Laws of the Blood 2: Partners Read Online Free PDF

go find him yourself?
    Before Char could voice the thought, Helene said, “I have no proof and no trail, only those newspaper clippings in the folder.”
    Newspaper? Publicity? About a vampire? Char said a bad word. She quickly reached inside the folder and pulled out a handful of clippings. “Oh good,” she said with a sigh of relief after reading through several pieces of newsprint. “It’s only a serial killer.” Not that reading about a mortal who preyed on mortals was anything to rejoice about, but the last thing she wanted to see was any hint of a reference to vampires in the media.
    “Most of the stories are from the Post-Intelligencer .”
    Char looked up at Helene. “I noticed that.” She hadn’tplanned on bringing it up, though. “Where did you get these?” Char asked.
    “A friend in Seattle sent them.”
    “There are no strigoi in Seattle.” Maybe a few lonesome strigs, but the nearest nest to Seattle in Washington state was in Carnation.
    “The friend is not one of us, exactly,” Helene said. “There was a companion who lost her lover in the massacre, but she survived, after a fashion. She lived on the streets and in shelters until she began to recover from the loss a few months back. Now she runs one of the homeless shelters.”
    Char nodded. “Della.”
    “You know her?”
    “Of her. I keep track of things.” Char didn’t say for who. Della was a loose end but a harmless enough one. Mortal still, but an ally. Strigoi weren’t supposed to have mortal allies outside of slaves and companions, but the Law and reality weren’t always quite in sync.
    Helene said, “I called Della a couple of weeks ago to ask her to look around, see if she could pick up any word on a narcoleptic kinky sex addict anywhere in town. She sent me the clippings.”
    “Nothing about the word on the streets? Nothing about why she thinks your boy might be involved with a serial killer?”
    Helene shook her head. “Maybe being cryptic makes her feel better. Della’s a friend, but an angry one.”
    Justifiably so , Char thought. “Wait a minute. You called her two weeks ago?” She looked through theclippings again. Some were over a month old. “How long has the nestling been missing?”
    Helene’s hand stilled on the cat’s head. She looked down. “Since August, Hunter.”
    Char was on her feet. “August!”
    Lucien jumped off Helene’s lap and stalked away. Char moved around the coffee table and pulled the older vampire to her feet. “What do you mean, August? You do know that it is now late November, don’t you? How could you have misplaced a nestling for three months?”
    “Maybe I didn’t want to find him!” the woman shouted back.
    “He’s your nestling!”
    “I never invited him in.”
    “But still—”
    “Maybe I’m tired of taking in other people’s mistakes!” Helene cut her off. “I’m sick of being the Mother Teresa of bloodsucking monsters.”
    Well, yes, Char could see how someone could get tired of being imposed upon. The woman obviously had a conscience that had eventually acted up about the missing boy, or they wouldn’t be holding this conversation. But somehow Helene Bourbon’s diatribe did not sound completely convincing.
    “Then why come to me now?” Char asked. “Why not pretend you’ve never heard of this lost kid?”
    Because the nest leader suspected Istvan was the one who left Daniel on her doorstep, and she didn’t want to face retribution from him? Or was it more complicated than that? Char doubted she’d learn the complete truth from Helene Bourbon. Vampires were secretive bynature and justifiably paranoid about dealing with Enforcers.
    Char realized she was holding Helene by the woman’s jacket lapels. She was also fighting down the urge to shake the woman like a terrier with a rat. This was really a quite unacceptable urge. She’d already let her emotions get out of hand far too much this evening. She dropped her hands and stepped back. She wanted to be