Dangerous Games (Riley Jenson Guardian #4) - Page 7

The woman lay on her back, her arms and legs spread wide, like a starfish. She was naked, and there was an almost rapturous expression frozen onto her dead features. As if the manner of her death had aroused her to the point of fulfillment.

Just like the other women we'd found.

A shiver ran through me, but I wasn't entirely sure whether the cause was horror, or the odd chill in the air. A chill that spoke to an awareness deep within, one that suggested we were not alone in this warehouse.

That dead things abided here.

I rubbed my arms and let my gaze slide down the woman's white body. Like the other victims, she'd been opened up from neck to knee, and all her main internal organs removed. There should have been a lot of blood after a kill like this, but there wasn't – and in many ways that was far worse. Because it meant someone had drained her – drained her while they sliced her and removed her organs. Drained her while she lay there with that rapturous look on her face.

I shuddered, suddenly glad I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. I don't think it would have stayed down at that point.

I forced my gaze from the destruction of her body and looked at her left hand. Like the other victims, she was missing half her little finger. The wound, though healed, looked extremely fresh.

And for some reason, her missing a finger made me feel colder – sicker – than anything else that had been done to her. Which was an extremely odd reaction, even for me.

I looked past her. Jack and Cole were standing in the far corner of the old factory, talking softly. If I concentrated, I could probably hear what they were saying, but it felt like too much effort when I could just ask Jack later on. I studied the immediate surrounds instead. Cole's team had been here for a good half hour by the time we'd arrived, so the few clues evident were already tagged. Like before, the sooty remains of a pentagram was visible on the concrete, and droplets of black wax littered the ends of each point. While I didn't know much about magic, I knew black candles indicated the darker paths rather than the light.

Though the mutilation of the body was enough to indicate that.

I looked back at the woman as something stirred. A wisp of thick air. Smoke, perhaps, curling softly in the air, barely visible against the bright lights the clean-team had set up.

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Another chill ran through me.

It wasn't smoke.

It was her soul.

And as it found shape, it found voice, words. Dahaki, it said. Azhi Dahaki.

The chill got fiercer, until it felt like fingers of ice were creeping into my soul. As if the woman's soul brought with it the fierce cold of the underworld. Who the hell is Azhi Dahaki?

I wasn't entirely sure whether I said that out loud or telepathically. Wasn't sure if the woman's spirit would even answer.

It stirred softly, a body of smoke with no features that gently rotated. But with every turn, energy built in the air, until the small hairs along the nape of my neck were standing on end. Only then did the words come again. You must stop him.

With that statement, the energy fell away, and the soul disintegrated, fleeing to whatever region of afterlife it was bound for.

I took a deep, shuddering breath. It was bad enough that I was seeing souls – now the fucking things were beginning to talk to me.

"Riley?"

Jack's voice was soft, filled with caution, but I jumped all the same. I looked up, saw that he was standing only a few feet away. Cole stood beside him, a concerned look on his face. I hadn't heard either of them move.

"It talked to me, Jack." I rubbed my arms. "It actually damn well spoke."

"I did warn you that might happen."

I snorted softly. "Yeah, well, I was hoping you were wrong." I looked down at the body, to where the soul no longer hovered. "I don't want to be talking to the spirits of dead people, Jack. It's just too creepy."

Cole's eyebrows rose. "You can converse with spirits? Cool."

I gave him an annoyed glance, and concentrated on Jack. "It said a name – the same one Dunleavy's soul gave me. Only this time it was Azhi Dahaki. A full name, perhaps?"

"It's quite possible. It's an odd name, though."

"Well, it's an odd talent." And that's precisely why Jack had brought me down here tonight. He'd been hoping I'd see something. "Have you got an ID on her yet?"

"Karen Herbert," Cole said, looking down at the PDA in his hand. "Twenty-two years old. Lived alone. Parents currently holidaying in Queensland."

I looked at Jack. "The Karen Herbert? The one I asked for a background check on?"

He had the grace to look uncomfortable. "Afraid so."

"Well, if that isn't proof positive there's a link between Quinn's case and ours, I don't know what is."

"Which is why, when you see him next, you will be questioning him."

