by Love Bites
There were four young vamps inside. Their T-shirts with the Ron Jon surfer logos looked incongruous with their armored faces. They’d paired off and were dining on their newest victims. The bodies strewn between the tables were evidence of their rampaging bloodlust.
Quentin lifted his head and snarled, his deep growl alerting the vamps of his presence.
One of them, a lean, blond-haired teenager, lifted his head from the gaping wound of a woman who looked more dead than alive. “You’re on our turf. Move out,” he said.
“You’re attracting undue attention, children. Did your sire not mentor you in the need for discretion?” Quentin said, with a sniff. “You lack finesse.”
The young vamp’s lips lifted in a snarl. “Don’t need it. This is a lot more fun. Now move out, old man.”
Quentin raised an eyebrow. “I’ll let you live for another minute or two if you answer one question.”
The others raised their heads from their meals, their deep thirst forgotten in the challenge he had issued.
The blond, who must be their leader, dropped the woman and stalked toward Quentin. When he was half a dozen paces away, he launched himself at Quentin in a single impressive leap.
Quentin sidestepped the boy who landed against a table, overturning it and several chairs. Before he could extricate himself from the tangle, Quentin reached down and staked him through the chest. He disintegrated into dust, leaving only his rumpled jeans, T-shirt, and tennis shoes.
Quentin turned back to the remaining three. “Now, about that question…”
The three looked at each other and raised their hands.
“What the hell do you want to know?” Another sun-bleached blond youth asked.
“Where can I find your sire?”
“The Master?”
Quentin snorted. Nicky really was reaching. “Nicky. Where do I find him? We’re old friends.” He took a step toward them, and they backed away.
“He has his own place now. If you’re a friend, how come you don’t know?”
“I just arrived in town.” Displeased with their lack of candor, Quentin let his armor reform his face to indicate his impatience.
“All right, man. He’s got a place near here. In South Beach Park.” His face morphed. He couldn’t be more than sixteen and beardless. “You aren’t going to tell him we left a mess, are you?”
“I’m wondering how you propose to extricate yourself from this?”
“Huh?”
“You won’t be leaving this place, except in a dustbin.”
Darcy and Joe stepped through the door. More of the SU team members peered through the window, crossbows and spear guns aimed at the three.
“Shit!”
“Keep one alive,” Quentin said. In an instant, two sets of clothing crumpled to the floor.
* * * * *
Dressed in black, they’d taken up positions behind the concrete block wall that enclosed the property on the beach side. The incoming tide lapped just feet away, and the smell of rain was in the air. Light poured from windows. Music blared within. It seemed a party was in full flourish.
Hunkered down next to the gate, Quentin whispered, “Be sure to keep the rest of the unit back until I give the signal. They stink of gun oil. I can smell it from here.”
“We’re going in with you,” Darcy said.
“No you’re not.”
“Look, I know you’ve got a bug up your ass about the sleeping arrangements,” Joe said, “but Darcy and I are supposed to be your shadows.”
“Darcy’s made it abundantly clear, who’s in and who’s out,” Quentin said between gritted teeth. “We aren’t a team.”
“Fine,” Darcy said, laying a hand on Joe’s arm. “You go right on ahead. We’ll try not to get in your way.”
“You’re staying put.”
She smiled, her teeth a white slash in the moonlight. “Of course. I always do what I’m told.”
“Damn stubborn wench,” he muttered.
“Pompous, arrogant asshole,” she replied, still smiling.
“Darcy, keep clear of Nicky.” If Nicky knew what the girl meant to him…
“Time’s a-wasting,” Joe whispered. He lowered the microphone on his headset to his mouth. “We’re going in.”
Quentin pushed open the gate and skirted the wall on the inside, keeping to the shadows and using the foliage of the palms and bougainvillea to hide behind as he crept along. Not that vampires couldn’t see into the darkness.
French doors opened with a spill of light onto a slate tile patio. A lone figure stepped outside and lit a cigarette. The flare of the lighter illuminated the face of the vampire they’d come to kill.
