Dominion

Chapter 2

Chapter 2Gideon had set the shower to blast as hot as possible, but as soon as steam started to rise, he shifted the water to cold. He didn’t care how uncomfortable it was; he didn’t want the reminder of the smoke curling along the ceiling of the home he’d had for the past thirty-five years.

Bowing his head under the spray, he let the icy water sluice over his muscled back, bracing his large hands against the tiled wall. The shower smelled like the rest of the hospital—antiseptic and fear and every bodily fluid under the sun. He would have turned it down if Rachel hadn’t insisted he needed it. Even now, she stood in the doctor’s locker room, waiting with clean scrubs for him to emerge.

“They’ll help you blend in here,” she’d argued, her blue eyes flashing. “You don’t really want to be drawing even more attention to yourself, now do you?”

No, he didn’t, but he didn’t need an upstart pediatrician who’d never known how to keep herself out of trouble telling him what to do either.

There was another drawback to taking a shower. It left Gideon to his thoughts. It had them careening from questions about how the fire could have started, to how he could have slept through it, to what he would have done if Jesse hadn’t returned when he had. While Jesse had been taking Emma in, Gideon had called his most trusted friend on the Chicago police force, Derek O’Dell, to ask him to keep his eyes and ears open about the case. Derek’s promises meant something, but the lack of information so far had Gideon more wound up than the adrenaline of getting Emma out of the building in the first place.

Having all three of them under one roof was supposed to make it easier to protect Emma and Jesse. Instead, Gideon had the sinking feeling it just made them an easier target.

He had a lot of enemies. The scars that still blemished Jesse’s stomach and back were testimony to that. But Gideon knew how to live with that. He knew how to protect himself. He didn’t do foolish things, and he always made sure he came out on top in a fight. It was the credo he’d lived his entire existence by. There were casualties along the way, but Gideon never let a death be meaningless. Mary Straughn was proof of that.

Mary had been beautiful and strong, a civil rights leader among her peers right here in Chicago. A chance encounter when she stabbed him through the back with a crucifix threw their paths together, and from that moment on, Gideon was hooked. He’d loved her for nearly two years, and when vampires had slaughtered her hoping to get to Gideon, he had turned his life around. Her death had devastated him, but he’d used the strength she’d always given him and chosen to continue to fight for the city she loved.

He’d done that alone until he found Jesse Madding cornered by a gang of vampires five years earlier. The eager, intelligent Brit had latched onto Gideon, making it impossible to ignore him. It had been annoying at first; Gideon was used to flying solo. But then Jesse’s worth began to shine through, and Gideon took him on as a full-time employee.

Taking him on as a lover hadn’t come until later. Now, Gideon couldn’t imagine his existence without Jesse. He needed the man like he needed blood to survive.

Jesse was the one who’d brought Emma into their lives. He’d found her shackled and nude, waiting to be auctioned off at the local vampire club, Sangre. Freeing her had been more about saving her from death, but Gideon rarely thought about the crimes that had brought the three of them together. It had taken months, and denial about their true feelings for each other on both Emma’s and Jesse’s parts, but eventually, Gideon had both of them in his bed at the same time.

That had been a year ago. There was nothing Gideon loved more in this world than Jesse and Emma. Today, he’d almost lost both of them.

His hand curled into a fist, his blunt fingernails scraping over the tile. He could almost hear Emma now, scolding him for focusing on the negative. The important thing was that all three of them were alive, and they’d gotten to the hospital in time for both Emma and Jesse to get medical treatment. In addition, it wasn’t like they hadn’t been looking to move anyway. They had been looking at various properties around Chicago since March. This just made it a little more urgent.

“You were not that dirty, Gideon!”

Rachel’s voice echoed against the walls, and he glanced over his shoulder, fully expecting to see her standing in the doorway. She wasn’t, though the door to the locker room was open, and he could hear another heartbeat joined with hers in the outer room.

“I’m coming!” he called back. Turning off the tap, he shook the worst of the water out of his hair, pushing open the stall door to reach for the towel. For a moment, he considered not bothering to wrap it around his body, but the certainty that it wouldn’t faze Rachel in the slightest kept him from being quite that contrary.

He recognized the scent of the other human in the locker room as soon as he stepped into it. “You couldn’t have waited until I was dressed?” he commented wryly as he met Derek’s hazel eyes. “What is it with you and checking out my ass?”

