his fur. She grabbed a paper
towel from Alexander’s hand and scrubbed at her pants with far more
force than necessary.

“
There has to be another way to track her,” she growled,
hurling the soggy towels into a bin. The dozen or so broken shards
of her mug were already at the bottom of it. With everything and
everyone at their disposal, how could there be nothing—no spell, no
person, no ward—that could help them right now? And then a thought
seeped into her mind. A thought so dark that she instantly
squelched it.

No.

But it was an
insidious thought, and once breached, it would not be contained.
She never thought she’d be desperate enough…

No, she wasn’t.
They hadn’t even begun to try to find her mother yet. There was no
indication that her mother would be harmed.

But the idea
just wouldn’t stop worming its way into her thoughts, tempting her
even as it repulsed her.

“
No, Lea,” Julius said, his voice soft in her left ear. “We
cannot resort to such measures. Not even in our time of greatest
need.” His hands touched her upper arms, gently as
butterflies.

“
Says who?” She rounded on him, instantly angry, her fists
clenched. “What law says I can’t summon the Wraith? It’s a Seeker;
there is nothing it can’t track.” Seekers were demons, ghostlike
creatures of the Etherworld, and she’d had more than one encounter
with them. They were dangerous, treacherous and powerful, and they
could track anything, anywhere. “We’d have my mother back in a
matter of hours.” Her voice had gone up several octaves, just shy
of screaming.

Julius didn’t
respond, but his eyes never left hers. There was no reciprocal
anger, no judgement, no condemnation. Just patient understanding.
No recriminations, no telling her how dangerous it was, how
impossible to summon a specific demon from the Etherworld, what it
could cost her…them, the City itself.

Red. Red. A
deep red mist erupted at the very edges of her vision as fury tore
through her. She roared unintelligibly and lunged at Julius, her
fists ready to pummel, to hurt, to kill.

Steel bands
fastened around her wrists, as unbreakable as they were gentle. She
struggled, spinning her body, twisting into her captor, throwing
her hip and swiping at his knee with her boot. Her move failed to
shift the bands that now held her even tighter in their grip. The
red grew thicker, obscuring her vision and dulling her senses.

“
Lea, my Lea.” A soothing voice washed through her mind,
blowing at the mist, trying to clear it.

“
No,” she growled, fighting harder, kicking out again. The fury
felt right, it felt good, it was part of her and it wanted to be
free. The shackles tugged her forward, forcing her hands down and
behind her back. Strong pillars enclosed her, and she was yanked up
against a cool, familiar wall.

“
The rage will not help us now, Lea. I need you back with me.
All of you, not just vengeance, not just fury. You are strong
enough to deal with this. We are strong enough to deal with this.
Come back to me.”

She didn’t want
to hear the words, trying to block them from her ears, from her
mind. But the crisp, cool breeze of his presence was so familiar,
so intimate that it was impossible to resist. Lips touched hers,
featherlight at first, and then, as she softened her stance, the
red cloud receding just a little, the kiss turned harder, became
demanding. She breathed out, opening her mouth to allow his tongue
entry. His grip around her wrists unlocked and his hands travelled
up her body, over her ribcage, up her back either side of Nex’s
sheath and into her hair.

As the last of
the rage burned away, Julius pulled back a fraction, his eyes
searching hers, his chest rippling under her fingers.

“
Hello, beautiful,” was all he said. She dropped her head to
his chest, suddenly exhausted. He folded his arms around her and
just held her.

The sound of a
door opening roused her from the semi-daze. She wasn’t sure how
long they’d stood entwined, but the last vestiges of the Rage had
dissipated. She looked up to see that the room was empty; Julius
had apparently evacuated everyone else.

“
There isn’t even any damage.” Kyle’s voice came from the open
doorway. “Very disappointing, Hellcat, are you going soft on
us?”

When she
glanced at the door, just his head was visible, the rest of him was
well protected by the wall. She wondered when he’d arrived.
Whatever he read in her face gave him the confidence to re-enter
the war room, his grin only slightly forced. He was followed
closely by Alexander, Fergus and finally Murphy. Murphy was the
only one human enough to have been at risk of serious injury, but
Julius knew that one wrong word from anyone around her could send
her over the edge. She’d made huge strides in learning to limit the
effects of Red Rage, even training herself to harness its blunt
savagery and use it to her advantage in combat situations, but it
was still a chaotic, volatile force—one she doubted she’d ever
truly control.