The hair on the back of Quentin’s neck rose. This was too easy.
“You may as well quit skulking in the bushes, Father. I see you received my message,” Nicholas Powell said.
Quentin heard Darcy’s gasp. He straightened and approached the monster he’d created.
* * * * *
Darcy glanced at Joe. His face had hardened to stone.
It couldn’t be. Quentin couldn’t be responsible for creating this evil vampire. But she didn’t have time to consider the implications. They’d been made. She rose from her crouch and surveyed the courtyard. Her gaze lifted to the balcony above them.
Two vampires trained automatic weapons on her and Joe. The gun oil Quentin’s keen sense of smell had detected hadn’t come from the SU team. Then the thought came unbidden, had Quentin set them up for a slaughter?
“I’m flattered, Quentin. You’ve come all this way to see me. You and your friends must come inside.” It wasn’t an invitation. With an indolent wave of his hand, Nicky signaled to more vamps who spilled out the doorway. “After you. But first, drop your weapons.”
Quentin raised the stake in his hand and then laid it at his feet. Joe and Darcy lowered their crossbows. It took every bit of her willpower to abandon her weapon.
Quentin stepped through the doorway. He didn’t glance behind him to see whether they followed.
“Don’t be shy,” Nicky said. “Come inside and join the party.”
Darcy stepped onto the tile patio. As she drew abreast Nicky, he held out his hand. “I’ll take your headsets.”
Inside the house, it became immediately apparent a trap had been set. There wasn’t a human in sight, just five more vampires, unholy grins on their distorted faces.
“So what do you think of my humble abode?”
Darcy had just met the dark-haired vampire, but his voice, low and sardonic already grated on every last one of her nerves. She glanced about her, checking exits and for items that could be used as weapons if her weapon of last resort was taken from her. Slate tile covered the floor, and unless the beige leather sofas could be used to batter a vamp to the ground, only the glass and chrome tables offered any possibilities.
Quentin stood in the center of the living room and had yet to look her way. But his stiff posture and neutral expression reassured her that at least he was as much a victim as she was.
“So what do we have here? GI Joe and Jane?” Nicky said as he circled them. He halted in front of Darcy and looked her up and down. His dark eyes smoldered. Leanly built and muscular, Darcy didn’t doubt Nicky would prove difficult to best in a one-on-one.
She glared at him, her hands fisting at her sides.
“Is she your woman?” Nicky turned to Quentin, one eyebrow raised.
Quentin remained silent.
“Hardly seems your type. She’s rather plain. And not a curve to feast on,” he said, his voice silky. “Rather like taking a boy. Do you like boys, Quentin?”
Quentin snorted. “Just for breakfast.” He nodded to the vamps circling the perimeter of the room. “Seems your appetites are decidedly male, these days.”
“I learn from my mistakes. Women are strictly for nourishment.” He walked behind her and his fingers trailed down her throat. “They make lousy soldiers.”
Darcy forced herself to rema
in still, although she knew her escalating heart rate betrayed her alarm. Her gaze sought Quentin’s, but his stare remained on Nicky.
“Monica was a little unstable,” Quentin replied.
“Fancied herself in love with me, can you imagine? How are our friends, Dylan and Emmy, by the way?”
Quentin shrugged. “I haven’t heard from them.”
“I must give them my regards when I see them next. I didn’t have the chance before I left Seattle. I was rather rushed.”
Darcy wondered how long the glib conversation would last. At this point, she couldn’t have gotten a word past her lips. Nicky’s fingers continued to trace her neck and jaw. She swallowed.
“So when will the rest of the team arrive?” Nicky asked so casually, it took a moment for the words to register.
She stiffened and feared her reaction had given something important away.
A little smile curved the corners of Quentin’s lips. The smirk she’d come to love.
A short staccato burst of gunfire sounded from the front of the house. Quentin’s gaze shifted to Darcy, and he lifted his chin. Darcy took it as a signal to act. She grasped Nicky’s finger and bit.
