Blood Rogue, #1

by Linda J. Parisi

  Stacy opened her mouth to retort then took a deep breath, letting the air out slowly. “So I get no say in the rest of my life, is that it?”

  “The kindest way to deal with this is to make you forget all about me.”

  Oh really? “And who’s going to make you forget?”

  “No one. I accept my penance.”

  Damned noble fool. “For what? Becoming something you didn’t want to be? For using your existence for good and not evil? For trying to protect the rest of a race—the rest of your race—that hates you because you’re different? God, Chaz, I don’t think it’s that you have to be a martyr, I think it’s that you want to be one.”

  He blanched. “No, I don’t. I want to protect you from your worst enemy. Me.”

  “There goes that ‘T’ word again, right out the window. Did it ever occur to you that I don’t want your protection, don’t feel I need your protection? That I TRUST you not to hurt me?”

  He stared at her, his chest heaving as if he couldn’t catch his breath, as if she’d given him the ray of hope he kept insisting he didn’t deserve. “But the way you looked the other night.”

  She shook her head at him in total exasperation. “Didn’t I just prove to you that I can handle anything you can? Try to at least be fair. I’m not even allowed to wrinkle my nose when I see something horrifying?” She rolled her eyes. “How the hell did you expect me to react? You cut off a man’s head. You turned him into ash. I wasn’t watching a television show, it happened right before my eyes. Don’t you think I’d be horrified if I watched a fellow police officer gun down a perp right in front of me? I’d be watching him take a life, something that can’t be given back, no matter whether his death was deserved or not.”

  Chaz didn’t answer.

  “Do you know why I went into forensics and not medicine, Chaz?” He shook his head. “Because I was terrified I’d end up making a mistake. I was scared to death that I would end up taking a life instead of saving one. Because, in the end, I let myself be a coward. Don’t let yourself be a coward, Chaz.”

  Stacy wanted to reach out and touch him. She wanted to wrap him in her arms and never let go. She wanted to force-feed what she’d just learned—that nothing is more important than being true to the being inside. Be it vampire or human.

  No one was more surprised than Chaz when Stacy threw her arms around him and planted her lips on his. But this kiss was different. The rules of the game had changed. They both knew the consequences of their actions.

  It seemed a lifetime ago that Chaz sought her out. Perhaps he’d known all along they would come together at this moment, in the truest sense of what two people can call together—no pretense, no games, just truth, and reality. She realized this was why he fought so hard against her. They were from different worlds. Each of them had to accept that.

  But Stacy knew the real fight, the harder fight, the one that would keep them together and not apart. Now she asked him to take that final step, to discard the past and look to the future, a future that might contain just the two of them.

  He drew back, loath to let her lips part from his. “I told you once that you’d become the light in my very dark existence. I was wrong.”

  “Wrong?” Her insides blanched, turning bleak, and she stiffened.

  “You’ve become my very existence.”

  Thank God. Her stomach settled, but he held up his hand, and her angst came back tenfold. As they stared at each other, her shoulders fell. She shook her head at him as reality—sorrow and disbelief filled her face.

  “I’m sorry, but nothing has changed. We’re still from different worlds. I’m still this far from becoming that monster. There will never be an ‘us.’”

  “Then you’re taking the easy way out.”

  Her words cut them both to the quick. “Easy? You think standing here and telling you I can never have you is easy? Guess again.”

  He spun away and walked slowly towards the front of the house to leave. She watched each step rip apart something inside him. He’d have to learn to live with the pain—that was all. She refused to.

  “No right, no wrong, just what has to be,” he told her as he opened the front door. He turned one last time to look at her, and she braced herself. She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, daring him. He opened his mouth as if to tell her something. Was it to tell her he loved her? How she wished. But his lips closed it before he admitted anything. Obviously, the truth would be too cruel to tell. The lock clicked shut behind him, and she knew every day from this day forward would be the worst kind of torture.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Stacy

  Stacy emptied her vacuum into a bag and stuck her face in the dust. Since she was allergic to dust, she came out looking like she’d been sick for a week. When she got to work, everyone gave her a wide berth and left her alone.

  She threw herself into her problem with a vengeance. If she could prove to Chaz that he’d never go rogue, he might decide to rethink his position regarding their relationship. So instead of trying to find out what was wrong with their blood, she took Tori’s advice and tried to find out what was right. The good news was that Chaz’s blood exhibited the correct responses for antibody-antigen reactions.

  Her lips quirked in sad memory as she picked up a tube of Aidan’s blood.

  “Aidan. Come here, would you please?” she had asked him the day he died.

  Aidan had come closer but didn’t reply. She’d gotten used to his silence. “I need some of your blood. To test.”

  He’d nodded his consent, and she used a lancet to fill up a tube, amazed yet again, at how fast his skin healed. But with Aidan, she also noticed something else. He wasn’t very good at hiding his reaction to the smell of his own blood.

  Embarrassed, he went outside to guard her door. Stacy followed.

  “Is it always like that?”

  He started at her question, then a light of respect entered his gaze. “Yes.” He paused. “Worse, sometimes.”

