“Who’s Ringo?” I asked.
She sighed and got up from the bed. She went around to where my clothes were and slipped my Innubus T-shirt over her head. It was huge on her and she looked superhot wearing it. I was starting to get hard again.
“He’s my ‘boss’,” she replied, using air quotes.
“He’s… he’s the one who hired you to, ah, kill me?” I asked, hating the nervous laughter that followed.
She nodded. “Yeah, he’s a real ass, too. He’s also the one who turned me. Against my will, I need to add.”
“Wait,” I said, becoming confused. “He turned you and made you come work for him? And you didn’t just run away somewhere to get away from him?”
“It’s more complicated than that,” she replied on a sigh. “I’ll explain more later, but just know I don’t plan on working for him forever. In fact, I think I’m done with this bounty-hunting bullshit. I need to find a more legit job before I get myself killed.”
“You can say that again,” I murmured. Then, a thought hit me. “What happens if you don’t kill me? Will you just not get paid, or what?”
She snorted out a laugh that was completely devoid of humor. “Not only will I not get paid, Ringo will either torture me or kill me—hell, maybe both.”
Fuck. This girl was literally putting her life on the line for me. “So what are you going to do… I mean, what are we going to do?” I asked. There was no way I was letting her go down for any of this shit with me.
“Well,” she said, sitting down on the bed next to me and staring into my eyes. “The way I see it, we have three choices. Either we go on the run, we kill Ringo, or we find out who really killed those vampires and get you off the hook.”
I relaxed slightly. I had a friend who was a private eye and decided I should give him a call. “Well, obviously choice number three is what we need to start with.”
“Agreed, but we have a timeline. Like, I’m supposed to bring Ringo your body by Halloween.” She bit her lip and looked up at me.
I glanced at my watch: October 28th. “Well, we’ve got three days to figure out who’s doing it then. My first thought, when I’d come across the ashes, was that this was another human, like me, who’d fallen victim to a vamp and was killing them all. Do you have any, like, unsolved vampire murders?”
She snorted again. “Uh, yeah. It’s not like we have our own police force. We don’t even really police our own. We let the human cops do all the work, but of course, most, if not all, vampire murders end up as cold cases, or get classified as animal attacks.”
“Makes sense,” I said, nodding. “Well, I have a friend who’s a private investigator. I know he somehow has access to Denver PD case files. We could start there?”
Her eyes lit up. “Really? That would be awesome. But how are you going to explain why you’re looking?”
“Easy.” I smiled. “I’ll just ask him to pull up all the cold cases and animal attacks that were like Audrey’s. He won’t even question it. In fact, I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought to do this until now.”
“Because just being in my presence is making you smarter already.” She winked at me.
I wrapped my arms around her and said, “Is that so?”
She giggled when I ripped my shirt off over her head and tossed it to the floor. I pushed her back on the bed and began devouring her body once more.
“Dude, I know you’re busy as fuck, but I’ll pay you double to have this information to me by tonight. I need it.” I raked my fingers through my hair as I paced my apartment.
After sleeping a little, I woke to Daniela gone, a little note on my kitchen notepad about her needing to sleep in her own sunlight-proof bedroom for the day, and that she’d call me when she woke. It was currently 10:00 a.m. and this P.I., Kirk, was giving me the runaround.
“I don’t know, man. I’m hella swamped and have another deadline.”
Sighing in frustration, I said, “Look, why don’t you just start with the ones ruled as animal attacks. That should be quicker to run down, right?”
He was quiet for a minute and I looked at my phone to see if we were still connected. “Kirk, you there?”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay. I’ll run those down through the Denver PD database. It’ll still take me a couple hours, but I’ll get them to you by this afternoon.”
I sighed in relief. “Thanks, man. I mean it.”
“You’re welcome, and Judson?”
“Yeah?”
“It really is gonna cost you double,” he replied with a laugh before hanging up.
Relieved he was helping me, I poured myself another cup of coffee and drank it black while I opened my laptop. In the search bar, I typed in Animal attacks, Denver and was greeted with thousands of hits. The first few were actual animal attacks in some of the state parks, like idiots trying to take selfies with bears, and then a few vicious dog bite stories. But then a headline caught my eye:
WOMAN ATTACKED IN ALLEY NEAR LO-DO
I read on to read that a woman’s body was found in an alley in lower downtown, her throat ripped open, and animal-like teeth seemed to have made the tears the coroner had reported. Grabbing my notepad, I ripped off Dani’s note, set it aside, and wrote down the victim’s name, Marci Vanhoose. I then did a Google search of her name and found her Facebook page. Reading that, I could see she was a college student at Denver U and had only been 19. She had been walking home from the bars in Lo-Do when she never reported back home. Her family placed some sad messages on her page with a lot of feedback and condolences. I read them all, but they seemed to be pretty generic. I then began to scroll through her photos and stopped when a picture caught my eye: A tall, young man had his arm slung around her shoulders in what looked like a dark club or possibly a house party. They were both smiling but the man’s eyes had that silver tint to them. Realizing it could have been the flash, I told myself it probably was and continued to scroll. But something about the guy was familiar to me, so I scrolled back to the photo and looked at it again. Yes, I’d seen that guy at Bash before. There was no caption or tag to tell me the guy’s name, but I’d know if I saw him again.
