“Sir, unless you’re a witness or can identify—”
As a female officer came over to him, he didn’t give her the chance to get any further with the bug-offs. He busted into her mind and got the details he needed: Male victim on that grass had been stabbed and was dead. Car that was off the road was registered to a Christopher Wooden who had died in 1982 and lived ten miles away. Passerby who had a house in the neighborhood had called the scene in.
No other material anything—at least not that mattered to Sahvage. But that was definitely Mae’s car, the name on the registration an identity shield to keep things legal on the human roadways.
So where the hell was she?
And yet even as he asked the question, he knew. He was willing to bet that somehow, the brunette had come here and abducted Mae—
As his phone went off, he fumbled the thing out of his jacket to check the screen. When he saw who it was, for, like, the hundredth time, he flat out lost it.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake—what,” he snapped as he answered the call. “Can you fucking leave me alone—”
“You’re the one who called me, asshole,” the Reverend shot back over the connection. “And given what you’re looking for, I’d have assumed you’d have picked up your fucking phone one of the last four goddamn fucking times I called. Now do you want to find the Book or not.”
Sahvage looked at the dead guy and dragged a hand over the top of his head. “Unless you’ve got it in your lap, I have other priorities right now—”
“Meet me out at the city park where we were before. Fifteen minutes. If you want the Book, you’ll be there. This is your one and only chance. After this, you’ll never hear from me again and you’ll never find me.”
As the line went dead, Sahvage nearly threw his fucking phone at Mae’s totaled Honda. But he held on to the thing because he was still hoping, by some completely impossible miracle, that she would call him.
He was cursing as he glanced around—
And realized all of the cops on the scene were frozen and staring at him like they were ready to get a list of jobs. Or maybe a clue as to what their first names were.
He went over to Mae’s car. The driver’s-side door was open and he leaned in. Both airbags had blown, but the keys were still in the ignition. Snatching them out of their slot, he didn’t see where her phone or purse were. They might well be in the hands of the cops already, but he wasn’t worried about the CPD showing up at her house—and God forbid, finding her brother in that tub. Like the registration, all her IDs would be in the name of someone else with an address other than where she actually stayed. It was standard procedure for vampires living in heavily populated human areas.
“Shit,” he muttered. “Shit, shit—”
“Can I help you?” the female cop said. “Anything you need?”
“What I need is . . .”
As he let his thought trail off, a word came to him from out nowhere, like it had been implanted in his head: Leverage.
That’s right, he thought. He needed some motherfucking leverage.
The kind of thing that when that brunette showed up again—and she was going to—he would have something she wanted. Something she needed. So he could get what he had to have in return.
Which was Mae. Safe.
“Leverage,” he said out loud as he looked at his phone.
As he dematerialized, he freed the cops out of their neutral, but only after he wiped any memory of his presence from their minds. For all they’d remember, he’d be nothing but ether.
Him as a ghost made so much sense.
But he was a ghost with a fucking mission. Having already let one female down in the course of his life, he was not doing that shit again. Even if it killed him.
And he was hoping it would.
Here’s the thing,” Balz said to Devina. “I’m not a gentlemale, not by a long shot. And sorry to break it to you, but you’re no lady. So I’m just going to leave you to do what you will with this Book you seem to want so badly.”
As fury turned that beautiful face into something that was rank ugly, he knew she wasn’t walking away with shit tonight. He wasn’t exactly sure what the rules were, except she wasn’t going to be able to touch that fucking thing.
He had no idea why, but that did not matter at the moment.
“Take care of yourself,” he said.
“I’m going to kill you.”
“Not tonight and not here. Your bluff ’s been called.”
With a little wave, he closed his eyes and dematerialized the fuck out of there—and he wasted absolutely no fucking time getting back to the mountain and the Brotherhood mansion. He was willing to bet that the brunette was going to have a second or two of dumb shock—because really, when was the last time a man didn’t do what she told him to? And then she was going to try to negotiate with the Book itself.