Carlyle's driving a sweet little red BMW that's parked on the west side of the building.
Three rows up from our car."
A hard smile curved my lips. "Perfect. Keep him in sight. The detective and I are heading for the Beamer."
We both hung up. I wove my way through the crowd, sliding from opening to opening. Donovan Caine was right on my heels. It took almost a minute for us to step outside Northern Aggression. The night air was a cool, welcome kiss on my face after the crush of bodies inside the nightclub.
"This way," I said.
The detective fell in step beside me. He'd dampened down his earlier anger at Stephenson, although his mouth was set into a hard, determined line. He reached behind him, drew his gun from the small of his back, and held the weapon down by his side. "How do you want to do this?"
"No need for a gun yet, detective. You and Finn hang back," I replied. "I'll approach Carlyle and subdue him. That way, he only sees me if something untoward should happen."
Donovan nodded. "All right."
The BMW was parked right where Finn said it would be. Hard to miss, really, since the vanity plate on the front read CHUCKEC. Donovan ducked down in the shadows behind a car a few feet over. I slid behind an SUV on the other side of the BMW and peered through the driver's side window.
Getting close to midnight now, and the air had taken on the sharp chill of fall. The music of the club pulsated outside, and I could hear the vibrations whispering in the concrete under my boots. Classic murmurs of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. A few smokers stood in a cluster two hundred feet away, puffing on who knew what. But other than that, the parking lot was deserted. Everybody was still inside, getting their groove on for the evening.
I palmed one of my knives, hilt out, and started counting off seconds in my head.
Ten ... twenty ... forty-five ... Two minutes later, Charles Carlyle strolled around the side of the building. He walked with quick, purposeful steps. The confident stride of a man who thinks he's got everything figured out. That the world was his cherry to pop. Still, he cast a cursory look around, the way anyone would when walking through a dark area at night.
But he didn't see me. They never did, until it was too late. I smiled. Poor Chuck. I almost felt sorry for him. Until I thought about Fletcher.
I looked, but I didn't see Finn trailing the vampire. Finn could blend in with the shadows too, when he put his mind to it.
Carlyle walked closer, passing the car Donovan Caine crouched behind. The vampire whistled a soft tune and jingled his car keys in his fingers. He hit a button, and the lights on the BMW flashed once, disabling the alarm and unlocking the doors. Time for me to make my move.
I tiptoed out from behind the back of the SUV and approached Carlyle. The vampire had just hooked his fingers underneath the door handle to pull it open when I called out to him.
"Excuse me, sugar," I drawled in a soft voice. "Do you have a light? I seem to have misplaced mine. Can't put a damn thing in the pockets of this miniskirt." Carlyle turned toward the sound of my voice, a smile already forming on his face. I quickened my steps, getting into position. I didn't look like he expected me to, and he frowned, suddenly suspicious.
"Who the hell are you-"
I might have been concerned, if I hadn't already used the hilt of my knife to coldcock him. The vampire blinked once before his eyes rolled up into the back of his head, and he pitched face-first onto the concrete. To my right, Donovan Caine stepped out from the shadows. Finn appeared from my left.
"Come on." I leaned down and grabbed the vampire under his arms. "Help me get this blood-sucking bastard into the trunk."
An hour later, I threw a pitcher of ice water onto Charles Carlyle's face. The cold shocked the vampire back into consciousness. So did the two hard slaps I laid across his cheeks. The stinging sensation in my palm felt good. Finally, I was doing something about Fletcher's murder, taking the initiative, instead of reacting to others.
"Wakey, wakey, Chuck," I said. "Time to rise and shine and spill your guts." The vampire's eyes blinked several times in rapid succession before focusing on me and his surroundings. After loading Chuck into the trunk of our stolen car, we'd driven to the vampire's home in one of the suburbs on the edge of Northtown, the address Finn had found while digging for info. Nice place. Split-level ranch house, big yard, pool in the back. Being an executive vice president at Halo Industries, even in name only, paid better than I'd thought. So did being the Air elemental's right-hand man.
Finn, Donovan, and I had let ourselves into the house and dragged Carlyle along with us. Now the three of us stood in what passed for a game room-plasma television bolted to one wall, pool table in the corner, stacks of p**n magazines and empty beer bottles everywhere. The only nice thing about the room was the stone fireplace that took up the back wall.
Donovan Caine had used his silverstone handcuffs to bind the vampire to a chair, which I'd dragged into the middle of the room.
Carlyle's eyes went to me, then to the two men looming behind me, then to the silverstone knife in my hand. "Fuck me," he muttered.
"Quick on the draw. I like that in a man."
I felt Donovan Caine's eyes on me, but I didn't turn to look at the rugged detective.
Instead, I wandered around the room, twirling with my knife so the blade caught the light and flashed it back in Carlyle's eyes. Time to start playing the game.
"Nice place you have here, Chuck. Very nice. Did you pick it out yourself? Or did the Air elemental?"
The vampire gave me a guarded look. "What do you want?"
I smiled and held his gaze until I was sure he'd noticed just how cold and hard my gray eyes were. Carlyle might think himself to be a big man, but he knew when he was outmatched. His face had already tightened with panic, and the muscles of his arms and shoulders tensed underneath his suit as he discreetly tested the silverstone handcuffs that held him down. Bastard shouldn't have bothered. He wasn't going anywhere tonight except into the ground.
"In case you haven't figured it out, Chuck, let me tell you who I am. The Spider. The assassin you and your boss hired to kill Gordon Giles, then decided to double-cross.
I'm sure you recognize my two associates."
Finn gave him a toothy grin that was almost as scary as my smile. The vamp realized there would be no sympathy there and turned his attention to Donovan Caine, trying to see if he had any kind of friend in the room. But the detective crossed his arms over his chest and put on his flat cop face.
"You've been busy, Chuck. Working for the Air elemental, framing me, having your men abduct and beat Finn, then doing the same to the detective. And I didn't really understand why-until I overheard you and Wayne Stephenson talking tonight at Northern Aggression." I clucked my tongue. "He's right, you know. Bitch is crazy if she thinks she's going to dethrone Mab Monroe as queen bee of Ashland." Carlyle didn't say anything, but agreement flashed in his eyes.