The Cursed by Blood Saga

by Marianne Morea

  Regardless, they were here now, and she no longer had a choice. It was curtain time.

  “I’m on the top floor,” she said, unlocking the vestibule door. “It’s a walk-up. Sorry.”

  He shrugged. “No problem. I’m not exactly a donut shop cop.”

  His eyes may have wandered south to her cleavage, but his long, muscular legs and hard six-pack hadn’t escaped her notice when he steadied her, earlier. What had Jack said? Fine full moon fun? Yeah, right.

  Ryan followed behind as they climbed the stairs. Creaking floorboards and Spanish music playing softly in the background were the only sounds cutting the awkward silence.

  Lily glanced back over her shoulder. “You said you were hungry. I’ve got fresh cold cuts and rolls from the deli across the street.”

  “I’m not really hungry anymore, thanks,” he said, his voice clipped.

  Lily had to bite her tongue. If he was this irascible now, how the hell was he going to hear what she had to tell him?

  They got to the top level, and Lily unlocked the door. “Come on in, I’ll just be a second,” she said, and went ahead to snap on a few lights. She took off her coat and hung it on a hook by the front door, doing the same with his. Standing in the hallway, she shoved her hands in her pockets, rocking back slightly on her heels. “So, you said you weren’t hungry anymore, is that true, or are you just trying to be polite despite yourself?”

  He shook his head. “Whatever. I just want to get down to it.”

  Lily regarded him for a moment. He was clearly uncomfortable, and his body language screamed, “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Okay…I’ll make some coffee, and we can get to it.”

  Ryan sat at the table, while Lily went about filling the coffee pot and setting it to brew. The minute it started to drip, she grabbed two mugs from the decorative hooks above the sink and set them on the counter, along with some milk and sugar. From the drawer to the right of the stove, she took two teaspoons and laid them on a couple of paper napkins. She pushed the drawer closed with her hip, and turned, leaning back against the Formica, her arms crossed in front of her chest.

  Ryan hadn’t budged or said a word the entire time, but now he sat back and sniffed. “So, what’s so bad that you’re still procrastinating? If I didn’t know you to be a top profiler, I would think you were hedging to keep your job.”

  Lily unfolded her arms, resting her hands on either side of her. Her fingers curled around the right angles of the countertop. “I’m not hedging. I just don’t know how to tell you what I need to tell you. What I saw—what I know.”

  He leaned further back in his chair, his elbows on the armrests and his fingers clasped together in front of him. “Like Nike says, ‘Just do it’.”

  “Vampire.”

  “Huh?” His brows knit together, clearly not quite processing what she’d just said.

  “The perp. It’s a vampire, and no, I don’t mean a sanguinarian or some freak with dental implants or filed teeth. A real life, honest to God, vampire.”

  Ryan leaned forward and exhaled. “Okay, I get that I’ve been acting like a prick. You made your point. Ha, ha. Now why don’t you tell me what you really found?”

  Lily just looked at him.

  Realization dawned, and the detective’s eyes widened, his skepticism screaming, Yeah right, and the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge is in your pocket, too. He pushed himself to standing, and took a step forward, his mouth open and his expression unconvinced. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  Lily still just looked at him.

  “No. No way. How the hell am I supposed to go back to Shaw and report that a bloodsucking fiend, straight out of a Hollywood horror flick, is responsible for all the latest death and destruction? A vampire? Come on, Lily. You yourself said there were variables that could skew what you ‘see’. I think maybe you think a vampire is responsible for this, but I think you’ve seen the Twilight Saga one too many times.”

  Lily stiffened, tightening her grip on the edge of the counter. “This is no romance novel, Ryan. And there wasn’t one thing remotely Young Adult about what I saw. It was more like Bondage meets Triple X, but you can either choose to believe me or not—I saw what I saw—it’s your call.

  “But I warn you now, if you don’t believe me, and don’t help me do what needs to be done, then the bloodbaths will continue, and not just in out of the way dive bars. This creature is crazed. Something is wrong with it. I’ll have to track it, in order to stop it and prevent any more bloodshed, but for all we know, it could have already created more of its kind.”

