Thirst

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “I don’t know that I should feel comforted by the fact that you are a convincing liar.”

  “No more so than you are. You have had to lie to your partner.”

  “I have omitted more than I have lied.”

  “Splitting hairs.”

  “True. But knowing what might happen to him if he were exposed to your world makes it easier.”

  “Exactly. Still, he would not be harmed. He would just undergo hypno.”

  “I’m not entirely convinced that is harmless.”

  “I have used it on you and you are no worse for wear.”

  “But I was missing hours of my life. It couldn’t have been entirely safe, leaving me in a hypnotic slumber. What if someone had tried to break in?”

  “You would have woken up. It was merely a suggestion, not a dictate.”

  “Maybe the sleep was, but the altering of my memories wasn’t.”

  “Are you still angry with me about that?”

  “No,” she assured him. “I never was angry. I suppose I should have been…but I wasn’t. I understood. I still do understand.”

  “I’m glad since there is little I can do to change it.”

  “No. You don’t need to worry. All is forgiven.”

  “I am glad to hear that.”

  “We’re coming up on it now!” the driver called back to them.

  Instantly tension ratcheted through them both. This was it. Make or break time. They had to get Killean to talk about Draz’s plans. They had to find out what Killean was planning in order to keep the diplomats safe this weekend.

  “Be safe,” Rafe said to her softly. “Take no chances.”

  “This whole setup is about taking chances.”

  “I know. I meant no more than necessary. I won’t let them hurt you, but they may hurt me. You have to roll with it. I can take whatever they dish out, as long as it’s not a shot to the brain stem.”

  “I can’t just let them beat on you!”

  “You can and you will.”

  “And if they beat on me?” she countered.

  “You are infinitely more fragile than I am. I will call a halt to the whole operation if they so much as touch a hair on your head.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I can take a little punishment. Believe me, I’ve dealt with a lot of abuse over the years as a cop.”

  “This is different. Killean is sadistic. He will want to hurt you to get to me. But first he’ll try hurting me. He’ll get his kicks. He’ll try to assert dominance. Just roll with it.”

  “I will if you will.”

  He was silent for a long minute. “All right. But say the word ‘coffee’ if it gets to be too much.”

  “I will.”

  “Promise me you won’t let it go too far,” he demanded of her as the van pulled to a stop.

  “I promise,” Renee said, her breath hot and harsh in the confines of her hood. She suddenly felt like she was desperate for a breath of fresh air. For a little bit of light.

  They heard the driver get out and both were poised to act. Rafe collapsed beside her, pretending to be unconscious. She sat up on her heels, facing the van door. This was it. The driver could go along with the program or he could give them away. She strained to hear but there were no voices nearby.

  Not at first.

  Then suddenly there was conversation coming toward the van. A rowdy group of loud men and women.

  The side door to the van slammed open.

  Chapter 21

  Hands were reaching for her a moment later, jerking her out of the van and jostling her roughly. She tried to hear everything, to keep herself oriented to the world around her. But she was blind and there was no telling where she would end up. She immediately found herself fearing for Rafe’s safety more than her own when, in fact, the odds were she was the one under most threat. They would use her to get to him. They were counting on his lawful behavior. Otherwise, how else did they expect to use her against him? It wasn’t as if they knew of any emotions he might have for her.

  She was walked some distance. She heard the people around her moving, but none of them talked except for a male who laughed uproariously when one of the people holding her tripped and fell. She felt him pick himself up, heard him growl under his breath, then felt him grab her arm painfully hard again and jerk her forward. Suddenly she was stopped and strung up tightly between two men who had brutal hold of her arms, and the hood was whipped off her head.

  Renee winced at the bright light all around her, her eyes having grown accustomed to the darkness of the hood. But she blinked rapidly and adjusted to the blinding light until she was looking into the face of a stranger. He was thin and gaunt and looked unhealthy. He was sitting in a chair—more like a throne—about ten feet away from where she stood. He looked inherently bored, as if she were a waste of his time. His legs were crossed indolently and his posture in the chair matched.

  “Kneel,” he commanded her.

  She was shoved down to her knees. That was when she realized Rafe was a short distance behind her and to her right. Being forced to kneel turned her head enough to see him. He was kneeling as well, his hood removed, but he hung limply between those who held him, feigning unconsciousness.

  “Wake him,” the sycophant commanded.

  Renee watched as a sycophant, one much bigger and fuller bodied than the one giving the commands, went up to Rafe and backhanded him across the face. Rafe’s head whipped to the side and he let out a grunt of pain. He stirred and opened his eyes, no doubt to avoid another attempt at rousing him.

  “Well, Rafe,” the sycophant in the chair greeted him, “it’s about time you came to visit me.”

  “Killean, I would have preferred to avoid you for the rest of my days. I only wish you had felt the same.” Rafe tongued the corner of his lips where the slap had drawn blood. She noticed then that it was because the striker was wearing large rings on his hands.

  “But we have so much to talk about,” Killean said, sounding amused.

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “You have everything to say to me. And you will tell me all I wish to hear if you want your meal to remain safe.”

