Page 68 of Wake the Dream

Dark hollows around her eyes spoke to her own disturbed rest, and Kieran made a resigned noise in his throat, knowing the responsibility sat on his shoulders once more.

Kieran crossed the room to the shades he kept drawn. “I know you’ve been through a lot,” he said to the vampire. “You want to rest, and you spent an uneventful night trapped in my silver-lined car trunk. It couldn’t have been comfortable. Tell us what we want to know and you’re free to go.”

“You think I trust you?” The vamp spat and a spot of blood landed on the carpet. “Death is better than what happens if I talk. All I can tell you,” he said, gaze flicking over to Illaria, “is that wherever your sister went, you can’t find her. She doesn’t want to be found.”

“You son of a—”

Kieran had to lunge forward to grab Illaria before she ripped off the poor man’s head, knowing she was itching for a good decapitation and he had robbed her of one when he killed Daniel. “You’re going to have to do a lot better than that,” he told the vampire.

“Or what? Open the blinds and let the sun in. I’m done.” The man shook his head. “You can’t find her when she doesn’t want to be found. You don’t have the power.”

Illaria slapped at Kieran’s arms to get him to release her. Instead of doing so, he carried her into the bedroom and let the door slam behind them.

“Why aren’t you letting me tear him a new one?” she growled, whirling to face him. “He confessed. He knows where Yelena went and he isn’t telling us.”

“You have to follow my lead, remember? He said you don’t have the power.”

She clenched her fists. “Then let me show him how wrong he is.”

“Maybe later. Right now, we need to find someone who does have the power,” Kieran mused, tapping his foot as an idea formed in his head. “And I know one person in town—”

“No.” Her answer came immediately. “We are not going to Caryss.”

“She obviously knows what she’s doing.”

Illaria whipped around and speared him with a look. “And you already owe her too much. No.” She shook her head. “I won’t let you dive even further into her pocket for me.”

Kieran grabbed her shoulders to still her frantic movements. “Do you want to find your sister?”

“You know I do.”

“Then you let me worry about the price to be paid. I’m a detective. I know not to get into too much trouble. Let me do my job. Which in this case means following a lead. The vamp says we need someone with power? Then we find someone.”

“Yeah, but only because you killed them off,” Illaria griped.

She looked small, too small and delicate although he knew she hid a world of strength in her tiny body. Despite her confession about blackouts, she was one of the most magical people he knew.

“That vampire knows more than he’s saying. I didn’t kill off our only lead. I just narrowed down the options.” Kieran released her, pursing his lips in consternation. “Do I need to do this on my own?”

She would hate it, he knew. The goad worked.

“I think you’re making a big mistake.”

“And I think we don’t have any other trail to follow. We go to Caryss and we use the big magic at her disposal.”

“Doesn’t the police department have some kind of warlock on retainer for these kinds of things?”

Kieran shrugged. “On vacation.”

“Sure, make a joke about this,” Illaria snapped.

Except he wasn’t joking in the least. “I’m serious as a heart attack. Make your choice. You come with me, or you stay here and I go, either way.”

She clearly felt uncomfortable with the choices. A rock and a hard place, Kieran mused, because once he made up his mind, he did not go backwards.

He spent the next twenty minutes doing whatever it took to gather information from the rogue vampire. When none was forthcoming, Kieran brought him back down to the car wrapped in a tarp from the closet. Then delivered the creature on the doorstep of the police department on his way past.

**

---