“Yeah. Finish your story. I’ll behave. Mostly.”
She had her doubts and scooted to the side. “I’ll sit on the couch next to you so there’s no chance of a recurrence.”
He refused for a long moment, then grumbled under his breath and eased her down, but maintained a solid grip on her shoulders.
She clasped his hand and continued her tale. “I went in, got a drink from Ernest, and sat down to talk Vampire Dust with Mr. Barrett. He had good information, stuff I’m definitely going to follow up on, but that discussion took all of five minutes.”
McCallister jerked and stared down at her. “Did you say Vampire Dust?”
She frowned at the shocked ferocity of his tone. “Yeah. It’s a new street drug and it’s pretty damn vile. It’s killing a lot of people and no one has any idea where it’s coming from. The cops are stumped.”
Sheridan narrowed her gaze and contemplated him. Her investigative radar screamed like a tornado siren. “Well, the human cops are puzzled. What do you know?”
“Not much more than you apparently. It’s killing humans in droves but we don’t have any information on it. No leads on its manufacture or distribution.” His face clouded over. “I don’t want you on this story anymore. It’s too dangerous.”
She snorted. “Screw that shit, McCallister. No one tells me how to do my job.” She’d had enough of that back home in Texas. She wasn’t about to put up with it again, even from a sexy hunk of man—vampire—like McCallister.
“You two can discuss that later,” Brooks put in. “Barrett?”
Sheridan gave McCallister another short glare to let him know she meant what she said then squeezed his fingers. “Well, what Barrett really wanted to talk about was McCallister. And someone named Callie, whom he said was his daughter.”
“Fucking bastard,” Brooks hissed, surging to his feet. “He won’t touch her. I will not allow it.”
“Settle down, Brooks, and get your damn ass in line. Barrett is mine,” McCallister growled. “We all know he’s been after me for more than a hundred years.”
Sheridan’s eyes widened and she had to remind herself to physically pull air. “A hundred years? When the hell were you born?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he grunted.
“It sure as hell does.”
“Why?”
She opened her mouth on a hot retort, only to find silence. “It just does.”
“Typical woman answer,” Sullivan said.
She glared at him. “Okay, for now I’m going to ignore that last part about how long and ask why he’s after you. That man has some real hatred in his heart for you. It’s not natural.”
An almost oppressive silence blanketed the room. Sheridan waited, looked each man in the eye, but no one would respond. She twisted out of McCallister’s grip and rose. Hands on hips, she glared down at him. “What’s the problem with you two?”
He reached up for her, but she danced out of his reach, head shaking. “Not until you tell me what I want to know.”
Sullivan’s laugh was sharp. “You’ve got your hands full with that one, McCallister. I suspect she’ll not be an easy submissive.”
“Shut up, Alexander,” McCallister snapped. “The short answer, Sheridan, is he hates me because I refused to turn him.”
“Turn him?” She tipped her head and pointed to her neck. “Like into a vampire? But he is one. I saw it.”
The cop’s eyes were haunted, the bright green sheen a troubled emerald. “Yeah. He found a way.”
Something in the way his shoulders tensed, coupled with the tight brackets at his mouth, made her want to wrap her arms around him and soothe him. “How?”
Brooks cleared his throat. “I don’t think this is the time.”
“Why not?” Leopold demanded. His golden eyes blazed with fire-crackling fury. “That bastard is using her to get to McCallister. Don’t you think she has a right to know why?”
McCallister’s chest rose. “Leopold’s right, Brooks. The more she knows, the safer she’ll be.”
The suave, raven-haired businessman shrugged nonchalantly but Sheridan saw the irritation flash in his midnight-blue eyes.
“Will someone please fill me in? I don’t need the entire world history. A highlight reel will suffice,” she said.
McCallister reached out and grabbed her hand. She looked at him. Sorrow shadowed his eyes even as fatigued lines creased his brow. His jaw was tight and his lips flat in a line of suppressed anger. Each emotion seemed rooted in the past he struggled with. Sheridan leaned forward and cupped his jaw. “Trust me,” she whispered. “Please.”