  Killean stood up and walked the few short feet to Renee. He reached out and took her chin in his hand. He stroked her lips with his thumb.

  “My, my she is a pretty one. I can see the appeal. She’s a bit too clean for my tastes, but we can fix that.”

  He nodded to the men holding on to her and they jerked her up off her knees and over to a table. They slammed her down, the metal of the table echoing loudly in the vast room. That was when it registered on Renee that they were in a warehouse of some kind. There was no activity at present, probably because it was the weekend…or maybe because Killean wanted privacy for what he was about to do. Renee tried not to panic when they reached around and cut the ties holding her hands and pinned her arms to the table. They rolled up the sleeve to her sweater and a female sycophant came up to her. She was brunette with garishly painted red lips and heavily lined eyes. She was trying to make her thin face look normal and pretty—but she was failing at it miserably. It was a shame, Renee thought inanely, she had probably been very beautiful when she had been healthy.

  But all thoughts of her potential beauty fled when she leaned down and kissed her on the lips. Renee balked and jerked her head away. The sycophant raised her head and laughed. Renee tasted lipstick where it had been smeared across her mouth. She could imagine that the transfer of the lip color made her look like a demented sort of clown now, just like the phant in front of her.

  “She’s feisty,” she said on a seductive growl.

  “Behave yourself, Katrine…for now. Rafe, Katrine has a present for your nibblet. Show him your gift, Katrine.”

  Katrine held up a syringe and Renee could see it was loaded. God only knew with what.

  “Now, I won’t tell you what’s in it. I’ll let you guess. It could be heroin. Or it could be a big dose of AIDS-infected blood. Or maybe we
’ll just pump her full of air bubbles and see how she likes that.”

  Renee swallowed hard, but she wasn’t all that afraid. Unlike Rafe, she could see the liquid in the syringe—it was loaded with the muddy brown of heroin, not the bright red of blood. She had seen enough heroin on the streets when she’d been a beat cop to recognize what she was looking at.

  “What’s a little heroin going to hurt me?” she asked loudly, hoping Rafe got her message, that she was identifying the substance for him.

  “So you’re not afraid of a very addictive drug?” Killean asked. “Will you be afraid when I pump it into you and try to balance your pure body between a high and an overdose? You’re not used to drugs. You’re not built for them. That makes you more susceptible to their effects…and their dangers.”

  “Why are you doing this, Killean?” Rafe demanded, taking the opportunity to get the information they needed before things got too out of hand.

  “Don’t you know? I thought all you lawful vampires had spies watching my every move.”

  “That’s your paranoia,” Rafe said coldly. “You know we can’t get close to you.”

  “Not unless you use a human,” Killean said as he moved closer to Renee. He reached out to stroke her hair. Did he know? Renee wondered. Did he know they had been planning to send her in to get close to him?

  No. He couldn’t possibly know that. They had only just hatched the plan. And it had been spur of the moment. They hadn’t even come close to a cohesive plan. They’d barely even spoken about it.

  “I thought I would return the sentiment. I thought I would use a human to get the information I want for a change. That’s where you come in, my dear.”

  “Me?” she asked, making herself sound shaky. “I think you’re all cracked! There’s no such thing as vampires!”

  “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but there are. We’ll be proving that to you a little later on. You see, I know Rafe. Quite well. He is as lawful a vampire as there has ever been. One of the most important tenets of vampirism is to let no harm come to a resource.” He leaned in and whispered to her. “That means you. And it means it would absolutely kill him to know that all he has to do to stop me from hurting you is for him to break another tenet of vampire law. Protect the nation at all costs.” Killean raised his voice on that last. “So what will he do? Protect his resource or protect his nation? Sacrifice the one for the many? Or sacrifice the many for the one? It’s a fascinating philosophical conundrum. But it’s more than philosophical. In this case it’s actual.”

  “You haven’t answered my question. Why are you doing this?” Rafe tried again.

  “To gain power of course. Power over you, over the nation, over that spoiled little holier-than-thou bitch you call a queen.”

  “To what end? A sycophant can’t rule the nation.”

  “Says you. A sycophant can do anything a lawful vampire can do. More even, because we are not restricted in our diets to those precious few resources like you are.” He patted Renee’s head again. “But you don’t know that because you’ve never tried it, Rafe. You’ve never walked on the wild side. You really don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “You’re an addict, Killean. Plain and simple. You’re just looking for your next high…and you don’t care where it comes from. Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember the clean high of taking from a clean source?”

  “That high that you speak of is nothing compared to what I feel now. You don’t appreciate that. But you will.” He turned to the female sycophant. “Do it.”

  Katrine smiled maliciously and stepped forward. Renee struggled as they held her arm down and Katrine found a vein. Renee felt the prick of the needle and she cried out in panic. Her heart was racing madly as the plunger on the needle sank.

  “I know this isn’t for you,” she heard Rafe say, and she could hear the fierce tension in his voice. “This is for Draz. You’re just a low man on the totem pole. You’ll never rule the nation as long as Draz is pulling your strings.”

  “Draz knows nothing about this!” Killean snapped sharply. “I don’t need him. I’m strong enough on my own.”

