bite.

Chapter 7c

Duncan's office was on the top floor of the hotel. Magda had led me to his private elevator and we had passed a number of burly security men who all eyed us wearily. Magda told me to keep close to her as I was new and unknown to most of the coven.

The top floor was Duncan private penthouse/office. When the elevator doors slid open, I was confronted by an enormous oil painting of a man in a kilt and young woman with wild red hair. I paused and pointed to the picture and asked, "Is that Francesca?"

"Yes," Magda smiled, "This was painted in the mid-nineteenth century, soon after Francesca's awakening. Back then she was an artist's dream. Young, fresh and full of life."

"You talk about her, like she has changed... but how can she? She's a vampire."

"The world has the ability to ruin everyone, Lorna. Even the young. Once we've been afflicted by it's taint, we can never recapture our sense innocence again."

Her words struck a chord with me. I thought about Micah when he was a fresh faced college football player with the whole world ahead of him, and then I remembered him at the end, face down in the dirt, drunk out of his goddamn mind.

Magda touched my elbow and whispered, "Try to remember that Duncan is our leader. We live under his roof and under his protection. Tread carefully, kotik."

"I'll try," I replied.

Magda gave me a hug and led me to large solid mahogany door. She knocked on the door and it swung open.

"Duncan," she called. "I've got Lorna here. She would like to speak to you."

"Send her in," a thick scottish accent boomed, "Send her in, Magdalena."

Magda nodded for me to enter and so I did.

Duncan was sitting behind his marble desk, in high back leather chair waiting for me. He was a tall middle aged man, who possessed a rugged kind of handsomest. He was dressed in a sophisticated black tailored suit, but still managed to maintain a wolfish aura.

He flashed me a courteous smile and indicated for me to sit in the chair in front of him.

I took a seat and said softly, "I'm so sorry for the loss of your daughter."

Pain flickered through his eyes and for a few seconds he disappeared inside his grief. His face became a mask of stone for a several moments until his eyes flickered back to life.

"So, you have Magdalena's eyes. The Siberian eyes," he said.

"They are blue, but I don't know if they are Siberian eyes... I don't know what that means." I said.

"Only one vampire clan in the world has blue eyes and that is the Siberian clan. Your eyes are very pretty and rare," he explained and then heaved an exaggerated sigh, "Sasha was very disappointed to find out his blue eyed girl had allowed herself to be marked by a slayer."

"That's why I wanted to speak to you. I wanted to set the record straight."

"Oh really?"

"Michael didn't mark me, I marked him."

"You forced your mark on slayer?"

"Yes and no. I didn't mean to mark him, but I think I did mark because I wanted him so badly."

"And he let you?"

"He did," I replied.

Duncan leaned back in his chair and processed what I was telling him. After a few moments he rubbed his jawline and asked, "So how did Michael end up pointing a gun at Sasha's head?"

"Michael was protecting me. The moment Sasha grabbed me, Michael-"

"Disregarded his orders," Duncan said, as flash bulb went off in his head. "This may not be the disaster I thought it was."

He paused for a second and then pulled out a pile of brown folders from his desk drawer.

"Lorna, I'm going to be frank with you. I need you to do me a favour and in return I will tolerate this relationship you have with Michael," he said and then paused, "Has anyone told you about why the slayers are here in this hotel?"

"No, I don't know why they are here."

"Vampires are going missing in London and we don't know why," he explained. "When it first started happening, it coincided with a group of very grizzly human murders. The slayers became involved because they initially suspected it was us killing the humans. But know, we don't know who or what is killing our people."

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and opened a brown folder. Inside was a coloured photo of a woman laying face down in the dirt next to a railway line. She was clearly dead, but it looked like she had been mauled by an animal.

I covered my mouth and muttered a silent praye.

"These folders were compiled by my daughter, Emma," Duncan continued. "She was aiding the slayers in their investigation into these murders. She believe the human murders and vampire disappearances were related. She'd found a new lead but before she could pursue it, something broke into her flat and butchered her."

"I'm so sorry."

"Please, don't want you tell me that you are sorry. I don't need your apologies. I just want my daughter's killed found."

I stared up at him confusion. "I don't see how I can help you - I'm not a detective or an investigator."

"Lorna, you control an Archangel. You can use Michael to help me find my daughter's killer. If you assist me in this, then I will allow Michael to stay in the coven."

"You will?"

Duncan nodded.

My eyes drifted back to the pile of folders on the desk in front of me. Suddenly, I had strange feeling come over me, like I was Pandora reaching out to open the box that should never be opened. I felt frightened, but what frightened me even more was the thought of Michael being sent away from me.

I stared at the folders and asked numbly, "What do you want me to do?"

"I need you to investigate the lead Emma was preparing to research," Duncan said sliding a folder in front of me. "I need you to track down and find this man."

I opened the folder. Inside was a grainy black and white photo of a man in his early thirties. I examined the face and registered something unusually familiar about the man that I couldn't place. I turned the photograph over and read the label on the back.

In small black letters, it read 'Micah Roberts'.