“Bitch!” His fist punched her back, over the kidneys. Despite the Kevlar jacket she wore, Darcy nearly passed out. But she didn’t let go of his finger.
In a blur of motion, Quentin leapt toward them and Darcy opened her mouth, releasing Nicky and rolling away. The sound of breaking glass and wood came from behind her, but Darcy continued to roll until she reached the back of one of the sofas.
When she made it to her feet, Quentin and Nicky were out of sight, although the sounds of their scuffle could be heard from the patio. She reached for the 9mm handgun strapped beneath her vest at the small of her back—and for the stake in her boot. A gun might not kill a vampire, but a headshot could incapacitate one for a moment—long enough to stake it.
Gunfire continued to explode, so near the sound was deafening. To her right, one of Nicky’s minions inside the room had an AK-47 trained on a sofa Joe must have hidden behind. When Darcy looked to her left, she found herself staring down the barrel of a Glock.
The vamp holding the weapon wore a gleeful expression. “Question is, should I shoot you first, and then suck your blood?”
Darcy held her hands up, her weapon pointing toward the ceiling. “Question is, do you have the safety off?”
The youth’s gaze dropped to his gun, and Darcy fired a round through his forehead. Before he hit the floor, she staked him. “The safety’s in the trigger, stupid.”
No time to gloat, she headed for an unarmed vamp, fired off a shot and staked him. Another saw her coming and ran for the front door. Knowing the SU would catch him before he made it to the road, she turned to help Joe.
She saw his hand rise from the back of the sofa and fire several rounds toward the vamp who had taken cover behind the jutting edge of the fireplace. The vamp raised his machine gun and took aim. Before he got off a round, Darcy hit him in the temple. He dropped his weapon and cradled his head. “You fucking bitch,” he screamed.
Darcy leapt for him, kicked the machine gun away and raised the stake. Only the wooden tip was blunted from the previous kills, and was stopped by bone at his sternum.
The vamp roared and quickly overpowered her, pushing her to the floor. Unable to do anything except stare in horrified fascination, Darcy watched his mouth with its jagged row of teeth descend.
Suddenly, the vamp screamed and crumbled into dust. Quentin leaned over her, his stake still poised. He lowered it and offered his other hand to help her to her feet.
She pushed the pile of dusty clothing from her body to the floor. “Thanks,” she said. “Is that it?”
“That’s everybody inside and the team’s taking care of the strays on the grounds. But Darcy, Nicky got away.”
Darcy felt ill. A niggling sense of doubt rose. Did Quentin deliberately allow him to escape? “At least he’s lost his minions.” She looked around the living room. It was pretty well trashed. Bullets had ripped through the furniture and the walls, in some places leaving gaping holes so large a fist could fit inside. Thank God she and Joe had escaped being hit.
Joe? Her heart went still, and a cold dread settled over her. She hadn’t seen him since he’d battled it out with the vamp with the machine gun. She hadn’t heard his voice.
She approached the sofa Joe had taken cover behind. Before she rounded the corner, she saw a crimson pool of liquid, which was spreading wider by the moment across the blue-gray tile. “No, no, no.”
He was lying on his side, his 9mm still grasped in his hand, his face ashen. She knelt in his blood and felt for a pulse at the side of his neck. It was weak and slow. Her hands moved over him, looking for the wound. The blood appeared to seep from beneath his Kevlar jacket and she opened it, dreading what she would find.
The bullet had entered the top of his shoulder making a rather small, innocuous-looking hole. She reached inside the jacket, smoothing her hands around his back and found the exit wound. It was large and gaping. Joe wasn’t going to make it, but she had to try. “Joe, you hold on. Don’t you die on me. Quentin, help me get this jacket off him. I have to stop the bleeding.”
Quentin’s hand stopped hers as she began stripping away the vest. “Darcy, he’s lost more than fifty percent of his blood. He’s going to die.”