“Oh, please.” Derek rose from where he’d been straddling one of the benches that ran the between the length of lockers. “I am not one of your groupies.”

Gideon affected mock indignation. “You did not just refer to Emma and Jesse as groupies.”

“I did, and I’d say that to their faces, too.”

“Liar. You see Emma and you lose IQ points.”

Derek shrugged. “Fine. Then I’d just tell Jesse. Because it’s true and he would be the first to admit it.”

“Jesus, you’re like this with everybody, aren’t you?” Dr. Rachel Loomis stepped forward, a pair of folded scrubs in her hand. She was an older woman, in her early fifties, with a cap of dark hair and wide eyes that Gideon had always thought made her look like Audrey Hepburn. She had the attitude of Kate Hepburn, however, a woman too smart for her own good. Gideon liked her. He’d liked her ever since she caught him sneaking into the hospital in ‘88 to check on a young girl who’d been ravaged in a vampire attack. She’d kicked him out then, but the next day, he’d found a personalized report on the girl’s progress in his mailbox. Rachel never copped to it, of course, but it was just the start of an interesting friendship.

“Here.” She shoved the clothes into his chest. “Maybe covering your ass will help hide that ego of yours.”

Derek snorted. “Clearly, Dr. Loomis here doesn’t know you as well as I do.”

Gideon took the scrubs and tossed the pants onto the bench. “I’m guessing because you’re here, you have something to tell me.”

“Some. Not a lot.”

Rachel caught Derek’s sideways glance at her. “Do I need to step out for this?”

“No.” To Derek, Gideon said, “Rachel’s good. You can trust her with anything.”

“Okay, but what about Jesse? Don’t you want him here for this?”

His curt, “No,” took both of them by clear surprise.

“I just checked on him,” Rachel said. “He’s been cleared. A few scrapes, but otherwise—”

“This isn’t about whether or not he’s physically capable,” Gideon interrupted. “I’m not making him worry about anything until I have to. He’s taken a big load already today.”

Derek shook his head. “You’re making a mistake. Jesse needs to hear this.”

“And I’ll tell him. Just not at this exact moment.” He looked to Rachel. “Did you check on Emma, too?”

Her nod came with a sigh. “She’s stable, but she’s still unconscious. The smoke inhalation was severe enough that she’s been intubated. They were in the process of admitting her when I called down.”

“Which means Jesse is right next to her, worrying and making sure she gets the best treatment available,” Gideon said to Derek, pulling the shirt on over his head. “Can we get on with this now? You have my word I’ll tell Jess as soon as I see him.”

Derek still looked unsure, but after a moment, he shrugged. “Fine. There’s nothing official yet, but all indications make it look like arson. It started in the garage with your Ferrari, and spread from there.”

His stomach sank. It was exactly as he’d feared. “I don’t suppose there are any clues as to who might have done it.”

“No, but there was one thing they found that I don’t get. Considering how flammable you are, why don’t any of your fire alarms have batteries?”

The question startled him. “What do you mean? Of course, they have batteries.”

“Not the ones the investigators found,” Derek argued. “They were all just empty cases.”

“Sounds like someone was serious about you not getting out in time,” Rachel added.

Gideon’s mouth tightened. It sounded exactly like that.

“The building is pretty much toast,” Derek continued. “What didn’t get caught in the fire is waterlogged, so you’re going to have to write all your belongings off when you put in your insurance claim.” He paused. “You do have fire insurance, right?”

“Of course. Jesse takes care of all that.”

“Even more reason I should be talking to him, too.”

With a growl, Gideon snatched up the pants and stepped behind the row of lockers in order to slip them on. “All right, all right, we’ll go track him down. Just take it easy on him with the details, would you? He’s done more than his share today.”

Derek poked his head around the corner, his prematurely gray hair falling across his brow. “Give me a little credit, will you? Jesse’s my friend, too. And my bedside manner is a hell of a lot better than yours.”

He knew Derek was right. And he knew that not talking to Jesse only ever led to trouble. But that didn’t make Gideon feel any better about springing this on him, not when Emma still had yet to regain consciousness.

“I’ll get you into her room without anyone knowing,” Rachel said when he came back around to grab his shoes. “And I’ll make sure you guys have some privacy.”

“Thanks.” Gideon’s voice was gruff. What he wouldn’t do to start this whole day over again. “For everything.”

