Kissed by Darkness(28)
“How’d you hear that?” It was not something Kabita would have shared with him. She was generally close mouthed about my crazier excursions. She didn’t want to encourage him.
He shrugged. “I’ve got my sources.” Yeah. Inigo and his sources. “I also heard you finally met your Sunwalker.”
“Geez, the grapevine works fast. Yeah, I did. And he’s not my Sunwalker.” I scowled at him over my coffee mug. The steam brought a slight flush to my cheeks. Honest, it was just the steam. Nothing else.
He raised a single brow. He’d either been spending too much time around Kabita, or this was some weird family trait.
“Did you also hear I was attacked by a vampire after my date with the loser?”
He laughed. “Yeah, Kabita mentioned something.”
“Did she tell you that he was Kaldan’s flunky and that Darroch hired Kaldan to have me followed?”
He frowned and took a sip of his coffee. “No, she didn’t mention that.”
“Yeah, didn’t think so. She seems to be ignoring a lot of things lately.” I took a sip of my coffee then dumped in another spoonful of raw sugar. Better.
He leaned forward, his brow furrowed. “What’s going on I don’t know about?”
I shrugged. “Depends on what you know. Did you know Darroch is connected? As in government connected?” He shook his head, so I quickly ran down my conversation with Kabita for him. By the end, he was frowning even harder than he’d been before, which I hadn’t known was possible. His blue eyes were like twin shards of ice, so coldly angry. This was beyond furious. “OK, Inigo, now what do you know that I don’t know?”
He shook his head. “I need to deal with a few things, Morgan. I might be gone for a while. Do you think you can deal with things while I’m gone? Hunt Kaldan’s flunky, keep the Sunwalker under control and alive?”
“Uh, sure, no problem.” Well, the hunting part would be no problem, but controlling the Sunwalker was another matter entirely. I wasn’t about to get into it with Inigo, though, especially not before I’d finished my coffee.
Chapter Eight
After Inigo left on his oh so mysterious errand, I hopped in the shower. Nothing like coffee and a hot shower to get a girl revved up for hunting vamps. I lathered up with my favorite Champneys rose body wash. So, I had one girlie indulgence. Sue me.
I slapped on a little makeup, blew my hair dry, squidged in a bit of hair gunk so I had the whole spiky windswept thing going on and considered it good enough for hunting. I learned long ago that full war paint on a hunt was completely pointless. Vampires didn’t much care if you wore eyeliner and you usually ended up looking like a raccoon within the first fifteen minutes of a hunt. Better to go minimalist than end up looking like Tammy Faye Baker after a crying jag.
Not that there’s anything wrong with Tammy Faye. I quite liked her, actually. Just didn’t plan on asking her for makeup tips, should we ever happen to meet.
A few minutes later, I was dressed in my standard outfit of jeans and black T-shirt and standing in front of my closet contemplating footwear. I sort of had a thing for boots. Most girls went all gooey for a pair of spiky heeled Manolos or strappy Jimmy Choos. Not me. With me, it was all about the boots. Preferably knee high leather waffle stomper types with serious ass-kicking capabilities. Doc Martins were a particular favorite. And if you could hide a retractable blade in the toe, so much the better.
Hunting usually required a lot of walking, possibly some running, and the absolute certainty of getting lots of icky things like blood and brains and other stuff on your shoes. Spiky and strappy might look hot on the dance floor, but they did not make for good hunting wear.
I decided on my favorite pair of hunting boots. They were like army boots gone bad. They laced up all the way to the knee and the leather was supple enough to give me a good range of movement; plus they were a lot lighter than they looked. I could not only kick bad-guy ass, I could run like hell if I needed to, which, frankly, I’d rather not. Running was so not my thing.
I turned to give myself a critical once-over in the mirror. Didn’t want to go out with something hanging out that shouldn’t. Except it wasn’t my reflection staring back at me from the mirror.
He wore chain mail and a dirty white tabard with a dull red cross on the front. His long hair was tangled and coated in dust so it looked nearly gray. Blood seeped through a cut on his stubbled chin, while his fist clutched a gory falchion sword. Screams of dying men abraded my ears; the stench of death stained my nostrils. I swallowed hard as eyes the color of a sun drenched ocean glared back at me. I knew those eyes.