The place was creepy, and maybe a little frightening, although she wasn’t going to admit that, even to herself. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to leave before talking to the bossman behind the bar who’d known her brother well enough to recognize him from across the room.
Kathryn finally squirmed her way out of the mass of dancers, feeling like she’d been squeezed out of . . . okay, not a pleasant thought. Not gonna go there.
She made her way around to the service bar and caught the nearest bartender’s eye. There were three of them back there. Two were working the bar itself, while the third appeared to concentrate on filling orders from the beleaguered wait staff.
Kathryn leaned across the bar to him and shouted, “Is Kurt around?”
The bartender winced, as if she’d hurt his ears by yelling. But even a vampire had to be deaf with all the noise in here, so she figured the bartender knew who and what she was and was just being a prick about it.
He moved down to the opposite end of the bar and said something to one of the other bartenders. That guy turned, and Kathryn caught a brief flash of fang before he gave her a long look. After a moment, he said something to the prick and switched places with him.
As she watched the new guy making his way toward her, she noticed the original prick talking into a cell phone. It could have been coincidence, but somehow she didn’t think so.
“I’m Kurt.”
Her attention was drawn back to the club manager. He was big and physically fit, like they all were, with blond hair and light-colored eyes that she assumed were blue, though it was hard to tell for sure in the dark club. He appeared to be in his early twenties, but appearances were irrelevant with vampires. He could be a couple of hundred years old, and he’d look the same.
“Special Agent—” she began and reached for her credentials, but he stopped her with a light touch on her arm.
“I know who you are. What do you want?”
“If you know who I am, then you know what I want. I’m looking for Daniel Hunter. He was in this club, and you knew him well enough to tell your doorman to let him in with his camera.”
“Yeah? So?”
“How well did you know him?”
Kurt shrugged one shoulder. “He was only here a couple of times.”
Interesting, Kathryn thought to herself. He’d deflected her question while pretending to answer it.
“Did you meet him here at the club?” she persisted.
“No.”
She gave him an impatient look. “Look. I’m trying to find my brother. If you don’t have anything to do with his disappearance, you’ve got nothing to worry about from me. Where did you meet Daniel?”
Kurt stared at her for a moment, then said, “In the Badlands. I like to hike, which means I hike at night, preferably when there’s a little bit of moonlight to see by. I was out hiking last month, and I came across Dan shooting pictures of the park at night. We talked. I liked him.”
Kathryn studied Kurt’s closed down expression and realized something. Kurt didn’t just like her brother, he liked him. And he was worried about him.
“Do you have any idea where he might be?”
Kurt shook his head. “I wish I did, Agent Hunter. He came in here two nights in a row. When he didn’t show up the next night, I thought he’d gone backcountry again. He’d already told me that he’d only come into town for a hot shower and a few nights in a real bed, and then he was going out again after that. I figured I’d find him on my next hike. But he wasn’t there, and, believe me, I looked. I know that whole park better than just about anyone. And then the Sheriff started asking around, and the next thing I knew Lucas told me you were coming to town.”
Kurt looked across the crowded club for a moment, then back at Kathryn. “If there’s anything I can do to help you find him . . .”
Kathryn smiled. Here, finally, was someone who was as worried about Daniel as she was.
On a whim, she pulled out the brochure from Alex Carmichael’s gallery and showed him the owner’s picture. “How about this guy?” she asked.
“Alex? Yeah, sure. He’s in here a couple of times a month.”
“I thought he lived in Chicago.”
“He’s got a place in Minneapolis, too. But he doesn’t like to circulate in the cities where he works. Says he doesn’t want everyone knowing his business, but I think he’s just one of those guys who likes to go for a bit of strange sometimes.”
“Strange?”
Kurt gave her a puzzled look, then laughed a little. “Strange, as in not his usual partner, if you get my drift. I get the impression Alex has a steady squeeze back home, but he likes to play. So he comes here once in a while. We get humans from all over the state, especially in summer, and year-round there are two good-sized cities in easy driving distance.”
“Lovely,” Kathryn commented. She started to fold the brochure back into her pocket, but Kurt interrupted her.
“If you’re thinking Alex had something to do with Daniel being gone . . . I think you’re wrong.”
Kathryn tilted her head curiously. “Why’s that?”
“He and Daniel talked, but it was business. And like I said, Alex comes here to circulate. If he wanted Daniel, he didn’t need to come here to get him.”