Yeah. Like that was going to result in anything useful. I waved a hand at Karen's face. "She didn't die in terror. There were no drugs found in the systems of the other women, and I doubt there will be here. It once again suggests she came here willingly, Jack."

"Or that there was psychic influence. That can't be traced after death, remember."

"Jin's not psychic, so maybe I'm following the wrong person."

"If Jin's blocking you telepathically, he's a psychic of some sort. Plus, he shares a house with the woman Quinn is following, he works at the same place as Dunleavy's girlfriend – who was killed by Gautier because she'd seen or heard something – and he has a ring the same as one found at a murder scene. It's too much of a coincidence. Everything is connected. We're just not seeing the complete picture yet."

And we needed to, before the next woman was murdered. My gaze went back to the body. "So are these ritual killings or sacrifices?"

"My guess would be sacrifices. For what, I'm not sure."

"Blood and organ sacrifices," Cole corrected, then looked at me, "which is a darker and more powerful magic all together."

"It's still ending up with dead women, buddy-boy."

Annoyance flared in his pale eyes. "The nature of the magic is often a direct indication of the nature of the magician."

"Doesn't take much of a genius to guess we're dealing with someone who's wry black in nature."

"No, but the fact that there's blood and organ used means we are dealing with an extremely strong type of black magic. And if the mage is adding his own blood, then we are dealing with someone who's raising a power capable of doing far more than calling a couple of demons."

"Meaning, you don't think Quinn's hunt and ours are merging?"

"Meaning, they may well be merging, but our boy is doing more with his power than releasing a couple of demons to harass a vampire." Jack eyed me for a minute. "You don't seem overly perturbed about Quinn locking you up."

"You haven't seen his house." I glanced at my watch. If I didn't get going soon, fin was going to start wondering what the hell was going on. "Look, if you don't need me, I've got a suspect to meet."

"Go. But be sure you hit the com-link if things get rough and you need out."

I raised my eyebrows. "Why tell me that when I know for a fact you don't say it to other guardians?"

"Because the other guardians are dealing with regular old psychos. I've got a feeling your particular psycho is off the scale even by our standards."

"Well, gee, that's a comforting thought." I eyed him for a minute, then added, "And besides, you don't want me dead yet because you want to see where the drugs take my talents."

"Precisely." He smiled and threw me a set of keys. "Seeing Cole drove you here, take my car. But I want it back in one piece."

"You give me your keys, you take your chances." I grinned, tossed them lightly in the air, then headed out.

Night's curtain had well and truly fallen, and though the air was cold, the night was clear. The moon hung fat and yellow in the sky, not quite full but not far off it. The heat of it sung through my veins, a surging desire that was only going to get worse over the coming nights. It was, I thought grimly, probably the best time to get landed with the job of fucking a bad man.

And when I finished doing him tonight, I was going to ring Kellen. I had a bad feeling I'd need some tender care and gentle loving to wipe the foulness of Jin's touch from my mind.

I found Jack's car and headed into the city. It was a Monday night, so the streets were quiet and parking easy to find. I grabbed my bag and headed back up the street toward the club, discovering the number he'd given me was actually that of a multistory building and the club was on the nineteenth floor.

Which was pushing my phobia to the limit.

I took a deep breath and forced a smile on my face as I approached the guard. "Hi," I said, acting all cheery even though my stomach was doing a rebel dance. "I'm here for the Hunter's Club."

"You got a membership pass?"

"No."

"Can't get in without a membership pass."

Obviously, this security guard wasn't paid to be helpful. Either that, or he was just bored and having himself a little fun. "My name is Riley Jenson. I'm here as a guest of Jin Lu."

He glanced down at a sheet sitting on his desk, then picked up a book and placed it on the desk. "Need you to sign in there," he said, pointing to a space. "And write you name after it."

I did. He took the book, got a pass out of his drawer, writing a number beside my name before handing it to me. "This will work the lift and get you past the foyer doors. You'll need to return this pass and sign out when you finish."

