A flash of vulnerable yearning gleamed for an instant in his features. He tenderly kissed her forehead. “Saints bless you for that.”
He hugged her fiercely, then let her go, not trusting himself. If his heart had still been beating like a normal mortal’s, it would have stopped. In six hundred years he’d never felt truly wanted like this, and the depth of her feelings for him were humbling. He didn’t deserve them.
He knew precisely what she was thinking. She believed herself to be in love with him. Since their physical joining, her thoughts were far more accessible. Too bad it could never last between them. He deliberately turned, leading her away from his bedroom, and from temptation, before he did something he regretted even further, like bonding with her completely by feeding from her in the midst of sex. That would forge an unbreakable tie between them that would last through the cycle of mortal life, death and rebirth.
“I know you wouldn’t want this life. And I have no choice in the matter,” he told her. “By this time tomorrow, the world as you’ve known it will change.”
What he didn’t say, couldn’t say, was that once she saw the raw, uncivilized side of vampires at war, she’d never feel safe with him again. And it was coming. It was inevitable. And then she’d regret being tied to a monster whose essence would be imprinted upon her soul for eternity.
He tucked her to his chest, selfishly absorbing every moment with her. “I still have a few hours before I can go out.”
She nodded, her skin rubbing against his bare chest, amping up the heat between them. “I’d rather stay and spend it with you, but I’ve got to meet Beck at Sangria to get some final details for my article.”
He stroked her hair. “Take the security phone.”
“I will. There’s just one thing …”
She tilted her head up, looking at him with those soft baby blues in a way that pierced his heart harder than any stake. He realized in that very moment he’d do anything, be anything, if he could just have her beside him. But it was merely a dream. A fantasy. He couldn’t have her for his own and never would. Not without taking the choice out of her hands. And he’d never do that.
“I was wondering if my car was ready,” she finished.
Dmitri phased the car keys into his hand and dropped them into hers. “It’s in parking space number sixty-six in the garage.”
“Thanks.”
Saints, she was so damn fragile. And he had no idea how he was going to protect her from the firestorm about to rain down once her article ignited people’s deepest fears—that they were vulnerable to a pandemic they had no hope of controlling.
Even as he watched her prepare to go, he knew she had plans to stay away that evening. She was questioning his deliberate distance after their night together, and he couldn’t blame her. As much as he wanted to explain the grave consequences permanent bonding presented, it was just easier to let her push away, for her own good. Letting her go burned like dead man’s blood, a stinging fire that ached in every pore, but it was for the best. And he’d do anything to protect her.
“Don’t talk to any strangers.”
She grinned at him. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” She grabbed her purse and headed out the door.
She found Beck sitting at the bar in Sangria nursing a martini, wearing a nondescript black backpack. A spring of relief welled up inside her. She could always count on Beck. “Hey, stranger.”
Beck glanced at her, an errant curl from her ponytail bouncing as she moved her head. “Hey yourself.” She motioned to Anastasia. “My friend will have—”
“A Vampire?” Anastasia asked, popping her gum.
“Sure,” Kristin nodded, smiling. “Thanks.” Beck’s face scrunched up. “It sounds disgusting.”
Kristin shrugged as she took the red drink in the hurricane glass from the bartender. “You shouldn’t knock it until you try it.”
Beck gave a mock shiver and snatched up her martini. “No, thanks. They’re not my taste.” She glanced around the club. “You know it’s kind of creepy in here, right?”
Kristin laughed. “You get used to it. Come on, let’s sit over here.” Beck followed her toward the tasting room. Kristin held back the curtain.
“You’re sure we’re all right going in here?”
“Trust me.”
She cast a suspicious look over her shoulder at everyone else in the bar. “Oh, I trust you. It’s the rest of them I’m not sure I trust.” She leaned in a little closer. “That bartender is one, isn’t she?” Beck whispered.
“Anastasia, yeah. But one of the good ones.” She hoped. For all she knew the bartender could just as easily be the secret connection Vane had inside the clan. Despite what Dmitri said, she was sure somebody was.
Beck flopped into one of the leather couches in the tasting room as Kristin pulled the curtain closed then sat beside her. “Were you able to get it?”
Beck put down her martini and shrugged out of the backpack, then pulled out three large plastic pouches filled with dark brownish liquid and set them down on the coffee table.
“Blood from a corpse, as requested. Although what the hell you’d plan to do with it, I have no idea. My friend at the county coroner’s office was curious too.”
“If I tell you, you can’t tell another soul.”
Beck’s eyes sparked with curiosity. “Spill it.”
“It’s a security measure. Dead man’s blood is like poison to vampires. If it gets into a cut or they drink it, they’re immobilized like they’ve taken a tranquilizer.”
“Good to know.”
Kristin picked up the cold squishy packages, putting them carefully into a special bag she’d packed inside her purse filled with ice packs.
“Time to pay up,” Beck said.
Kristin started rolling up her sleeve. “What are you planning on doing with it?”
Beck pressed her arm searching for a vein then stuck in an IV. “More tests. Now that I’ve tested the pure stuff, I want to know how it’s interacting with your blood chemistry.”