Rachel’s plan to get them to the hospital room without anybody knowing was rather simple. She merely strolled through the wing as though she owned the entire hospital. Nobody spared her a second glance or wondered where she was going. Gideon kept his head down and followed her, relieved when she pushed a nondescript door open and ushered them into a small room.

Jesse was settled in the chair beside Emma’s bed, sipping from a tall cup of ice water. Unlike Gideon, Jesse hadn’t been ushered into the showers, and the smell of the fire seemed to be baked into his skin. Emma’s face and hands had been washed, and except for the tube in her mouth, she almost looked normal again.

Jesse’s face cleared as soon as his gaze landed on Gideon. He didn’t quite smile, but the relief in his eyes was obvious. “The doctor said he expects her to wake up by tonight. She’s just asleep now…not unconscious.”

He left Derek hovering at the doorway to come to the bedside. Standing between them, Gideon could rest his fingertips on Emma’s wrist, soaking in the more comforting rhythm of her pulse, while reaching out to skim a tender touch down the side of Jesse’s face.

“And how are you feeling?” he asked quietly. He needed to hear it from Jesse’s lips.

“My throat’s a little sore, but that’ll get better in a few days. Other than that, I’m good.” Jesse looked around Gideon’s body. “Hey, Derek. Why don’t you come in and shut the door?”

Derek didn’t look as glib as he’d been in the locker room, but he glanced at Rachel who stood in the doorway next to him. She nodded without a word and stepped into the hall, leaving them in solitude as the door whispered closed behind her.

“It’s good to hear you two are going to be fine,” he said, coming to the foot of the bed. His eyes kept straying to Emma. “You did a brave thing, Jess.”

“I did the only thing I could do.” He leaned forward and closed his fingers around Emma’s hand. After a moment, the corner of his mouth lifted. “I’ve been monitoring her, making sure she doesn’t get upset or have any bad dreams. But she’s been sleeping calmly since the doctor left.”

Relief flooded through Gideon. One of the reasons Emma had come into their lives in the first place was because of her empathic abilities and the extra-strong connection she had always had with Jesse. If he wasn’t picking up on anything negative, then Emma would be all right. At least until she woke up and realized everything they had was gone.

“Any word on how long they’re going to keep the tube in?”

“They’re going to re-evaluate her later tonight and decide whether or not it can be removed.” Jesse glanced up. “Is there anything left of the building?”

Gideon glanced back at Derek, giving him silent permission to respond.

“Most of it’s gone,” Derek said. “But with the way the fire started, it didn’t have much of a chance.”

“Someone torched my car.” Gideon stuffed his hands in his pockets. Just thinking about it made him angry enough to want to lash out. “Which means we have a lot of shopping in our near future.”

Jesse’s lips thinned. Gideon knew what he was thinking. There were some things that couldn’t be replaced with a simple shopping trip. “Someone? I don’t like sentences that start with someone.”

“It’s too early to know anything definitive,” Derek offered.

“We’ll figure out who it is, Jess. I want this bastard as much as you do.”

“What about the safe? Where is that?”

Derek pulled out his wallet and extracted a business card. “A salvage crew’s going through the building now. You can call tomorrow and make arrangements to pick everything up.”

Jesse accepted the card. “Thanks, Derek, for taking care of all this.” He turned his attention back Emma with a soft sigh. “I was worried about what we could tell her. How do you break the news that everything’s gone? But she’ll just be happy that we’re all safe.”

“We’ll be lucky if she lets us out of her sight for a week,” Gideon tried to joke, but his smile felt forced.

“You guys are going to need a place to stay.” They both looked back at Derek. “You’re welcome to crash at my place for a night or two until you find someplace else. It’s not far from here, and I’ve got an extra bed.” He grinned. “Just don’t let me hear you having s*x. I’ve seen enough with you two to be scarred for life.”

Jesse snorted. “We haven’t yet begun to scar you, Derek. You don’t know how easy you’ve had it. Still, we’ll just stay in a hotel.” He looked up to Gideon. “Maybe we can get a nice suite for Emma?”

It was the least he would do for Emma. “We’ll close up shop for a little while, too. Focus on finding someplace new.” A thought occurred to him, one he hadn’t had a chance to consider in light of all the excitement. “Did you get everything squared away with Mrs. Heston?”

“I spoke to her this morning.” Jesse sipped from his cup. “She asked me if we could find the vamp who turned her husband. I didn’t really have the heart to tell her it’d be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

He was half tempted to try, if only to have something else to focus on. If he had to tear the heads off more than a few vampires in order to find the right one, all the better. Except one look at Jesse and Gideon knew he couldn’t leave him alone that night to go hunting. They needed to be together.

