“Shut up about my mother!” Glass roared, flashing his fangs, which were still tinged with my blood. He backed away from Christian, flicking his eyes between us.
“Did you lure them all back to your spiderweb?” I continued. “Did you dress them up and play house or kill them straight away? That was pretty smart of you, being the first on the scene of the crime. We automatically ruled out your scent.”
Glass wasn’t talking. In my years of stalking criminals, I’d learned how to provoke men into gloating about their kills. Sometimes all it took was a few insults or pointing out their mistakes. Glass was too smart for that. He wasn’t confessing anything just yet.
But his mother was his hot button.
“Was your mother ashamed of her black-haired son?” I asked. “Is that why there aren’t any pictures of you in the house?”
His jaw clenched, and he gave me a baneful look. Christian lunged to grip his wrist, and Glass raced out of reach, making sure to keep us both in his line of vision.
I kept advancing. “Was the Vampire your kindred chose a blond? I bet that was a slap in the face. You could have done anything with your life, but you’re nothing but a spider—luring your prey in a web of lies, paralyzing and killing them. Did you really want someone to love you, or were you just punishing anyone who wouldn’t love you back? Scumbags like you make me sick. How many were there, Glass? Twenty? Two hundred?”
“You can’t prove anything,” he growled.
I gave him an exaggerated smile. “Maybe we’ll just count the shoes,Willard.”
When I distracted Glass with my remark, Christian rushed at him and got ahold of his arm. With a quick motion, he snapped the detective’s wrist. Glass bellowed, but he was smart enough not to fight Christian. Instead, he turned his injured arm in a way that made Christian lose his grip, and at Chitah speed, he ran to the edge of the clearing just twenty feet away. A moment passed as he looked between us. He wasn’t a man who ever lost control or fled, so I could see he was working out a way to take us down so we wouldn’t be alive to testify against him.
Suddenly I felt invigorated. Light danced from my fingertips, and I sang the chorus of “Nowhere to Run.”
“Think you can catch him?” Christian asked in a quiet voice.
“He’s already caught. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
Glass stared daggers at me, no doubt wondering why his venom was inferior against a Mage. I wasn’t about to ease his worries by telling him the truth.
Twigs snapped from the edge of the trees. Shepherd came out of nowhere, charging at Glass like a tank, a knife in each hand. He raised his arm, the motion so quick that by the time he threw the blade, it was already in Glass’s chest. Shepherd tackled him, but Glass savagely bit his arm and escaped.
“Don’t let him go in the house!” Christian shouted. “He’s looking for cover!”
I flashed ahead of the men, moving like liquid through the woods until I neared the mansion. Luckily, most of the land had soft grass, but it hardly mattered. Something switched on inside me, and I became the huntress. Maybe Glass was hoping to hide under the umbrella of a crowd, believing we wouldn’t cause a scene with so many important people around us. If so, he’d underestimated his enemies.
I glimpsed him entering the mansion through the back door. Slowing my pace, I lifted up my dress and used it to wipe the blood away from my neck. As I neared my fallen mask, I put it on and sharpened my light.
Once inside, I jogged down a long hall and searched for a face without a mask. I bumped into a number of people who gave me pointed stares as I scanned the room. He had to be here somewhere, so I put myself in his shoes and guessed he would have gone upstairs where the crowd was thinner and less challenging to maneuver through.
“Where did you go,” I whispered.
Gem guarded the front door, eyes alert. Did she know what his costume looked like? I didn’t have time to stop.
Glass was more dangerous now than ever. With his career finished, he’d never give himself up. The death penalty was swift and certain with the higher authority.
Masks or not, I saw a few horrified glances from women who noticed my bare feet covered in dirt. Christian emerged from the back hall. He stopped and tugged on his earlobe, sifting through all the chatter in an attempt to locate Glass’s whereabouts. It took me a second to realize that Christian could find him easily; Glass would be the only one panting as heavily as I was.
The second my partner’s gaze swung up to the stairs, I took off. My wound had begun to bleed again, and the blood dribbled down my chest.
“Vampire attack!” a voice boomed.
The conversations in the house snuffed out, the violins screeched to a halt, and a flutter of energy made my hair stand on end.
“My name is Detective Glass, and I’ve been commissioned by the higher authority to capture a serial killer. That Vampire in the kilt has murdered hundreds of innocent women. I just witnessed him biting that woman’s neck and trying to end her life.”
“He lies!” I shouted. “He’sthe killer.”
Glass shook his head. “He charmed her to cover his tracks. Are there any honorable men here who will help me subdue this madman?”
Christian’s expression strained, as if he was either going to burst out laughing or fling a silver tray at Glass’s head.
