"If you believe this woman gathering the names of pregnant jaguar women is a high-ranking member of his inner circle," Riordan said, "then I'm with Riley. Let's get as far on this trail as we can tonight."
They watched the group emerge. Three men and two girls came out of the warehouse. All five were dressed in black. One of the men the others referred to as Davi wore leather pants and a vest. His hair was grungy and long. His arms and chest were covered in tattoos depicting very graphic violent scenes, mainly involving naked women. He shoved his dark glasses on his nose and wrapped his arm around one of the women. He seemed to be in charge, the others agreeing with everything he said as they pushed their way through the chain-link fence and started down the uneven road.
Riley studied the two women. Both were about the same height. Both were covered in piercings and wore the same short black skirts, net stockings, corsets and high heels. The woman with the bright, dyed red hair had her breasts nearly exposed by the grungy male groping her as they walked along the dirty road. Davi called her Ana. Riley dismissed her almost immediately. She was too submissive, too easily controlled and enthralled by her male partner. Riley couldn't see Mitro willingly sharing loyalties. She turned her attention to the other woman.
Riley's pulse jumped when she concentrated on the one the others in the group called Pietra. She walked a little apart from the others, her eyes overbright as if she was on some drug. Her fingers continually twitched against her thigh as she walked, those long, painted black nails tapping out a rhythm only she heard. She carried herself slightly aloof from her companions. She walked a little faster than the others as if she was eager to reach her destination.
Riley closed herself off from everything, trusting Dax to keep her safe. She listened to that tiny throbbing drumbeat in her veins. It was deep, a nagging thump nearly drowned out by the sound of her own racing pulse.
Pietra. The one they call Pietra, she identified.
Pietra suddenly began muttering, her body jerking around her, those bright eyes going dark, almost demonic. Her face pulled into a mask of rage. She looked around her, a careful, thorough sweep of rooftops, the air above her and the buildings surrounding her.
Riley held her breath. Dax tightened his grip on her, drawing her close to him. Mitro is strong in her. He's looking through her eyes. Don't speak, not even to me.
She wasn't about to make a sound. She could see the difference in Pietra. Her beautiful face had been the mask covering evil. The woman looking around her, lips pulled back in a snarl of hatred-that was the true character behind that sweet, almost childish face. Riley realized that Mitro had chosen this woman to be in his inner circle because she was easily corrupted. She already had the seeds of cruelty and depravity in her.
Mitro appeals to her. She finds him sexy and dangerous. When he kills others in front of her it turns her on. She bathes in the blood of his victims just as she believes the countess Elizabeth Bathory did. Dax pushed the information into her mind. She has killed before. Her mother. A sister. A woman she thought was making a move on a man she liked. She was ripe for Mitro.
What in the world was she doing working in Dr. Silva's clinic around all those pregnant women? Riordan demanded.
I'm afraid your doctor isn't able to read minds in the way we can, Dax pointed out. She doesn't have that advantage. I imagine this woman is quite cunning and can appear innocent and sweet. That would also appeal to Mitro. He loves deception. The thought that he could send a killer into a place where life is brought into the world would be especially gratifying to him.
Riley wanted to weep for those lost women, victims of such atrocities, mothers to be, looking forward to the birth of their children, only to meet a woman like Pietra. Beautiful on the outside but cold and rotten on the inside. The women had trusted her, just as the doctor had.
She waited until the small group had gotten a distance in front of them and Pietra had resumed moving steadily toward her destination, no longer suspicious.
They have to be stopped, Dax. Whatever it takes, we have to stop them. She understood the drive Dax had to destroy evil now.
Dax had devoted his life to the purpose of ridding the world of creatures such as Mitro. His life had seemed filled with honor, but terribly bleak and depressing, a stark, ugly world of vile criminals. She felt the need to be right beside him, no matter how terrifying it was. People such as Pietra had to be stopped. And malicious, evil creatures such as Mitro had to be destroyed.
She felt she understood and loved Dax all the more for the insight. How could she not? He might look at his life as one of duty, but she knew just how much looking at those dead people, their lives taken from them in such brutal ways, had affected him. He lived with the memories every day.
She felt the brush of his mouth over the top of her head. I have you to take the memories away, Riley. Don't feel bad for me. I don't. My life just ... is. It was my choice.
She was well aware he had made his choices, just as she was making hers. Whatever it took, being with Dax was worth it. On some level, from the moment she'd laid eyes on the warrior, so badly wounded, she'd known he was meant to be with her.
She poured warmth and love into his mind. They might be surrounded by evil, but they could sustain one another through it.
She began to hear the muffled sounds of music and voices as they approached another set of abandoned warehouses. They followed Pietra and the others through a splintered door hanging on broken hinges. Inside the room were old mattresses, trash, needles and cigarette butts. They went through the large room without hesitation to a narrow opening that led to a staircase.
The music grew louder as did the voices as they descended. Davi pulled open a heavy door, and music blasted out. Riley clapped her hands over her ears.
Turn down the volume, Dax instructed.
It took a couple of minutes to figure out how to consciously control her ability to hear. There were hundreds of conversations going on. She could actually hear individual ones at the same time. Between that and the melancholy music, she felt a little insane. Everyone was dressed in the same dark clothing, with multiple piercings over their faces. Many wore dark glasses even in the dark of the warehouse.
Riordan nudged Dax and lifted his chin toward a man moving among the dancing crowd. Clearly he was selling drugs. Riley looked over the room and noted several dealers in the throng.
Pietra and her friends didn't deign to speak to anyone on that level, but swept across the room to the other side. The crowd parted for them immediately, never hindering their progress, which told Riley a lot about Pietra's status in the underground club. A door on the far side of the room led to another staircase leading down. As far as Riley could tell, the place was a firetrap. There were too few exits and too many people, most of them bored, drunk and high, a bad combination.