All Just Glass - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [23]
He ducked briefly into the kitchen, where he found Michael, Jay and Robert. Michael was bent over a SingleEarth-published book about shapeshifter physiology. Jay was looking through the window with a pair of small binoculars, probably bird-watching. Robert was staring at Heather, who was either sleeping or unconscious. Maybe someone had finally gotten fed up with her.
Jay replied to what Zachary was about to ask before Zachary could say anything out loud. “We’re fine here. Dominique just called. She’ll be back in a minute, probably in a foul mood, since she says her informant stood her up, but you should have some time to clean up first.”
Robert looked confused when Jay first spoke, and then startled to find another hunter standing over his shoulder. Michael glanced up and then returned to his book without uttering a word.
“I’ll do that, then,” Zachary said. He had forgotten to shield his thoughts when approaching the kitchen. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. He would, however, take Jay’s advice. The shirt he was wearing still had blood on it from Heather’s X-Acto attack.
He had only a couple of outfits in this house—Dominique had asked him to stay here while they tracked Sarah, and he hadn’t brought many of his belongings—but that was fine, because to Zachary Vida, dressed could mean any clothing plus two things: a weapon and a woven silver chain with a white-gold pendant in the figure-eight symbol for eternity. The chain was his only remaining memento of his mother. The pendant had been a gift from another woman.
Dominique didn’t know either one existed, as both were always hidden by his undershirt, which was under the harness that held his primary knife at the small of his back.
Once fully dressed, he returned to the kitchen; he walked in just in time to see Dominique backhand Heather. Robert grabbed the witch’s arm and dragged her away from the bloodbond, earning a cold warning expression that made even the foolhardy human take a step back.
“This isn’t going to help anything,” Robert protested. “She already hates us. Beating her up isn’t going to make her like us more.”
“And you claim to be the good guys,” Heather snapped.
The expression on Dominique’s face was enough to make Zachary hesitate in the doorway. Though few other people would have noticed, Zachary could see the tension at the edges of her eyes and lips.
He would never ask about it, but he did wonder: Was there part of Dominique that was weakened by the loss of her daughter? Was there anywhere in her heart where she blamed herself? Could Dominique Vida feel regret, or was she just frustrated by the delay in catching her current prey?
Zachary understood impatience. When he had been eight, he had spent as many hours walking the colicky Sarah as he had training. He had warmed bottles at three in the morning and sung her to sleep when her father wasn’t home to do so. He had held her hands as she’d learned to walk, and grinned in a very un-Vida fashion as she’d learned her first fighting forms. Now every minute that passed was a minute when he failed her and let her dead body be violated.
He tried to strike the thoughts from his mind. That way lay the same kind of madness of grief that had gripped his mother after Jacqueline was taken, and a kind of shame he had no desire to share with the Marinitch next to him.
Perhaps too abruptly, he asked, “Jay, isn’t this what you’re here for?”
As frail as Heather looked, Zachary did not doubt that she would be willing to kill every one of them if given a chance. And she had certainly experienced worse abuse at Kaleo’s hands than Dominique was unleashing now—which meant Robert was right: this was a useless way of getting her to talk. Why wasn’t the damned telepath doing his job?
Jay turned in his seat to answer the question, naked gratitude on his face as he looked away from Dominique. “This one has been around vampires for a couple centuries, I’d guess. She knows how to obscure her thoughts. Anything you could do to her that is severe enough to disrupt her concentration would cause too much