"How about tonight?"
"It'd be my pleasure."
I raised an eyebrow. "It had better be mine, too."
He chuckled softly. "Oh, I guarantee it. But I do need a contact number."
"If you've got the pen, I've got the number."
He produced a pen and a bit of paper from under the desk and slid both across the counter with his left hand. For the first time, the ring on his finger was fully visible.
On the flat silver surface was a three-headed dragon with wicked claws and bloodred eyes.
Just like the ring I'd found in the dust at Dunleavy's place. everal heartbeats, I didn't move. Scarcely even dared to breathe as I listened to the wind, sorting through the scents that ran with it, nothing the sounds that ran underneath it. There was no hint of life - or even unlife - coming from this flat. Only from those behind me.
Gautier might have been here, but he wasn't now. I'd feel him - or any other vampire, for that matter.
And while part of the excrement scent was definitely his, there more to the smell than simply his presence. It had a very human aroma to it - and the one thing Gautier had never been was human.
Meaning someone had probably shit themselves inside the town house. Of course, anyone who had any brains would be scared shitless by Gautier. He was one nasty mother.
I stepped back from the door. The lock was in place, and there was nothing to indicate it had been forced in any way. If Gautier had been here, he hadn't come through the front door to get at Dunleavy. Though the only way he could have forced his way through the door in the first place was if Dunleavy had previously invited him in. If there was one rule about vampires that was true, it was the fact that they couldn't cross thresholds uninvited.
"I called the cops, you know."
I wasn't sure what leapt higher - my feet or my heart - and even as I spun around, I was reaching for the weapon I didn't have. Mainly because I'd taken it off near the coat stand at home last night, and had gone back to pick it up in my rush to get out Kellen's door this morning. Jack would have my hide if he found out.
Thankfully, I didn't need it. The voice belonged to the sharp-faced old woman from the first flat. I took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing pulse and ignore the fact that it could have been anyone who'd crept up on me. God, I was still so green at this, I was a danger to myself.
"What?" I said, perhaps more brusquely than I should have.
"I called the cops."
Great. Just what I needed to deal with on top of a possible murder. "And you'd be Mrs... ?"
"Ms. Radcliffe." She drew the knitted shawl draped over her frail shoulders closer to her body as the wind gusted again.
"Ms. Radcliffe, I'm a guardian." When her expression showed little comprehension, I added, "With the Directorate of Other Races." I grabbed my badge - which I always carried - and showed it to her. "I'm here to talk to Mr. Dunleavy, so there was no need to report - "
"Not now," she interrupted, expression suddenly cross. "Before. When all that racket was happening."
"Before when? And what sort of racket are we talking about?"
"Must have been seven-thirty, eight o'clock, something like that. And the noise - " She sniffed. "Sounded like they were throwing things about and smashing up the place."
"No screaming? No arguing? Nothing like that?"
"No. They were quiet this time - except for smashing things up, that is."
"They who?"
"Him and his dirty little piece."
I raised my eyebrows and somehow resisted the urge to grin at the bristling disapproval in the old girl's voice. "His girlfriend?"
She sniffed again, and somehow managed to make the sound disparaging. "If that's what you want to call her."
"What does she look like?" Not that I actually wanted to know, but I had no idea how good the old girl's sight was. Maybe she'd seen Gautier and didn't realize it.