“
Kyle.” Julius’s voice was gently chiding.

“
Come over here and say that, Wolf,” she taunted, pulling away
from Julius and straightening her clothes. “I’m sure you’ll be
healed by sunrise.”

“
No, I’m quite happy over here, thanks.” His grin widened as he
purposefully kept the long table between them.

“
Do you think Werewolves taste like chicken?” Gabi asked Julius
mildly. A bark of laughter escaped her Consort and the tense line
of his shoulders relaxed a fraction.

“
I’ll hold him down while you cut a slice of his hide to try,”
Alexander offered. He liked Kyle, but still jumped at any
opportunity to torment him.

“
Where were we?” Murphy muttered, weaving through people,
equipment and furnishings to get back to his computer. His heart
rate was up, but he seemed largely unaffected by the interruption.
He’d heard them discuss her Red Rage before, but he’d never
actually witnessed it. Not having experienced it in its full,
devastating glory, he was probably wondering what the fuss had been
about. Unlike the rest of them, who were tiptoeing around her,
despite Kyle’s teasing.

“
I need something more substantial than coffee,” she muttered
as a hungry ache bloomed in the general vicinity of her stomach.
She felt the prickling whisper of Julius’s power over the skin of
her forearms and the back of her neck and knew he was sending a
staff member to bring her something. It would probably include
food: sweet, carbohydrate rich and lots of it. He knew her too
well.

“
We have a lead,” Kyle announced. “That’s why I’m here. Trish
is emailing some files, but I was close by so decided to touch
base.” He had her immediate attention.

“
Lead? What kind of lead?” she demanded.

“
On one of the drivers of the van,” Kyle said.

“
I’ve got the file,” Murphy called out.

Kyle nodded
towards the bank of screens, and they all gathered behind
Murphy.

“
Trish managed to pull a decent picture of the driver from one
of the cameras on the way out of the City,” he explained. “He had
the window open, and the wind had just lifted his cap away from his
face. As you can see, it’s a pretty clear image.” A black and white
image of a man popped up on one of the screens, his arm halfway out
of the window, as though he’d thrown something out of the vehicle.
He was largely unremarkable—Caucasian facial features, probably in
his early thirties, his hair still mostly hidden by the cap—but
Gabi had the disconcerting feeling that there was something
familiar about him. “She’s running facial recognition through
multiple agencies now,” Kyle continued, “but the local database
hadn’t turned up anything when I last spoke to her. She’s moving on
to international ones. Gabs, what’s wrong?”

Her distraction
must have been noticeable.

“
Do you know this man?” Julius asked her.

“
I…” She paused, her mind racing, flipping through faces and
names. “I just got this weird sense of déjà vu…”

“
Does he just look like someone you know, or do you recognise
the man himself?” Alexander asked.

“
I’m not sure.” Gabi caught the annoyance bubbling up inside
her before it leaked into her voice. “Just give me a
moment.”

A faint knock
at the door distracted them all. The door opened smoothly and
soundlessly to reveal Claudia on the other side, holding a large
tray laden with drinks and food. Both her hands were firmly
clutching the huge tray, making it impossible for her to have
opened the door.

“
Show-off,” Gabi chided Julius as Fergus strode over to relieve
the steward of her burden.

“
Expediency,” Julius said with a ghost of a smile. “Thank you,
Claudia,” he said and the door swung shut, once again without
anyone touching it. Until a few months ago, Julius would never have
used his Air-bending gift so casually in front of others. Only a
select handful had been privy to his secret. That was until
Benedict, the Vampire Magus Princep, had pointed out, in the middle
of a crisis meeting with all supernatural groups of the City, that
Julius was also a Vampire Magus. There were very few of them in the
world; Benedict only knew of one other, and no one was sure if she
actually still lived. While Julius’s main strength lay in
Air-bending, the ability to manipulate air in any way he chose, he
was also a better than average Fire-bender.

“
Print me a hard copy of that picture,” Gabi told Murphy, her
eye drawn to the tray. It had been nearly twelve hours since her
lunch with her mother and she really didn’t feel like eating, but
her stomach was about ready to try consuming itself.