  “Chaz tried to explain.”

  His gaze turned sad. “You could never understand.”

  “I guess not. Are you ever sated?”

  “No,” came his blunt reply.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Guarding you leaves me little time to feed.”

  Stacy went into her downstairs refrigerator and gave him two expired units. He stared at her in surprise. “Thank you for watching over me.”

  He’d nodded and smiled. Then died trying to save her life.

  Stacy sighed and went back to work. She found that Aidan’s and Chaz’s blood exhibited the same properties, but with Donnie’s blood, there was no reaction at all. So something had caused the death of the red cells in Donnie’s blood.

  But what?

  The second step she took was to find out if there were DNA markers for vampire blood by using a Western blot test. And here she found something very interesting: the DNA markers for Chaz and Aidan were exactly the same. Which surprised her at first, then didn’t. Vampires weren’t exactly alive. They were alive only because they used a living substance to survive. So it would make sense that they would take on the attributes of the person whose blood they ingested, but they also needed that substance to be universal. They needed to be able to drink just about anything.

  So Stacy set up a second blot to compare all three vampires, Chaz, Aidan, and Donnie. Donnie’s test didn’t work. Discouraged, Stacy thought she’d hit another brick wall. Then she remembered that Sam had said Donnie was regularly feeding. So there should be residual DNA strands somewhere. She tried again.

  Nada. Zip. Zilch.

  And that made her realize something. Something was destroying the cells inside Donnie’s blood. Because when she flooded Chaz’s blood with heparin to make it like Donnie’s and then tested it through the blot procedure, she got separated bands of DNA.

  Time to start using the mass spec. Time to find out what was causing all of this. Because whatever the agent was, it wa
s damned nasty.

  Stacy set up a broad-spectrum analysis and felt lighter than she had in days. She let the mass spec run, hoping the analyzer wouldn’t require any babysitting, took her paperwork home and stopped for Chinese. She was on her third bite of Peking duck when her cell rang.

  “Hunter? What’s wrong? Is Chaz all right?”

  “I need you to come up to the mansion. There’s been a… development.”

  She set her dinner down, her appetite gone. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chaz

  Stacy stood in the foyer of the mansion when Chaz walked in. Hunter greeted him, feet braced apart, as if he was ready for anything that might arise. Chaz found that stability comforting.

  “Good. You’re both here. So is Sam. We need to make some decisions.”

  Chaz stiffened as Stacy brushed past him to follow Hunter. He caught a hint of her citrus shampoo and his insides clenched with need. He watched her walk in front of him, her lithe form enticing him from behind. Chaz admonished himself in stern tones and clamped down on those thoughts.

  “Members of my cell managed to capture two more young vampires. Sam’s been working with them. They’re being held outside the house but on the grounds. I need you to come with me and see this for yourselves.”

  This was an excellent precaution considering the last ones they captured.

  “They all respond to the word Nirvana,” Sam added as they approached a small barn.

  A guard opened a door and let them in. One side of the barn had large stalls with barred doors meant for horses, and heavily wrapped chains and steel braces kept the door locked.

  The vampire inside the stall circled the area, and Chaz knew he was just about to go rogue.

  “We won’t let it go that far, Chaz,” Hunter told him. “We’ll destroy him before he goes rogue.”

  “Can’t we help him?” Stacy asked.

  Sam replied. “No, Stacy, we can’t. Watch.”

  They all watched Sam approach the stall. The vampire ignored her presence. Until she said, “Nirvana.”

  Then, the poor creature flew to the door, trying to claw his way through the bars, his hand outstretched as if he were trying to get at whatever Nirvana was. He seemed like he was totally addicted to a drug.

  “Stacy, you had the idea that this Nirvana might be some kind of drug they’ve been given. As you can see, you were right.”

  The captured vampire started begging and pleading, scraping his hands against the wood, trying to climb out of the stall, anything to get the Nirvana he so desperately craved.

  Chaz shook his head. “What the hell is going on here?”

  “We don’t know for sure,” Sam replied. “But I think Stacy may be able to help us with that. Let’s go back to the mansion so we can talk in private.”

  When they reached the conference room in the mansion, Hunter grimaced as he sat down. “Stacy, I think I’ll let you have the floor. Yours is the most important news of all.”

  He watched Stacy nod and lean forward. Despite how tired she looked, excitement radiated from her gaze. “I’ve been performing different analyses of different samples from these vampires and analyzing what was left of Donnie’s blood. And I was able to analyze the saliva from the rogue that’s been trying to kill me.”

  She dared Sam and Hunter to ask how that went with a quick look. They were both aware of Aidan’s demise.

  “So far, I’ve come up with at least one compound—a cytotoxin. A cytotoxin is a poison that destroys cells in the body. I’ve also found that you have no antigens and antibodies, or platelets, save those that you ingest. I believe this is at least part of what keeps all your blood moving. I’ve also completed some blot testing. There are no strands of DNA in the rogue’s blood that I can quantify.”

