and scanned the building itself. “No windows,” he commented as he walked back to the door. “Guess we’ll have to do this the noisy way.”
Bracing one hand on the frame, he pulled the handle once more, but this time sent a wave of power rolling up and down the connection between door and frame, measuring resistance, looking for weak spots, for vulnerability. His grin when he found it was more of a grimace as every muscle in his arms and chest strained, every tendon corded. The first squeal of metal tearing sped into the dark of early morning, breaking windows somewhere down the street. Xavier swallowed the roar of triumph that wanted to follow. No need to attract more attention, although the shredding metal was making enough noise that any humans inside would have to be deaf not to hear. But he wasn’t worried about a few humans, no matter how well trained.
Recognizing signs of imminent give in the door, he tempered his hold so that when it finally surrendered to his strength, he wasn’t knocked into the street like a hapless dummy.
“See what you can do with that, Chuy,” he ordered as he strode into the building, every sense on alert. His lieutenant wouldn’t be able to fix the door, but he could repair it sufficiently that it would function, and at first glance, would appear undamaged, especially in dark of early morning. It would open when pulled, and Sakal was far too weak to detect Xavier’s presence, especially since once they were inside and the ambush set, he would shield himself completely.
The minute the door opened, Xavier was bombarded by the reek of sorcery. If he’d had any doubts that this was the sorcerer’s lair, they vanished in that instant. Sakal had been living and practicing his magic here much longer than Xavier had guessed. It irritated him that he hadn’t sniffed out even the softest whisper of the sorcerer’s presence before the attacks. He’d been too confident that the city was his, too focused on problems and building alliances farther from home.
The air inside was frigid, as if the air-conditioning was set to run continually. Freezing air gusted down the short entrance way, caught by bare walls and a marble floor that was so cold, he could feel it through his boots. What the hell did Sakal have in here that he needed the temperature barely above freezing? Or maybe the question was who. He scowled, reminding himself that zombies weren’t real, and vampires weren’t dead, for fuck’s sake. Maybe the asshole just liked it cold.
The freezing effect eased when he reached the end of the semi-enclosed entrance, roughly eight feet from the now-repaired door. He turned when Chuy came up next to him. “I’m stepping out first. Give me five minutes,” he telepathed. “Then follow, if you can. No heroics, Chuy.”
His lieutenant snorted his reply to that, and Xavier knew the vamp would go down fighting no matter what he said. As one of his children, Chuy was hardwired to defend his Sire with no regard for his own life. Although that cowardly fucker Dênis had proven, all those years ago, that the wiring could be overcome.
Xavier’s expression split in a fang-bearing grin, not only ready for battle, but looking forward to it. Because Chuy wasn’t the only one with hardwiring. Xavier was a fucking vampire lord. Violence was a beast that ran with the blood in his veins, and he was ready to set it free.
He stepped beyond the walls of the entrance and found . . . nothing. Not on this floor. No one breathed, no hearts beat, no scent gave away their presence. He straightened from the ready position he’d assumed, expecting some level of opposition to be waiting for him. “What the fuck?”
They were standing in a huge, wide-open space that wouldn’t have been out in place in a cathedral or a palace. Or a bank, for that matter, which probably was what it had once been. The ceiling soared into a glass-topped dome that appeared as if it would admit light during the bright of day. It wasn’t exactly the preferred arrangement for a vampire, no matter that he could hide downstairs when the sun was shining. The room itself echoed the domed shape. An open mezzanine made up most of the room, the circle split by the foyer in which he stood. A bank of two elevators was behind him to his left, and a narrow set of