Ripper (Hunter #1)(22)

The vampire took the steps two at a time in his eagerness to get to the door. The thin, blonde woman was waiting to greet him. She nodded formally as he entered the house and she closed the door behind him.

I sat back on my heels. He’d given me the serious creeps and I hadn’t even seen the dude’s fangs. I made a mental note to buy a crossbow at the earliest given opportunity. I was taking another swig of my rapidly warming beer when every single one of my instincts went on full alert.

I can’t properly describe it, but it’s never steered me wrong. I know when I’m no longer alone. I slowly put the beer down and reached into my bag, carefully palming my .38. I closed my eyes and opened my ears. Whoever was coming for me was making their way up the ramp from the lower levels. The sound was somewhat slow. There was something impatient about the brisk thuds. Whoever it was, they weren’t really trying to hide their progress, but that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. I pulled myself up onto the cement column, making sure my sneakers were hidden from view. I had to let one foot dangle off the ledge to make sure no one could see where I was hiding. I pulled the .38 close to my chest and made sure the safety was off. I closed my eyes and listened. The sound was getting closer and closer, the click clack getting more and more pissed off as it made its way up the ramps. I was beginning to suspect who was after me, but I couldn’t be sure until I had visual recognition. Even with my suspicion, I intended to give whoever was coming up that ramp a reason to reconsider.

“Damn it,” I heard a feminine voice say. The female sighed and started up the ramp to go to the top floor of the parking garage when she stopped and turned. I smiled. She’d seen my stuff on the floor of the garage, but she still hadn’t seen me.

“Kelsey?” Liv asked hesitantly. “Are you here?”

I leapt from my hiding place and had her perfectly in my sights before she had a chance to breathe.

“Holy shit!” Liv screamed and jumped back at least two feet before landing on her ass.

I grinned down at her. “You were looking for me?”

“Bitch!” she breathed, her eyes wide. “I hate it when you do that.”

I have to admit I enjoyed the way she had to catch her breath and clutched her chest, like she could stop her heart from racing. “Then don’t try to sneak up on me.”

Her eyes narrowed and I knew she was no longer thinking about her fear. “Sneak up on you? I’ve sent you twenty texts. I left ten voice mails. I told you in the last one that I was working on a locator spell and that I would be here, in this very place, in twenty minutes. I don’t know how else you want me to announce my damn presence.”

I shrugged and clicked the safety back on the gun. “I guess I missed that.”

Liv scrambled up, her heels clacking against the cement. “Yeah, right. I believe that. You’ve ignored me all day.”

“I’m working,” I said because I knew that tone. I was about to get a massive lecture on the evils of alcohol. I smiled bitterly as I twisted open beer number three.

“I can tell.” She shook her head at the empty beer bottles and food wrappers. “Nathan called me last night. Between that and your drunk texting, I figured out you fell off the wagon last night.”

“I wasn’t aware I’d been on the wagon.” I got back on my knees because Liv might want to throw an intervention, but my night was far from over. Another limo was pulling up.

I was clicking pictures of three vampires and two women. These were kind of strange looking vamps, I thought as Liv’s tirade continued. She was saying something about me throwing my life away. I was thinking that vamps didn’t normally wear jeans and hockey jerseys. The tall, lanky vampire was wearing just that and he had his arm wrapped securely around the shoulder of a dark-haired Hispanic girl who, if I had to guess, was a werewolf.

Curious. I wondered if the wolf was a hooker. Liv continued on, telling me how dangerous it was to get drunk when I had no backup, but I was thinking no on the hooker bit. The vamp’s smile was a happy one. There wasn’t anything salacious about it, just a sweet joy. I doubted the woman in his arms was anything but a girlfriend. He was careful with her. The other vampire with a female seemed a little European to me. They had a certain style that American men didn’t have and confidence in their own sexuality that few American men possessed. This vampire was wearing a dusky rose silk shirt over dark brown slacks and he looked wholly masculine in them. He held hands with a blonde in a short skirt and a wide smile. The last vamp seemed young and I meant that in a vampire fashion. If I was a betting girl, I would lay money that he’d recently started walking the night and the two older vamps were showing him the ropes.

“Have you listened to a word I said?” Liv asked, her hands on her hips.

I turned and tried a conciliatory smile. “Alcohol bad. Sobriety good.”

She rolled her eyes. “Give me a damn beer.”

I tossed her the coldest one I had left. She sank down and regarded me with serious brown eyes.

“What are we doing here, Kels?”

The limo drove off and I wondered if that was it. “I’m working a case you sent me on. You’re bitching at me. That’s what we’re doing here.”

“You know what I mean.”

I looked down at my best friend and gave up the fight. “It’s a vampire club. It’s one of the addresses in Joanne’s book. I think she worked here.”