  Ryan threw his hands in the air. “More? You really are a nutcase, aren’t you? And what’s worse is you take me for a fool as well, thinking I’ll buy this load of crap because of what I told you about my sixth sense. What I want to know, is how you got so far in Special Services without anyone realizing you’re batshit. Profiler, my ass!”

  Lily pushed herself away from the counter and with a single step was nose to nose with Ryan. “Listen to me you sarcastic sack of shit, if I wanted to, I could do a tap dance all over your mind, dig up any sordid little secrets I want and then use them against you. I could even mentally bitchslap your ass if I wanted, but I won’t, because I know how hard this is to believe. Hell, I didn’t believe it myself, at first.

  “Supernatural beings exist, Ryan. Period. They live in a subculture that operates under the human radar, and they do a damn good job of policing themselves, usually. Something is wrong, here. I don’t know too much about vampire culture, but I know they do their level best to share this world with us. Those who choose to live on the fringe of that philosophy are exterminated, either by their own kind, or by people like me.”

  Lily took a step back, watching as Martinez tried to process all she’d said, his eyes narrowing in disbelief.

  He took a breath, rubbing his mouth with his hand. “People like you…you mean psychics?”

  “No. People like me, as in vigilante. I’m a hunter, Ryan. I hunt rogue supes…supernatural beings that decide to play outside the rules.”

  His hands went to his hips, pushing his suit jacket back exposing his sidearm. Lily’s eyes flicked from his face to his holster and froze. He was carrying a Guncrafter 50GI semi-automatic, the ballistics of which was the equivalent of carrying a small canon on your hip—not the kind of weapon you normally see on a cop. With bullets three times the size of a standard police issue 9mm Glock. It made her wonder.

  Ryan turned his face away, clearly unsure as to what to think. But when he turned back, his face was questioningly defensive. “Hunt. What are you talking about, Lily?”

  “Why should I go into any more detail, when you haven’t believed a word I’ve said so far?” She grabbed her mug off the counter and filled her cup, feeling Ryan’s eyes watching her as she added milk and sugar. With a quick breath, she turned back to face him.

  “It’s obvious to me this conversation is going nowhere,” she said, drumming her fingers on the side of the mug. “We’re at an impasse. You can’t wrap your head around what I’m telling you, and I have a rogue vampire I need to kill. I could try and explain, but I think you’ve had enough revelation for one day.” She paused. “At this point, the only way I can see us clear, is for you to do whatever it is you need to do, and I do whatever it is I need to do.”

  Lily looked down at her mug and frowned. “Tell Shaw whatever it is you need to tell him. It’s not going to affect me that much.” She lifted her chin, shifting her gaze to meet his. “I know what I have to do.”

  Ryan was quiet. Doubt and suspicion still warred in his eyes, but they had lost their defensive glare. His forehead creased, and Lily could see him mentally gauge the probabilities. Unfortunately, nothing in his training had prepared him for this. He sat down again, his forearms flat on either arm of the chair, while his hands curled and uncurled around the edges.

  Lily watched as he grappled with reasonable explanations and came up empty. “Are you okay?” she asked
, taking a tentative step forward. But he put his hand up, and she stopped.

  Annoyed with herself, she exhaled through her teeth. Mouth almighty strikes again. She had pulled the rug out from under everything he knew, or thought he knew, about this world, and then told him to suck it up. How else did she expect him to react?

  You went on a vigilante rampage, remember? Terry’s voice was sharp in her mind. Turning back toward the counter, she opened the cabinet and took out a glass and a bottle of Jamison’s, pouring him two stiff fingers of scotch.

  “For what it’s worth, I know exactly how you feel,” she said, placing the glass on the table in front of him.

  He picked up the glass but then set it on the table again. Looking over at her, he hesitated, “Lily…I can’t,” he said shaking his head.

