His bright green eyes were wide, and his pulse quickened. He managed to nod against the force of my hand. Jackson was so young it made me sick to have to scare him like this. Sure, he was guarding Alexandre Peyton and probably worked for Marcus Sullivan, but he didn’t look more than twenty years old. I doubted he understood the implications of keeping the company he did.

“Where is Peyton?”

His brows knit together, confusion clouding his features.

“The vampire,” I clarified. “Where is the vampire?”

At that his eyes widened with understanding. He nodded again and mumbled something into my hand.

“If I let you talk, do you promise not to call them?” I held the gun to his temple. “You don’t want to call them.”

His head bobbed, and I lifted my hand one finger at a time, praying he would keep his word.

Jackson let out a whoosh of air and sucked back a breath. “Who are you?” he asked, but to his credit he kept his tone low.

If he didn’t know who I was, then there was a good chance he hadn’t been at the Chameleon. There was hope for this one yet.

“It doesn’t matter.” I pressed the gun harder against the wrinkled skin of his forehead. “Just tell me what I want to know and this won’t get messy.”

His mouth formed a surprised O, but still he didn’t shout for help. The weapon did seem to be distracting him from answering though, so I pulled it away. The entire frame of his body relaxed noticeably. From below I could hear shuffling feet and irritated voices as the men continued to look for the source of the disturbance.

“The coffin room is under the theater. I’ve never seen it, so I don’t know exactly where, but there’s a door behind the curt—”

I covered his mouth with my hand again upon hearing the withdrawing voices of the two other guards. Jackson’s eyes looked huge with terror.

“Who do you work for?” I needed to make this quick.

Lifting my hand enough that he could move his lips, I let him continue. “Work for?” He looked confused.

“Why are you here? Werewolves guarding a vampire doesn’t make sense.”

“We’re not guarding the vampire. We’re here to protect our alpha. He’s guarding the vampire.”

I was pretty sure I knew the answer to my next question already, but I needed to know for sure. “Who’s your alpha, Jackson?”

“Marcus Sullivan.”

“And he’s underground too?”

Jackson nodded. “He and the queen sleep down there.”

“Are there other guards?” Footfalls were echoing upwards. My time was almost up.

“Yes. Six.”

I showed him the gun again. “How many?”

“Six, I swear.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple rising and falling with an exaggerated bob. Male voices were closer now. I couldn’t just leave Jackson to tell them I’d been here, but there was also no way I could take on the other two guards and keep the young wolf subdued.

“Thank you. I’m sorry.” I saw his confusion at the words, but a moment later the butt of my gun connected with his temple, and he was out cold.

For the next part of my plan to work, I needed to be quiet and quick. I hopped onto the edge of the balcony, teetering as I balanced on the thin rail before leaping off and into the box where I’d originally hidden. An instant after I landed I heard one of the other guards swear.

I slipped back into the hallway where one of the guards stood with his back to me. The other was out of sight, but I could hear him trying to revive Jackson. I leaped onto the guard I could see and snaked my arm under his chin, jerking backwards to cut off his air supply. It would have been a perfect sleeper hold if I’d been six inches taller. I’d still be able to knock him out, but it was going to take a little extra elbow grease.

A wheezy moan escaped his lips and his body went slack under mine, tumbling to the floor. The whole process took mere seconds. If I could have left then without dealing with the third guard, I would have been happy to, but I doubted he would just ignore the fact that his two comrades were suddenly out cold.

“Bitch.”

Yup, that’s what I figured.

I got to my feet and squared off against the redheaded guard who was now all that stood between me and the basement.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said.

“That’s a pity, because I want to hurt you.”

I stepped backwards, careful to avoid the fallen werewolf who was now snoring on the floor. At the same time, I leveled my gun at the remaining guard. I had no intention of firing it, but he didn’t need to now that. Nothing says guess what, I’m here like gunplay.

“If you leave now, nothing will happen to you,” I promised.

He laughed. “The queen should have finished you off when she had the chance.”

Jackson had mentioned Marcus’s queen earlier, and now this wolf seemed to be suggesting she’d had a chance to do me in. I was still wondering who they were talking about since there was no queen in the east, but I was pretty sure his words meant she was the one who almost killed me at the Chameleon.

“I think you’ll find it’s a lot harder to finish me off than you might imagine.”

