“I will, but you go first. What happened at the party that got you so upset?”
“I was an involuntary Peeping Tom. I got a load of Desiree in action.”
“Action?”
“Sex with a twist.” Thinking about it, I poured myself a second shot and downed that one, too. “She mainlined her sex partner’s blood.”
“That would explain it.”
I threw myself down on the sofa. “There’s some explanation here?”
“When Desiree rejoined the party she was so much more…vital than she has been all week.”
I shivered. “What she did was disgusting.”
“I agree. But feeding on human blood is what vampires do to stay undead.”
Chapter 16
There was that vampire thing again. And Jake was staring at me straight-faced. Surely he meant vampire cult.
There was only one other possibility I was willing to consider. “You mean in mythology.”
“I mean in real life.”
I was afraid of that. I shook my head. “Jake, I’m too blasted tired for this.”
He sat in the chair across from me, his elbows on his knees as he leaned toward me. “You have to face it, Shelley. You’ve seen Desiree—in action, as you called it—for yourself. How can you not believe what I’m saying?”
“You want me to believe that Desiree is a vampire. A real, bloodsucking vampire.”
“You witnessed the bloodsucking part for yourself.”
“We almost saw Elvin Mowry do the same thing to that girl Annie.”
“Not the same,” Jake argued. “He’s playing at it, imitating the master.”
I frowned at his use of the word master, but I didn’t question it. Was that supposed to be like the sire I’d read about?
Still not believing him, I said, “So, you think Desiree is our murderer.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what are you trying to say?”
“Just that not every vampire is a murderer, so I’m not ready to jump to conclusions about Desiree. Vampires don’t need to kill to stay undead. Instead, they develop a parasitic relationship with a donor. Or with multiple donors. But they don’t drink enough blood to kill them. That would be wasteful.”
I decided to humor him, to see how far he would take this twisted fairy tale. “Then why are people dying?”
“There are psychopathic vampires just like there a psychopathic humans. But I think the one you call a murderer is a vampire who wants companions, so he or she is turning young women to serve him or her.”
“Like a harem? What about the homeless men who’ve died?” I asked, before realizing I’d told him something that maybe I shouldn’t have.
I watched Jake register the new information. He didn’t challenge me, but he looked disappointed, as if he’d expected me—a cop—to tell him everything.
He finally said, “The new ones need to feed and they don’t have control of their appetites yet. That takes time. And practice. In effect, they’re greedy children. And the master hasn’t managed to rein them in.”
I felt as removed from these crazy suppositions as if I were listening to Jake tell a ghost story. “This is all too unbelievable.”
I whipped off the couch and considered getting myself another drink. Then I thought better of it. That might make me too vulnerable to Jake. I’d been suppressing feelings for him since Mom told me that Jake DeAtley didn’t exist. But now my mixed emotions were tearing me up inside.
“I know you don’t want to believe that vampires really exist,” Jake said, getting up and stepping into my path. “But you need to start thinking outside the box for once in your life. I want you to know what you’re up against. This vampire is devious and dangerous. This one will do whatever is necessary to stay undetected by humans. That means you’re not safe.”
“It sounds like you know a lot more than you’ve been telling me,” I said, unconvinced I was in great danger.
“You’re right. I am familiar with this particular vampire’s style—drinking from the median cubital vein, the one in the elbow where medical types draw blood.”
He turned his arm and indicated the very spot I’d seen Thora cut. And it was the place that Mowry had intended to cut Annie, though it wasn’t where the homeless men had been drained. The homeless men had gotten it in the neck, the way I’d seen Desiree bleed the blonde.
Not that I actually believed in real vampires.
But Jake went on. “I’ve been moving from country to country trying to catch up to the killer vamp, but I’m always one step behind. When I got to Chicago, I did some checking on Desiree. I couldn’t find anything to indicate that she was in the right place at the right time. It doesn’t eliminate her, but it doesn’t incriminate her, either.”
“Let’s just say that I believe you.” Which I didn’t, of course. “You’ve known Desiree was a vampire. How?”
“Let’s call it…vibrations,” he said cryptically.
“How many other vibrations have you recognized?”
“Here? Only one other, but he seems to have vanished. But again, that doesn’t prove anything. He could simply have gone underground.”
That reminded me of the tunnels under the city and Sheena’s reference to them as the lair that Mowry talked about.
“If the master is very, very old and adept at being a chameleon, I probably wouldn’t be able to sense enough to make an identification. “
“What are you, some kind of vampire slayer?”
“My mother was a vampire.”
It took me a moment to register Jake’s meaning. That he was a vampire?
“Right. So where are your fangs?”
Jake glared at me and moved closer.
I stepped back, away from him, saying, “Come any closer and I’ll flatten you.”
Heat seared me and I recognized it as anger. Anger coming from him. The heat dissipated but the fear it wrought in me didn’t. Jake was a dangerous man, but of course I’d known that all along.
I was ready for him, though after seeing him at work in the cult’s nest taking care of Mowry’s minions, I knew how strong he was. Could I take him on some tequila added to a day filled with exhausting stress?
