“Which puts Caro in danger longer.”
“Not much longer. Although we’re going to have a serious talk about this tendency of hers to go walkabout.”
A quiet chuckle escaped Jude. “Good luck. How often do you think Terri listens to me?”
Terri, still perched beside Caro, looked up. “I listen to you all the time!”
“When it pleases you, madam.”
Her blue eyes twinkled a moment, then she returned her attention to Caro. “She’s going to be fine. She’s warming already. And I need to get to work.”
She rose and went to kiss Jude. “You stay here. You might have to do some hunting tonight.”
“Me? For what?”
“Maybe you can locate that bokor for Damien. Just be careful.”
“I am always careful,” he drawled.
“Sure. I’ve seen it. Turning yourself into a torch is very careful.” She cupped his cheek. “Behave for my sake.”
Then she grabbed her coat and left.
Damien squatted and touched Caro’s cheek. He could feel warmth there now, just a little. “Why isn’t she waking? She’s breathing, she’s warming.”
“I don’t know, but Terri didn’t seem to be worried.”
Damien almost said that Terri didn’t have as much reason to be concerned as he did, then he stopped himself. Such a thought was unfair. He knew Terri well enough to recognize how caring a doctor and a human being she was.
He was just frantic with concern for Caro, a very strange place for a vampire to be.
He didn’t want to think about what that might mean, couldn’t afford to now. He had to focus on the threat, focus on enhancing his powers, not on the strange places his heart might wander.
There was no time for distractions now. Now he had to concentrate on saving Caro and perhaps other humans from whoever had summoned that elemental. And there must be others at risk. That shopkeeper had been right: organizations lived on after the men who founded them. Right now, somewhere, there was probably a board making plans to continue what Pritchett had started.
The thought made him turn briefly to Chloe. “Is there a board of directors for Pritchett’s company? People who might continue with the development plans? Or did all that die with him?”
“I’ll check,” Chloe said. “That should be easy enough to find out.”
“I don’t know the law,” Jude remarked, “but it seems to me if there isn’t a board for his company, all his death does is make the properties available for sale, and along with them all the demolition permits. There’ll be an heir somewhere, I should think, and if he or she doesn’t want to take over, the buildings will be sold.”
“Yes, but that’s in the future,” Damien said. “I want to know who else might be at risk now.”
“Why?”
“Because someone besides Caro may be being stalked. And while I can keep Caro reasonably safe if she’ll just stop haring off on her own, there may be others in trouble right now who don’t even know it.”
“True. Not that I’m especially fond of people who would tear down the homes of others, but I definitely don’t approve of using powers to kill people. Any people. If you’re right, that would certainly mean we need to act as fast as possible.”
Damien looked down at the unconscious Caro and touched her cheek, testing its warmth. “As fast as possible,” he agreed. “But after this, we might have a slight delay. I don’t know if Caro will be up to enhancing her powers tonight.”
“What about you?” Jude asked.
“I can’t do it without her.”
Caro awoke in a state of near panic. She couldn’t move her arms, she still felt chilled deep inside and her head felt as if it had been pounded by a mallet. But as her eyes snapped open, she found herself looking into familiar midnight eyes.
“You’re okay,” Damien said. “You’re safe.”
She let her eyes close for a few seconds, struggling to make the mental shift from the last thing she remembered to her current state.
She let go of fright and looked at Damien again. “I need to sit up.”
Instantly he pulled away the binding comforter and helped ease her into a sitting position. “How do you feel?”
“Weird. My head is killing me. I feel like I’m cold deep inside. But I’m here, obviously.”
“You must never do that again, not until we beat this elemental. My God, Caro, it was that close to killing you!”
“I know,” she whispered. She was used to taking risks, but she had to admit this had been a stupid one. “I thought I could push it away. I did before.”
“But it got your measure then. The bokor must have strengthened it.”
“Maybe.” She rubbed her temples.
“Coffee?” Chloe asked cheerily. “Or tea?”
“Coffee, please. Maybe it’ll help warm me up.” Then she fixed her gaze on Damien. “He strengthened it? How could he make it stronger? Why wouldn’t he have made it stronger to begin with?”
He settled back on the couch but took one of her hands in his. His skin felt slightly cool to her, which she supposed was a good sign despite the cold that seemed to fill her very center.
“Summoning these forces is a delicate balancing act,
“But it’s stronger now?”
“So it would seem. The question is whether he did it to get at you, or whether it’s starting to escape his control. I suspect, though, that the bokor was behind this.”
“I still don’t get why it’s coming after me. Why should the bokor have been afraid that I saw what happened? Why in the world did he attach that thing to me? Surely he should have thought that no one would ever be able to prove anything.”
Damien shook his head a little. “I don’t read minds. But my suspicion is you may have originally been mistaken for one of its targets. Then you started pursuing the matter and became aware of its existence. The bokor might have become worried that you would find him. Certainly I’d think that he now has heard we’re looking for him. People talk. I think at some point the game changed, probably because of something you or we did.”
“So he may have strengthened it for that reason. But he can’t get at
His expression turned slightly rueful. “I can’t guarantee that. I’m fairly sure that I’m not as easy for it to get at as you, but no guarantees.”
“The elemental, or the bokor, may not be aware you’re a vampire.”
“I hope not, although you figured it out readily enough.”
“I could see your aura,” she reminded him. “And then you moved faster than humanly possible. I’m reasonably good at putting things together.”
“Better than most, I think.”
She accepted a hot mug of coffee from Chloe gratefully. The first sip took some of the edge off the chill deep in her innards.
“So,” Damien said sternly, “will you promise not to go out alone again until we settle this?”
“It goes against my nature to be cooped up all the time. But yes, I promise I won’t do it again. I may need to get out and about, but I’m not stupid. I learned my lesson.”
