by Debra Webb
Viktor Azariel had not murdered the young woman whose life had been drained from her barely twenty-four hours ago in this desolate alley.
Viktor’s head came up, his gaze luminous with his fury.
“Hunter.” He lunged to his feet and adopted a battle-ready stance. “Why have you come here?” Beyond the rage, there was a vulnerability in him. This woman had meant something to him.
Evan stepped away from the wall and its cloaking shadow, moved closer to his enemy. That Viktor had not killed Carlotta Simpson or that he had suffered because of her death did not change his status in Evan’s opinion.
“You swore you would keep your people under control,” Evan said, his tone low but unquestionably lethal. “That is the only reason you were allowed to live.”
His extreme rage making him more daring, Viktor stepped closer. “You speak of death as if only you have the power to wield it. I could kill you right now, Hunter, if the desire struck me,” he sneered. “Do not think that our history will influence my need for revenge. That would be a supreme mistake.”
One corner of Evan’s mouth twitched with the need to smile at the bastard’s audacity. “You won’t kill me, Viktor. We both know that. So save the theatrics for someone more easily impressed by the performance.”
With a single blink of his eyes, the clever nightwalker concealed his violent emotions. “I trust this case is of some significance to you or your precious team?”
Now it was Evan’s turn to flaunt his fury. His fingers curled with the need to end this now. To do what he should have done three years ago. “You know why this case carries significance for me. You also know damned well that every member of my team is dead except me.”
A smirk of triumph spread across that too pale face. “Ah…but you’re wrong, my old friend. You are dead in many ways, as well. You simply haven’t admitted it yet.”
Evan resisted the increasing urge to tear out his throat. “Enough reminiscing. I have questions. You will provide the answers.”
“You think so?” Viktor taunted as he assessed the threat Evan presented on a physical level. “Don’t misjudge your powers of persuasion, my old friend. Much has changed in three years. More than you can possibly know.”
Evan didn’t really give a damn what had changed in Viktor’s dark world. His only concern was for Rowen. Instinct had already warned him that Viktor had not come alone. Others gathered in the shadows even now.
“Have some of your followers gone rogue?”
Viktor laughed; the sound bounced off the crumbling brick walls, sent shards of pain through Evan’s brain.
“Not one of my breed would dare touch a human designated as my personal donor,” he said fiercely. “This was not the work of my kind.”
“How can you be so sure, Viktor? Perhaps competition has moved in from the west coast. Reliable donors have become difficult to find there.”
Viktor suddenly reached out, cupped the back of Evan’s head and jerked him nearer. That penetrating gaze locked in, searching, analyzing. Had the medication not dulled Evan’s senses so, his nemesis would not have managed such a feat.
The fingers of Evan’s right hand closed around the other man’s throat, sinking harshly into the vulnerable flesh there. “Back off,” Evan growled.
The self-proclaimed vampire royal continued to stare, ignoring the command and soaking in all that his powerful senses told him.
“You have been gravely damaged, Hunter,” he said softly, before letting go. Evan’s own fingers loosened and his enemy took a step back.
He looked wholly unrepentant. “The drugs are killing you at this very moment and yet here you are.”
“I want to know who is behind these murders.” Evan struggled to keep his thoughts and emotions tightly compartmentalized. He knew that with the physical connection Viktor had made, he would work all the harder to see Evan’s every thought. The man had immense power when it came to sensing the weaknesses of others, there was no question there.
“And you think I do not?” Viktor tossed the question right back at him. “I will have my revenge. My kind does not need this attention.”
“Stay away from Rowen,” Evan warned, getting directly to the point. “She doesn’t have the answers you seek. I think you know that.”
Viktor smiled. “Ah, but she does have one thing that I desire very much.”
Evan’s gaze narrowed with suspicion as a new wave of fury flamed inside him. “Go near her and I will end your pathetic existence.”
“She has immense power over you, my old friend, and that is my greatest desire just now.”
Evan went toe-to-toe with him. “Don’t go near her again. That is your final warning.”
Viktor merely looked at him, unfazed by the blatant intimidation tactic. “But you see, Hunter, I won’t have to go to her. She will come to me. You must know that.” Again his lips stretched into that facsimile of a smile that held not even a glimmer of compassion. “That’s what terrifies you.” With that confident announcement, the soulless son of a bitch turned and walked away.
That truth rang in his ears as Evan watched him fade into the night.
Before this investigation was over, one of them would have to die. Their unlikely alliance had gone on too long already.
Evan stared up at the sky. Only a few more good hours left before the harsh glare of day would drive him back into isolation. His senses were already overtaxed from the encounter with Viktor.
But there was still work to be done. He would visit each crime scene and absorb all that he could before returning to his temporary sanctuary.
Sometime during the coming day, he would have to talk to Rowen again.
He had to make her understand how dangerous Viktor Azariel was. She could not trust him. He would not help her with this investigation. Viktor had an agenda of his own. He would stop at nothing to accomplish it.
