Chapter 9
My fingers twitched with the need to feel Amaya in my hands, but my sword was, for once, quiet. Whatever was happening here, she didn’t sense an immediate threat.
I forced a smile, then walked toward the woman and held out a hand. “I’m sorry to intrude like this, but I’m looking for Vonda Belmore. I don’t suppose you know where she is, do you?”
The woman didn’t shake my hand—she didn’t even look at it. Nor did she immediately respond to my question. She just stared at me in an oddly dead way.
I let my hand drop to my side and stopped just beyond her reach. But it was still close enough that I could smell the wound on her forehead, and it was rank. It was almost as if her flesh had rotted away rather than burned.
My gaze swept the rest of her. She was statuesque, with fine, almost regal features and silvery hair that was cut short but well styled. She was also a vampire, which, when combined with the wound on her forehead, meant this was more than likely Vonda. But I wasn’t about to admit that knowledge. Better to play the game, whatever the hell the game was.
“I do know Vonda,” the woman said eventually. Her voice was whispery and, like her gaze, lacked any sort of life or warmth. “She faces you.”
Vonda might be facing me, but she wasn’t the one forming the words.
He was doing that.
He was in her mind, controlling her. Maybe even seeing what she saw.
It was certainly one way for a blind man to check out his adversary.
Azriel, are you able to get into her thoughts? Can you catch anything about the man we hunt?
I am only able to read the minds of those who are in the same vicinity. She currently has no thoughts of her own, and while he may control her, he does so from a distance.
I guess I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, and barely resisted the urge to run from this freak show. Or at least run from the freak behind it. The only reason I didn’t was because it wouldn’t help—this was a game and, for whatever reason, it was one he wanted to play with me.
“And why are you here rather than in your own house, Vonda?”
“I knew you were clever. I just wanted to see how observant you were.”
“So I’ve passed the test?”
“Yes and no.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you found one, but you did not find the other.”
I stared at him—her—for a moment, my stomach churning as I remembered that Vonda didn’t live alone. “You’ve taken her sister?”
“You weren’t paying attention, huntress. Did I not say victims, plural, last time we spoke?”
Like I was supposed to understand the nuances of every word spoken by a crackpot? “Taking two women at once doesn’t follow your usual pattern, and I suspect you’re a man who likes his patterns and rules.”
“Indeed, I do. But I have never come across twins such as these before.”
“What is that supposed to mean? And what have any of these women done to you?”
“They are not what they pretend to be. They are Kudlak, and therefore must be destroyed. That is my destiny, huntress. It is my task by birthright.”
It was his birthright to hunt harmless women? Sanity and he really weren’t on speaking terms. “I have no idea what a Kudlak is, but I know these women are vampires—and harmless ones at that. You’re mistaken—”
“No, I am not. Nor am I about to argue.” The words were snapped, the tone annoyed. “The sister has an hour left.”
And with that, the woman collapsed.
I lunged forward and caught her just before she hit the floor. The mark on her forehead was even more putrid this close, and her breathing was shallow and uneven, even for a vampire.