by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor
“You are serious?”
Her mouth was running before her brain had a chance to catch up. “Why don’t you come with me?”
He froze. Didn’t answer. But she knew. Not only had she overstepped their second-inning-of-a-relationship bounds, she’d also suggested studying vampires. The dead come back to life—a feat her parents could never manage.
But what if she could find answers about death while still remaining far away from it?
Imagine. This could be the first step out of her perpetual hiding. This could be a new leaf turning over….
Warming to the idea, she rushed on. “It’d be an adventure. You can bring your laptop and work while I interview and research. No pressure, though. But they say you learn a lot about another person when you travel with them. I mean, I know we’ve barely started seeing each other, but I’d be leaving in a couple of months or so. There’s time to think about it.”
No response.
“Then again,” she added uncertainly, “it’s just an idea.”
Griff appeared to consider her invitation. “Let’s see. Traipse about the globe with a beautiful swashbucklerette or remain in London for the flood of tourists. Impossible choice. But…” He nodded, grinned.
“Really?”
“Really. Yet there’s one condition.” He stood, gently dumping her on the couch.
“Where’re you off to?”
He bounded up the steep town house stairs, then reemerged a few minutes later. Waiting behind the couch, he kept his hands behind his back.
“What do you have?”
After a playful pause, he reached over and spread open his fingers to reveal a tiny ring. A baby ring. Tarnished golden metal, with a fake sapphire in the middle. He’d looped a chain through the center.
“I know you’re used to better,” he said softly, “but…Put up your hair.”
She did, shivering at the rhythm of his breath on her neck as he fastened the chain. “It’s beautiful, Griff.”
“It’s got superpowers, protective properties money just can’t buy. This ring will protect you from vampires or nightmares or…whatever might trouble milady.”
A flush heated her body. “This is yours?”
“Yeah. I wanted to save the bauble in case I ever had children. And, I have to say, it wasn’t seeming too likely.” He stopped himself.
Until you came along.
He didn’t say it, but she heard it.
She pulled him down for a thank-you kiss. This one embraced all the words she was too afraid to say out loud. All the I-think-I-could-love-you’s and lacy endearments that usually chased men away.
This one was slick with passion, urgent with a growing hunger. This one led them both to the couch, then to a floor strewed with sweaters and jeans.
Then to the joining of their bodies, the sweat-steamed emotion of entwined limbs, groans and promises.
Later that night, as he rested his head on her chest, their legs wrapped together, their heartbeats connected, he whispered to her.
“I’ll be where you are, Lady Tex. Always.”
And two and a half months later, they arrived in Transylvania.
Chapter 5
Present
“He is coming to,” said Reveka’s voice from ten yards away.
The volunteer hunter had the honor of watching over Dipwad, as Camille now fondly called the drugged Sargent.
Behind one of the Humvees, Camille was standing under a portable light. Hands gloved, she inspected the tongue in their dead vampire’s detached head while Delia, one of the village women, recorded her findings on a video camera.
Camille answered Reveka in Romanian. “Tell him ‘Good morning, sunshine’ for me.”
A grumpy—no, make that a really enraged voice—bellowed through the night air, “Where’s that bitch?”
“I’m in the kitchen cooking, darling,” Camille said.
Actually, a gurney laden with a headless vampire probably wouldn’t be something the Iron Chef would cotton to. But, seeing as they were still in the same woods where Dipwad had so conveniently blown her plans, she wasn’t complaining. She’d make soup of the situation yet.
Before leaving the village this morning, Camille and Bea had decided that using Sarge as bait would be a good strategy. In fact, though Dr. Grasu liked the mercenary in a drinking-buddy kind of way, she’d supported Camille’s idea of using him and his skills until they found Griff and the vampires.
Camille could almost hear the doc’s voice early last night: “We knock him cold again when we must capture the specimens. Mr. Sargent will only want the kill, and that presents a problem.”