  Stacy just happened to be watching Sam when she said this. Sam blanched but covered up quickly. Chaz wondered why. “Last but not least, because we believe there is some kind of drug that probably contains the cytotoxin, I’m running a mass spec on Donnie’s blood. If you think of it Nirvana sounds like something off the street.”

  Sam nodded. “That’s very possible.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Stacy said. “I can’t imagine a street drug being this specific.” She shook her head. “None of this makes any sense. Why put a toxin in a street drug when vampires don’t drink from a human that’s high?”

  Chaz was glad she had them thinking. “No. I believe this Nirvana, as they’re calling it, has been engineered. So let’s take each step logically if we can. Even if you ingest a drug, all things being true and the sleep being curative, its effects should be neutralized by the time you wake up. Instead, this Nirvana is acting like the most powerful of addictive drugs. Obviously, that should be impossible. Whatever is causing the cells to be destroyed, once the process starts, it won’t stop. Maybe the other part of this, I’m not sure what to call it, is some kind of hallucinogen? To brainwash these young vampires into believing that what they’re doing will give them—well, they keep telling us—Nirvana? Not death?”

  No one spoke.

  “The mass spec analysis may take a while, but we should have an answer on what compounds this stuff is made of soon.”

  Chaz saw the impact of her findings as he looked around the table. Hunter appeared to be plain old angry by the set of his mouth and the tic in his cheek. Guess he didn’t like the idea of vampires being brainwashed. Chaz also figured Hunter didn’t like the idea of his brothers being used as guinea pigs. And how did he feel about all of this? Chaz didn’t appreciate the idea that someone was creating rogues on purpose. After all, he was the one who’d have to hunt them down. With his guts in a knot, Chaz glanced over at Sam. Now, this was strange. Sam’s eyes were wide and wouldn’t quite meet his gaze. She looked frightened, and all Chaz could do was ask himself why?

  “They don’t even know they’re being starved. And I’ll bet—” Stacy continued, “—that if you question your guards, Hunter, they’ll tell you they drank those blood bags, not Nick and Donnie.”

  “Why do you say that?” Hunter asked.

  “Because anyone can be brainwashed, even a vampire. If this is as powerful as I believe it to be, and the response we saw was created, Nick and Donnie would only drink when allowed to do so. Not only that, but from a specific source. I think they attacked me and were told they were only allowed to drink my blood. My guess is that they’ve been so brainwashed, they don’t even know they’re starving.”

  No one said anything for what seemed like forever.

  “Who would have that kind of power?” Hunter finally wondered out loud.

  Stacy flicked her gaze over at Sam and watched the elder vampire shudder and swallow hard. Hunter caught the action too and tilted his head in question. Sam waved away his concern with an arrogant flick of her wrist.

  “No one that we know of,” Sam replied, her tone vehement. “So, for now, our priority is to cure these two young vampires as we can all be sure there will be more of them in the future.”

  “Can you continue to help us, Stacy?” Hunter asked.

  “I can try.”

  Sam’s countenance softened. “Thank you.”

  “I think you’re going to have to strap them down and force-feed them,” Stacy added. “I believe that’s going to be the only way to save them.”

  “They seem to be able to resist every measure I try,” Sam added, her tone too neutral. “I can’t get through to them. So, whoever or whatever is holding them is very powerful.”

  Stacy left the room. She must’ve known they wanted to talk among themselves.

  “All the more reason, then, for Stacy to keep trying to find out what’s going on,” Hunter said.

  “Agreed,” Sam said.

  As much as he wanted to go after Stacy, Chaz waited until Hunter left, then he walked out with Sam.

  He reached out and gave her shoulder a quick squeeze. “Whatever it is, Sam, remember we’re all with you.
You’re not alone.”

  She looked stunned for a moment, then she smiled. The smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I know, Charles. I know.”

  “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  She shook her head. Then she paused. “Perhaps one thing.”

  Surprised, Chaz wondered what kind of favor he could do for such a powerful vampire. “What’s that?”

  Her mouth quirked. And this time, her eyes softened in genuine amusement. “What I told you to do before. Go after her.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I love her.”

  Sam laughed softly. “I’ve known that since the very beginning.”

  “Then you also know why we’ll never be together.”

  Sam shook her head at him. “No. I only know that there are exceptions to every rule. You’re the exception, Charles.”

  “Am I? And what happens when I believe that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  His angst bubbled up from a cauldron of misery. “What happens years from now or months or days? When my guard slips? When I fall into that—that black hole?”

  “Black hole?”

  He shook his head, wondering if she was being deliberately obtuse. “What happens when I can’t break away, when I can’t stop drinking her blood?”

  Sam frowned at him, her countenance turning stern even as her gaze grew warmer. “You already know the answer to that.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Then let’s start with the obvious. You don’t trust yourself.”

  No, he didn’t. “Stacy said the same thing.”

  “She did? Good for her, but that’s not the second part of the problem.”

  Chaz frowned. “Second part?”

  “You don’t trust your love for her.”

  “She doesn’t know.”

  This time, Sam reached out to comfort him. “Don’t you think you ought to tell her?”