After falling down the rabbit hole of searches and social media, I only had one solid “animal attack” that seemed like it was most likely a vampire murder, and it was this girl, Marci. I looked at the clock on the microwave and saw it was almost noon. I didn’t have much planned for the day except a haircut and few mundane errands. As I searched the fridge for bread and lunchmeat, I thought about what Dani had told me last night and it began to really bother me that she was a bounty hunter. That she was paid to kill people. Was it just humans she killed? We hadn’t gotten that far in the conversation before our lust had taken over. What if we were to be together? Would it even work? Do humans and vampires have relationships that last? I knew they couldn’t go in the sun. How would that affect everything? Would she stop bounty-hunting if I asked her to? She’d mentioned wanting to stop, at least. So many questions with zero answers. But we would be addressing them eventually—that was a fact. But first, I had to try and save my own life.
12
Daniela
I glanced at Angie sitting on the couch watching TV and reached for the doorknob, glad the sun had sunk below the mountains so I could leave the damn townhouse. “I’m off to work, have a good night, girl!”
I closed and locked the door behind me, knowing creatures like me lurked in all the dark and scary places and wanted to keep my roommate safe from it all. On my way to meet Judson at Bash, I stopped into a chain drugstore and picked up some silicone earplugs. Once in the car, I opened the package and tried one on. They were a clear white color and fit nicely in my ears. After turning up the volume on the radio to ear-bleeding levels, I shoved another earplug in and smiled in satisfaction that they had worked so nicely to protect my sensitive hearing.
Damn vampire problems.
I took out the earplugs and threw them in my clutch for use later on when Innubis was playing.
I arrived at the club early to talk to my sexy human before he had to be onstage. I parked around the back and saw his bike parked there, too. I made my way in through the back door, as Judson had texted me the code earlier, and found myself in the backstage-type area of the place. I quickly found him tuning his guitar. He was humming along with the chords he played. I stood for several seconds watching him until he must have sensed my presence and looked up.
Grinning, he said, “Hey, beautiful.”
I walked over and sat in his lap after he put the guitar down. “Hey, yourself. How was your day?”
“Awesome. I got Kirk to send me all the, uh, animal attacks from recently, so I can’t wait to go through them. I also did a lot of research myself, found a few interesting things.” He smiled proudly.
“Is that so?” I asked, grinning back at him. Then I looked around. “Where is everyone else?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know, probably running late. Or already drunk. I’m always the first one here. Early.”
“Nerdy rocker, I like it!” I teased.
He chuckled. “Something like that.”
“So, I have a question, is this your only job? Or do you do something during the day? I mean, does this even pay?” I asked, because I’d been wondering. His file hadn’t said anything about a day job.
“Yes, the club pays me five hundred a week. Whether we play one night or seven, it’s all the same.” He patted my butt to indicate I stand. “And we pick up other gigs on slow weeks at other clubs.”
“Good to know, just glad I wasn’t gonna have to support your bum ass,” I replied with a wink.
He laughed and grabbed his guitar from the floor and began removing the strap to replace it with a different one. “Nah, if I didn’t have this gig, I’d go work somewhere. I’m pretty good at fixing cars. Plus, I love money.”
“Me too,” I said with a laugh.
He finished hooking on the strap and then slung the guitar around his neck and shoulder. After pulling a pick from his pocket, he began to strum again. “What about you? How much does murder pay?”
I couldn’t tell if he was being a dick or teasing so I said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He stopped strumming and cocked his head to the side. “I didn’t think I minced my words. I mean, how much do you get paid for bounty-hunting?”
“Five grand a subject. And sorry I thought you were being a jerk for a second.”
Judson whistled between his teeth. “Five big ones. Damn, I thought I’d be worth more than that.”
I laughed and said, “Sometimes I get more if the job was hard. But yours was supposed to be easy.”
He arched an eyebrow and then looked down at his guitar, tuning it once more. “Is that so?”
“Turns out, it was the hardest job I’ve ever had.” I began pacing the floor in my red stilettos. The dim lights from the ceiling reflected dully on my black leather pants. “So much so, that I’m thinking of giving it up altogether.”
He looked up and kind of froze. But before he could speak, the back door burst open and three men walked in, laughing loudly. One carried a guitar himself, and the other, drumsticks.
“Judson!” the drummer said, coming over to awkwardly hug him.
They all reeked of alcohol and weed, and I had to resist the urge to cover my sensitive nose.
“Get off me, man! Are you drunk?” Judson asked, backing up.
He laughed. “No, just baked, man!”
“Seriously, Amos?”
“Oh, get off it. You know I play better when I’m a little loaded,” Amos replied, laughing.
I could tell Judson was getting pissed off. “Come on. We have to be onstage in like twenty minutes.” He looked at the other two. “Where the fuck you guys been?”
“Partying,” the lead singer said. “Damn, what’s your problem, anyway, Jud? I invited you over, you didn’t even text me back, man.”
