Dead Of Night

“Some view.” Casually, she stepped away from him and stepped over as if to study the action on screen.

“My way of being surrounded and alone at the same time.” His hand brushed lightly over her shoulder as he walked behind her and over to his bar. “You’d understand that.”

“You talk as if you know me. You look at me as though you do. But you don’t.”

“Oh, I think I do. I saw the understanding of violence, of power, and the taste for it in you. We have that in common. Wine?”

“No. Are you alone here, Dorian?”

“I am.” Despite her answer, he poured two glasses. “Though I pla

She let herself stare at him, into those eyes. “I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out. I know you killed those women.”

He smiled slowly. “Do you? How?”

“I feel it. I see it when I look at you. Tell me how you did it.”

“Why should I? Why would I? Lieutenant.”

As if impatient, she shook her head. “I don’t have a warrant. You know that. I haven’t given you your rights. I can’t use anything you tell me. You know that, too. I just need to know what you are. Why I feel the way I do around you. I don’t believe in…”

There was no mistaking the hunger on his face as he walked toward her. “In what?”

She could hear her father’s voice whispering in her mind. There are things in the dark, little girl. Terrible things in the dark.

“In the sort of thing you’re selling out there.” She gestured toward the screen. “Turn that off, will you? It feels crowded in here.”

“You don’t like to watch?” he said, silkily. “Or be watched?”

“Depends,” she answered with what she hoped sounded like false bravado.

“Screen off,” he ordered, and smiled again. “Better?”

“Yeah. It’s better with it off.”

“That’s the signal.” Feeney nodded to Roarke. “All units, move in. Move in. She’s playing him,” he said to Roarke. “She’ll walk him right into it.”

“Or he’s playing her.” With Eve’s voice in his ear, Roarke rushed into the dark.

Into the terrible things.

“Hold it.” There was the slightest hesitation in her order as she slapped a hand against Dorian’s chest and shoved. “I have obligations. I have loyalties.”

“None of which fill your needs.”

“You don’t know my needs.”

“Give me five minutes to do as I like with you, and you’ll know differently. You came to me.” He trailed his fingers over her cheek. “You came to me alone. You want to know what I can give you.”

She shook her head, stepped away. “I came because I need to understand. I can’t settle, I can’t focus. I feel like something’s trying to crawl out of my skin.”

“I can help you with that.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Yeah, I bet you could. But I’m not like Tiara Kent. I’m not looking for cheap thrills. And I’m not like Allesseria Carter. I don’t need your goodwill. I’m not afraid of you.”

“Aren’t you? Aren’t you afraid of what I could make you?”

She looked at the portrait. “Like that?” Her voice was just a little breathless. “I’m not that gullible.”

He lifted one of the wineglasses, drank deeply. “There’s more in the world that slips in and out of what’s deemed reality.”

“Such as?”

He drank again, and his eyes went even darker. “Such as powers, and hungers beyond the human. I’ll take you there. I can show you a glimpse without causing you harm. You should drink. Relax. Nothing will happen to you here. It’s not my way.”

“No, you go to them. Kent practically spread rose petals on a path to her bed for you.”

“Hypothetically, invitations are required.”

“In an occupied building,” Eve agreed. “Not in an abandoned one. Like the one where you dragged Allesseria, where you killed her.”

“Does it excite you to think so, to look at me and see her death?”

“Maybe it does.”

“You seek death.” He laid his fingertips under hers, lifted her hand. “Surround yourself with it. Isn’t that what I sensed, what I saw, in you that first moment our eyes met? It co

She let her fingers curl to his for an instant, then eased back again. “I don’t know what co

He lowered the glass he’d lifted to his lips. “That’s not possible.”

“Would I be here now otherwise? Risking all this so I could see you tonight? This goes down tomorrow, and my part in it’s over. I need answers for me. Why would I tell you we have evidence building that could take you down, give you time to poof? I have to know. For me.”

“I have an alibi,” he insisted.

“ Kendra Lake? Another spoiled rich girl ru

“You’re lying.” He gulped down the rest of the liquid in the glass, heaved the glass aside. “You’re lying. You bitch.”

Okay, Eve thought, time to change directions.

Outside the apartment it was hell. Screams and shouts echoed through the mist some clever soul had boosted up when the small army of cops had burst in, a

Roarke flung one attacker aside, dodged the swipe of a knife from another. Preferring fists to stu

“She’s losing him,” he yelled to Feeney. Whirling, Roarke sprinted for the stairs through streams of stu

“Caught me,” Eve said. “I’m lying about any pretense I find you attractive or compelling on a personal level. About the rest, that’s a wrap. You not only ran your mouth where it could be heard on Allesseria’s ’link, EDD’s working on cleaning and enhancing a few seconds on screen during the trans. You moved partially into view.

“Added to that,” she continued, “we’re about to link you to one Pensky, Gregor. Shouldn’t have used a former known associate as a fall guy. Even a dead fall guy, Dorian. Little slips, they’ll kill you every time.”

She glanced idly around the room. “I bet you saved some of Tiara Kent ’s blood for a souvenir. I get that warrant in the morning, I’m going to find it, and the jewelry you took off her dead or dying body. You scum. That’ll put you down for three counts of murder. Anything else you want to add to the menu?”

“Do you think you can threaten me?” His eyes were black pools. “Play with me?”

“If you’re trying for thrall, you’re missing. I’ll have you locked on Allesseria in a matter of hours. The rest will tumble right into the pile. You’re done. I just wanted the satisfaction of telling you personally before-Don’t,” she warned. She laid her hand on her stu

“Yes, it is.” He smiled, and to Eve’s absolute shock, showed fangs.

He leaped, almost seemed to fly at her. She drew her weapon, pivoted, but she wasn’t quick enough. Nothing could have been. She got off two shots as he hurled her across the room. He took both hits, and just kept coming. She felt it in every bone as she hit the stone wall, and though the stu