I nodded, grabbed the pass, and headed toward the lift. The swift journey upward had a tremor running through my limbs, but thankfully, my stomach decided to stay where it was. The entrance to the club was all gold and white luxury, the carpet plush enough that I had to resist the temptation to rip off my shoes and run barefoot through it. But I couldn't help a wry smile when I spotted the sign emblazoned over the front doors. Not only did it say "Hunter's Club" in great big fancy letters, but it had "humans only" underneath it.

Charming.

Humans were still trying to legislate a rule that would outlaw the "no-human" rule in the werewolf clubs, but it was just fine and dandy for them to outlaw us willy-nilly. The sooner we got some nonhuman representation in the government ranks, the better.

The doors swished open as I approached, and in that instant, I saw the sensors lining the doorframe. They really were serious about the club being humans only.

And it meant if I went through, I would be outed as something other than human.

I swore under my breath and glanced at the blonde manning the reception desk. She was one of those sexy, athletic types guaranteed to set on edge the teeth of any normally built woman, but more importantly, she hadn't appeared to notice that I'd stopped short of the doorway and was just standing there. She wasn't wearing a nanowire – unless they were now making them in designer earrings – and there didn't look to be any other psychic deadeners in the room. Not that they could actually stop me anymore.

I blew out a breath, then opened several shields and let my mind sweep into hers, taking control in an instant.

I might not be able to "sense" humans, but I sure as hell could control them. I made her turn off the alarm, figuring the club would be safe for the few hours I was here. And just in case someone higher up noticed, I had her pull the plug out of the wall. That was the trouble with sensor units installed after the building had been completed – a careless movement could every easily break their connection. Which is why many of them were now being directly wired into power mains.

I released my hold on her, then went through the door and approached the desk. I still had a telepathic finger on the pulse, so to speak, just to hear her thoughts and ensure there were no lingering doubts about what had just happened.

She blinked, like a dreamer waking from a dream, then gave me a bright smile.

"Well, hello there," she said, her welcoming tone as fake as her tan. "New to the club, are we?"

"We are," I showed her the pass. "I'm a guest of Jin Lu's."

Something flickered in her eyes – an emotion too fast to pin down – though the smile never dimmed. But her thoughts gave away what her eyes only hinted at – that her opinion of Jin was low. Indeed, she thought he was an arrogant pig who got altogether too rough during sex. She'd even had to lie to her boyfriend because the bruises had taken forever to fade.

Obviously, she wasn't a big believer in monogamy while in a relationship. I restrained my smile and accepted the pen she gave me, signing in a second time.

"I'll just call him," she said, handing over a locker key. "If you'd like to wait on the sofa."

I glanced at the sofa, then at the wall of glass beyond it, nothing with some pleasure it looked out over the main gym area. There were lots of men inside, working away on various machines, skin gleaming with sweat and muscles rippling. As views went, it was pretty damn fine, and I walked over to make the most of it.

Jin's name was announced over the speaker system. Five minutes later, awareness raced across my skin. Though I couldn't hear any footsteps – probably because of the thick carpet – I knew it was Jin. The heat and scent of him called to the wildness within, even from a distance.

I glanced over my shoulder. He strode toward me, wearing black gym pants and a black singlet top. His skin gleamed with sweat and heat, and he looked sexier than any man had a right to. Desire surged, but my gaze caught his and it fled as quickly as it had risen. His dark eyes gleamed with a ferocity I'd never seen before – a ferocity that was both ancient and inhuman. As if, in that one brief moment, I was viewing his soul and it was nothing that belonged in this time.

Nothing that belonged on this earth.

Then he blinked and smiled, and the strangeness was gone, leaving me wondering if communicating with the dead woman had shaken me more than I'd presumed. I mean, Jin mightn't be human, per se, but he had to be at least a subspecies or some sort of nonhuman. Didn't he? What else was there?

A comment Quinn had made a few months ago floated through my thoughts. He'd said that while he was raised as a human, technically he was only partially so. That the other half of his being was something that no longer existed.

If a half-breed from a race that no longer roamed this earth could survive through the ages, then other, darker things surely could.

The chill that raced through my soul this time was one of foreboding. I didn't want to know about those other, darker things. I really didn't. But I had a bad, bad feeling that not only was I fucking one of them, but I was stepping deeper into their world the longer I stayed by Jin's side.