His expression went blank. He pulled away from her and stared at the fire. “In 1898, Paxton Barrett was the only friend I had left.” McCallister’s gaze skittered to Leopold. “The only human friend, I should say.”
Another dart of pain crossed his features but this time she didn’t dare reach out to him. Sheridan didn’t know why he’d pulled away but the slight brought her armor up and she wasn’t ready to pull it back down. Instead, she settled against the couch, offering silent comfort by pressing her thigh to his.
“Why was he your friend?” she asked.
McCallister’s green gaze touched on her before flicking away.
The grief she glimpsed toppled her hastily erected emotional barriers like wet tissue. She pulled his hand into her lap. She didn’t say anything, just stroked his arm until his muscles began to relax.
“I was away for awhile. Five years, actually. My family had given me up for dead. When I returned in 1893, I was changed.” His lips flattened. “At first, I didn’t tell them what happened to me but my sister suspected. I’m sure the fact that I hadn’t aged a day in those five years gave her some sort of idea. She confronted me one night and demanded the truth. By then, I was learning to control the vampire side. I was trying to regain my humanity.” His short laugh was humorless. “I told her everything. My father was outside the study, listening to our conversation. I could hear his heartbeat. With every word, it sputtered then sped up until I thought he might just explode. I waited for him to confront me but then a few days later, my brother died in a horse riding accident. The old man showed some genuine emotion for once. Got himself rip-roaring drunk and stumbled into my room with a silver cross and a sharpened wooden stake.”
This time when he looked at her, his mouth quirked up just the tiniest bit.
“You mean he was going to try to kill you?” she whispered with horror.
The brief glint of humor disappeared. “Yes. I didn’t really sleep in those days. I knew the second he entered my room. I felt him standing over my bed. His heartbeat was fast and loud in my ears.” He swallowed again and Sheridan blinked back the tears threatening.
“Stop,” she said and looked around the room. She didn’t want him baring his soul with all these people just sitting and watching. It was too much, too heart-rending. Such private agony shouldn’t be put on public display.
“No,” he rasped. “You need to hear it. To understand how serious this is. They know all the details anyway.”
Sheridan studied the assemblage again. Really looked at them. This time, she saw the pain and empathy on their faces. They weren’t the cold-blooded and emotionless beings as movies would have her believe.
“I was going to let him,” McCallister said.
He had her full attention again.
“What?” she asked with a gasp. “You weren’t going to defend yourself?”
“No. I thought it would be better for all of us if I was gone. But he couldn’t do it. I opened my eyes and told him to kill me. I begged him to do it. Instead, he dropped the stake, threw the cross at the fireplace and stormed from the room. We never spoke of it again. Two months later he put a gun to his head in the same study. That’s when Georgette and I learned we were nearly bankrupt.”
“My God, McCallister.”
He shrugged. “I’m past that now. I worked hard and was able to save our home and some money. Georg
ette had a knack for the stock market and we recouped our monies. But the stigma of Father’s bad dealings and suicide hung over us. Of all his so-called friends, only Barrett remained close to us.” McCallister’s free hand fisted on his lap. “The next few years passed in a haze of worry and determination. Barrett was there to guide us through all of it. Without him, Georgette and I would have found ourselves in much more dire circumstances. Out on the street and doing God only knows what to survive. He and I grew close. I looked up to him. He was my mentor, my guidance and eventually, my confidante.”
“You told him what you were?” Sheridan guessed. Her heart tightened because she already knew the answer.
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “His reaction was very different than my father’s though.” McCallister sighed and looked at her. “He told me he was dying. Asked me to turn him and give him eternal life.” Anguish crossed his face. “I couldn’t do it, Sheridan. I couldn’t bestow this curse on him, my trusted friend and partner. He didn’t know the horrors I endured on a daily basis, even ten years after being turned.”
