Kissed by Darkness(39)

I had a feeling Jack was hiding something from me, something important. He knew something more than he was telling me, I was sure of it. He just wasn’t admitting it.

I scowled out my windshield. It pissed me off when people hid stuff from me, especially important stuff that might help me do my job. This felt important. I had a strong feeling the priest was the key to everything, I just didn’t know why.

My thoughts turned toward the kiss. It had been practically brotherly. OK, maybe more than brotherly, but it certainly hadn’t been anything to write home about.

My reaction, on the other hand, had been off the charts. It was ridiculous. How long had I been crushing on Inigo? And then this guy I barely knew came along and blew everything to hell.

Shit. Inigo.

I rubbed my forehead. Thinking about it was not improving my mood, so I popped in a CD, cranked the sound system and rolled down the window. Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” flowed from the speakers like a sign. I liked Tom Petty. Especially for driving. It was driving kind of music. Most people expected me to be into punk or heavy metal or something. I guess it sort of went with the whole vampire hunter persona, not to mention the penchant for leather and steel. But I was kind of old school.

The wind teased at my hair, sending violet red strands dancing around my cheeks. I loved the wind. It reminded me of the night down by the river, how I gathered the night … My brain stopped. I still hadn’t figured out what I’d done that night and I didn’t want to think about it yet. I turned Tom up a little louder to drown out my thoughts.

Avoidance issues? Me? My cousin, the therapist, seemed to think so, but I tended to ignore her. I called it self-preservation. She had no idea what I did for a living.

Sometimes thinking was good. Other times thinking made it too hard to face reality because frankly, sometimes reality was a just a little too freaky for comfort. For the last three years, my reality had been one freak show after another and overthinking things only made my job, and my life, harder than it needed to be.

I forced my brain to refocus. Darroch. I needed to talk to Darroch. I needed to figure out why he was pretending he didn’t have the amulet and why he wanted Jack dead. He was hiding something, I was sure of it, and I needed to find out what.

I needed to know why our government contact was insisting we do this job, no questions asked, because whether Kabita would admit it or not, our government liaison had something to do with all this. Yeah, there were lots of things I needed to know. Lots of people were keeping secrets these days. Brent Darroch was as good a place as any to start.







I smelled charcoal and cooking meat as I pulled up in front of Darroch’s house. I loved a good barbecue, but I was pretty sure Darroch was not going to invite me to stay. Not once I’d told him why I was there. I didn’t fancy hanging out with Darroch anyway, barbecue or no barbecue. Just thinking about him made my skin crawl.

Darroch’s neighbor was out watering his lawn again. Did this guy ever do anything else? He lowered his eyebrows at me, so I smiled and gave him a cheery wave. He hitched up his saggy pants, gave me a brief nod and went back to drowning his flowers. I was pretty sure he recognized me. Hard to miss the red hair. I was just hoping he hadn’t mentioned my earlier visit to Darroch. Guess I’d find out soon enough.

I didn’t bother going to the front door, just cut around to the back. Sure enough, there was Darroch and a couple of his goons surrounded by half a dozen swizzle sticks, I mean girls, in bikinis. There were also a couple of other unsavory types puffing on cigars and swilling down imported beer by the pool. Didn’t they know smoking was bad for the environment? They must not have gotten the memo.

I strode forward like I belonged there until one of Darroch’s goons caught sight of me and stepped into my path. He crossed his ridiculously muscled arms over an equally ridiculously massive chest and stood there glaring at me. His over developed shoulder muscles gave him the uncanny resemblance of a stegosaur. It nearly made me laugh, but I figured that laughing would be bad for my health. Instead, I crossed my own arms over my chest in an equally impressive manner. It wasn’t because of my muscles, obviously, but the sisters were definitely one of my best assets and I was not above using them to my advantage. He didn’t even blink. Where did Darroch get these guys?

The gods alone knew how long we’d have stood there glaring at each other if Darroch hadn’t noticed. “Clive, let the pretty girl in to play. It’s not nice to keep her standing there.”

I couldn’t help myself. “Clive? Seriously? Your name is Clive?”

Clive didn’t answer. He just glared for a minute longer before slowly stepping to the side and letting me pass.