He stopped and leaned forward to kiss me, and it was all I could do not to recoil. His mouth was cool and quick against mine and, for that, I was grateful. Right then, anything more passionate would have been too much.

"Hi," he said softly. "Nice to see you again."

He smelled of musk and man and dark spices – all scents normally guaranteed to set my hormones a-dancing. And admittedly, despite the chills and foreboding, desire did stir. I was a wolf, after all, and danger was an aphrodisiac.

But running underneath his lust-worthy scent was a trace of sex and blood, mixed in with a hint of jasmine. I couldn't help wondering if his exertion had been more the rough horizontal kind – involving straps, whips, and naked, perfumed flesh – rather than mere gym work.

"Looks like I've come here at a bad time."

He shrugged. "There's a gym and spa special running at the moment, so we've a bigger crowd than normal tonight. I'm afraid I can't give you that massage I promised, but I'll get Terri to start you off with the treatments, and I'll see if I can grab a break in the next twenty minutes or so."

"Look, if you'd rather I leave and come back – "

"No."

His grip tightened on my arm and the alien light gleamed briefly, starkly in his dark eyes.

"I have no idea how long I'll be," he continued, "but I'd rather you wait."

"Then I'll wait."

He nodded and pulled me forward, kissing me hard. It was very much a signal of intent and part of me quailed – if only because it suggested that last night was only a teaser. That tonight I'd get a more in-depth introduction to his darker needs and desires.

How far was I willing to go for the sake of the Directorate and tracking down a killer?

I didn't really know anymore, and that was perhaps the scariest thing of all. If my determination not to do what the Directorate and Jack wanted me to do had slipped so much in a matter of months, what would I be like a year down the track? Would I become the willing fighting and fucking machine Jack wanted me to be? Was it as inevitable as the cycle of the moon?

A tremor ran through me. Jin broke off the kiss, and smiled. "I shall try to hurry," he said, trailing one hot fingertip down my neck. His touch paused near the pulse point, and his smile widened. "I'd hate to waste such delicious excitement."

"Then don't." I stepped back. "The sooner you go, the sooner you can be back."

He laughed, then turned and walked away. I repressed another shiver and tried to ignore the humming of hormones that just loved the danger Jin represented. Sometimes being a werewolf was a pain in the ass.

I looked across to the receptionist. Her face was carefully neutral, but her distaste rode the air. Resisting the urge to tell her I actually sympathized, I said, "Where do I go for my treatments, then?"

"Just follow the door to your right. Terri will take care of you."

I followed the directions and pushed through a set of swing doors. A meaty-looking black woman possessing slick, tied-back hair and hands big enough to snap a bus in two approached from the opposite end of the hall. She stopped when she saw me, well-shaped eyebrows rising almost in alarm. It wasn't hard to guess why. She knew what I was, simply because she wasn't human herself.

I stopped several feet in front of her, and looked her up and down. I'd only ever met one bear-shifter before, but this woman left Berna for dead when it came to sheer muscles and size.

"How did you get past the monitors at the door?" she asked, her voice a low growl that was more curious than antagonistic.

I met her dark gaze with a raised eyebrow of my own. "Probably the same way you do."

"You're a half-breed?"

"Yep."

She nodded. "The sensors read us half-breeds as humans. Kinda handy in a situation like this."

It would have been if I'd actually been half-human. "When we want to go where the rules say we can't go?"

She grinned. "The club rules say no nonhumans. Doesn't say anything about us half-breeds." She motioned me down the hall. "I've set you up in cubicle three. I'll give you the massage, then Raj will show you to the spa. There's a twenty minute limit, unfortunately, because we're full tonight."

"Can I be nosy and ask why you're working here? It's a bit of a risk, isn't it?"

She shrugged. "The worst they can do is fire me. And the pay here is better than other clubs. Gotta go with the money when you've got a family to feed, you know?"

I nodded, taking in the scents and sounds as we walked down the hall. Hints of sweet oils and feminine musk rode the air, mingling with the tangy spice of male and the faint scent of chlorine. No jasmine, though. No hint of sex.

Whatever Jin was doing, he wasn't doing it in this section.

"Are you the only nonhuman working here?"

"Yep. All employees have to present a birth certificate as evidence of humanity, but mine says human, so I'm okay."