She sought his gaze, her own pleading with him to help. “I have to try. Please, help me.” She didn’t realize she was crying until his fingers smoothed the tears on her cheeks.
“Sweetheart, no amount of modern medicine can save him. I might be able to turn him, though. It’s not too late to try.”
She shook her head, not understanding what he was saying.
“I can make him a vampire.”
“No!” The word wrenched from her gut.
“His internal organs are shutting down, one after the other. He’s going to die.”
She leaned over Joe and cupped his face. “Joe, wake up. You have to tell me what you want. Please, wake up.”
“Darcy, he’s not going to answer you. He can’t,” Quentin said. “You have to choose.”
The moments were ticking by and she could feel Joe’s life slipping away. She raised her face to Quentin. “Do it. Save him, please.”
Quentin knelt and gathered Joe’s upper body off the ground to hold him in his arms. “I have to take more blood—to the point of his death. Go stand at the door. Make sure no one interrupts.”
She didn’t want to leave. She wasn’t sure she trusted him enough to leave Joe’s fate in his hands.
“Go!” Quentin lowered his mouth to Joe’s neck.
Darcy rose and went to the doorway that led to the patio. She glanced back at Quentin and prayed she’d made the right choice for Joe.
Stepping outside she realized the storm brewing all day had broken. Rain fell in fat drops, soaking her uniform in moments. She welcomed the moisture and raised her face to let the drops mingle with her tears. Will he forgive me? As close as they had been—as partners and lovers—she knew he held a deep and abiding hatred for vampires. Yet she had just given Quentin permission to make him into something he believed abhorrent and unnatural. She’d made him into one of the monsters he’d sworn to fight.
Darcy heard the sounds of her team members as they combed the yard for weapons and vamps. Since stealth was no longer employed, she knew the vamps had been vanquished.
Max stepped inside the garden gate. “Darc, is the house secure?”
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
She nodded, and then realized he couldn’t see the movement. “Sure.”
“Joe and Quentin still inside?”
“Yeah.” Darcy shook herself. She had to keep Max outside. He wouldn’t understand what Quentin was doing. “Max, let the rest of the team know the inside’s secure. We lost our headsets.”
Max radioed the status. “Let’s see if the rest of the team needs help.”
She returned to the doorway. Quentin still held Joe in his arms.
Joe’s mouth was latched to Quentin’s wrist, and he was drinking. He was alive. But had his soul survived?
Quentin’s gaze was on her, wary and watchful. In the lamplight that bathed the two men, both glowed golden and beautiful. She couldn’t be sorry for her choice. The two men she loved lived.
“I’ll have to get him away from here, quickly,” Quentin said.
Darcy sighed, weary enough to sleep where she stood. Another set of problems presented themselves. “We have an outbrief and after action reports. What do I tell them?”
“Nothing yet. Joe’s alive, but we don’t know if he’s intact.”
“Meaning, he’s not a monster?”
“Make an excuse. He needs time to get on his feet. And he has to feed soon.”
She looked at Joe, his eyes closed, suckling like a babe on Quentin’s wrist.
“He needs blood from a source.”
“Meaning not…recirculated?”
“Just enough to take the edge off his hunger. Then we can feed him steak or animal blood.”
Darcy glanced away, sickened by the reality of what would be Joe’s existence. “Take him to my place. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
“Darcy, perhaps it would be best we found another host. The longer he waits, the stronger his thirst will be. He’ll be out of control.”
“I made the decision to make him what he is. His first meal won’t come from a stranger.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hours later, Darcy let herself in the front door, dreading the coming moments. She’d lied to the SU team and Captain Springer about Joe. In a few hours they’d know it and she’d lose her place on the team, and likely lose her job altogether. But that thought was the least of her worries. She had to face Joe and see whether her gamble had been for nothing.
The kitchen door slammed open, and she jumped. Joe filled the doorway, fury darkening his face, his chest heaving with suppressed rage.