  She put her hand up, considering him for a moment. “I know Ryan. Just do me a favor and don’t assume that I’m crazy. Someday I’ll tell you about how I came to know what I know. It wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. Although ironically, that’s where I did a lot of my hunting.”

  Ryan picked up his glass, giving her a quizzical look.

  “Never mind. That’s a story for another time,” she said with a dismissive wave. “Drink your scotch you look as if you could use it.”

  His gaze softened, and he gave her a faint smile. “Rose-lipped maidens, light foot lads…” He lifted the glass in a quick salute and then shot the drink back. Swallowing hard, he winced, coughing a bit. “What about you, or don’t you need one?” he asked, tilting the empty glass toward her.

  She shook her head. “No. I need to keep my wits about me, just in case I get another visitor.”

  He looked at her strangely, and then it dawned on him what she meant. “You mean visitor, as in the goes bump in the night kind?”

  “Exactly,” she answered, picking up his glass, exceedingly aware of his eyes on her. “I’ve never heard that toast before, but I like it. Where’s it from?”

  “Talk about changing the subject. It’s from a poem. A. E. Housman's Shropshire Lad, 1896.”

  Ryan put his hand on the doorknob, but turned back, his eyes questioning. “What you said before, about tap dancing through my brain—you weren’t kidding, were you?”

  Lily shook her head, regret biting into her gut at the reminder. “No,” she answered softly. “But then again, I wasn’t kidding about any of it. I just hope you see that before it’s too late.”

  She crossed her arms in front of her chest, expecting something, but he left without another word. The door closed behind him, and the sound of his feet on the stairs vanished almost immediately. Lily turned back toward the kitchen, an empty feeling welling up inside her chest. Did they accomplish anything today, or as usual, did she just make things harder than they had to be? The question didn’t need answering. She had the power to fix this, and unlike the last time she went hunting, she wasn’t alone. She had Sean.

  ***

  Jack got out of the car and walked around the block toward the house. “Crowded, crazy city,” he mumbled, stepping up onto the curb, juggling a pizza and a bottle of red wine. He stopped as a black and white cat raced out of the alley between the buildings, and skittered to a stop in front of him. Its hackles rose, and it hissed, before taking off across the street and disappearing behind the dumpster next to the Korean market.

  He shook his head. No self-respecting wolf had any use for the feline set, except as hunting practice. He glanced back over his shoulder, watching as the cat sat perched on top of the dumpster like it was king of the hill. Jack chuckled to himself. The full moon was only a couple of days away, and…here kitty, kitty.

  He opened the vestibule door and pressed the buzzer next to Lily’s name on the call box in the lobby.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Jack the Ripper, who else?”

  “Ha. Ha. Don’t flatter yourself. Did you remember the pizza?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Buzz me up, will you?”

  The buzzer sounded, and he jostled the door open and headed up the stairs. “Pizza Man!” he shouted, surprised to find the apartment door unlocked. Lily must be seriously hungry, considering how she’d reamed his ass about leaving the door half-open his very first day.

  Lily came out of the living room, her iPod playing in the background. She looked tired. “Oh, man, that smells great!” she said, taking the box from him and heading straight into the kitchen. “…and you need to open whatever bottle you have hiding in that brown paper bag, ‘cause I could use a drink.”

  Jack put the wine down on the table and took off his jacket. He wrinkled his nose and sniffed. “Was somebody here?”

  “Yeah. Detective Martinez. He’s working the case with me—or he was, at least. He drove me home, why?”

  “Whoever he is, the boy left a funky smell in the air, that’s all,” he said, coming into the kitchen. “Hey, do you by chance own a cat?”

  Lily looked up, licking her fingers, a confused look on her face. “No. And even if I did, I’ve been gone for the past two months, Jack. Do you think I’d be that neglectful a pet owner?”

  He smirked. “Nah, just checking. This cat raced out of the alley just before, and with the full moon and all, I thought I might have a little fun with it...you know.” He waggled his eyebrows, his meaning crystal clear.