It really had been the best way to deal with Sargent. And it’d worked, drawing one of the vampires to them.
Ecaterina. Sweet, undead—but now dead—girl.
Camille sighed under a surgical mask coated with Vicks to mask the stench of death, then set the decapitated head next to its corpse in a coffin lined with UV bulbs.
If there was one thing she’d learned, it was that these “vampires” weren’t undead so much as a different form of life.
But any way you put it, Camille thought, she was still dealing with another corpse.
Her headset fizzled on.
“Can you upload the movies now?” Bea asked from her base in Vasile. “You have told me there are no major differences in the tongue, either, but I would like to see.”
“Will do, Aunt Bea.” Doc was so cute when she got excited about her job. “I’ll send the images shortly and preserve the remains so you can cut her open yourself.”
As Camille dismissed Delia, she stripped off the gloves and the mask, placed them in a covered container in the Humvee. “I’m signing off now because your booze buddy is conscious and cranky.”
Bea’s voice crackled in transmission. “Think on what we talked about.”
Knocking him cold, once again, when it came time to capture the vampires. “I will. Sweet dreams, Doc.”
From a distance, a wolf howled. Another one answered.
Camille touched her headset three times, changing frequencies, contacting her team to make sure they were still awake and on watch with their trackers. Then, satisfied, she set about getting the autopsy files to Bea via laptop computer.
All too soon, she heard Sargent’s slurred voice behind her. “Thanks for the nap, Howard.”
Casually, she turned away from the computer. Found him leaning against a pine tree, stripped of his weapons. Ashe, the Wiccan hippie guy, supported him on one side, holding a broom in the other hand.
The witch-medic had already set the broken arm of one of the Vasile women—Irina, who’d been slammed against a tree during the melee. Next, he was supposedly going to bring up some kind of magick circle to protect them. Then, while everyone slept, he planned to work some spells. Camille guessed that the broom was for doing some magickal cleaning or something.
“Don’t look so scared of me,” she said to Sarge. “I’m not in an aggressive mood. My adrenaline shot’s spent.”
He merely stared at her.
Ashe let go of Sarge, seeing if he could stand on his own. In response, the bigger man wavered, causing the Wiccan to steady his partner again.
“So can I leave you two alone while I do my work?” he asked.
The mercenary held up a hand, shooing Ashe away, then wobbled until he grabbed the tree. “What was in that dart?”
“Just a stunning agent. If I recall, you probably wouldn’t want me to get all scientific about it. And calm down. I was never going to let you die.”
“You used me.” He turned to Ashe, pointed a finger. It caused him to sway until he caught his balance again. “And shouldn’t you’ve known that I was going to be bait?”
Ashe’s face reddened. Against his shoulder-length moonbeam hair, the shade was startling. “My psychic equipment isn’t perfect, Sarge.”
Camille could tell he was mortified by his failure. Bea had told her what Ashe did for Sarge—how he used empathi
c and Wiccan skills to help in protecting his old military buddy and himself during vampire hunts. Even if she had more faith in science than hocus-pocus to get them through this nightmare, he instilled confidence in some of her women who did believe in superstition, and that could only help.
“So,” she said to Ashe, ignoring Sarge, “you think the strigoiaca know we’re here?”
“I haven’t sensed that they’ve detected us.”
Lucky guess. It’d been a trick question. Last year, back in Juni, a dying vampire had used a different cry, one that had another tonal quality, to summon the rest of its tribe for help. Oddly enough, during the strigoiaca’s conquest of the village, they had exhibited a hands-off policy when it came to helping each other capture their prey. As a student, Camille had believed this to be ritualistic behavior, a way for each vampire to prove herself worthy of the tribe.
Or maybe not. The strigoiaca were still a mystery to her, and that was a disquieting disadvantage.
Even so, the fact that Ecaterina hadn’t emitted an alarmlike cry tonight made Camille feel a little better, giving her reason to believe that the other vampires hadn’t been alerted yet.