But he wasn’t making his move, and I was grateful for that.
“I’m not a vampire in the truest sense. My mother was already pregnant with me when the master got hold of her. My blood was affected, but not to the same extent, because somehow I didn’t ‘die’ as she did while being turned.”
His voice was calm but I read pain in his eyes. It gave me the oddest feeling, as if I should comfort him. He moved away from me and stopped in front of the window, where he stared out into the dark.
“Normally, she wouldn’t have a choice but to follow and to do as commanded,” he went on. “But her hormones were all screwed up due to the pregnancy—at least that’s her theory of how she fought it—and the master wasn’t able to hold on to her.”
“And she never identified the master in any way?”
Jake faced me and shook his head. “She didn’t want to put me in any more danger. She knew how angry I was at what she had to do to survive.”
“So you’re saying your mother used humans for their blood.”
The repulsive words stuck in my throat. I could hardly believe I was giving them credibility, but when I looked at Jake, he appeared absolutely serious. And tortured by what he was telling me.
“My mother hated having to feed. She swore to me she never killed anyone. She stayed on this earth for me, Shelley. To give me life. To protect me. She made sure no one ever turned me.”
I remembered his reaction to the cut on my arm, when my blood had bubbled with the hydrogen peroxide. “But if she was turned while you were inside her…”
“I told you I wasn’t a vampire in the truest sense. I’ve never tasted human blood myself. It’s not that I haven’t been tempted, but when I can think clearly, the idea repulses me. And I don’t need to drink blood
to stay alive.”
“You’ve been tempted?” The thought made my stomach turn over.
He began pacing again, as if trying to flee the truth.
“I imagine it’s like a recovering alcoholic wanting liquor or a recovering drug addict needing a fix. Only I’m not recovering in that sense of the word, because I’ve never gone there. But I am aware that blood could be an addiction for me, just like liquor or drugs would be to an average human.”
Average rather than normal. Good choice of words. I listened to him go on with a sense of unreality. As he spoke, I became more distant from the situation. I felt as if I were viewing this scenario from afar. Like watching a movie.
A really bad B movie in which I was the star.
“I can see you still don’t actually believe me,” Jake said. “Remember your first night at the bar and your encounter with the groper? How do you think I knew about the how-many-bones-in-the-human-hand comment? And I’m the one who heard the voices that led us to the vampire cult’s hangout. I didn’t need a light to find you in the tunnels. My senses are all heightened. And my speed and strength.”
“Just like a vampire?”
“Exactly like a vampire.”
“So you can’t go out in sunlight?”
“My skin is sensitive to sunlight, my eyes more so, but I’m not a creature of the night. And I don’t need blood to survive. I age normally, too, although I assume I’ll die like a normal person. I won’t test out that theory until I have to.”
If he thought I’d be amused by his tall tale, he had another think coming.
I felt…let down.
I’d liked Jake. I’d felt challenged by him. But now I was wondering how I’d gotten so deeply involved with a nutcase. A nutcase who was playing me for some reason.
“I told you I was after the one responsible for my mother’s death, the master, the one who turned her. Her conversion wasn’t voluntary. And she couldn’t stand the life. So once I was grown and able to be on my own, she simply walked into the sun and committed suicide.”
He’d told me before that she’d burned to death; now he was talking about vampire suicide.
It was all too much for me to take in.
“You’ve given me a lot to think about.” Not that I actually believed any of it. But perhaps there were truths I could learn from his story if I was less exhausted and more sober. “I want to think about it alone. In case you didn’t get it, that was your invitation to leave.”
“I’ll go. I can understand your need to think about this. Only don’t think too long.”
Though I wondered if Jake had some time limit for me, I didn’t ask. What was the use? This whole thing was insane. He was insane.
Or very, very clever.
But try as I might, I couldn’t think of Jake as a criminal. I didn’t really think he was trying to trick me. Either he was sincere but misguided or he was out of his mind.
The moment the door closed behind them, the cats reappeared.
“So what’s going on with the two of you?” I asked, realizing they were staring at the door.
They still seemed stressed.
Just like me.
My psychic cats must have been sensing and absorbing it themselves.
I threw myself in bed fully clothed and slept awhile, but I hadn’t adjusted the blinds and the morning sun crept through them to wake me. Sarge had wrapped himself around my head, and when he realized I was awake, he started purring and exercising his claws in my scalp.
“Hey, watch that!” I warned him, taking his front paws in my hand so he couldn’t continue. “No, Sarge.” He stopped flexing but kept purring anyway.
As did Cadet, who was tucked into the small of my back.
For a moment, I enjoyed the closeness of my cats and refused to think dark thoughts. But dark thoughts battered my mind until I decided I had to face them.
I looked over at the clock and groaned. I could have slept another hour before reporting in to work. Then my gaze lit on the stack of books that Silke had loaned me.
Silke…where the heck was she?
I concentrated, but I didn’t sense her.
And my trying to sense her made me think of what Jake had said about sensing the master vampire.
