Deadly Desire

you?'

'Yes.'

'Oh, he's probably bled to death by now.'

Something within me wanted to curl up and die at the thought. It was weird-I might have lusted after the man, but I didn't actually like him, and yet here I was, wanting to weep for his loss. The wolf sure was strange at times.

'It's a shame, really,' Hanna continued, 'to waste all that good blood, but shifting three bodies would have placed too much strain on both my magic and me.'

'You'll regret letting him die, Hanna.'

'Oh, I'd be a little more worried about your health, if I were you.'

I was worried all right, but I'd been in worse situations than this and had survived. And I had no intention of dying today, either.

Whether fate agreed with my decision was another matter entirely, but I wasn't worrying about that right now.

'Tell me, how did you and Jessica meet?'

It obviously wasn't a question she was expecting, because she looked up in surprise. 'Why do you want to know?'

'Just curious.' I shrugged, the action sending pain rolling across my skin.

'We grew up together,' she said after a moment. 'Like me, she had a gift for darker powers and was ostracized by her family because of them.'

I could understand the two odd peas clinging together for safety and companionship, because in very many ways, that's what Rhoan and I had done. But why go on to become such violent murderers?

'And you looked after her when she had her accident and became paraplegic?'

'It was no accident,' she said, voice a little tighter.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean,' she said tightly, 'that the rich young bastard who paralyzed her first seduced her mother before he beat them both up and drained her mother to death.'

I guess that explained why she seemed to be going after the more affluent vamps rather than any old vamp. 'Why didn't he kill Jessica?'

'Her back was broken-shattered-so badly that shifting couldn't heal it. She started screaming for help, and their neighbors heard and called the cops. That's the only thing that saved her.'

'So you started killing vampires as revenge for what happened to her?' I shifted my head a little more, until my ear pressed against the hard stone. I didn't know if that would actually turn on the com-link's sound, but I had to at least try it. I'd left tracking on as ordered, but the Directorate wouldn't actually come running unless they realized I was in trouble. Sal might be good at guessing when that might be, but with the way fate liked playing games with me, I could place money on the fact that the one time I needed Sal to act would be the one time she didn't.

'It wasn't the only reason,' Hanna said, her concentration on whatever she was crushing in a small earthen bowl rather than on me.

As concoctions went, it smelled rather nice, reminding me of forest and herbs. And that set all sorts of alarm bells ringing.

A dark sorcerer mixing up something that smelled good, when every other ounce of her magic smelled so foul? It had to be an illusion of some kind. And if that was, maybe everything else was, too.

I squinted up at the ornate ceiling, trying to see a shimmer or a wobble, or anything else that would suggest it was little more than a fancy trick rather than a reality. But it stubbornly remained looking like plain old plaster. In fact, if not for the fact that this was the domain of a dark sorcerer, I'd swear we were just in a windowless room of an ordinary house. An almost empty one, granted, because the only bits of furniture were the table on which I lay, the large metal cart she was using, and a cluttered metal shelving unit that lined the wall opposite the door.

Would a sorcerer intent on blood sacrifices do so in the middle of suburbia?

But then, why wouldn't she? An ordinary, unassuming house would be as good a hiding place for evil deeds as any dark cavern.

I looked back at Hanna, the movement rattling the chains tying me to the table and sending yet more arrows of pain rolling through me. I tried to ignore it, but that was almost as impossible as ignoring the ache in my shoulder. Or the numbness in my arm that would soon slip insidiously through the rest of my body.

I had to get out of these chains, had to rip the bullet from my flesh, before either began doing permanent damage. And as sensitive as I was to silver, it wouldn't be all that long.

Trouble was, with the silver on and in my body, I couldn't shift shape, so my only real weapons were my strength and my telepathy. Given that the chains felt strong, it was doubtful that strength would get me free. Which left telepathy. And while she had a nanowire on, those could be beaten. So I gathered my strength and hit her mentally.

This time it didn't just feel like I hit a brick wall.

This time, I hit it and bounced off it.

It left me reeling mentally and for several seconds I felt like my head was going to explode.

'Oh,' said the witch, her voice somewhat smug. 'I should perhaps warn you that this room has been proofed against telepathy, both via magic and electronically.'

'How can you proof a room against telepathy via magic?'

Speaking hurt. In fact, the words seemed to bounce around my brain like sharp little knives. But I had to get her talking. The more I delayed her plans, the more time it gave the Directorate to find me. And I had to hope they were on the way, because it was looking less and less likely that I was going to get out of this by myself.

'Dark magic can achieve anything if you're willing to pay the price for it.'

'And what have you been willing to pay, Hanna?' The pain in my head had receded a little, meaning it hurt less to speak. Which might have been a good thing if it hadn't meant the burning ache from the silver in my shoulder intensified again.

'Oh, I began paying my price long before I came into the dark magic.'

She was still mixing the herbs, and the aroma seemed to be getting stronger. My nose twitched, and despite the pleasing scent, I wasn't entirely sure my reaction was due to pleasure. That scent was still setting alarm bells off, and while I wasn't sure why, I'd learned long ago to listen to such warnings.

I tried twisting my wrist in the cuff, and discovered there was plenty of room to move around in them-but a quick snap back had my fist jamming fast. Still, maybe it I made it slick enough-wet enough-my wrist might just slip through. It was worth trying, and it wasn't as if I had any other option right now anyway.

Of course, the only way I was going to make my skin slippery was to draw blood, and that wasn't going to be pleasant. But it would surely be better than whatever Hanna was planning.

'Is that the other reason why you're killing the vampires? Because of the price you paid personally?'

'They are the killers, every one of them. Rich, dead, and killers reborn. It is an instinct with them, and they deserve nothing more than real death.' Her voice had take on a slightly shrill edge, and she was pounding the mix so hard the bowl was in danger of breaking.

Obviously, vampires had done a whole lot more to her than just paralyze Jessica. And I was curious enough to want to know what.

'Not all vampires are bad,' I said, still pulling at my wrist. The chains rattled every time I did it, but Hanna didn't seem to notice. I could only hope it remained that way. My skin had grown slippery rather quickly-thanks to the rough edges on the silver cuffs-and the scent of fresh blood filled the air. Thankfully, I was the only nonhuman in the room, so with any sort of luck, she wouldn't realize what I was attempting until it was too late. 'Not all vampires deserve to die.'

She thumped the pestle down on the table so suddenly I actually jumped. 'You kill vampires for a living. You've seen the very worst they can do. Why the hell would you even think any of them deserve to live?'

'Because every race has its good and its bad. You can't judge the entire lot by a few