Darkness Everlasting (Guardians of Eternity #3)(49)

Her head throbbed, and then, with a sharp motion she was on her feet.

"That son of a bitch," she hissed with trembling fury.

Styx knew something was wrong the moment he approached the secluded estate.

He could feel the vibrating tension of his Ravens as he drove through the high, iron gate.

After pulling the Jag to a squealing halt before the door of the mansion, Styx shot out of the car and charged into the house.

The first thing that hit him was the unmistakable stench of smoke.

Holy freaking hell.

There had been a fire. And very recently. Perhaps not a shocking scent in most Chicago homes in winter. Humans quite often burned logs to ward off the northern chill. But a vampire would rarely allow an open blaze anywhere near. Especially not within his lair.

Without slowing his charge, Styx passed through the darkened foyer and into the living room, where he discovered DeAngelo and two other Ravens speaking in low voices.

At his entrance they turned to regard him with troubled expressions. His heart squeezed with sudden unease.

For a vampire to look troubled meant that there was something terribly, horribly wrong.

"What has happened?"

"Master." DeAngelo offered a deep bow. "I fear we have failed you."

The unease became an unbearable howling fear. "Darcy? Has she been harmed?"

"No, my lord, but she has . . . escaped," the vampire revealed with obvious self-disgust.

For a blinding moment Styx could feel nothing but overwhelming relief. Darcy wasn't hurt.

He could bear anything but that.

Styx ignored the Ravens, who studied him with stoic apology. It was taking a staggering amount of effort to compose his normally cool and logical mind.

At last he managed to latch onto a few coherent thoughts.

The first being the unpleasant realization that there had been some urgent need for Darcy to have escaped.

He didn't believe for a moment that she had simply awakened and decided to escape his "evil" clutches. After all, she had been with him for days and had never made an effort to flee.

His effort to wipe her memories had clearly been unsuccessful.

The thought twisted his stomach with dread.

Dammit, he should have taken into consideration that she wasn't entirely human. After all, there were any number of demons capable of withstanding the enthrallment of a vampire.

If she had managed to remember, then she not only was missing, but more than likely was already searching out Salvatore.

Bloody, bloody hell.

"How?" he abruptly demanded, his sharp tone making the waiting vampires flinch.

"She started a fire in the kitchen, and while we were distracted she used the tunnels to make her way out of the house," DeAngelo confessed.

So that explained the smoke.

"Clever of her," he grudgingly admitted. "She managed to comprehend the one certain means of distracting a house filled with vampires."

DeAngelo flashed his fangs in annoyance. "It was not so clever that we should have been fooled. I have no excuse."

Styx waved aside the dark words. His only thought was following Darcy and bringing her back where she belonged.

"How long has she been gone?"

"Less than two hours."

"Two hours?"

"The fire was started shortly after midnight, but we didn't notice Lady Darcy missing until a few moments ago."

A cold fear sliced through his heart. Two hours? It was too long. "Damn. She could be anywhere by now."

"Will you go in search of her?"

Styx briefly wondered if his second in command had lost his mind. Not even all the demons in hell could stop him from tracking down Darcy Smith.

Of course, you will have to lake care, a warning voice whispered in the back of his mind.

He didn't doubt for a minute the estate was being constantly watched by the Weres. But if Darcy had managed to leave without them seeing her, he certainly didn't want to alert them to the truth.

With any luck at all he might be able to track down the aggravating woman and have her back before she could discover a means to contact Salvatore.

Luck.

He squashed the urge to howl in frustration.

He was a vampire who depended on cool logic and perfectly executed plans. He did not trust his fate to fickle luck.

Not until tonight.

May the gods have mercy on him.

The taxi dropped Darcy off at a run-down warehouse in a run-down industrial park.

It wasn't the nicest neighborhood. Actually, it was dark, dirty, and unnervingly isolated. But with the meter ticking away she didn't have a lot of options. Her small amount of cash wasn't going to take her far.

Still, the warehouse south of Marengo wasn't a bad place to wait for CIA to arrive with her belongings.

It was hardly the first spot anyone would look for her, and since it had been nearly gutted by a fire about three months before, she had a vague hope that the herd of vampires who were no doubt on her trail would fail to catch her scent among the lingering odor.

Not the best of plans, but it wasn't as if she had a dozen better ones to choose from.

She had known she would have one chance, and one chance alone, to escape from Styx. There had been no time for complicated schemes and failproof plots. She had set the fire, said a prayer, and taken off through the tunnels as fast as she could.