I raised my eyebrows. DNA tests at birth had been mandatory for at least thirty years, and Terri looked a lot younger than that. "And how did you manage to achieve that?"

She grinned. "My old man worked in the labs and fudged the evidence."

"Dangerous stuff." And worthy of at least ten years jail time if it ever came to light.

She shrugged. "He's dead now, so what can they do to him?" She opened the next to last door on the left. "You want to strip off and place all your valuables in the locker? I'll wait out here."

"And am I supposed to walk around in nothing but my skin?"

She grinned. "I've heard tell you wolves make a habit of it."

"Well, yeah, but humans get quite antsy about it."

"Which is why you put on the robe hanging next to the locker you've been assigned."

"Ah. Thank you."

The changing room was on the small side, and smelled faintly of lemon and ginger. There weren't many other lockers in use, meaning there weren't a whole lot of women in tonight. After quickly stripping off and putting everything in the locker, I grabbed the robe and walked around the room, sniffing the air lightly. And found the scent of jasmine coming from a locker on the far side of the room.

I glanced at the door, wondering if I should take the chance of breaking into the locker. I needed to find out who the woman behind that scent was, if only because she might be one of Jin's regulars, and therefore might know something more about him. Like what he really was.

I checked out the ceiling, but couldn't see any cameras. Not that cameras were usually found in changing rooms but I couldn't take the risk of security seeing I was up to no good.

I slipped my locker key in between the locker door and the frame, and jimmied the door out enough to grab it with my fingers. Then I gave it a quick, hard tug. Locker doors just weren't designed to withstand the strength of a werewolf, let alone one who also had the might of a vampire behind her as well.

With the door open, the scent of jasmine was more powerful. The woman had stacked her clothes in a neat pile, and had hung her handbag over the single hook on the side. I opened it, then searched through the mess of tissues, makeup, and keys until I found the holder containing her credit cards and photo ID. Her name was Jan Tait, and she was a pretty woman with green eyes and blonde-highlighted brown hair. I memorized her Carlton address, then flicked through the rest of the holder, seeing more credit cards, a gold card for the cinemas, and a picture of a black and white cat. Which probably meant she was single. Attached or married women usually had pics of their other half or kids.

I shoved everything back into the bag, then closed the door and gave it a light thump to force the lock back in place. After doing up the robe, I headed for the door and the waiting Terri. We only walked another four doors down before she stopped and opened another door, this time revealing a small cubicle with a lone table sitting in the middle.

"Here you go. Just strip off and lay on the table. I'll be with you in a moment."

"Thanks, Terri."

She nodded and closed the door. I took off the robe and threw it over the end of the table before laying down as directed. After about five minutes, Terri came in and got down to work. I have to say, she was damn good. By the time she'd finished, my muscles were all fluid and relaxed. Like the aftermath of fantastic sex, only without the effort and fun.

"Okay," she said, doing up the massage oil bottle lid, "I'll just buzz Raj and he can take you down to the spas."

"They're not on this floor?"

She shook her head. "Next one down, near the administrative areas."

This place had to be bigger than it appeared if they had a second floor just for the office crew and the spas. "That's inconvenient, isn't it?"

She shrugged. "It's only a set of stairs."

I guess so. I put the robe back on and lashed the front together. Raj, a pimply teenager who looked no older than seventeen or eighteen, strolled in a few seconds later and gave me an insolent wave to follow. We walked down a set of carpeted stairs and into another wide hallway that was lined with doors. From behind each came the sound of bubbling water and soft music.

"Individual spas?" I said, taking a quick glance up and down the hall. No security cameras here, either. Very convenient.

The kid nodded and threw open a door. As he did so, a pass-card swung out from under his shirt. It had a bar code across the bottom, suggesting that if I wanted to go anywhere less public, I might need a pass to get into it.

Bugger.

"Customers seem to prefer individual spas," the kid said, "and it gives management a chance to charge extra." He grinned and waved a hand toward the small cubicle dominated by a large bath. "Shower before you get into the water. The controls for the jets and music are on the left panel. Light controls on the right."