She shuddered as her imagination went crazy filling in those horrors.
“What did he do?”
“He cursed me and stormed from the house vowing he would find a way.” He looked at Leopold and nodded.
The golden-haired Hunter rose and took over the story. “Barrett knew all about McCallister’s transformation, including where the event happened. He went there, to Desdemona’s, and begged her to turn him.” A satisfied smirk passed over his lips. “The bitch turned him down and told him he was too old and frail for her to waste her time.” His eyes narrowed to glittering slits of hatred. “That vicious whore only takes youth who will serve and service her until she’s done with them.”
“Or they escape,” Brooks murmured.
Sheridan’s eyes went wide and she bit her lip. Another part of McCallister’s murky past fell into light. She wanted to bow her head and weep for what he’d endured.
“Too bad Barrett was more desperate than McCallister knew.” Leopold’s furious expression chilled her. “That bastard took his twenty-three year old daughter Calliope to Desdemona in exchange for turning him.”
Sheridan gasped. “My God.”
“There was no God involved here, Sheridan. That vampire bitch is pure evil. She took the deal without blinking but true to her nature, she meant to kill Barrett. She turned them both, chained Barrett to her prison wall and tortured him for a few days. Ironically, it was Calliope who saved his life. She helped him escape but she remained trapped in Desdemona’s private hell.”
“How did she escape?”
Leopold’s eyes brightened and this time his grin filled with grim satisfaction. “McCallister and I found out and planned a rescue mission.” He tossed a wink at Brooks. “That’s where we ran into this guy. He was on the same mission as we were. We broke her out and set fire to that damn place once for all.”
Sheridan was enrapt. “What happened to Desdemona? I hope she burned with the house.”
Leopold shook his head. “She didn’t. She’s still out there and her hatred for us is as strong as Barrett’s for McCallister.”
A chill wound through Sheridan and she contemplated crawling back onto McCallister’s lap. “You mean Desdemona could attack you at any moment?”
McCallister tugged his hand free and wrapped it around her shoulder. She burrowed into his strength. His lips brushed the crown of her head.
“Don’t worry, little one. I won’t let anything happen to you. Desdemona is probably on a different continent by now and Barrett is only after me.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Brooks said.
McCallister tensed.
“What do you know?” The question came from Valdór. His accent put a v on what that Sheridan found charming.
I’m pretty sure this guy was a real Viking at one time. She made a mental note to corner him later and find out who he was and where he’d come from. She was already this deep into McCallister’s unbelievable world. Might as well find out everything she could about it.
She briefly wondered if Steve would let her write a story about them.
As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she squashed it. They’d managed a modicum of secrecy for over a thousand years. She wasn’t about to out them.
Brooks reclaimed her attention. “Calliope says Barrett’s dabbling and experimentation is getting out of hand. She hasn’t yet been able get into the lab to find out exactly what he’s working on.”
“Is she living with him? How could she?” The idea of forgiving such a betrayal as the one perpetrated by her father was unthinkable.
“No,” Brooks said. “She stays as far away as she can but she does a bit of surveillance when she can. Keeps tabs on him for us.”
“She sounds remarkable.”
“She is,” Brooks said with a soft smile.
Sheridan wondered if he held a torch for the woman.
“What does she suspect Barrett is doing?” McCallister asked.
“She’s not sure but what notes she was able to find mentioned some sort of human gene that resists deterioration. Those humans who have the gene seem to be fairly small in number.”
“I wonder how he’s identifying them,” Sheridan murmured.
Leopold leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. “All humans give off some kind of marker to vampires.”
He grinned and winked and she suddenly felt very vulnerable. Sheridan scooted deeper into McCallister’s arms. “What do you mean?”
“It’s hard to explain but think of it as color coding, in a way. For example, someone with a debilitating disease such as cancer or AIDS gives off a slightly different vibe than a healthy human.” He studied her intently, nodding the entire while.
