Kiss of the Vampire(82)

“Look, I’ve said all I have to say. Good luck.” He disconnected the call.

Tobias hit the end button on his phone. “Well, hell. This just keeps getting better and better.”

“You’re talking about the council being aware of the transmissions?” MacMillan asked.

“That, and what he said about chaos.” Tobias clenched his jaw. “Someone I once knew used to say ‘Righteous men live in peace and think they’re free; only the enlightened can know true peace through anarchy and chaos.’” He clenched his jaw as memories seared him. The betrayal of a friend. The murder of a good man.

The never-ending guilt over the failure to protect.

Nix stared at him a moment, then turned to MacMillan and whispered, “Natchook.”

Tobias swallowed back the rage at the mention of his enemy’s name. The man who’d pretended to be his friend with the intent of gaining access to their people’s leader, whom Tobias had sworn to protect with his own life if necessary.

Natchook had in reality been quite mad and a revolutionary intent on plunging their people into anarchy. He’d used Tobias for years and, when the time was right, had killed their leader before Tobias could stop him. Then he’d bribed a few officials, gone through the process to be stripped of his physical body, and escaped through the rift with the rest of the undesirables.

It was only after the fact that Tobias had learned that the name Natchook was an alias, though he hadn’t had time to suss out the man’s real identity. He did discover, though, that the bastard wasn’t even from Tobias’s planet. He had a parent who was of Tobias’s species, but the other parent had been from another planet, another species entirely. Why Natchook had fixated on Kai Vardan was beyond him. But he had, and Vardan had lost his life as a result.

Tobias had chased Natchook from one dimension to another. He had no idea what his nemesis looked like in this world, but he knew he’d recognize him by his scent once he found him. And he would find him if it took the rest of time.

“This is just further proof that Natchook is behind this rift thing,” Nix said. “Otherwise, how could Braithwaite have known that saying?”

“You forget, Braithwaite is the same species as me.” Tobias glanced at her. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility that he heard Natchook say that before his Influx.”

“Did he come through the rift at the same time?” MacMillan slid back in his seat.

“I don’t know. Hmph.” Tobias thought it over, but couldn’t ever remember anyone discussing Influx dates in the same breath as Braithwaite. But he was pretty certain Braithwaite had come through the rift centuries before Tobias and Natchook had.

“Wait.” Nix gripped his thigh again. “Braithwaite said vampires and ‘now a human’ have been killed. How would he know that? We just found out ourselves.”

The three of them fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts. As the sun began to set, Tobias turned on the headlights. Within an hour he pulled up behind MacMillan’s truck, parked at the curb in front of council headquarters.

MacMillan opened his door but didn’t get out. “You know, if someone in there”—he jerked his head toward the building—“knows something, there might be a file that’s worth taking a look at.” He hopped out of the SUV. “Just sayin’.” His cell phone buzzed. He frowned and pulled it out of his pocket. “It’s my sister. Excuse me,” he said, and got out of the vehicle, closing the door behind him. “What’s up?” Tobias overheard him say as he walked a few steps away from the SUV.

Nix twisted in her seat and faced Tobias. “There’s a pretty big storage room in there,” she said. “With files that go back decades.”

“You really think they’d keep something like that in a paper file and not on a computer? Or, better yet, as an encrypted file on a flash drive?” Tobias asked.

“If that’s the case, Dante’s our man. He can look into that for us.” Nix unfastened her seat belt. “But I don’t want to miss the chance to find out if there’s something on site. Do you?” She opened her door but waited to get out, looking at him expectantly.

He stared at the darkened building. “Close your door.”

“Tobias, I know you have this whole we-need-to-abide-by-the-rules thing going on here, but I really think we need to do this.”

Tobias turned his head and stared at her. “With my SUV parked right in front of the building?” He lifted one brow. “I want to move my car.”

Before she could pull the door closed, MacMillan poked his head in. “I’m afraid I’m gonna have to leave you two kids to all the fun. I’ve gotta go.”