Heart of Vengeance (Alice Worth #6) - Lisa Edmonds Page 0,77

to get a breath of fresh air. Why lop off this guy’s head? He was killing it on the drums.”

“That wasn’t all he killed.” He nudged the drummer’s head with his boot. It rolled into the flickering glow from an overhead light. He took a photo with his cell phone and sent it to someone. I was beginning to suspect what his profession was, even if I still had no idea what he was.

He pulled a large plastic bag from his inside jacket pocket, picked up the head by its hair, and dropped it into the bag with a nasty squelch. He tied the bag, took it to a Harley parked in the grass near a fenced area, and put the bag in one of the saddlebags.

I emerged from the shadows and studied the body as he locked the saddlebag. I sensed a puff of parchment-scented magic; the saddlebag had some kind of witchy wards, in addition to the lock.

The skin around the drummer’s chest wound was black. “You stabbed him with silver so he couldn’t shift,” I said.

“He liked to bite people and infect them. He’d been doing it for almost a year, leaving a trail of ruined lives and messes for people like me to clean up.” He joined me beside the body. Outside, without all the competing odors of the bar, he smelled like leather, tequila, and—strangely—the sea. What was he? “It’s a good bounty. Would’ve done this one for free, but it would set a bad precedent.”

I was right about him: a bounty hunter. I had no quarrel with bounty hunters per se; the good ones played an important role and filled a gap in law enforcement. Whether Leather Guy was one of the good ones remained to be seen.

His ice-blue gaze met mine as we stood over the drummer’s body. “Of all the strange, dangerous, and fantastical things I have found here, you and your wolf companion are the most interesting I have encountered in a long time.”

By here, did he mean the roadhouse? His intonation made me think he was referring to something else. In any case, I didn’t want this man to find me interesting. “Well, this has been fun, but I should get back inside. My friends will wonder where I am.”

“You don’t need to worry about them.” His smile chilled me like an Arctic wind. “I’ve arranged a diversion to keep them occupied for a few minutes so we can chat. No harm will come to them,” he added when I started for the back door. “Nor to you, if you tell me who you are, and why you’ve come here.”

“I came to hear the band and sample some of the local moonshine.”

His eyes went from glacier blue to dark storm clouds.

“I guess the band’s done for the night, unfortunately,” I added, glancing at the drummer’s body. “There’s still some of the good stuff left in that bottle on our table, if my friend hasn’t finished it off.”

The back door swung open. The light from inside the bar framed the figure of a slim man in the doorway, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. A cigarette glowed in his hand.

“Thank you for not making a mess inside this time,” the newcomer said. His voice was all too familiar. He gestured at the drummer’s body. “You can throw that in the incinerator before you leave.”

“Charles,” I breathed.

Charles Vaughan stepped outside and let the door close behind him. “Hello, my dear,” he said, his eyes glowing like soft moonlight. “Have we met? Surely not, or I would remember.” He approached. “Ronan, introduce me to your lovely friend.”

Of everything I had seen since arriving in the Broken World, Charles in a T-shirt and jeans, smoking a cigarette and smelling of beer, was the most thoroughly disconcerting sight of all.

Leather Guy—Ronan—said nothing.

“My apologies. He is an ill-bred man,” Charles said to me, shaking his head. He flicked his cigarette into the gravel and extended his hand. “I am Charles Vaughan, owner of Hawthorne’s. And you are…?”

“Alice,” I managed to say.

He took my hand. I expected him to kiss it, as the Charles I knew had a habit of doing, but instead he shook it. “Lovely to meet you, Alice. You are here as Lieutenant Stone’s guest, I understand. She is dealing with the little rumpus inside that Ronan cooked up.” He raised an eyebrow at Ronan’s glower. “Am I interrupting?”

“You know damn well you are,” Ronan said icily. “Alice and I were discussing the reason for