Page 33 of A Touch of Crimson
“Your wife didn’t cause this,” Vash snapped. “Adrian’s brought war on himself.”
Syre clasped his hands at the small of his back. “He claims she attacked him.”
“Fuckin’ ridiculous.”
“I would agree, but he said she was foaming at the mouth. Rabid. And he didn’t recognize her—he has no idea he killed my daughter-in-law. How is that possible, unless her appearance was drastically altered? Nikki’s been missing for two days. Who knows what was done to her during that time? She could’ve been poisoned with drugs.” He looked at his son, who’d often witnessed just how horribly a minion’s unique body chemistry could react to certain human drugs.
“Maybe it’s not Nikki, then,” Vash said quickly. “Maybe it was someone else.”
“It was her,” Torque confirmed hoarsely. “I felt the moment her life slipped away.”
Syre nodded, knowing that the bond between vampire and minion was doubly strong when love was involved. He always felt Shadoe’s deaths keenly, no matter the distance between them. “What do we know about the abduction?”
Torque scrubbed a hand over his face. “She was dropped off at the airport around ten o’clock. I called the coven at midnight, because she was late picking me up in Shreveport. Viktor was sent to look for her. Nikki was gone, and there was a trace scent of lycan dogs around the helicopter.”
Looking at Vash, Syre commanded, “Track the lycans. Bring them to me.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Her amber eyes were cold and hard as stone. A half-century ago, a pack of lycans had ambushed and killed her mate. She now harbored hatred so poisonous it was killing her in slow degrees. “I can get them to tell us what Adrian’s orders were.”
“If Adrian had something to do with it.”
Torque frowned. “Who else would be responsible?”
“That’s the bigger question.”
Vash cursed under her breath. With her waist-length red hair and black leather bodysuit, she deliberately embodied stereotypical vampiric beauty. She never hid her fangs, arguing that some mortals paid for vampire teeth veneers. “Adrian told you he killed Nikki. What more do you need?”
“Motive.” Syre arched his neck to relieve the building strain there. His fangs descended with the stretch, just as his former wings used to express his mood. “At his deepest core, Adrian is a Sentinel. That sounds simplistic, but it’s really not. He’s like a machine—he has his orders, and he doesn’t deviate from them. That adherence to accountability is his greatest strength—and his most predictable weakness. He wouldn’t suddenly go rogue; it’s not in his nature. To strike this way—this would be a countermove, not a first assault.”
“Maybe his orders have changed,” Torque suggested wearily.
Vash snorted. “Maybe he’s lying. He might’ve made up the self-defense story to cover his ass, with the ultimate goal being to piss us off and make us retaliate, so he has an excuse to come after us. Maybe he’s sending a message.”
“You forget, he still answers to the Creator,” Syre said wryly. “And if he wanted to make a statement, he would have pinned a note to Nikki’s broken body and left her on my porch. He wouldn’t leave any room for speculation. My guess? Someone wants us to blame him. More disturbing, he thinks I sent Nikki to him in some compromised state of mind, so the reverse is true: we’re being blamed for Nikki’s actions. Who has the most to gain from a war between vampires and angels?”
“The lycans.” Vash exhaled harshly and began to pace again. Her long-legged stride ate up the twenty-foot distance between walls, back and forth, at a speed that would give most mortals a headache to watch. “Underhanded and clumsy suits the dogs, I suppose. But I didn’t think they had the balls—or the brains—to wriggle out of the Sentinels’ collar.”
Syre smiled grimly. It was a testament to Adrian’s leadership that he’d kept the lycans in his service for so long. Somehow, he managed to keep each successive generation indentured by the bargain he’d made with their ancestors.
To this day, Syre admired the Sentinel leader for his foresight. The lycans’ finite life spans enabled them to breed. Unlike the vampires, who were sterile, or the Sentinels, who were forbidden to procreate. Adrian needed those lycan pups to supplement his Sentinel ranks, which had never been reinforced.
“Remember,” Syre said grimly, “the lycans are descended from our fellow Watchers. They’re distantly related to you and me, so certainly some of our rebellious temperament exists in them. And while they were little more than beasts when they were first infected with demon blood, their mortality has given them an advantage—we remain the same while they’ve evolved.”
“So a renegade lycan or a few sets us up to war with the Sentinels. Why? Mass suicide? Their sole purpose for drawing breath is to serve the Sentinels. They’re stuck right in the middle.”
“Maybe they no longer want to be. Find the ones responsible for Nikki’s abduction, and we’ll ask them, but hold off on taking down any Sentinels for the time being.”
“We’re justified,” Vash argued.
“Do as I say, Vashti.”
“As you wish, Syre.” Pivoting, she went to the door. She moved like the huntress she was, with precision and deliberation. Syre trusted her with his life, just as he’d trusted her with Shadoe’s in her original incarnation. Vash had trained his willful daughter, instilling much-needed discipline in her, and together they’d been responsible for eradicating thousands of demons.
Vash hugged Torque as she passed him, murmuring a promise to hunt down the bastards who’d killed his wife. Then she left, taking her agitated energy with her.
In the sudden stillness that descended in her wake, Torque’s shoulders drooped as if the weight of the world was upon them. He’d Changed Nikki because he had fallen in love with her, bestowing immortality so that she’d always be with him. Forever.
Unfortunately, immortality was no safeguard against a Sentinel.