  Suddenly, to Renee, it felt as if the world was slipping away. Numbness washed over her and her head began to spin. The voices she heard seemed to come from very far away and she felt incredibly sleepy.

  No! She had to fight it! Rafe couldn’t take them on his own. She had to be here for him. She had to help.

  She reacted. She kicked up her feet and ringed a knee around the neck of the phant holding down her right side. Using all of her strength she yanked him downward, slamming his head into the table. The minute her arm was free she backhanded Katrine. Then she reached across to shove a hard palm into the nose of the phant holding down her left side. He fell back, dragging her with him and she fell off the table hard.

  “Get her!” a warped voice yelled from very far away. She reached for the gun at her ankle but she knew it was only a .22 and the odds of her hitting the brain stem were slim to none. The bullet would tumble and bounce around and go wherever it wanted to once it entered the body. With a .22 she’d be lucky to penetrate the skull if she was too far away.

  The gun cleared the holster just as a wave of paralyzing warmth rushed through her. It seemed the harder she fought, the faster the drugs were working. She’d be a drooling mess in another minute or two. Every moment counted. So did every shot.

  She brought the gun up to the throat of the phant that still had hold of her left arm. She pulled the trigger and his entire head jerked back. He dropped like a rock.

  Renee rolled and slid her knees under herself. She sat up on them, wobbling as she looked around. The room was complete bedlam. Rafe had snapped his cuffs and was fighting off what looked like scads of sycophants. She realized she could best help him by not falling into the hands of another sycophant. Otherwise they could use her to get him to stop fighting. When she turned her head she could see Killean heading for her, clearly intent on doing just that. She aimed shakily at him, keeping him instantly at bay. He held up his hands in acquiescence. But he smiled as if he knew a secret. She got her feet under her and staggered to Killean. The floor dipped suddenly beneath her and Killean lunged at her. They fell to the floor together and she fought with him. He was so strong and she was getting weaker by the second.

  She grabbed hold of his arm, as much to steady herself as to hold him in control. She placed the nose of the pistol in her hand into the back of his neck and concentrated strongly on keeping on her feet in the here and now. It was so hard. Especially when her mind wanted to float away and care about nothing.

  She remembered her training, what it had felt like to face men who were inherently stronger than she was, but it had never been like this. This man was a vampire. His strength was superhuman. Self-defense tricks could help for only so long.

  “Stop!” she commanded him.

  He turned sharply even as she said it, ruining whatever aim she had at the back of his neck. He fearlessly grabbed for her gun hand. Of course he was fearless! Without a hit to the back of the neck he was invincible. She had lost her moment. But she had wanted power over him, not his death. Power over him was the only way she could get his minions to stop attacking Rafe.

  Killean rolled with her, pinning her gun hand to the floor, looming up over her. Everything was spinning around her, but she forced herself to work through the high. She reached up with her free hand and raked her nails across his face. But rather than cause him debilitation it made him eject a sound of glee.

  “Ah! Aha! I love it hard and nasty, bitch.” He had her completely pinned a moment later, his weight crushing down on her chest. He wrenched the gun from the weak fingers of her right hand, though she didn’t let go without a fight. She squeezed the handle and trigger hard as she tried to hold on to it, ejecting a bullet from the gun.

  It was useless. He pulled the gun from her nerveless fingers and was suddenly armed, changing the dynamics of their situation fluidly. How many t
imes had she been warned? How many times had she warned gun owners of how easy it was to find themselves on the bad end of their own guns? But this shouldn’t be happening to her. She was a cop. She was trained. This shouldn’t happen to her.

  It wouldn’t happen to her.

  Because he was holding her down with only one hand, the other trying to get better hold of the weapon he’d just taken from her, it gave her the advantage of having better leverage than him. She bucked her body, throwing him off her, even as she rolled and reached for the one universal weakness of both vampires and humans.

  His dick. She grabbed on to him through his soft slacks and squeezed with all of her remaining strength. She yanked and twisted, holding on for dear life as he bellowed and fell onto his back on the floor, the gun flying out of his hand and skittering across the floor. He was no longer trying to keep hold of her, his only desire at that point was to get her off him. He kicked at her, bucked hard, and shoved her until she was rolling across the floor away from him.

  She rolled in the direction her weapon had gone. Killean had curled up, protecting his abused privates, holding a hand between his legs and groaning. It wasn’t any wonder. She had held nothing back. She had ripped at him savagely. She had to have herniated something or torn something delicate.

  The warehouse doors burst open right then and Danton and his crew of intimidating authoritarians came flooding in. No one had spoken the code, but the sounds of fighting over the mic had been obvious and clear, no doubt…not to mention the ejection of bullets. Renee knew the best thing she could do was get out of reach of anyone who might try to hold her hostage, stopping the authoritarians in their tracks. That desire and a need to figure out where Rafe was propelled her to her feet. She tried to look around, but it was impossible. Rafe reached her just as she swayed and weakened. She collapsed into his arms. She was so glad he was there. She was so relieved to know he was in one piece, that he had somehow made it through, tears rushed through her. She had acted so impulsively, so rashly, giving him so little notice in the face of such excruciating odds.