First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World #1)(6)
Author: Jeaniene Frost

Spade forced himself back into a businesslike mentality. "Let’s get you dressed," he said. "Once we’re some where safe, I’ll contact Crispin. Tell him where he and Cat can collect you."

Denise’s eyes snapped open. "No."

"No?" Spade repeated, surprised.

She gripped his hand with more strength than he thought her capable of. "You can’t tell them. Cat will drop everything to go after Raum, but he’s too strong. I – I saw what he’s capable of. I can’t let her fight him, and if she knows about this, she’ll try."

"Denise." Spade made his voice very reasonable. "You can’t just wander around pretending you don’t have demon brands on you. You have to find a way to remove them, and – "

"I know how to get them off."

Spade’s brows went up. Did she now?

"The demon wants me to find an old relative of mine named Nathanial," Denise went on. "Seems Nathanial hocked his soul and then ran off without paying. The demon thinks he’s hiding out with vampires or ghouls. If I find Nathanial, bring him to Raum, I get these brands off and Raum leaves the rest of my family alone."

Spade found his voice amid his amazement. "And if you don’t deliver this Nathanial to the demon?"

A shudder went through Denise. "Then Raum’s essence keeps growing in me…until I turn into a shape-shifter like him."

Chapter Three

Denise glanced away from the road. If she wasn’t in such dire circumstances, she was sure her life would be flashing in front of her eyes. Spade drove like a bat out of hell, weaving in and out of traffic with dizzying efficiency and no regard for the speed limit. When she’d pointed out that if he kept it up, a cop would soon pull him over, Spade had only smiled and said he was hungry anyway.

She had a feeling that he wasn’t kidding.

To avoid looking at the blur of cars and scenery passing by, she studied Spade instead. His hair was pure black, lifting in what looked to be a natural spike off his crown to hang in shiny waves down to his shoulders. Brows the same inky color framed burnt-amber eyes. Both were in vivid contrast to his skin, which had the beautiful crystal paleness that marked him as a vampire. Even sitting, he was obviously very tall, but his height didn’t look awkward on him as it did with some people. No, Spade towered over people around him with a straight-spined confidence, his long limbs moving with grace and precision. Deadly precision.

Memory flashed in her mind. "You just stand by my buds while your friend and I get in this backseat," the grinning stranger said, grabbing Denise. In the next instant, he was on the ground, nothing but red gore where his head had been. Spade stood over him, his eyes flashing green as he kicked the man’s body hard enough for it to dent the nearby car.

Then the worst memory of all. Spade, covered in blood, pulling her away from what used to be Randy. "He’s gone, Denise. I’m so sorry…"

She looked away. Better to stare at the nausea-inducing rush of scenery than at him. After all, the whirring of cars outside the window didn’t stir her memories as he did. When she was away from vampires, she could pretend Randy really had died in a car accident, as his family believed. But every time she was around vampires, sooner or later, memories of blood and death that she’d tried to suppress came to the surface.

And now she had no choice but to immerse herself in the last place she wanted to be – deep inside the vampire world.

"I’ll need to hire someone to take me around to, you know, places where your kind hangs out," she said, mentally calculating how much cash she could get on short notice. "I’d appreciate it if you could refer me to a vampire private investigator or whatever equivalent you have."

Spade gave a look she was fast getting sick of; the kind that said he thought she was crazy.

"A vampire private investigator?" he repeated. "You’re putting me on, right?"

"I know you have vampire hit men, so why wouldn’t you have vampire private investigators, too?" she flared back. "I can’t just run an ad with Nathanial’s description on it titled ‘Have you seen this soul welsher?’"

Spade’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. "No, you can’t," he said in a calm tone. "But vampires don’t have vampire private investigators. If we want to find someone, we ask our Master to contact other Masters to see who owns this missing person. Then whatever business is sorted out between the two Masters. We have undead hit men for the times when vampires want to skip that formality and don’t care about the consequences. It’s unheard of for a human to contact other Master vampires in search of someone’s property, which is what Nathanial would have to be. And no Master vampire with any self-respect would offer up his property so you could take him to be sacrificed."

Denise hated how casually Spade referred to humans as property. He didn’t even seem to be aware that it was insulting.

"Then I’ll hire a hit man and just tell him not to kill Nathanial. What will he care, if he gets paid to deliver a live person versus a dead one?"

Spade muttered something under his breath that was too fast for her to catch.

"What?" she asked, with an edge.

He stared at her long enough that she almost snapped at him to keep his eyes on the road.

"No vampire will steal another vampire’s property for a human, no matter how much quid you offer. That risks war, whereas killing some bloke with no evidence as to who did it is much simpler. You might be able to get a vampire to blow Nathanial’s head off for a fee, but you won’t get one to kidnap him."

Denise felt like pounding on the dashboard in frustration. There had to be someone who could help her. Who else did she know that was dead?

"I’ll ask Rodney," she said with a burst of inspiration. "He’s not a vampire, he’s a ghoul. Rodney knows me, so maybe he’d be willing to find Nathanial without anyone knowing who did it or getting messed up in vampire politics."

A muscle ticked in Spade’s jaw. "Rodney’s dead."

Denise didn’t say anything for a long moment. Her mind was too busy rejecting the idea that the sweet, funny ghoul she’d known was dead. Decapitation is the only way to kill a ghoul, she’d flung at Raum earlier. That knowledge made her sick now. Why, why, why would anyone murder Rodney?

"He was a good man. It’s not right," was what she said after the silence stretched.

Spade grunted. "Indeed."

Denise wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and not have to think about death for a week. Or a day, or even an hour. But unless she found Nathanial, her family’s deaths loomed on the horizon.

She’d have to involve Cat. Bones was a Master vampire and a former hit man, so he had the expertise of finding people combined with the clout in the vampire community. It was the only logical choice – except that Bones would feel honor-bound to save her, if things got too hairy and dangerous. I already got my husband killed, Denise thought dully. How can I live with myself if I get my best friend’s husband killed, too?