A Perfect Blood (The Hollows #10)(39)
Author: Kim Harrison

Nina had shown up almost immediately after my call from Junior’s, making me wonder if she’d been waiting for it. Ivy and Jenks would join us when they could, and Glenn was probably on his way. I longingly thought of my coffee, left behind when I said I’d ride with Wayde. He’d had time to shave, but he was still in his jammies. We must look quite the pair, creeping down the service road with a Lexus twenty yards behind and two I.S. vehicles after that.

God, he smells good, I thought as I hugged Wayde. I lied to myself that I was just trying to stay out of the wind, but the reality was, this was the closest I’d gotten to another human being in months, and I wasn’t above teasing myself. My thoughts strayed to our conversation at Junior’s, and my focus blurred. It sure had sounded like the hint of an offer to hang with him for a while. True, he was kind of straggly looking right now, but I’d seen him out of his shirt and had been duly impressed. Unfortunately, though I knew that it might start with no strings attached, it would turn into something more. I couldn’t do that, as pleasant as it sounded.

Why again was I on this bike? Oh yeah. Avoiding Nina.

I pulled my head up as Wayde went by the two empty stadiums. Squinting, I pushed back from him enough to look at the amulet. "Keep going!" I shouted, and he motored on.

The wind increased as we slipped from the lee, and I hunched into him again. I was more than a little relieved that whatever my amulet had pinged on wasn’t at the stadiums. There wasn’t a game today, but I’d been banned, and if Mrs. Sarong found me poking around, it would strain our delicate relationship. Finding a mutilated body or the magic to turn a witch into a monster would have been the icing that made the camel trip . . . or whatever.

I shivered, not knowing what we’d find, other than it probably wouldn’t be pleasant. The sites that the I.S. had found had contained little more than a heavy moulage coating, a cage, and washed-down walls.

My eyes glanced at the amulet and my pulse quickened. It was getting fainter. "Turn around!" I said, squeezing his middle. "We passed it!"

But what had we passed? Nothing obvious. I’d swear that the amulet was focused on something between the expressway and the river, and there wasn’t much between them. Maybe there was an entrance to the forgotten Cincy tunnels down here.

Wayde flicked his turn signal on and made a smooth, probably illegal U-bangy and started back the other way. There were a few low buildings between us and the stadiums, and letting go of Wayde’s middle, I pointed at the buildings as we passed Nina and the two I.S. cruisers. No Glenn yet, and while Wayde took a left onto the service road, I tucked the amulet away and tried to get my phone out.

"What are you doing?" Wayde asked as my weight shifted and the bike swerved.

"Calling Glenn," I said loudly as I put one arm back around his waist and punched numbers with my thumb. I could barely hear the dial tone over the wind, and I eyed the low building as we approached it. It looked like an old office complex turned museum. Museum? I didn’t like the sound of that, and my head started to hurt.

"Rachel?" Glenn’s voice came over the phone, and I leaned into Wayde to get out of the wind. "Where are you? I’m at the coffeehouse. Are Ivy and Jenks with you?"

I frowned. Coffeehouse? What is he doing still there? "I was kind of hoping they were with you," I said. "I’m down by the stadiums. Nina was supposed to call you. I’m sorry." I looked up as we slowed, idling into a circular drop-off at the front of the building. "We’re at the Underground Railroad Museum. Huh. I didn’t know this was here." Pierce would like it, I thought, then squashed it. I doubted Pierce was still alive. He’d taken responsibility for my "death" so Al would take him into the ever-after instead of Trent. Pierce hated Trent, but Trent had been the only one who knew how to move my soul back into my body. There was no doubt that Pierce had loved me, but ultimately I hadn’t trusted him, his loose morals, or his questionable black magic. It bothered me, and a flash of guilt rose and died.

I was so messed up.

Glenn hadn’t said anything, and I pressed the phone closer. "Glenn?"

"I’m here," he said, and my foot went down when Wayde stopped the bike at the museum. "I’ll be there in five minutes. Don’t let Nina go in there without me, okay?"

I could hear the tension in his voice, his anger. "You got it," I said, turning where I sat to glare at Nina, now pulling up behind us. I’d be willing to bet she hadn’t called Glenn. The Turn take it, what was it with them? The important thing was that we stopped these wackos, not who got the credit for the tag. Besides, there probably wasn’t going to be anything here that Nina hadn’t seen before. Unless this was a cover-up? They hadn’t wanted the FIB involved at all until I forced the issue. What was a high-ranking I.S. vampire doing on a run anyway?

"Stop it, Rachel," I muttered as I swung myself off the bike. Nina was here because I’d jerked primary jurisdiction away from her, not because they were covering up anything.

Wayde tugged his shirt back down where it belonged, a strange look in his eyes when he took his helmet off and set it on the back of the bike. "You okay?" he asked, surprising me.

"Nina didn’t call Glenn," I said, handing him the goggles.

"And you’re surprised because . . ."

I gathered my hair in a thick, tangled ponytail, then let it go in dismay. I’d never get through the tangles. My front was cold from where I’d been pressed up against Wayde, and we watched Nina get out of her fancy borrowed car, shutting the door carefully, using two hands, actually polishing her fingerprints off with the cuff of her long coat. Clearly it was hers only for right now.

She’d taken the time to go shopping since I’d last seen her, and was now in a tailored pantsuit, purchased, I was sure, with the dead vampire’s funds. Her hair, too, had been styled, falling in professional, attractive waves. New, very expensive shoes finished the look, stylish yet comfortable enough to run in. They matched her handbag and new watch. Nice that he is making her descent into hell so pleasant.

Holding her hair against the wind, she talked for a moment with one of the officers from another car. A family came up from the nearby underground garage, the parents giving us a wide berth as they went inside with their kids protectively close.

My back stiffened when the officer talking to Nina turned, crossed the road, and went up the wide stairs to the big glass doors. "Hey, wait a minute!" I called, and Nina waved him on.

Jaw clenched, I strode up to Nina. "The FIB has jurisdiction," I said, pointing at the officer vanishing inside. "We wait for Glenn. Get your man back out here. And why didn’t you call Glenn? I just got off the phone and he had no idea where we were." Eye to eye with the woman, I glared at her. "Think he’s better than you? Worried you need the advantage to look good? You should be. The FIB is better than you want to admit."