Indulging his primal needs, Evan closed his eyes and envisioned Rowen asleep in her bed—the gauzy white gown nestled against her skin, her honey-colored hair spread across her pillow. That intense sensation of imminent doom banded around his chest once more and a surge of clarity struck. Somehow this investigation was destined to bring him here…to draw Rowen to this place.
What was it about these murders that had brought the three of them together? Rowen, Viktor and him? Something about their shared pasts. A connection that he couldn’t yet see.
He had to learn what that connection was before Rowen got any closer to Viktor. There were things she had forgotten. Things she could never know.
ROWEN DREAMED of a dark castle.
A place cold and dank where something forbidding waited around every corner.
She could hear his voice…calling to her through the darkness. She tried to answer but couldn’t speak.
Why was she there? Was he after her?
She felt the brush of evil against her skin…groped for safety but found none.
Terror welled in her heart, but she couldn’t scream. Couldn’t run. Her feet were mired in the floor that suddenly evolved into a threatening, pulsing quicksand. She could only stand there and let one danger come closer and closer while the other engulfed her with a confusing mixture of fear and anticipation.
Evan suddenly swooped her into his arms and took her to safety. She looked into his eyes and saw the love she’d thought she’d seen three years ago. Found reflected there the same feelings she still carried for him.
His image suddenly morphed into another, less familiar one.
Long dark hair fell around broad shoulders, black eyes stared longingly at her.
The blood started to drain out of her. She wrapped her hands around her throat…tried to stop it but it was no use. It poured out of her in a river of red.
Rowen bolted upright in bed. Her breath sawed in and out of her lungs. Perspiration dampened her skin, and her heart threatened to burst from her chest.
She flung the covers back and scrambled out of the bed. She recognized the symp
toms. Panic attack. She had to walk this off.
Her fingers went immediately to her throat…just to be sure.
She shouldn’t be letting the case get to her like this. She was letting the whole crazy vampire theory creep under her skin. But the dreams…they were nothing new. The only difference was that the shadowy figures in her nightmares had taken on the faces of those who’d recently barged into her life. And somehow they fit. She shuddered inwardly.
Feeling her way to the bathroom, she went in search of water. Her throat was dry and tight. She stuck her head under the faucet and drank deeply, then straightened and wiped her mouth with a trembling hand.
Back in her bedroom, she switched on the bedside lamp and retrieved her Glock from under her pillow. Princess lifted her dainty head from the pillow next to Rowen’s long enough to gaze sleepily at the disturbance, but she made no move to join her mistress in her middle-of-the-night ramblings. Unlike Rowen, Princess apparently preferred her beauty sleep.
Her weapon in hand, for reasons she refused to consider, Rowen moved down the stairs, not bothering with additional light. A small night-light in the entry hall provided sufficient illumination for her to make her way down the staircase. She actually could have done it with her eyes closed. Her grandmother used to make a game of walking around the house blindfolded. She insisted that it made her more aware of her surroundings. Rowen felt confident it was more likely a ruse to ensure she paid attention to her movements in the house after that one scary tumble she’d taken down the stairs when she was five.
Rowen’s fingers glided down the railing, the sensation bringing back a collage of memories and stories her grandmother had told. Many lives, she had boasted, had come and gone in this house. A house couldn’t stand so long without having a few ghosts pass through and maybe even a few linger. Just like Boston, nothing got that old without some accumulated baggage. Alleged hauntings…legends of hanging witches in the Common. All of it, combined with the distinctive old Boston flavor, made for ripe fodder for overactive imaginations.
Rowen’s feet landed on the cool wooden floor of the entry hall as she descended the final step. Not that she believed in ghosts per se, but she did believe that those who’d come before left an energy or an essence in the air for those sensitive enough to notice. That explained why some folks insisted they saw ghosts. What they actually encountered were memories built over time, the way the moisture in the air accumulated until the clouds were heavy enough to send it returning to Earth in the form of rain. The rising vapor had been there all along; you just hadn’t been able to see it until it took liquid form. Hunter had shared that analogy with her. He believed that our world was made up of layers of time, each carrying its own residue.
Don’t even think about him, she chastised. Don’t let him sneak back in.
She paused in front of the window over the kitchen sink and watched the rain trickle down the wavy glass. If there had been a speck of evidence left at the Simpson crime scene, it would be long gone now.
The angels were crying for those who’d lost their lives, Rowen decided. It had rained every damned day since the murders began…tears from heaven.
But there really wasn’t a legitimate reason to fret about the storm contaminating anything useful. She shivered. There hadn’t been any evidence to find. That was this killer’s MO, it seemed. His ability to get away so clean could very well mean he knew his way around a crime scene. God, she hated even the idea of that scenario. But she had to consider all possibilities. This killer could be a former cop…maybe even a cop still on active duty.
Or it could be Hunter.
Another shudder quaked through her limbs.
Looking at the glass, she suddenly remembered that the window he had opened remained intact. She knew she’d locked it. It was always locked. But somehow he’d managed to open it without damaging the antique glass. Or maybe he’d picked the lock on one of the doors and opened the window to throw her off.
No matter how he’d gained entrance, it made her damned mad. She’d always felt safe here and he had taken that away from her. Was that the reason for tonight’s strange nightmare? Was she feeling she was losing control? The nightmares had always come when she felt some aspect of her life was out of her sphere of power. She recognized that particular frailty about herself.