"And the toilets?" I lowered a shield and telepathically felt for his mind. His thoughts were bright and swift, reminding me of one of those com-games teenagers seemed addicted to these days.

Taking his pass and ensuring he didn't remember it was altogether too easy.

"Toilets are down the hall and to the left," he said, without a pause or a blink that would have given anything away to unseen watchers. Not that I thought there were any, but you never could be too careful. "You got twenty minutes, then someone will be back for you."

"Thanks."

He nodded and headed back toward the stairs. I stepped inside the room and closed the door. After stripping off the robe and dropping both it and the stolen pass on top of the small stool sitting in the corner, I had a shower to rinse off the honey-smelling oil, then quickly dried off and put the robe back on. Once the music and spa jets were on, and the lights off, I headed out the door.

The corridor was empty, save for a robed woman down the far end. She paid me no heed as I strode toward her, and soon disappeared into one of the rooms. Spa jets went on as I passed by her door, an indication that she was safely occupied for the next twenty minutes. I paused at the end of the hall, looking left and right.

The right-hand corridor led out into the building's main foyer and the lifts. Not the way I wanted to go. Besides, the exit doors were locked and alarmed.

The toilets were to the left, as the kid had said, and beyond them a double glass door that said "Staff Only" – an invitation for the curious to investigate.

I looked over my shoulder, just to ensure the kid or someone else wasn't headed my way, then walked over to the card reader. I peered in through the glass, looking for cameras, then swiped the card. The reader beeped, the light flicked to green, and the door buzzed. I opened it up and slipped inside.

The big room was empty and silent. There were four doors leading off it, one of them open, revealing what looked to be a well-appointed staff lounge. Not the type of room that would hold many secrets – not the kind I was after, anyway.

I walked across to the first closed door. Opening it cautiously revealed a small corridor and several offices that were obviously occupied, given the feminine chatter coming from them. I moved on to door number two. Nothing but a large storeroom. Door number three was keycard locked.

I swiped the kid's card through the slot, but the little light stubbornly remained red. Obviously, Raj didn't have clearance for this area.

I stepped back and studied the doorframe, looking for alarms and wondering if I should risk breaking open the door. As I did, a bell rang.

Adrenaline surged and, for half a moment, I was certain I'd been sprung. My damn heart seemed to lodge somewhere in my throat, beating a million miles an hour.

I stepped back, ready to flee to cover, then realized the ringing was actually a phone. Amusement at my own jumpiness swept through me, but it didn't last long. Because when the phone stopped ringing, footsteps became audible.

They were approaching from behind the locked door.

Someone was coming out.

This time I did turn and run – but just to the nearest hidey-hole, which happened to be the storeroom. But I left the door open enough to peer through.

The locked door opened, and a big, blond man dressed in black stepped out. He had a coiled black whip in one hand, and a twisted bit of material in the other. I stepped back into the shadows as he approached, but didn't close the door, figuring a moving door would catch his eye more than a partially opened one.

He didn't stop, just strolled past and into the office area. I glanced back at the door that had been locked, saw that it was still closing, and ran like hell toward it, squashing my breasts against my body with my hands so they didn't brush the door as I slipped through the vanishing gap.

The door closed with a soft click that seemed to echo ominously. A long, dark corridor lay before me. Other than the soft sound of my own breathing, nothing seemed to stir. The air was still, hinting at age and mustiness and something else, something I couldn't quite place.

Something that had chills running down my spine.

I rubbed my arms, and wished I had something warmer than a robe on. Cold had never been a friend of mine, though right now I could pretty safely say the goose bumps flitting across my flesh were due to fear more than the chill.

I wrapped the shadows around me, just in case someone came out into the corridor unexpectedly, then padded down the hallway, following the scent I couldn't name.

Other scents soon joined it. Sweat. Blood. The hint of jasmine. Unless there were two ladies wearing the exact same scent, then Jan Tait was close by.

Doors loomed in the darkness. Four in total, two on the left, two on the right. I sniffed the air, trying to catch the direction of the jasmine scent. It seemed to be coming from the first door on the right, but it was hard to tell because that unknown scent almost overwhelmed everything else. And that scent was coming from the second door on the left.

It was, I thought, a little bit of desperation, a lot of death, an