She shifted on the couch. “What?” she demanded then cringed at the defensiveness in her voice.
Leopold shook his head. “Nothing. Just messing with you.”
She glared at him. “Well, knock it off. It’s creepy.”
McCallister chuckled and hugged her tight. “She’s mouthy, huh?”
“Very,” Leopold said. “Got your hands full with this one. Not like your usual Consort.”
Sheridan twisted around to glare at McCallister. Not that she planned on getting freaky with the sexy vampire but she didn’t like the sound of “other Consorts.” “What’s he talking about? What’s a Consort?”
“Later,” McCallister murmured.
“Now,” she replied. Sheridan pulled away but he quickly hauled her back to his arms.
“Later.”
Leopold chuckled. “While this is all very interesting, as ancient history usually is, why don’t we get back to the subject at hand? Namely, what did Barrett want with you and why did he kill Ernest?” he said.
Just remembering the ferocity and suddenness in Barrett’s attack made Sheridan nervous all over again and her mouth went dry. She looked at Brooks. “Maybe I will have that drink now. Don’t suppose your guy knows how to make a decent martini? Hell, right now, I’d even take a Cosmo.”
Even as Brooks nodded, the door opened and the tall butler appeared, departing as soon as he was given his instructions.
The odd instantaneousness of it all creeped her out. Just a little bit.
“What kind of information did you give him about McCallister?” Sullivan asked.
It was the first time he’d spoken. His light tone held no censure, for which she was glad. He smiled and winked at her. “There’s your drink.”
Without a whisper of sound, the butler appeared at her side, a tall, frosty drink dead center on his silver tray. God, the trappings were astounding. She lifted the cold glass. “Thank you,” she murmured.
“Certainly, ma’am. I apologize for the lack of alcohol, but we didn’t have the necessary ingredients so I made you a Shirley Temple.”
He said it with such sincerity, she couldn’t bring herself to be annoyed. “Thank you, it’s fine. Cold and bubbly.”
He bowed and disappeared. Well, not really disappeared, just melted away from the light and out of sight. Sheridan slugged down the drink, sighing in delight as the soda coated her throat.
She eyed McCallister over the rim and finally nodded. “When he found out I really wasn’t a good source of information about McCallister, and more likely, when he learned I wasn’t going to be used as bait to get to him, he became enraged. Started yelling and cursing. Ernest told him to calm down and before I could even move, Barrett was at the bar, flinging bottles and glasses everywhere.” She shivered at the memory of how cold the room had become when Barrett went into his rage.
“One minute, Ernest is standing there, hands up and voice calm, the next thing I know, Barrett has his hands wrapped around the man’s throat. He gurgled and dropped. I threw my drink at Barrett when he headed my way but that didn’t really do anything.” Her heart picked up as fear crept through her again. His eyes had been cold, dead. Like a fish left too long on the sand. “He reached for me, put his hand on my neck. Here.” She laid her finger along the now jumping pulse at the base of her neck. “He started talking, telling me I would deliver McCallister, that I was under his protection and command because I’d accepted his invitation, drank from his stores.” She blinked and shook her head, clearing the cobwebs of the man’s voice from her mind. “He seemed intent on the whole thing, so I played dumb. I nodded and repeated that I’d deliver McCallister.” She looked at the detective and tried a smile to defuse the absolutely brittle air surrounding her. “I don’t think you’ll fit in a gift box, so I’m pretty sure I’m off the hook for that.”
The tension radiating from McCallister threatened to knock her over. She looked askance at him but he was staring at Brooks who, to her surprise, had a shocked, speculative look on his face.
Slowly, his dark blue gaze slid to her, assessing, sizing, calculating.
Sheridan leaned into McCallister but lifted her chin. “What?”
“You’re certain of his words? Where he said you were under his protection and command?”
She nodded. “Yeah, a girl doesn’t forget something like that, especially coming from a guy who’d just whacked someone in front of her.”
Bound By His Blood Page 9
