Netherworld: Drop Dead Sexy by Tracy St.John Page A

you.” He brushed a
lock of my hair from my forehead, and instead of thinking of him
taking another man’s life, I thought of him taking me so
deliciously in the library.
    Well, he did say the agent threatened
his family. Who wouldn’t lose it just a little with that kind of
pressure?
    Murder is not ‘losing it just a
little’.
    Dan was still talking, and I shut down
my internal argument. He said, “We can’t be misplacing our one and
only witness to the Ripper, so don’t let go of me. Tristan will
have my head.”
    I snuggled close to him. Tristan
trusted Dan. He didn’t strike me as a man who chose his associates
without care. I’d have to ask him about Dan’s
conviction.
    Then again, reports estimated at least
ninety percent of all vampires had killed someone at some point in
their undeaths. No one knew for sure, because the vampires
obviously weren’t going to admit to it. I wondered how many had
died at Tristan’s fangs, whether by design or accident.
    How do I know Tristan isn’t the
Ripper?
    Talk about your unwelcome thoughts. Oh
boy, maybe I needed to get new friends on this side of death. But
I’d always considered myself a good judge of character, and neither
Dan nor Tristan rang any alarm bells. Wouldn’t I know it somehow if
Tristan was indeed the monster who’d murdered me?
    Dan was waiting for me, and I put
thoughts of killers aside. “What do I do?”
    “Think hard about the library. Remember
how it looks, smells, and feels to be there.”
    “Okay.” I thought about the library,
its musty old book smell and the underlying odor of smoke. I
thought about how hard the table had been beneath me while Dan took
me. How muscular and exciting his body was, how bad I had wanted it
from the moment we’d met in the woods. He’d been my strong and true
Marlboro Man, saving me from those woods where my body lay on the
straw-covered ground, bloated and bloodless.
    Dan said, “When you have your location,
reach for it with your mind, and make yourself go there in your
head.”
    I ‘reached’, still thinking about how
he’d smiled so gently, held me so carefully, calmed my fears when
he’d found me. Could a good man commit murder? Was that a
possibility?

    The street of old Fulton Falls and the
crumbling remnants of the town blurred around me, and I felt a rush
of elation. I was doing it! I was teleporting us to the library,
just like a pro.
    The blurring froze in place, and
reddish-gold light replaced it in tossed can of paint splashing.
The space around us solidified, and my excitement plunged into
horror.
    The sun was setting behind perfectly
lined up trees. We were back in the woods where my body had been
dumped. Crime scene techs worked like ants around the
place.
    “Aw, heck no!” I wrung my hands, the
motion yanking me free of Dan.
    His arms went around me in an instant.
“Calm down. It can take awhile to get the hang of this.”
    I barely heard him. I wasn’t crying,
but I was darn close. “Not here! I don’t want to be
here!”
    “It’s okay, baby girl. We’re
going.”
    With a slight tug, the woods blurred
away.

Chapter Four

    I struggled to not cry as we
materialized in a sumptuous wonderland of grace and
beauty.
    Okay, so it was just a hotel lobby. But
what a lobby! The tears froze in my eyes, and then beat a hasty
retreat as I goggled at the splendor around me. A grand gleaming
white marble staircase lifted to the second floor like the
proverbial stairway to heaven. Burgundy and gold wallpaper covered
the walls, the floors were patterned tile, and a chandelier three
times my size hung overhead. Rich fabrics upholstered the chairs
and chaise lounges, trimmed with intricately carved wood.
Hand-woven oriental rugs scattered among the seating areas. A large
painting of a hunting scene hung over the giant fireplace from
which golden flames crackled.
    It even smelled rich. Cigar and pipe
smoke overlaid expensive perfumes and colognes. Intricate bouquets
of exotic flowers decorated