I reached into my coat pocket and slipped the weapon into my hand. It was the latest in laser technology - a palm-sized weapon that packed enough power to blow the shit out of the thickest brick wall. Needless to say, it had a pretty nasty effect on humans and nonhumans alike.
"Jack will have our skins if we laser that vamp before he questions him about his maker." Because the maker had the responsibility of care, and by letting his baby go rogue, he'd basically signed his own death warrant.
"I'd rather face his wrath than have a dead sister."
I grinned. "You just don't want to face doing the laundry by yourself."
"I can sweet-talk Liander into doing my laundry. It's your charming early morning cheeriness I'd miss."
"I'm fine as long as you feed me coffee first thing," I replied mildly. "And I wouldn't be placing bets on Liander doing your clothes. He sounded pretty pissed off with you last time I talked to him."
"Yeah, well, he shouldn't try placing unreasonable restraints on me."
"Didn't we have this very same discussion four months ago?" I did a quick peek around the doorway. Nothing but darkness. I blinked, flicking to the infrared of my vampire vision. Still nothing but rubbish-strewn emptiness. "I'm ready to head in."
"Me, too." He paused, "And yeah, we did have this same discussion."
"So, did you talk to him like I told you to?"
"Sort of."
Meaning he'd gone for the ignore-everything-and-give-good-sex option. No wonder Liander had a smile a mile wide the next morning.
And no wonder he was back to being an unhappy camper now.
"Can I remind you that a good man is hard to find?"
"Can I remind you're here to capture a vampire, not to lecture your older, more experienced, brother?"
I grinned. He'd beaten me into this world by a whole five minutes. "Heading in now."
"Me, too."
I snuck around the corner, keeping low and close to the wall as I scanned the immediate surroundings. The room was large, and had a wide platform running around the edges. It looked like a loading bay, one where the trucks just reversed to the ramp and the goods were wheeled directly out. Two double-swing doors were visible, one directly ahead and one to my left. The left one swung slightly - an obvious indication that someone had gone through it recently.
So why did the scent trail lead straight ahead?
I wasn't sure, but I wasn't trusting visual evidence, not in a place that smelled so much like a trap. I padded right, keeping to the walls, following the muted odor of death up the ramp and through the door.
A long hallway dotted with doorways greeted me. The air here was close, and had a stale, almost rotten smell. Like something had been decaying here for a very long time.
I wrinkled my nose and hoped like hell it was just putrid rubbish of the non-flesh kind, even as my wolf senses told me that at least some of the smells weren't.
Obviously, there'd been more victims snatched by the baby vamp and perhaps his maker than had been reported.
I continued on, opening each door and trying to ignore the more tangible signs of decay and death in each room as I went. The baby vamp couldn't be working alone, that much was obvious. There were at least ten whole bodies, as well as an assortment of various body parts - limbs, heads, and organs - scattered throughout the rooms. Even a newly turned vamp at the height of his feeding frenzy couldn't consume that much blood.
I eventually reached another swinging door. The scent of death was stronger here, meaning the baby vampire was closer. Much closer. Like just beyond the door. Trying for an ambush, perhaps? If so, he might have considered a shower first. His natural odor was a dead giveaway to anyone with a decent honker.
I stepped back a little and kicked the doors open. As they crashed back, I dove through, rolling onto my feet and sighting the laser's target on the vamp in one smooth movement.
He was younger than I'd presumed - a teenager rather than someone in his late twenties. This close, the veins under his pale skin were very visible, and were the healthy blue of a well-fed bloodsucker.
His sudden laugh had goose bumps fleeing across my skin. Not because of the low, chilling sound, but because his laugh reminded me of another's.
Gautier.
Did that mean our rogue guardian was the kid's maker? It would certainly explain how he'd escaped the Directorate for nine kills.