“We’ll find out.” He lunged for me, but his foot snagged on his fallen friend’s arm. He didn’t fall, but the stagger gave me enough time. I didn’t waste the effort to incapacitate him painlessly. Instead I smashed my gun into the back of his head.

Knocking Jackson out had made me feel bad. Bringing this guy down brought a smug, satisfied smile to my lips. I surveyed the floor and the three unconscious figures and let myself breathe a small sigh of relief.

The easy part was over.

That taking on three full-grown werewolves had been the easy part made me want to vomit.

Chapter Thirty-One

I dragged the inert bodies into the box and used the braided curtain tiebacks to bind their hands and feet and tether the three of them together. Once I felt sure they wouldn’t easily be able to free themselves if they woke up, I went in search of my quarry.

Access to the basement was through a trap door behind the tattered gray movie screen. When the Orpheum used to host plays, the door had probably been for easy access to the stage for surprise entrances or dramatic death scenes.

Now it would once again play a part in a very different kind of death scene.

I took a long, deep breath and pulled my cell out of my jacket pocket. I’d only been gone an hour but Desmond was likely awake by now. Part of me wanted to use the phone to call Keaty and ask for backup. I couldn’t make myself do it. Maybe it was because Keaty had saved me the first time I met Peyton, and now that I was facing him for the last time I had to do so by myself.

It was stupid, but I had to know in six years I had become the kind of hunter who didn’t need help to kill a three-hundred-year-old vampire. Since meeting Peyton I’d killed others older and stronger than him, but something about the Cajun vampire made me feel as foolish and weak as the sixteen-year-old he’d once bitten.

I looked at the phone once more before putting it back inside my pocket. Pulling my jacket around me, I balanced on the balls of my feet at the edge of the gaping black hole. I only smelled mold and dampness, the scents of the dark, no vampires or wolves.

I jumped.

It took my eyes a few moments to adjust to the total darkness and a few more to take my surroundings in. Below the stage, mildewed sets and props lined either side of the walls. Glass from broken stage lights dusted the floor, making a sound like dry leaves on autumn sidewalks whenever I put my foot down.

Raising my face, I sniffed the dank air, trying to sense anything alive over the pungent odor of decay. Then, as faint as a whisper, I detected something real, something with a beating heart.

I sidestepped the glass the best I could and moved in the direction of the smell.

A short distance down the hall the ceiling dipped low into a small crawlspace that led to a maze of storage spaces and dressing rooms. I crouched, bracing my hands against either wall, and tentatively sniffed the air again. The scent was stronger here, so I dropped to all fours to follow it down the rabbit hole.

Several dozen feet of squat, tight space later the tunnel tilted upwards and began to grow larger. I could rise to a hunched standing position and used it as an opportunity to grab my gun, preparing myself to step into the open.

I ducked low to the ground, shrinking as far into the shadows as possible and taking advantage of my superior breath-holding abilities. I listened for crunching glass behind me, or anything to suggest someone ahead was aware of me and waiting to confront me at the mouth of the tunnel. All I heard was the echoing thrum of the subway as it careened through a station a few blocks away.

The sound of my own heart was a quiet, fearful thump. As far as I could tell, no one was coming. I sniffed the air again, trying to distinguish the different smells.

There was a mishmash of lupine aromas. Too many to give myself an actual head count, but enough to make me a little queasy. Jackson had told me there were six guards, in addition to Marcus and his queen. I was hoping he hadn’t lied.

I slumped back, holding my gun to my chest and keeping my breaths steady against a wave of panic. What was I doing here? This wasn’t a nest of rogue vampires or one errant wolf. This was a dissenting pack, and until this moment I had only been viewing their leader as a pawn between me and my goal of bringing Peyton to the council.

Yes, Marcus was a puppet in Peyton’s larger plan, but I hadn’t put enough thought into the coup he was plotting. Within the werewolf community there were those who believed choosing a ruling class through family lines was outdated. I didn’t fully disagree with them, but I also respected that Lucas would only ever do things for the benefit of his pack.

Furthermore, I didn’t think for a second Marcus intended to make the wolves a democratic society if he usurped Lucas’s throne.

But those who believed his campaign of false promises would protect their leader with their lives, and I had been a fool to underestimate the scope of his following. These werewolves were more than just guards. They believed they were warriors for a righteous cause.