“Dead,” Trace answered, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. “He tore her apart in front of us, did it under the sheets—looked like he was going down on her. Must’ve put his hand over her mouth to stop her screams.”
“We weren’t paying attention to him.” Adele’s distress was open, the club owner oddly softhearted for one running such an establishment. “I mean, it was Rupert. Worst kink he has is staying in the Masque rooms when he knows they’re monitored. A little exhibitionism, that was his thing. He never hurt his women; and this one, he adored. It was their first night being intimate.”
Trace twisted the lid off a third bottle. “She didn’t stand a chance, and he was fucking out the door before Adele could initiate the lockdown.” A string of harsh words. “I thought I could handle him, but he’s faster and stronger than he should be—no way Rupert should’ve been able to grab me, much less throw me off the mezzanine to the first floor.”
Janvier had once seen a vampire in bloodlust make an impossible leap across a canyon, almost as if he were flying. A large percentage, though, went into bloodthrall after their first kill, a torporlike state caused by their gluttonous feeding that made them easy to hunt down. It didn’t sound like Rupert was one of the latter. “Can I enter the club without going through the passageway?” He’d be the most vulnerable there, the narrow space negating the advantage of his blades.
Naasir jumped down from the roof at that instant, apparently having raced to the location by running along the “lower skyroad,” as he called it. “There is a skylight,” he told Janvier, shoving his hair out of his eyes.
Adele stirred. “It’s reinforced glass. You won’t be able to break it.”
Sheathing his weapons of choice, Janvier met Naasir’s eyes, caught his nod, and then they were climbing, the other vampire in the lead. When they reached the snow-covered skylight, Naasir raised his hands and slammed down with his claws. Cracks spread out from the point of contact. Janvier used the butt of a kukri to deepen the cracks, and then the two of them backed off . . . and ran to jump on the skylight, coming down in a hail of glass that sliced shards through both of them.
Rolling to a standing position, Janvier saw Naasir already pinned down, the once-urbane Rupert on top of him like a ravening beast, Rupert’s face a mask of blood. Naasir should’ve been able to take him without problem—except it appeared Rupert must’ve hit Naasir in midfall, causing the vampire to land on a huge shard of glass that had effectively skewered him to the floor.
All that went through Janvier’s mind in a split second. In position as he rose, he threw one of his blades with the flat spinning motion he’d learned during his time in Neha’s court. The lethally sharp and perfectly balanced kukri spun like one of Ash’s throwing stars, coming to a quivering stop in the wall behind Rupert.
Whose head toppled off his body a second later, the blade having sliced it clean through.
Growling, Naasir shoved off the body, which was spurting blood all over him. “Why did you do that?” he snarled, pulling himself off the glass shard with a look of irritation on his face. “I was about to break his neck.”
“You’re welcome,” Janvier said, pulling his blade from the wall. He wiped it on his jeans leg, but didn’t put it back in the sheath. As Adele had said, bloodlust could spread with deadly speed. “Are you badly injured?” As far as he could tell, the glass had gone straight through Naasir, but hadn’t penetrated any major organs. It must’ve been the shock of the sudden injury that had kept him from reacting as fast as usual.
Naasir growled in reply. “My new shirt from Honor is torn and bloody.”
Figuring that meant the other vampire was fine, Janvier ran to Adele’s control room with Naasir at his back and scanned the feeds. Two of the vampires were pacing in an erratic pattern, but Khalil appeared in control, his women unharmed. Hitting the button that unlocked all the doors, Janvier glanced at Naasir.
“Go scare them out of incipient bloodlust. And get Trace to keep following Khalil if his wounds allow it—if not, can you do it?”
Naasir gave him a feral smile and a nod. “I wouldn’t mind eating Khalil’s liver. I hope he gives me an excuse.”
Knowing even Khalil wouldn’t mess with the silver-eyed vampire, Janvier returned to Rupert. “Damn it, what the fuck happened to you?” The cultured art collector had been a good man, as Janvier had said last night, but when he examined the body, he saw Rupert had been wearing a necklace of intestines, the flesh slick and bloody.
Pressing his fist to his mouth to control the gorge that rose in him, Janvier forced himself to walk to the private room with the blood-soaked sheets he’d glimpsed on the surveillance feeds. At first, he couldn’t see Lacey. It was the glint of light off the ring on her finger that alerted him to the fact she was on the floor on the far side of the bed, her outflung hand the only part of her he could see.
When he came around, he wished he hadn’t. The sweet, giggling woman who’d blushed at him while proudly calling herself Rupert’s had been disemboweled. From the state of Rupert’s face, it appeared the bloodlust-ridden vampire had torn into her stomach with his fangs, then used his hands to pull out the ropes of her intestines. Her jaw was broken, her tongue ripped out.
It made no sense. None.
Until Janvier stepped on something that felt slippery beneath his boot. Frowning, he bent down and found it to be a tiny plastic ziplock bag. There was nothing inside, but he knew what tests would reveal. “Umber.”