“You know I don’t smoke, asshole.” He huffed. “Let’s just get this over with. We’ll talk about this later.”
“Fine,” the singer said, looking at me then back to Judson.
They all headed toward the stage area, and Judson kissed me on the nose. “Sorry. I planned on introducing you, but clearly they wouldn’t remember it anyway.”
“Are they always like that?” I asked.
He nodded. “Pretty much. But tonight it’s a little worse. I hope Les can remember the damn lyrics.”
“Break a leg, babe,” I said, then kissed him for good luck.
I made my way around to the bar and ordered my usual as I perched myself onto a barstool. I discreetly put in my earplugs and was happy they worked like a charm once Innubis began to play. I could still hear them, it was just sort of muffled.
I reflected back on our conversation earlier. Judson did seem like he had been in a bad mood and wasn’t very nice while asking me about my job and pay. I supposed I couldn’t blame him… learning we met because I was sent to kill him would leave a sour taste in anyone’s mouth. Combined with the fact that his bandmates were late, he was obviously stressed. He did seem just fine to kiss me before he went onstage though.
God! Look at me analyzing every little damn thing. Stop it, Dani.
After almost two hours, they finally finished. They really were a good band and their fans were going nuts, yelling “Encore!” As much as I enjoyed it, I sure hope they didn’t do an “encore”… Judson and I had shit to discuss.
Thankfully, a few minutes later, Judson came out and met me at the bar. After taking a few selfies and signing a few autographs—on paper and bare skin—he was mostly left alone.
I handed him the club soda and lime I’d ordered and he drank it down. Then I handed him a cold bottle of water, which he also downed. He was pretty sweaty.
“Thanks, beautiful,” I saw him mouth to me.
Whoops, forgot about the earplugs. I popped them out. “You’re welcome.”
He looked at me strangely. “Earplugs? We that bad?”
I laughed. “No, you guys are awesome.” I pointed to my ear. “Sensitive hearing. The loud guitar riffs and scream-singing kinda hurts.”
“Shit, sorry, I didn’t realize.” He led me by the hand and tossed the empty water bottle into the trash. “Let’s go.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I set my mostly full bloody mary onto a nearby table and walked out the door.
“Interesting. Aren’t you the little sleuth?” I asked, grinning.
He nodded. “It took me all day, but I really do think the family of this Marci Vanhoose could be responsible.”
We sat at Judson’s dining room table. He had his laptop open and a bunch of notes scattered. He had printed out a list the PI had sent him of death by animal attack over the past six months. The first couple he had easily ruled out as actual animal deaths, like the ones from state parks where humans had gotten too close. From the gory photos, they definitely weren’t vampire kills. Vampires didn’t rake large claws across people’s chests and rip off their breastplates.
Shudder.
One of the reports were of Marci’s death. The photo was most definitely a vampire kill, and even more interesting was that her brother was a deputy with the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office. Someone like that would definitely know how to kill on the sly and remain hidden.
“But why would he think it was a vampire? I mean, how would he even know they exist?” I asked.
Judson looked at me. “How do I know you guys exist?”
I shook my head. “Ya know, I never bothered to ask you. How do you know it was a vamp who killed your sister?”
“The asshole wasn’t exactly discreet about being one. Moved in a blur. Left her with her throat torn open. He had no weapon on him. He also hissed at me. What human does those things?”
He had a point. “Sad you had to find out that way.”
“Sad I had to find out at all.” He sighed. “Anyway, I think this brother of Marci’s has probably se
en his share of crap being a deputy. Cops and paramedics are always the first to see the weird shit.”
“You’re not wrong,” I replied. “So, what should we do now? Lure him out, see if he bites? No pun intended.”
Judson grinned at me. “Precisely. And sorry, babe, but you’re gonna be the bait.”
“I knew you were gonna say that,” I replied.
He leaned over and kissed me. “I’ll be right there as backup.”
“I’m not scared.” I laughed.
Deciding not to waste any time, we left and drove to the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s office. Judson’s PI friend had gotten the make, model, and tag number of Deputy Vanhoose’s car, and sure enough, it was just pulling out of the parking lot, so we followed. It had just passed midnight and I smiled when I realized he was heading downtown. Once he reached the busy nightlife area, he parked in a dark parking lot with signs reading “Private Property, no parking” (guessed he figured he wouldn’t be there long enough to get towed or could get rid of a ticket). Judson parked his bike in a side alley, and we followed Deputy Vanhoose, who wore dark jeans and a gray hoodie, into a very dank and seedy-looking bar. We went in separately. I went in first and made sure to flash him some fang when I pretended to hit on him. Judson sat in a corner and watched.
It was way too easy to get him to leave with me, and when he suggested we use the back door, I knew we had our guy.
13
Judson
Admittedly, I could see why this Ringo character thought I was the vamp killer. The deputy and I were about the same height and build, and we both stupidly wore hoodies into clubs and stalked vampires. He very well could have been me, and I, him.
My adrenaline kicked in when I saw Dani look at me before following the guy around the bar and toward the back exit. I quickly left out the front door and quietly stalked around to the back.
Wicked Love Page 14