“We’re close to them,” Ashe added. “I’m feeling where they are. Stone chambers, gargoyles, wolves…”
“Maybe a castle?” Camille asked. “According to our maps, there’s a deserted one almost two miles up the road.”
Ashe nodded, smiled. “That’s it.”
“Are you sure you’re right this time?” Sarge put a hand to his neck, covering the spot where Camille had shot him with the dart gun. His bite scar stood out on the other side, a map of never-healed skin. “I wouldn’t want to go banging on the wrong door in this neighborhood.”
The Wiccan tensed. Even under his loose white clothing, Camille could see the bunching of lean muscles.
But Sarge didn’t apologize. He was back to dissecting Camille with his baleful glare.
Shutting out his partner, Ashe turned to Camille. “I’ll have my circle up soon. You’ll sleep in safety.”
A pack of wolves cried in the distance, causing them all to pause, to listen. To shiver with a chill brought on by the unearthly sound.
Then, before she could tell Ashe not to bother with the voodoo, he walked off, using the broom like a staff.
“I think you hurt his feelings,” Camille said.
“You register feelings?”
If only he knew how sharply. “Don’t tell me you’re going to pout about the dart. I told you to stay home.”
Though his silence stung, she’d done the right thing, dammit. If it saved Griff, the end justified the means.
When Sarge did speak, his voice grated with bitterness. “Let’s get something straight. You don’t screw with me when it comes to vamps. I know when killing is necessary. Once, in Mexico, I had a run-in with a sucker who killed children for their blood. And in Greece, I had to deal with a group that lured tourists into torture chambers so they could get their jollies while stretching human bodies apart. We’re dealing with pure evil with these females, too.”
Sarge drew himself up and walked slowly away from his tree. “Your little do-gooder weapons, scientific theories and belief that every creature deserves to live will get you killed.”
“Not so far.” Camille glanced at Ecaterina’s corpse, remembering how serendipity had played such a huge part in fighting that first neutralized vampire in Juni. “I held one off a year ago, too. And I didn’t have to murder to do it.”
Someone else had finished off that first one. Just as Sarge had killed Ecaterina tonight.
“You held one off?” Sarge laughed, then shoved a hand to his forehead. Shook it away. “Holding them off isn’t a permanent solution. If I hadn’t sliced the noggin off your friend here—” he motioned toward Ecaterina’s body “—she’d have gone back for her buddies. Now we’ve got one less to deal with.”
“I think I mentioned how we’re all suddenly targets, since they won’t want just you men now.”
“Hey, equal opportunity, right?”
“Dipwad.”
She shot him a disgusted glance as he tamed his wooziness and sauntered by her, toward Ecaterina, ignoring the new nickname. He’d probably heard worse.
“I’m going to have to cut her heart out,” he said.
“You’ve already done enough damage. Besides, that’s just superstition. She’s dead. Got it? Not moving. Things usually don’t function without a head.”
“You never know with the undead.”
“Sarge, she’ll be nicely captured in this coffin. It was designed to bring back hibernating vampires for Beatrix so she could work on a serum that actually might cure the problem. But she’d need a working body for that.”
Sarge inspected the tongue that lolled out of Ecaterina’s mouth. “I’ve got a better idea. If we kill them, we’ve got a cure.” When he glanced at her, a deep anguish filled his gaze. He turned away, probably hoping she hadn’t seen it.
Was this how murderers acted and thought? Had the man who’d killed her parents used the same form of twisted logic?
And what about Sarge himself? What had happened to make him so bloodthirsty? With the way he talked, she wondered just how hunting them down had become so personal.
Strangely moved by the way he was trying to hide his face from her, Camille opened her mouth to ask all these questions. But before she could, Sarge turned back around, grabbed her arm, intensity taking the place of the pain in his eyes.
