“Rhoan, we need an ambulance.” I lowered her gently to the floor and looked up at Azriel as he materialized beside me. “Is she going to die?”
“Yes,” he said. “He may not have drained her blood, but he has drained her spirit.”
I closed my eyes and fought the useless rise of anger. Vonda’s sister was still out there, and getting angry wouldn’t find her any faster. “Is there anything left of her mind now that he has released her? Or has he drained that, too?”
“She is mentally present.”
“Can you read her?”
He hesitated. “No. Her thoughts are blocked. I would damage her mind further if I broke past them.”
She was dying anyway, so it wouldn’t really have mattered, but I guessed it came down to reaper rules. He couldn’t do anything that might harm an innocent.
Which meant I had to do this the hard way. I pinched her pale cheek as hard as I could. It was a mean thing to do to someone who was dying, but I really had no other choice. She might just hold the key to finding not only her sister but the crackpot behind these murders. “Vonda, wake up.”
She murmured something that sounded decidedly unladylike, and made a weak movement with her hand, as if trying to swat me away.
I pinched harder. “Vonda, your sister is in danger. We need your help to find her.”
Her eyes fluttered briefly open, but there was little life or understanding in the green of her gaze. “Dani?” she murmured. “No.”
I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Yes, Dani. Where is she? Where did she go?”
“Club.” It was so softly said it was little more than a sigh of air.
“What club, Vonda?” I looked around as Rhoan came in. He glanced from me to the woman, and motioned me to continue. “You need to tell us or Dani dies.”
Distress ran briefly across her pale features. She made a couple of attempts to speak before finally saying, “Underground.”
Underground? Oh fuck, I thought. Surely she couldn’t mean those clubs—the ones that catered to vampires who were addicted to feeding from blood whores, humans whose whole life revolved around the ecstasy of a vampire’s bite. The council had no intention of ever allowing the rest of the world to know about those clubs; the only reason I did was because one of the clubs was haunted by those who’d been killed there, and their anguish had summoned a Rakshasa—the same Rakshasa that had given me the scar down my spine before I’d killed it.
God, surely fate couldn’t be so cruel as to send me into one of those places again, could it?
“What club, Vonda?”
Her mouth opened and closed again, and though I leaned closer, I barely caught her reply. It sounded like “the Crimson Dive,” but I wasn’t completely sure.
“Where was she planning to go after the club, Vonda?”
Her eyes rolled back into her head and a small sigh escaped her lips. She was leaving us. I shook her again. “Damn it, Vonda! Who was your sister planning to meet? Where did she plan to go after the club?”
“Hartwell,” she murmured. “Zane . . .”
Her words faded away and her head rolled back. Azriel touched my shoulder, but it was a warning I didn’t need. I released her and closed my eyes. She was gone, and I really didn’t want to see the reaper who’d come for her. Didn’t want to see her soul—and any real chance we had of saving her sister—rise and walk away.
Rhoan squatted beside me and pressed two fingers against her neck. “Damn.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Hartwell and Zane aren’t much to go on, either.”
“It’s better than what we had, and at least we now know the reason behind the forehead branding.” His gaze met mine grimly. “I’ve called in a cleanup team. We’ll sort out the father and son, and go through the sister’s room—maybe we’ll find something to clarify what she meant.”
“We only have an hour.” I rose and rubbed my arms. “Do you know what a Kudlak is?”
“No, but I will soon enough.” He eyed me thoughtfully. “Did you catch the name of the club?”
If he was asking that, it meant the mike on the earpieces hadn’t been strong enough to catch Vonda’s whispered reply, and for that I was suddenly grateful. “I think it was Red something or other, but I couldn’t guarantee it.”
“We’ll run a scan and see if we can find anything that matches.” He thrust a hand through his short hair. “Can you hang around, just in case we find something?”