Behind him, Derek cleared his throat. Gideon didn’t bother glancing back. He knew exactly what Derek wanted him to bring up.

“There’s one more thing about the fire you should probably know about,” Gideon said. “Emma’s not picking anything up unless you’re touching her, right?”

“No, not when she’s asleep.” Jesse’s brows furrowed. “What sort of bad news have you got?”

He braced himself. “Whoever did this disabled all the alarms in the building by taking out all the batteries. Which means they were either inside before today, or while Emma and I were sleeping before they set the fire.”

Jesse sucked his breath in sharply. His eyes flashed and Gideon picked up the distinctive scent of Jesse’s anger. It was the only thing strong enough to penetrate the cloud of smoke lingering around him.

When he spoke, his voice was deceptively calm. “Whoever it was must have gone in after I left the office this morning. I know I locked the doors. I always lock the doors.” Jesse rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Christ.”

“I’m not sure if they’ll find anything, but I’ll tell the investigators you guys suspect a B&E,” Derek offered. “But there’s one thing about this I don’t get. How did they do it without waking up Gideon?” He frowned, meeting Gideon’s gaze. “For that matter, why didn’t the smoke wake you up?”

He didn’t have an answer for Derek. He’d been trying to find it all day long. “I don’t know. I was in the shower when Jesse left, and then I made some breakfast for Emma, and I was so tired by the time she was done eating, we just crawled into bed. The next thing I knew, Jesse was shaking me and yelling in my ear.”

Jesse set his cup aside and leaned forward. “Did you eat anything this morning? I didn’t see you heat up any blood last night when we got home.”

“Yeah, I was hungry.”

“Can vampires get affected by drugs like sedatives?” Derek asked.

“Yes. They can. Certain kinds of sedatives will affect vampires, especially if they’re treated with some sort of magic. And somebody who can sneak into a vampire’s home without detection and drug the food before setting the place on fire probably isn’t a regular human.”

“Great,” Derek muttered. With a sigh, he moved toward the door. “I’m going to head back then. If Gideon’s pissed off the wrong demon, I’m going to have to keep the investigation from getting f****d up.”

“Thanks again.” Gideon meant it, even though he was pretty sure Derek didn’t completely believe him. “We’ll keep you updated on anything we find out, too.” When the door eased shut behind him, he sagged onto the edge of the bed. “Fuck.”

“So where are we going to start with this? The master list of enemies is probably ash now.”

“Honestly? I’m ready to just kill every vampire in town and be done with it.” Rubbing a weary hand over his hair, he tried to focus, but the enormity of what they faced exhausted him. “Since we can’t narrow it down by name, maybe we can narrow it down by type. Is there any kind of divining spell for demons?”

Jesse nodded. “There are a few, yeah. Some just leave physical signs behind them. Minute changes in the atmosphere, like pollution. Some secrete hormones. For other demons, it’s more of a metaphysical mark. Not something you can measure scientifically, but some people are sensitive to it. But if there was any evidence in the apartment…”

“It would’ve been obliterated by the fire,” Gideon finished. His hand settled over Emma’s covered leg. Somehow, the heat of her body soothed some of the edges of his mood. “I hate to have to ask, but you’re going to have to call the Institute, too, and let them know what happened to Emma. She’s got you listed as her emergency contact, right?”

“Yes. I’ll call before they close for the day.” Jesse looked at his watch and frowned. “God, you’re going to be trapped here for several more hours until the sun sets. I can drop you off somewhere, if you want.”

“Why? Where are you going to go?”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to stick around here until they release her or kick me out for the night. Well, unless you want me to take you somewhere.”

“Yeah, to a hotel. You don’t really think I’m leaving you alone tonight, do you?”

Jesse smiled a little. “I hoped you wouldn’t, but I didn’t think you’d want to let the trail go cold. Or what’s left of the trail.”

“You’re more important.” He leaned forward to rest a hand on Jesse’s thigh, squeezing it tightly. His eyes burned, and he wished Emma were awake so Jesse could feel exactly what Gideon felt. “All I want to do tonight is thank every lucky star I have that we’re all safe and sound.”

Jesse covered Gideon’s fingers. Heat seeped from his flesh to Gideon’s, pushing through his skin and up his arm. “Good, because that’s all I’ve been doing since we got here.”