Moon Sworn

I had this.

I had him.

Life wasn’t so bad, no matter what had happened.

“I think,” he added heavily, “the pup needs another lesson on being polite to her elders.”

“You know she doesn’t like to learn,” Liander commented. “She’s stubborn like that.”

“Hey, I bought you breakfast,” I protested. “You should have the decency to forgo the insults—at least for now.”

“The croissants are gone, so I’m officially free to insult.” Liander moved aside to let Qui

As the kitchen floor became the living room carpet, I said, “I thought you had a very important meeting with the real estate people?”

“Letting real estate people know you’re eager for a property is never a good idea,” Qui

“They’ll wait.”

“Well, good.” Although I wished he’d tip me the right way up. Having my nose stuck in his back was far from unpleasant, but being upside down and bounced around like a sack of potatoes as he strode toward the bathroom wasn’t much fun.

“If you wanted to be right way up,” he said, obviously following my thoughts, “you wouldn’t have made snarky remarks about my age.”

“And I would have thought that one of the four oldest vampires in the country would have learned to take insults by now.”

“He has, except when it’s more fun to do otherwise. Prepare to be ravished by your ancient but extremely fit lover, my dear.”

“Oh, I’m prepared.” More than prepared, really.

But of course, my cell phone chose that moment to ring. I was tempted to ignore it, but the ring tone said it was Jack, and he never phoned just to chat.

Qui

Qui

Lovely was the first word that came to mind. He reminded me of an athlete—not a bodybuilder or a ru

Damn Jack and his timing.

“Riley, are you even listening to me?” Jack said, sounding a little exasperated.

I briefly thought about lying, but I knew from past experience he’d ask me to recite back his words—and then get even madder when I couldn’t. “Sorry, momentarily distracted.”

“I won’t ask by what, because I probably wouldn’t want to know.” His voice was dry. “We found the Toyota the victim’s soul mentioned. It was abandoned in Keilor. Apparently the owner didn’t even know it was missing. A sharp-eyed citizen reported two men leaving the vehicle.”

“Two? Our soul only mentioned one.”

“He might have only seen one, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t someone else there.”

True, but I’d also only smelled the one. Or had the smell of vengeance been so thick and ripe that it had overwhelmed all other scents?

“Has Cole had a chance to check it out yet?”

“Dusty’s there now. He’s found a partial print that didn’t match the one the police have listed in their database for the owner.”

Meaning the owner had a record. “And do you have a matching listing for the print?”

“Yep. It belongs to one Hank Surrey, a vamp who turned fifty-five years ago.”

I watched as Qui

“Have we got a recent address listed for him?” Even as I asked the question, I had my fingers crossed that we didn’t.

But fate, as usual, wasn’t giving me even the tiniest of breaks.

“We have him in Mt. Martha, although the last check on his location was done almost a year ago.”

Mt. Martha was a well-to-do suburb down on the peninsula that catered primarily to families. It wasn’t the sort of place where you usually found vamps—young or old. They tended to stick closer to the city, where feeding was a whole lot easier—especially with the advent of the blood whore clubs.

I said as much to Jack.

“Well, they have a cracking little golf course down there,” he said, “and they’ve installed night lights for those of us who can’t beat the little white ball through the grass during the day.”

My eyebrows rose. Jack was a golfer. Who’d have thought? “I wouldn’t think a vamp who resorts to stealing cars would be too interested in golf or clubs.” Unless he intended to steal the golf clubs.

“Hey, everyone has to have a hobby. I’ll send his address through to your onboard.”

In other words, leave immediately. I blew out a frustrated breath, then said, “Heading out now.”

“Report in if you find him,” Jack said, then hung up.

I shoved the phone back into my pocket and wasted a few minutes watching the soap trail down the wet planes of Qui

“I have to go,” I said, mentally shaking away the images of what I’d rather be doing. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”

I wanted to go in and kiss him good-bye, but I wasn’t sure if I could handle that sort of closeness and still walk away.

“Call me when you finish,” he said, turning around and blowing me a kiss. Obviously, he was still following my thoughts. “We’ll grab either lunch or di

“It’s a deal.”

And I walked out while I still had some resolve left.

I glanced into the rearview mirror as I pulled onto the Citylink tollway and my pulse leapt. Several cars behind me was a red car. Same make, same model as the one that had been following me only hours before.

I watched it for several minutes, wondering again if I was merely imagining it. I mean, everyone knew that red cars traveled in packs—see one, and you see at least three.

And red was an extremely popular color.

But the same red Mazda sitting three cars behind me twice in as many hours? That was a little bit too much of a coincidence.

I switched on the com-link and said, “Sal, I think I’m being followed by that little old lady again.”

She laughed. “You’ve obviously pissed off said little old lady. Which wouldn’t be hard, given you do the whole pissing-people-off thing so well.”

“Except I haven’t been near any little old ladies of late. You want to see whether this one is missing her car yet or not?”

“On it now.” Silence fell, and I kept half an eye on the a

“Okay,” Sal said. “The little old lady has been contacted and is mighty a

“Have we got a license photo and address for the nephew?”

“Requesting that now, as well as doing a search through the data banks. I’ll send anything I get through to your onboard.”

“Send me the photo immediately. I’m going to try and corner my follower.”

“Will do.” She hesitated, and in the background I heard Jack muttering something. “The boss says be careful, and don’t delay too long in getting out to our suspect’s place.”

I wanted to ask why the hell it mattered when the vamp had turned only fifty-five years ago and wouldn’t be going anywhere until the sun went down. Vamps had to be at least several hundred years old before they could start tolerating the touch of the sun. Hell, Jack was over eight hundred years old, and even he could only go out in the early hours of the morning and the late evening.