"Nikki? You okay?"
Jake's voice came from her right. Another warning prickled across the back of Nikki's neck. The woman was on the move, circling. Heading for Jake.
"Behind you," Nikki gasped.
Something glittered in the darkness, and the smell of burning flesh stung the air. Moonlight glinted off silver as a knife arced through the air. Her knife, the one she'd used against the male vampire, now in the woman's hands.
A gunshot reverberated. Jake grunted, then something heavy hit the concrete. Silence returned. Oh God no…
She pushed upright, ignoring the pain, barely able to see as she staggered forward. Her feet hit something solid. She bent, reaching out, touching jeans, shirt, and then unshaven face.
"Jake," she said, her voice harsh, her throat constricted with fear. "Don't you dare die on me."
He didn't respond. She felt for his neck. His pulse was weak, thready . Jake, you can't leave me.
You're all I have…
Air stirred, brushing coldly across her back. Nikki thrust through the pain barrier, reaching deep. Energy burned through her body, fuelled by anger—fuelled by grief. She twisted and flung a bolt of energy toward the woman.
There was a thump, then silence. Nikki waited, fists clenched, kinetic energy dancing like fireflies across the tips of her fingers.
The sense of evil slowly dissipated, and the darkness became benign once more. Nikki pulled the cell phone from her jeans' pocket and called 911. Then she rose and walked to the crates where she'd last heard Matthew.
He was nowhere to be found.
Chapter Four
Nikki winced as the paramedic pulled the bandage tight. He glanced up. "Too tight?"
"Depends," she muttered. "Are my fingertips supposed to be blue?"
A smile crinkled the corners of the medic's kind blue eyes. "No, but you have to admit, it is a pretty shade."
"Yeah, but it's not a good look on fingers."
She glanced past the doctor and watched Detective Col MacEwan approach. They'd obviously dragged him out of bed. His normally neat brown hair was everywhere, and he wore a striped pajama top half-tucked into his jeans. "Any news on Jake?" she asked.
"Yeah. He's in surgery now, with wounds to his stomach and chest. The doctors are hopeful." MacEwan planted his feet behind the doctor and crossed his arms. "Now, you want to tell me about your little fight here?"
Nikki scrubbed her good hand across her eyes. She was hot and tired, and her head still pounded something fierce. All she could smell was sweat and blood and fear. She just wanted to go home and stand under a hot shower to wash it all away. The last thing she needed was MacEwan and his questions.
"It didn't start out as a fight, you know."
MacEwan snorted. "Never does with you. But it always ends the same, doesn't it?"
With people dead or missing, Jake in the hospital and her getting patched up.The unspoken words hung like a sword in the air. She glanced down at her newly bandaged hand and muttered a thank-you to the medic.
"Don't use that hand too much, or the clips won't hold," he warned. "And if you start getting a headache, I want you to come straight to the hospital."
She snorted softly. She already had a headache, and its source certainly wasn't the knock on the head.
But she nodded and waited until he'd gathered his bags and left before she looked back to MacEwan.
"The woman wasn't human. Neither were the men who'd accompanied her." He studied her for a minute, then dug a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. He lit one and took several long drags, blowing the smoke toward the starlit sky. "I suppose you expect me to believe that."
"You're the only one who will—and the only one I'll say it to. My official statement is that we were attacked by five unknown assailants—one woman and four men."
MacEwan's brown-eyed gaze was shrewd. "That doesn't jell with the number of corpses I have in that warehouse."
"There should be at least three—one with a broken neck, two with gunshot wounds."
"We've got two. And no sign of the kid you were following."
So one of the vamps hadn't been killed. She wondered if the woman had rescued him, or whether he'd simply slid away before the cops had arrived. "If you don't believe we were here following Matthew, check with his mother." She rolled her neck, trying to ease the ache.
"Oh, I did."
She snorted. Why was she not surprised? She and MacEwan might have come to a better understanding of each other during that whole Jasper mess, but that didn't mean friendship had blossomed as a result.
"And?"
"And it's the only reason your ass is not currently parked in a cell."
"For what? Having the audacity to defend myself?"
MacEwan smiled grimly. "Blowing someone's brains out is manslaughter, regardless of whether it's done in self-defense or not."
"I didn't blow anyone's brains out—a fact I think you'll discover once you run prints on the gun."
They wouldn't find Jake's prints, either, as he'd been wearing gloves—gloves that were now sitting in her jacket pocket. She'd taken them off him before the cops arrived.
MacEwan snorted. "Like I can take that at face value. The gun's registered in Jake's name, isn't it?"
It was, but they still had to prove Jake had pulled the trigger. Which would be rather hard, seeing she and the vampires were the only witnesses. "If the case is so clear-cut, why haven't you charged us?"
"Not saying I won't. I was just stating that Mrs. Kincaid backed part of your story, and it's the only reason you're still sitting here."
Great. Now she was going to spend the next twenty-four hours wondering when MacEwan was going to bust her butt and throw her in jail. Just what she needed on top of everything else.
She ran a hand through her sweat-heavy hair. "Don't suppose you saw anything in the warehouse that would give us some clue as to where Matthew might have gone?"
She hadn't had the chance to look herself. She'd stayed with Jake until the ambulance arrived, and the cops had pretty much followed the paramedics in.
MacEwan blew a smoke ring skyward. "Nothing that I can see on first glance. We do have witness reports of a car speeding down Ocean Road away from here at approximately the time you gave us."
She raised an eyebrow. "Don't suppose these witnesses saw how many people were inside?"
"Three. One woman, two men."
"Your witnesses had rather good eyesight, didn't they?"
MacEwan gave her a smile that was all teeth and no warmth. "It was a patrol car that spotted them.
They gave chase, but the perps managed to lose them."
"Back to driving school for them," she muttered. "What about the plate number?"
"Wyoming plates. We're checking it out."
She crossed her arms and frowned at MacEwan. He was being just a little too helpful. Usually he only provided information in small dollops—if that. "What are you after?"
He crushed his cigarette under his heel and gave her another wintry smile. "Help. Jake told me some time ago about an ability of yours… physiometry?"
Nikki's smile was tense. "Psychometry. The ability to touch objects and get some sense of the owner."
He nodded. "He said you can use it to trace people—that that was how you kept finding Monica
Trevgard."
She rubbed her arms. They'd been nowhere near quick enough to save Monica, and she hoped the same wouldn't be said about Matthew. The woman in the warehouse had given her the impression that
Matthew's death wasn't a first option, so maybe she had some time to find him yet.
"It's a talent that's a little shaky. It doesn't always work."
He shrugged. "At this stage, I'm willing to give anything a try."