Pure logic would say that if my sensing Silke was real, then Jake’s sensing vampires could be real. If there was such a thing as a real, scary-flick-type vampire.
What if…?
I couldn’t help myself. I disturbed the cats while reaching for Vampyres among Us and turned on the bedside lamp. I thumbed through the book. When I got to the how-to-destroy-a-vampire section, I couldn’t help myself. I stopped and stared at the first lines of the chapter for what seemed like forever.
Vampyres must be destroyed rather than killed, because they are already dead. A stake through the heart is rather like pinning a live butterfly to a board. The stake holds it still, but once removed, the undead walks again.
I almost closed the book then, but I didn’t. Something made me continue to read about what the author described as the final death: cutting out or otherwise destroying the heart, dismemberment—severing heads from the body being the only real way to assure destruction here—acid or holy-water baths, fire or exposure to the sun.
“This is some sick stuff,” I told the cats.
Closing the book, I patted them both, then got up and hit the shower. I scrubbed every trace of makeup from my skin that I hadn’t gotten the night before, every hint of bloodred color from my hair.
What I couldn’t wash away were my thoughts. What Jake had told me. He’d first said his mother had burned to death. Last night he’d said she’d given up the life she’d hated by walking out into the sun.
According to Silke’s reference manual, a vampire would have had a slow, agonizing death as her skin set on fire and she self-combusted.
“No…no…no…!”
I couldn’t go there. I was a rational person.
And yet there was Silke, and my deepest, darkest secret. Mom knew about our connection, sort of, but she didn’t know how strong it really was. Hell, I didn’t want to know, even now.
If I had to face what I was, then I had to face what else might exist out there.
And I just wasn’t ready.
How could I believe in any of this vampire stuff? How could I believe in Jake?
But even as I thought it, all that I’d absorbed over the past several days nagged at me, and I wondered if I really could believe in my black-and-white world anymore.
So as I dried my hair and dressed for work in a conservative navy pantsuit, white shirt and leather ankle boots, I tried to get it together. I had to face Norelli and Walker this morning. I would have to listen to their crude comments and cracks about the blonde coming on to me.
Before that happened, I had to decide how I would respond. As Mom would say, if you wanted to get along in life, there was just some crap you had to shovel in order to survive.
I slipped into a shoulder holster and checked my piece before securing it. I stared at the gun—a weapon of death, but not for the undead, not according to Vampyres among Us.
Before leaving for work, I tried to contact Silke the boring, normal way, but her machine came on, announcing that she wasn’t available. I left a message for her to get in touch with me using any means possible—yeah, even the mind-meld pathway that I normally avoided—as soon as she heard this.
Mom was in the Area 4 office waiting for me when I walked in the door a half hour later.
Norelli and Walker were there, too. As I set the department spy equipment I needed to return on my desk for the moment, I could tell the detective tag team wanted to torture me with the details of last night’s operation, but they remained strangely silent.
A reason for me to smile—Mom must intimidate them!
“Commander,” I said formally, “what brings you here?”
“I wanted the details of last night’s undercover operation in person,” she said, giving me a h
ard stare. “Why don’t we get a cup of coffee and you can fill me in.”
I led the way to an empty interrogation room we sometimes used for breaks. Somehow I figured she’d already heard what had gone down the night before. What would Mom think if I tried talking out the vampire stuff with her? If I told her about Jake’s claims? About my research?
I poured two cups of coffee and handed her one and realized Mom wasn’t here about the job when she said, “It’s Silke.”
The back of my neck prickled. “Do you by any chance know where she is?” I was hoping that she was holed up at Mom’s, hence the worry on her part.
“Then you don’t, either?”
My heart began to thud for real. “I have her keys. If I don’t get her by the time I leave here, I’ll swing by and see what’s what.”
“How soon?”
I wanted to go now, but I couldn’t see how I could justify leaving before I tied up last night’s loose ends. “As soon as I write up the report, okay?”
“Of course. I’m sure I’m worried for nothing. I just can’t get a hold of her on her cell phone or at home, and that’s odd for Silke not to return a call as soon as possible.”
I tried to soothe Mom by telling her Silke was fine, but I found myself calling Silke’s number several times while I wrote the report from last night. Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. Cops sometimes drowned in it. When Norelli and Walker dug into me about Desiree and the blonde, I didn’t even have the heart or the focus to give them a hard time back.
They kept trying, though.
“I can’t wait to see what you have in store for us tonight,” Norelli said.
“Do you think you can disguise me as one of those Goths who hang out in the bar?” Walker asked. “Then I could be a witness to whatever goes down.”
I gave his robin’s-egg-blue suit jacket a significant look. “You’d be willing to shed your pretty clothes for basic black-and-blue?”
“They get rough, do they?” Walker asked. “Other than the bleeding thing, right? Sounding interesting.”
I didn’t think he meant it. Something told me he was trying to lighten the mood. In an odd way, I got the feeling my partners had softened toward me just a little.
Hot Case Page 18