  Lily stopped, her fingers holding stringy mozzarella cheese halfway to her mouth. “Oh, no you won’t, Jack. I mean it! This is not Maine, and these are not wild animals. That cat probably belongs to someone, and I won’t have you terrorizing the neighborhood pets.”

  He just looked at her, the smirk still on his face.

  “Jack? I’m serious. Don’t make me call Sean.”

  Hmmph. “Party pooper. Just wait until you’re a full Were, then come talk to me about being PCC.”

  “PCC?”

  “Pet politically correct.”

  Lily burst out laughing. “Talk about comic relief after the day I’ve had! You seriously need to go on David Letterman. Come on, open the wine and have a slice of pizza, there’s a lot going on that I need to tell you about.”

  Jack stiffened, all humor gone. “What?”

  Lily put a slice of pizza on a paper plate and held it out toward him. “Stop right there. It has nothing to do with Edward Parr or wild, horny Weres chasing me down. So sit down and I’ll tell you.”

  Eyeing her, he took a corkscrew from the top hook of the sideboard and sat down. “Then spill it already, or I’ll be the one calling Sean,” he said, pointing the sharp edge of the corkscrew her way. He didn’t mention Sean had already slammed him with a telepathic inquisition, wanting to know why Lily’s mind was in such a logjam. Now both men were suspicious, and whether she wanted to or not, she was going to tell them what was going on.

  He took the plate from her hand and put it down on the table, reaching for the bottle of wine. He cut the thin metal casing away from the cork while he waited for her to start talking.

  “After you dropped me off this morning, I met with the chief, and two of the detectives involved with the case,” she said, getting up to grab two wine glasses from the cabinet.

  “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know. What happened after that?” he asked, twisting the corkscrew into the top of the bottle.

  “I got a small glimpse of what happened at the crime scene the minute Detective Martinez handed me the case file. From there I asked to go to the morgue.”

  “And?” Jack prompted, pulling the cork from the bottle.

  “There was a Shade at the morgue.”

  Jack looked up from pouring the wine into the two glasses. “A Shade? Like Terry?” he asked, pushing one of the long stemmed glasses toward Lily.

  “Yup. One of the victims. ”

  Jack didn’t say a word he just stared at Lily with the bottle still poised over the other wine glass.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not being haunted or anything. But from that point, the images that followed made it imperative I see t
he crime scene.”

  He put the bottle down on the table. “For Christ sake, Lily! Land your plane, already! Stop giving me minor details and get to the point. What happened?”

  She took a sip of her wine. Just thinking about what she had seen and smelled made her hands shake. “The crime scene was destroyed. It was worse than if a car bomb had gone off. But the horrific images from inside the building told me there was no way a human was responsible.”

  Jack finished pouring and took a sip of his wine, his eyes locked on Lily. “A Were, then?” He pressed his lips together, the taste of the words sour in his mouth.

  “No. Vampire.”

  Jack opened his mouth to say something, but then mashed it into a thin line. He put his glass down on the table and pushed himself up from his chair. “Are you sure? I mean, you’ve never actually had any contact with the undead.” Standing with his hands flat against the table’s smooth wooden surface, he leaned forward, his gaze locked on Lily’s face.

  “Yeah, I have. Whom did you think I was hunting before I headed back to Maine to track Jerard? Like you said, I cut my teeth on things way hairier. I guess you didn’t realize that included the fanged set, as well.”

  Staggered, Jack just stared back at her. “You hunted vampires? Sean never said anything about that. Are you fucking crazy, or just plain stupid? Vampires are more vicious and bloodthirsty than any Were you’ll ever encounter. They kill without provocation, just because they can.”

  Lily shrugged. “You were the one who found the crossbow among my things while I was unconscious after Jerard’s attack. What did you think it was for?”

  Jack took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Lily…this is bad. Have you told Sean yet?”

  Lily shook her head. “ No. I haven’t had time. Things got a little hectic this afternoon.”

  No shit, Jack thought. “How many?” He needed to know, especially if Lily was going to be involved, and knowing her, she was probably already up to her ears in it.

  “What do you mean?”