She thought about it for a moment, then nodded and held out her hand. “Thanks for your help, Kurt.”
“Yes, ma’am. You should know . . . I haven’t stopped looking for Dan. I think he’s in this town somewhere, or if not that, then he’s lost out in the Badlands. But if I’m wrong, if you find him first, tell him to give me a ring and let me know he’s okay. Now, I need to get you out of here, because this crowd is about to get pretty excited, and, believe me, you don’t want to be here when that happens. Let me tell Gary, and I’ll be right back.”
While Kurt walked over to let the other bartender know he’d be gone a few minutes, Kathryn eyed the gyrating couples already packed in like wiggling sardines and wondered how things could get any more excited than they already were. But she’d gotten what she came for and had found an unexpected ally, too. So if that ally was telling her she should make like the birds, then she was ready to take his advice and get the flock out of there.
She turned back to see what was keeping Kurt and barely managed to dodge aside as a pair of howling vampires with a screaming woman between them shoved out of the crowd and into the bar, knocking aside several patrons who promptly yelled happily and joined in the mayhem. Kurt roared and started tossing bodies back into the crowd, but it was too late. One of the vamps slammed over the bar and crashed into the stock of liquor, breaking bottles and shattering glassware, and the scent of alcohol rose over the whole disastrous scene in a sickly sweet cloud.
Kathryn had backed away to the safety of a corner wall when the first trio had slammed into the bar, not wanting to get caught up in the violence. But now she stepped away from its relative protection and scanned the scene. It was obvious Kurt wasn’t going to break free anytime soon, and compared to the brawl at this end of the bar, the rest of the crowded club seemed almost tame. She drew a deep breath and had just girded herself for a return trip through the mob, when there was a roar of male voices followed by the excited squeals of vampire groupies in heat, and everything went completely to hell.
Chapter Eight
Lucas was on his way to the club when Nicholas’s cell phone rang. Mason was driving, and Nick was sitting up front in the passenger seat, but Lucas could clearly hear both sides of the conversation.
“Nick, where the hell is Lucas? We need him here now, man!” It was Greg Monterossa, the doorman cum bouncer at the blood house. The very same blood house where Kathryn had defiantly gone without him.
“Give me the phone, Nick,” Lucas growled. Nick handed it back to him. “What is it, Greg?” he asked, even though he had a pretty damn good idea. Talk about the perfect storm. Combine one stubborn FBI agent and a bunch of adrenaline-driven vampire fighters, and he had a disaster in the making.
“A bunch of the guys just showed up, juiced up from the fight and still reeking of blood. The crowd’s going nuts with happiness, but that FBI chick is still in there somewhere, my lord,” Greg added, clearly exasperated and striving not to show it. “Kurt tried to hustle her out first, but now he and the rest have their hands full, and I can’t close the door, we’ll have a full-on riot. You want me to—”
Nick’s phone beeped with an incoming call. Lucas checked the ID and went back to Greg.
“Kurt’s on the other line. Stay where you are; I’m only a few minutes away from you.”
He disconnected the doorman and brought up Kurt. “I just spoke to Greg. I’m on my way.”
“I tried to get her out of here, Sire, but it all happened too fast.”
“Yeah, she has that effect. I’ve got Nick and Mason with me. We’ll be there in—”
“Two minutes,” Mason provided from the front seat.
“I heard that,” Kurt said. “I’ll do what I can from here.”
Lucas disconnected and handed the phone over to Nick, considering his options. If there weren’t so many humans involved, he could simply drop his vamps where they stood and put everyone to sleep. But if the club was as crowded as Greg indicated, there were probably as many humans as vamps, if not more. And he had no way of knowing what they’d do if the vampires started passing out around them. Most of the humans were bound to be at least friendly, if not straight up groupies. But if only one or two were in the club for other reasons, if they maybe hoped to take down a vamp or two, instead of having a good time . . . well, a lot could happen in two minutes. And he wasn’t about to leave his vampires helpless in an unknown situation.
Nick dropped the cell phone Lucas had been using into the SUV’s center console, then looked over his shoulder and said, “What’s your plan for when we get there, my lord?”
“There’s only one plan, and that’s to extricate Kathryn Hunter as quickly and bloodlessly as possible. As far as I’m concerned, everyone else knew what they were signing up for when they walked into the club. But I don’t think our Special Agent had a clue, and I’d rather she not find out the hard way. I’d hate for any of my warriors to end up paying the price for her stubbornness.”