No, she decided. Viktor Azariel was the culprit here. She shivered again, hugged her arms around herself, feeling comforted by the cold, hard steel of the Glock.
Mr. Azariel had, without hesitation, explained that he was a vampire and Carlotta, who was one among many, had regularly donated blood for his thirst.
Rowen had pretty much gotten the hell out of there after that. He hadn’t told her anything about the Simpson woman that Merv, her partner, hadn’t discovered. So the trip had been more or less wasted.
No, that wasn’t true. She just hadn’t learned anything she could say to the public in hopes of assuaging their mounting concerns.
Not in this lifetime.
It was bad enough that the Reporter was now running a series of articles related to vampires and the connection to All Hallows’ Eve. The timing on all this was just too perfect. Fate had played a really bad trick on her this time. Along with the usual fall and Halloween revelers pouring into Boston was a whole other fan club. Vampire lovers, even some who professed to be vampires themselves, were filling up the hotels in hopes of getting a front row seat for this ugly sideshow.
Rowen shook her head in disgust.
But what Viktor Azariel had done, whether he knew it or not, was give her another avenue to legitimately delve into. The chief didn’t want to discuss the possibility that self-professed vampires lived anywhere near his city. He’d have to get past that—the facts were the facts. Vampirism was a wildly popular cult. Not all vampire wanna-bes actually partook of blood, but some did.
She decided that Viktor Azariel fit neatly into that second category.
The blood, since it hadn’t made him ill, obviously gave him a feeling of power, of superiority. That part wasn’t really surprising. There were medical treatments that involved blood derivatives that promoted health and well-being. But those treatments involved extensive testing and, often, matching donor to recipient.
She’d chalked up Azariel’s perceptiveness as to where she was on the investigation to guesswork since he couldn’t have known how far along she was on Simpson’s autopsy results or her investigation into the donor emblem. But he still gave her the creeps.
A quiver skittered up her spine at the idea of just how far he’d taken the whole I’m-cursed act. With his money, the man could have anything. Had he grown so bored with all that money could buy that he sought fulfillment in horror fantasy? Would he actually risk his health by drinking the blood of others?
Apparently, he did.
Admittedly, there was something sexy about dark and dangerous men. That’s what had attracted her to Hunter. Viktor Azariel possessed the same sort of seductive qualities. She wasn’t blind.
But he was clearly a few bricks short of a load.
“Seriously mental,” she murmured.
Rowen reached into the fridge and grabbed a power drink. She was awake. Might as well make the most of it and get some work done. She wanted to do a little more research on the whole I-think-I’m-a-vampire religion and see if she could find any suggestion of hypnosis being utilized. That appeared to be the most likely scenario since none of the victims had fought off their attackers and no drugs had shown up in their tox screens.
She closed the fridge door, blinked a couple of times to readjust to the darkness and then twisted the top from her drink. She remembered the old movies where merely looking into the vampire’s eyes would drag an innocent victim under his spell.
The memory of losing her train of thought while staring into Viktor’s eyes intruded into her ruminations. She’d probably imagined that. Too little sleep. The whole setting had likely fueled her imagination, making her feel things that weren’t real.
She would be the first to confess she at times over-reacted to anything related to the paranormal. It wasn’t that she didn’t have an open mind, but she simply refused to believe.
Viktor Azariel needed a top-of-the-line shrink and a long, Caribbean vacation to get some color back into his pale skin.
She moved to the parlor, where her home computer and desk occupied one corner and provided her an office away from the office. Her grandmother wouldn’t care for the addition to her roomful of charming antiques and framed samplers, but that couldn’t be helped.
Rowen groped along the wall for the switch. Just as her fingers latched on to it, the whisper of a breath filtered across her shoulder.
Rowen swiveled on her heel…peered through the darkness, her Glock leveled for firing at anything that moved. She held her breath…listened. The muffled sound of the wind rattling the windows…and nothing.
But she’d sensed…felt…something.
“Who’s there?”
If it was Hunter again, this time she would shoot.
She listened above the thud of her own pounding heart and heard nothing. After another minute or two of silence, she decided she’d only imagined the sensation.
“Idiot,” she muttered.
Rowen lowered her weapon and flipped the light switch.
She stamped across the room to her desk and sat down, plopped her gun on the right side of her computer and her drink on the left. She hated when she got creeped out like this. Apparently being a grown woman made no difference. She was still a fraidy cat. Afraid of dying, afraid of the dark, though she forced herself to live with the latter.
Her fingers lit on the keyboard. She pulled up her work files and got to it. She had to do this part on her own. The chief didn’t want anyone else in on this aspect. She hated leaving Merv out, but she understood the chief’s concerns. There had already been one leak and as sure as she was that Merv hadn’t had anything to do with it, she had her orders.
She sat there for hours. Read until her vision blurred and her shoulders ached from slumping over the computer. She took the last sip of her drink and propped her arm on her desk so she could rest her head comfortably against it. Anything to lessen the tension on her neck.
