had lowered her weapon down by her side, but she seemed poised to bolt, her body weight tilted back on her feet and leaning to one side. He wanted to see her face with a desperation that was unsettling, but that hood was still up—and for no good reason at all, he wondered whether she had held it in place as she’d run off.
He wanted to catch her scent again, but the wind was being blocked by the buildings on either side of them. Given that heat rose, even from bodies that were clothed, all that wonderful natural perfume was being wasted on the heavens above—
Wow. Since when had his romantic switch gotten flipped?
Before that question could be answered, Butch came tooling around the corner of the club. He was striding fast and came to a stop as he saw Boone.
“What’s doing over here,” the Brother demanded. “And I’ll take my phone back, thank you very much.”
“This is Helania,” Boone said by way of apology. “She’s the one who called in the victim.”
Butch’s aura changed immediately, and he walked forward, halting in the snow next to Boone. As his phone was held out to him, he accepted it with a nod.
When he spoke next, his voice was soft and very grave, and he addressed Helania in the shadows. “Thank you for letting us know about her. I’m really sorry you had to see her like that, and I want to reassure you that you did the right thing. We’re very grateful for your help, and we’re going to find who killed her.”
The female—
Helania—stayed silent, but at least she seemed to nod. And that gun stayed at thigh level, Boone noted.
“We’d just like to talk to you,” Butch said. “We’re here to find out who hurt her, and that was the reason you called the Brotherhood, isn’t it? You wanted to help her.”
“I told him everything I know. I have nothing to add.”
“Then maybe you could just repeat it all for me?”
There was a long silence, during which the background thumping of the music and the chatter of humans in the wait line around front seemed to get louder. If she were calming herself to dematerialize, Boone thought, they were never going to see her again. Sure, he had her name, but courtesy of having to live among humans, vampires were good at disappearing themselves—and that included from people who were of the species.
If she ghosted out, he would never see her again.
And why did that strike him as such a tragedy?
“We can go back inside where it’s warm,” Butch offered. “We can find a corner in the coat check area. I promise this won’t take long. We’re just trying to gather as much information as we can so we can help her—”
“How do I know you are who you say you are?” she said.
Butch lifted his hands slowly to the front of his cashmere coat. “Don’t shoot me, please. I’m not wearing a vest.”
That gun came back up in a snap, and the quick movement made Boone think the female—
Helania—might have had some training and experience with the weapon. Good to know—and it offered him some reassurance given that she’d been at the club alone.
“Go ahead,” she said.
Moving with care, Butch opened the two halves.
A gasp came out of the shadows. Then again, it might well have been the first time the female had seen a set of those famous black daggers, strapped handles down to the chest of a warrior: As per the Old Laws, it was a violation punishable by banishment or even death for anyone not in the Brotherhood to possess a black dagger, much less wear them in the traditional way.
That gun didn’t just go down again. It got buried somewhere in her cloak. And then the female came out of the shadows. As she emerged, the first thing Boone did was try to see under her hood, but he couldn’t make out anything of her face.
“You are safe with us,” Butch told her.
“I don’t feel safe anywhere anymore.”
“Come on, let’s go somewhere warmer.”
Back around front, the bouncers at the door let the three of them inside, and then Butch commandeered some folding chairs in a corner of the coat area, pulling them into a little circle behind a half curtain that hung from the ceiling. There was an awkward moment as everyone stood around, and then Butch took the lead in the downward-butt pose.
As Boone sat across from the female, he tried to look like