She stared. “So you’re saying magic is real? And there are sorcerers who can . . . what?”
“That would depend on the sorcerer. I must admit, they are rare in the world now, though at one time they were plentiful enough that they went to war against vampires.”
“You’re kidding. Were you—?”
“No. That was long before my birth. There are still sorcerers alive, though I’m told they’ve dwindled in number due to the small amount of magic left in this world.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them wide and said slowly, “So you’re saying there’s some sorcerer who has a hard-on for you . . . personally? Or is he, or she, just looking for any vampire to shoot at?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to discover—the secret that you claim I’ve kept from you. Though I can’t see how knowing that would have changed your defensive strategy at all.”
“Defensively, you’re probably right. But if I’d known there was some wacko sorcerer lurking around who could . . . what? Open a magical door for his people to walk through? Where are they going, by the way? How far?”
“To know that, I need to discover who this sorcerer is.”
“Have you made any progress?”
“Not yet, but he has to have a hiding place nearby. I’ve consulted a few others, who are older and more knowledgeable about such things, and they all tell me the same thing—that the sorcerer has to be here in order to send his people to safety.”
“So he can’t open the door from the other side?”
“Not that my associates are aware.”
“Are any of these associates that you consulted sorcerers themselves?”
“Regrettably, no. One is a magic user, but not powerful enough to be considered a sorcerer. The others are vampires—one old enough to remember the war and the other a historian who has studied the sorcery of that time.”
“I know you’ve been sending your vampires out, looking for something. What is it?”
“Not something, but someone. It takes a great deal of power for a sorcerer to transport others, rather than just himself. I suspect that’s why the initial attacks used so few people. But even those few could not have been carried far. He has to have a headquarters in the city. There’s no other possibility. But Barcelona is a big city with many buildings.”
She studied the ground pensively for a moment, then said, “I told you about Kerry Nask, the woman coming in tomorrow with the others. I told you she gets hunches about stuff. Like telling us to take this street, instead of that one, when we’re on a mission. Or warning us not to launch a particular operation that we’ve sometimes spent a lot of time planning. And we’ve learned to listen to her. I don’t care how much time or money we’ve put into a specific op, if Kerry says don’t do it, we don’t. Sometimes it’s cancelled completely, other times we just shift the timetable or the specifics around. But we never, and I mean never, ignore what she says.”
“Is she a vampire?”
“No. Her mother’s a witch, whatever that means. She heads up a coven in Pennsylvania. But Kerry’s not. A witch, I mean. She’s not even sure how she knows to warn us about stuff. It’s not something she works at. It just comes to her.”
“She’s clearly a sensitive, but that can include any number of abilities.”
“Well, I was just wondering if she might be helpful in tracking down this sorcerer of yours. Would he give off enough of a . . . sign or whatever that she could pick it up? Like if we drive up and down the streets of Barcelona?”
He didn’t dismiss the idea out of hand, but considered it. “Doubtful,” he said finally. “But if I or my vampires managed to pick up a trace, she might be useful in confirming it. What I’d really like is to capture one of his people and persuade them to talk.”
LAYLA KNEW WHAT persuade meant when he said it like that. He’d pry into the person’s head and dig around until he found what he needed. And she had no problem with him doing that. These people, whoever they were, were shooting at her people. Or her parents’ people, which was close enough. After all, she’d grown up here.
She took a step closer to Xavier. “See, now, that’s something I could have helped you with, if you’d told me. Capturing one fighter is very different than stopping an entire retreat.”
She regretted that step when he took a step of his own, putting them bare inches apart. Which was way too close. But if she backed up, she’d be admitting it bothered her to have him there.
He was looking down at her, his eyes once more filled with that eerie pewter gleam. She had to tilt her head back to look at him. He was so damn tall. She was very nearly six feet—was that tall in her boots. But he still towered over her. Well, not towered. It just seemed that way since she was accustomed to being taller than most people. She really liked that about him, though. Liked that he was taller, that she had to stretch to put her arms around his neck, that he’d probably completely dominate her in bed . . .
“Stop that!” her inner voice screeched. He was still watching her. “Yes?” she asked calmly, as if she’d spent the last few seconds waiting patiently and not spinning sensual images of the two of them.
His lips curved the tiniest bit. “Is the absence of vampires on your team deliberate?”
She shook her head. “No. One of our original members was a vampire. Great guy, excellent scout. He fell in love, and his girlfriend wanted him out. Wanted him to stay alive, I guess. He was a damn good fighter, and a very good friend. He still is. And he was damn near irreplaceable on the team. The best we could do was fill the hole he left.”
His gaze changed, as if he was seeing a part of her he hadn’t known existed. He probably was. Her years in the army hadn’t been spent at a desk, and notwithstanding the damn vineyard, neither were the jobs she did with her team. She’d done things both in the army and after that she’d rather forget, but they’d changed her, made her harder, more skeptical, less trusting. All of that. But they’d also taught her how to survive the worst humanity had to offer, how to protect the people who fought at your side, and how to walk away when it was over.
Xavier’s eyes never left her face, but the sense of him changed. The air was just the air, no longer filled with the stark awareness of him that had her thinking hot, sweaty thoughts that she shouldn’t.
“When are your people arriving?” he asked, somehow stepping back psychologically, without physical moving.