And after the long sessions with the employees, he was completely and utterly drained and exhausted. He desperately needed sex to keep his head from exploding. He glanced at his watch. The nightclubs would still be humming right now. He needed to feed, and he needed to continue his search for Nina.
“Well, good for you.” If Gabriel only knew. Good wasn’t the attribute Amaury associated with his gift. “Anything from your side?”
“I sensed a few people with guilt issues, possibly somebody with feelings of deception and fear, but I can’t pinpoint what about.” He looked at Gabriel. “Your gift is a lot more precise than mine.”
Amaury’s gift was open to interpretation, and this time he couldn’t rely on guesswork. This was too important for all of them. That was why Gabriel’s gift was necessary to complement his.
“We should interview a few of them one on one. Show me the list, Ricky,” he demanded.
Ricky pulled out the staff list and handed it to him. Amaury quickly made notes next to various names.
“Let’s set something up for tomorrow night.”
Ricky looked at the list. “Okay, together with the few from the previous meetings, that’s eleven of them. Yvette?”
Yvette had been quiet during the entire time. Now she cleared her throat. “I’d like to sit in on the interviews with Amaury.”
Amaury raised his eyebrows, but didn’t protest. If she wanted a closer look at the guys he’d picked out, so be it. “Gabriel, it’s the three of us then.” At least with Gabriel there, he and Yvette wouldn’t instantly get into a fight.
“Where’s Quinn?” Yvette suddenly asked.
“Probably outside. He was supposed to make sure everybody left the building. Let’s go,” Gabriel ordered. “It’s time to check in with Zane.”
***
This was the third night in a row Nina was in trouble with a vampire. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for this after all. And this was one mean looking dude. His head shorn bald, his body carrying not an ounce of fat, he had her pinned against a wall outside of Scanguards’ downtown offices.
His mouth twisted into a snarl only inches from her face as his arm pressed against her neck, making breathing virtually impossible.
Everything had gone well up to a few minutes ago. She had watched the employees leave the building after the staff meeting. Unfortunately, Benny had bolted before he’d helped her identify his contact. It made Nina think her informant had seen the guy amongst the employees at that moment and decided it was safer to skip. Not that he’d come with her voluntarily in the first place. She’d had to use persuasion of the violent kind to drag him with her.
Obviously the weasel had a better instinct of self preservation than Nina did, otherwise she wouldn’t be the one in the clutches of that bald vampire right now. The silver chain she carried in her jacket pocket was of no use to her now—she wouldn’t be fast enough to wrap it around his neck even if she managed to get free of his grip. And even though she was armed with a stake, it was in her inside pocket and inaccessible at present. She had to play a different strategy.
“Who are you?”
Yes, his voice sounded just as mean as he looked. No doubt about it.
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. He was crushing her windpipe.
“Talk!”
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t running out of air. She gasped and lifted her arm to gesture to her neck. A second later he loosened his grip on her neck, but only marginally. Instantly Nina coughed.
“Now talk fast.”
“I was just minding my own business.” If he thought she’d spill the beans this quickly, he’d never met anybody as stubborn as her.
He shook his head. “Not in my territory, you’re not. You’ve been spying on us. Who are you?”
“I was just going for a walk, that’s all.”
He shoved his thigh against her in a display of physical dominance. She wasn’t intimidated this easily, well, at least she wasn’t going to admit it.
“Prowling is the word you’re looking for, I believe.”
From the corner of her eye she scanned her surroundings for passersby, but they were alone. This late at night, the Financial District was deserted. The restaurants were already closed, and there were no nightclubs in the vicinity.
“This is a free country.”
“For some people maybe.”
He was different from the two vampires she’d fought the night before. He could have killed her a dozen times since he’d captured her, yet he was intent on questioning her instead. It gave her hope that he wasn’t sent by the same guy who’d dispatched the other two vampires.