Kristin watched her darker-than-normal red blood dribble into the container Beck held. “You know your fascination with science borders on weird, right?”
Beck grinned. “At least I just want to analyze the blood, not drink it like your other friends.
Besides, this is for scientific research.” She pinched the tube, sealing the packet and taking out the IV and putting a cotton ball and bandage on Kristin’s arm. “Your boyfriend isn’t going to be pissed I took your blood, is he?”
Kristin shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll make more. Thanks for bringing the stuff to me.”
“You know I’d do anything to help you. Well, almost anything.” Beck grasped her hand for a second. “Are you sure you’re all right? The thought of you being a supersnack around a bunch of vampires really worries me.”
“Trust me, Beck. Dmitri isn’t going to let anything happen to me. He isn’t a monster. Deep down, he secretly wishes he was still human.”
Beck looked startled. “Really?”
Kristin nodded and helped Beck pack up her things. “Call me if you find anything truly wrong with my sample.”
Beck gave Kristin a hug. “Take care of you.
Okay?”
When Kristin left Sangria, she headed back to her apartment. Sure, it would have been safer at Dmitri’s, but she couldn’t bear the thought of spending the night alone there without him next to her, touching her, knowing that instead he was right below her encased in a crypt in the earth.
More than that, his coolness after their love-making in the shower had left her hurt and bewildered, just like his reaction when they had first kissed. She knew he was attracted as hell to her, just as she was to him, but something else, something he wasn’t sharing, sat silently between them, shoving them apart. Whatever it was, it had to be big. Guys like Dmitri didn’t sweat the small stuff.
Which didn’t make her feel any better. She refused to be some needy female who ran to him with ev
ery tearful moment. She was as strong and capable as any man. If he wanted distance, she’d do that. Spending a night in her own bed, perhaps with a quart of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, sounded like a good way to self-medicate her aching heart.
By the next morning, Kristin didn’t feel any better. Spending the night without Dmitri nearby had only made her miss him more. His solid strength, his steady reassurance had made the rest of her crazy life seem somehow saner. She only hoped his dire predictions about how people would react to the news of the virus were over the top.
She grabbed a cup of coffee spiked with cream and sugar, picked up the small pile of newspapers stacked by her door and stumbled into the living room.
Hollander had splashed the huge headline Virus Causes Vampirism across the front page of the paper along with her story. Kristin cringed. Great. Leave it to him to sensationalize the hell out of this.
Sure enough, when she turned on the morning news, she realized with a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach that the true monsters weren’t the ones with ichor flowing in their veins.
People were panicking. Several blood banks were broken into by angry mobs, their storage rooms decimated by fanatics who thought them all tainted by vampire virus.
Throughout the day it got even worse. Hospitals were now on high alert because of bomb threats. And then the real mob began to form, making her feel terribly responsible for the chaos she’d created. The mob swelled in the streets of Seattle, bending over lampposts, shoving over parked cars. They broke windows, and ultimately they took hostages.
Dmitri watched the television with horrific fascination. In a rush it all came back. The frenzied wild eyes, the avid interest of the onlooking throng intent on seeing their dose of blood. It might as well have been six hundred years ago.
He focused on appearing to breathe. In. Out. In. Out. The ancient rhythm calmed his mind enough so he could think. But the pounding in his veins didn’t come from a working heart slamming blood through his system at record speed. It came from something far deeper: the elemental urge stamped into the trejan at the moment he took the oath to protect.
He watched the scene flickering on the television with furious anger. First one vampire, then another were bound in silver chains and shoved to their knees in an execution-style lineup along the city street. And there was no time to stop it. Nothing he could do without inciting further violence and misunderstanding.
The mob acted as jury, judge and executioner with no trial and no appeal. The police stood aside, holding back the surging onlookers, but not stopping the actions of those on camera.
One after another, the vampires had their heads tilted back and their fangs exposed. A jubilant cheer swept the crowd as the first vampire was executed, then another. Dmitri’s gut rolled in protest. The spilling of ichor did not bother him, but the lifeless eyes staring plaintively from the screen did him in. He should have known they needed him. He should have protected them. But he’d been utterly absorbed by Kristin.
Now seven vampires lay in the street. It was only a few minutes until they combusted in a flash of fire, disintegrating into bone dust and ash. The crowd pushed back, away from the heat and flames, but even through the television Dmitri could sense the crowd’s increasing savagery. This was far from over. In fact, it had only just begun.
Across town Kristin had nibbled a raw scrape into her lip as she’d watched the news unfolding. Her gut twisted at the images she viewed.
A pounding knock at her door made her nearly jump three feet off the couch. Her heart thundered in her throat as she crept toward the door, waiting for another knock. But it never came.
Instead, something much worse happened.
A black oil slick crept beneath her door. Even without opening the door, Kristin knew she didn’t want to see what was on the other side.
She peered out the peephole, but saw no one. Carefully she pulled back the door, leaving the guard chain attached, and glanced through the slim crack.
Crumpled like a discarded newspaper, Dr. Al Kashir lay on the floor, a shiny brass-colored spike sunk into her chest and a folded white paper in her mouth. Kristin swore and turned away. An invisible vise squeezed her chest and throat, making it impossible to take a deep breath. “What the hell?”