“Flora Vladislav had already briefed me about the tongue and said that during the Juni attack the vamps weren’t using them to sting women. I noticed that tonight, too. Why?”
His hands were callused, rough. The heat of contact imprinted Camille’s skin through the jacket, sending a shock wave through her body.
Stunned, she wrenched her arm away. What had that been? Misplaced anger? A stressful reaction to the night’s events?
Crossing her arms over her chest, she said, “We think the vampires know that the tongue venom won’t stun females. They save up and strike only at men because that’s how they disable them for capture and travel.”
“How do you know the venom won’t work on women?”
“I tested it back in Bucharest.”
Sarge shot her a look, half of which said she was crazy while the other half said he admired her courage.
She couldn’t handle his respect, not when she was all too aware of him hovering over her. “I took a small shot of the stuff at first, since the Juni corpse’s tongue provided us with a sample,” she said, taking a subtle step away from him. “Gradually, I upped the dosage. It never affected me or the other volunteers. Of course, a live vampire’s venom might be a different story.”
Thank God he was back to inspecting Ecaterina’s head, not seeming to mind the stench. Earlier, the silver oval had fallen away, allowing Camille to inspect the tongue.
“That was a pretty effective thing you used on her mouth during the scuffle,” Sarge said.
“A mouth sealer. It uses vacuum power to keep the vampires’ lips closed. It renders their fangs useless. Problem is, it loses power after fifteen minutes.” She kicked at a rock on the ground. “When I invented it, I couldn’t stretch the time out any longer.”
“You made it?” There was that look again, but it was mostly respect now.
“Yeah. I’m a geek that way. When I was a kid I’d spend time in the school lab, messing around. I—”
She’d said way too much, gotten too personal. There was no need to confide in this man, her competitor.
“And how about that UV wand?” he asked.
Her invention, too. “It doesn’t matter.”
She wasn’t about to tell him about how much time she’d had on her hands this past year. Time spent waiting for word from her mercenary teams. Time spent discovering new ways to fight vampires with Bea’s advice.
Somehow, she’d always felt in her gut that she’d be going after Griff. That finding him would make all th
e difference in her life.
While Sarge talked, he liberated a knife from a hidden ankle sheath. “You’ve got quite a mind on you, Howard. But I’m still going to cut this thing’s heart out.”
“Oh, come on.”
“You said a dead vamp won’t be so useful in the lab.”
Should she just get him off her back? Besides, they’d have more live vampire hearts to study by the end of the mission. “Okay. But don’t think I’m always going to give in to your whims.”
“That’s what you say now.” He slid her a meaningful glance and, if he weren’t such a scumbag, Camille might’ve actually thought the look was hot—in Bizarro World.
She called Delia over again to record the process for Bea. When the villager was ready, Sarge twirled his bowie knife into a reverse grip, then sliced into Ecaterina’s chest.
Cuts. Slashes. Camille turned away, momentarily shaken.
“What have you and Dr. Grasu found out about this form of vampirism?” he asked.
The metallic buzz of blade against bone turned her stomach. Did Sarge have the right idea? That talking would shut it out?
“More or less, these vampires are victims of a virus that is passed through the exchange of blood mixed with saliva. We haven’t been able to trace its origins, but we know that the virus mutates the cells, and the cells multiply like gangbusters and take over the body. Basically, vampirism is cancerous, and it shapes the human body into the perfect vessel for its survival. That’s why these creatures have developed small fins for quick movement, superior strength and night vision so they can stay out of the sun.”
He was still sawing. “The strigoiaca are like other vamps, then? They don’t like beach bathing?”
“Only because of the ultraviolet rays, not some symbolically charged reason.” Camille concentrated on the treetops, the sudden scatter of a flock of birds.
Anything but the knife. “UV actually kills cells, and the virus can’t withstand that. In fact, we think using UV can turn the vampires human again. Like chemotherapy.”
A slurping, creaking sound told Camille that it was time to lose her dinner.