By now Vane’s calling card was unmistakable.
She wanted to puke. But that wasn’t going to get her anywhere. She pulled herself together, unlatched the door and took the slip of paper out of Zarah’s mouth, trying hard not to think about what lay in front of her or glance too long into her sightless eyes. She gently closed Zarah’s eyes with a brush of her fingers before she opened the paper.
WANT THE TRUTH ABOUT THE BLOODLESS MURDERS? SEATTLE DOWNTOWN POST OFFICE BOX 2476 COMBO 9–18–27.
“Vane, you are one sick twisted vampire,” she muttered.
Kristin glanced up and down the hall, checking for neighbors who might have seen anything, then dashed back in her apartment to the hall closet where she fished out a queen-size sheet. She put her brain and stomach on autopilot, trying not to look too closely as she carefully wrapped the body in the sheet and dragged it into her apartment.
She grabbed a bucket and filled it with water to clean the puddle of ichor at her door. But as she knelt beside it, the dark liquid already seemed to be disappearing. She gasped as she watched it evaporate completely. A crackling sound caused her to whip around. Behind her, Zarah’s body was in flames, quickly disintegrating into nothing but a pile of pale gray ash and the brass spike that thumped to the floor.
Behind her the phone rang and Kristin jumped, her nerves already raw and frayed. Everything in her was hoping it wasn’t Vane.
“Reed?” Thank God. It was Hollander. She’d never been so glad to hear his gravelly voice before.
“Good afternoon to you too.”
“I need you to come in today. We need to plan out how we’re going to break the Bloodless Murders once you’ve met with your contacts.” From his voice alone she could tell he was distracted. Happy, but totally distracted. At least he wasn’t breaking pencils.
“But I don’t have—”
“See you at five.” The phone buzzed in her ear. Kristin glanced down at her cell phone. She had only an hour. Time enough to go to the post office and still make it to the Tribune.
She dug for the silver charm bracelet her father had given her when she’d landed her job at the Tribune and snapped it around her wrist as a precaution, then shrugged into a jacket. She glanced at the brass spike and snatched it up, stuffing it into her purse. If it had killed Zarah, then it could kill Vane. She double-checked to make sure that Dmitri’s black phone was in there too, then took a deep breath and headed to the post office.
Late-afternoon sunlight slanted through the two-story wall of windows and smells of industrial wax, metal and paper tinged the air inside the building. The walls were lined with row after row of identical little brass boxes, each with a miniature window and a small rotating knob in the center. Kristin looked for box 2476.
Her fingers shook as she turned the combination dial. Inside was a thick padded envelope. She took it and glanced around to make sure she wasn’t being watched. Better to open it in a public place just in case there was something insidious hidden in it. All that came out was a glaring red cell phone that matched the color of Vane’s eyes. No note. No directions.
Kristin flipped the phone open. There were no numbers in the contacts list. The phone was clean. Obviously he’d call her when he was ready. A twisting, uncomfortable heat bubbled up inside her. She hated waiting, hated feeling as if Vane was calling the shots. But what else could she do at this point but follow the trail of slime he was leaving behind? Disgusted, she tossed the phone into her purse, where it clinked against the brass spike, and headed for the Tribune offices.
She walked in to wild applause. Glancing across the floor at the people popping their heads above their cubicles was like looking at a village of prairie dogs all standing on their hind legs wit
h only their top halves showing and clapping their little paws with enthusiasm.
“Great job, Reed!” Anderson yelled out. A few of the guys whistled in agreement. Never in her life had she felt as if she’d actually belonged in the testosterone-fueled floor of the newsroom. And never had she wanted it less. What saddened her deeply was that her stories had led to so much unnecessary violence.
She nodded brusquely, and waved in acknowledgment, then headed as fast as she could toward her own cubicle. She sure as hell didn’t feel like talking about it with anyone. If she could just keep busy, in a half hour the place would be nearly deserted with only the production crew working, then she could feel as though she could breathe again.
She threw her purse under her desk, grabbed a Snickers bar for fortification and downed it in four bites as she headed to Hollander’s office. The door was open, but she knocked on it all the same.
“Hey, Chief.”
“Come in, come in.” He gestured to a seat without stacks of paper on it. Oddly, as stressed as she’d been a week earlier in this same office about her job, she could hardly believe how relaxed she felt now. Maybe it was the chocolate. Then again maybe it wasn’t. Spending a week with vampires and getting blown to hell by a car bomb could certainly change a girl’s perspective. The job certainly wasn’t everything. Not anymore.
“Great job on the article. Sales have soared.” He smiled, sort of. Kristin wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen Hollander actually smile full out and was certain his face might crack from the strain of disuse. But he seemed happy enough.
“You think it’s good enough to enter for a Pulitzer?”
“Already submitted it.”
Kristin beamed, but despite the good news, it somehow seemed a hollow victory. What good was a Pulitzer if she couldn’t get people to see the reality that vampires had peaceably lived among them for centuries?
The Truth about Vampires Page 17
