by Kelly Meding
“My apologies for causing you such pain,” he said. Now that it wasn’t blasting through my head, his voice betrayed a pedigree of age and European origin.
“Apology accepted.”
We stood in perfect silence for a full minute. I fought against fidgeting. It would be seen as a weakness, as would speaking first. He’d invited me out to this thing. He had to do the talking.
“Thank you for speaking with me,” he finally said. “My name is Woodrow Tennyson.”
“Shiloh Harrison.” I raised my gaze, half expecting to see blazing red eyes staring back at me. All I saw was a pale blue glow that hid his true eye color. At least he wasn’t angry . . . or hungry. “You made it difficult to stay away, Mr. Tennyson.”
“Of course. The theatrics were regrettable, though necessary to gain your cooperation.”
“Is that what this is about? You hold hostages and then what? What do you want?”
“You’re direct, Ms. Harrison, I like that. Humans are still so afraid of us. Lieutenant Foster would be pissing his pants if he’d come in your stead.”
I couldn’t argue with that assessment. “What do you want?” I repeated.
His eyes changed, now glittering red, and with the solemnity of a eulogizing minister, he said, “One million dollars and safe passage to the tropical country of my choice.”
I stared.
Chapter 2
Tennyson tilted his head back and laughed—a deep, mirthful sound I felt in my bones. His eyes were once again clear blue when he said, “Forgive me, Ms. Harrison, but is that not the stock answer you were expecting?”
“This isn’t a movie,” I snapped back. “You think this is funny? How many crimes are going unchecked because of this circus you’ve created here?” First he shouted telepathic messages into my head, then he made fun of me. I was seriously hating this guy, Master or not.
“No, and I do apologize.” He sobered immediately, all traces of humor gone. “I require the assistance of you and the Para-Marshals, although I must admit, I was informed that a gentleman led your team.”
“He’s busy.” No sense in telling a vampire that our leader was, in fact, missing. “You get to deal with me, instead.”
“No hardship in that, I assure you.”
I rolled my eyes. “If you needed our help, you could have called the office. Taking over a hundred people hostage isn’t the best way to endear you to us.”
“Securing your assistance was not my only purpose in orchestrating such a dramatic show of strength. You may not be aware that in the last six months, forty-six vampires and twenty-eight werewolves have disappeared.”
“Is that unusual?” I asked, knowing full well it was. Vampire and werewolf societies, by sheer force of necessity, have been self-controlling and rigid in their governing laws for centuries. Masters and Alphas rule their respective people with iron fists and swift punishments—and those punishments include crimes against humans. The only exceptions were non-Pack-related werewolf crime, rogue vampires, or large-scale problems like today’s little hostage crisis. Then we got called in.
Vampires and werewolves, despite their shared interest in maintaining a positive public image, simply do not get along with each other—understatement, really—so Tennyson bringing this information to me meant something larger was going on within their two species.
The little red sparkles returned to his eyes—interesting. As a Master he should have better control over his emotions. This situation had him truly upset. Unless he was doing it for effect, which was also possible. But the longer I stood there, the less I thought he was faking it.
“What do you know of vampire hierarchy?” he asked.
Less than I should know, if his tone of voice was any indication. Without showing him my obvious disadvantage, I squared my shoulders and said, “Why don’t you tell me what you think is relevant to these disappearances?”
He smiled at my elusive response. “New vampires may only be made with permission from the maker’s own sire and then, depending on the sire’s strength, his sire before him. It prevents weakness in the line, as we are all . . .” He seemed uncertain of the word he needed. “Connected. By the sharing of blood required to turn a new vampire, we are connected to one another on a very basic level. As Master of the line, I am able to sense, however peripherally, the life force of all my vampires. Of the forty-six missing, eleventwelve are mine.”
“And you can’t sense them anymore?” His admission cemented something I’d long suspected about vampires. I knew permission was needed to create a new member of the line, but I hadn’t known about the sensing thing. It had to be crowded in Tennyson’s head.
“I cannot.” A small amount of grief coated his words. “I lost my sense of them over a three-day period of time last week. In my anger, I blamed a rival Master and we nearly warred over the dispute. Until I learned that he had also lost people, thirteen of his line.”
“Same period of time?”
He shook his head. “Earlier that same week, before mine went missing.”
“Any similarities between the missing vamps?”
“Similarities?”
“Yeah, like are they all new vamps? All redheads? All taken from one city? What?”
“Ah, I understand.” He gazed at my face as he considered the question, those blue eyes still flecked with furious red. “They were all different in age and experience. Several of mine were turned in the last decade, most within the century. Two had been with me for nearly three hundred years.”
Three hundred years. Looking at his sculpted beauty, he could have been thirty-five or forty, max. It was hard to imagine him having lived so long. I’d be super-fucking-pissed if anyone on my team disappeared or was killed, and I’d only been with them six years. I couldn’t imagine three centuries of friendship.
“How many Masters have lost vamps?” I asked.
“The question is difficult to answer.”
“Explain.”
“I am Master of my line. However, once a vampire reaches a certain level of power, he is also a Master.”
Oh good God, hierarchies made my head hurt. “Okay, so is there a Master above you? Your sire?”
“No, my own sire died long ago. There are, however, three Masters older than I, of separate lines, two of whom have lost vampires. One other Master, several decades younger than I, has lost as well.”
“So four lines have lost vamps.”
“Correct.”
“What about the wolves?”
“Fourteen each from the Packs of Florida and California.”
“Have you gone to the werewolves about this?”
He snorted, an inelegant sound. “My suspicions of a larger conspiracy were met with disdain from their Alphas.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.”
“Does this mean you will assist me?”
I gave him my best intimidation glare. He cared about his people, that much was obvious. But I couldn’t simply overlook this hostage stunt and run off to solve his mystery. “Like I said, you should have called the office with this. You still haven’t given me a good reason for these theatrics. I should put a silver bullet in your heart and drag you in for threatening so many humans and disturbing the godsdamned peace.”
He straightened his back, drawing up taller, more elegant in posture. “It was the only way I could think to protect my people from whoever is hunting us.”
Something in his words tickled my instincts and raised my hackles. I looked past him, at the shadows of the tree-filled trailer park and all of the secrets hiding within the darkness. The overwhelming sense of being watched sent gooseflesh creeping across my neck and chest.
“Mr. Tennyson,” I said slowly, “how many vampires are in that trailer park?”
“Five hundred and four.”
A strangled wheeze caught in my throat. “Five . . . holy . . . Is that your whole blessed line?”
“Yes, minus the twelve missing, my entire surviving line is now ensco
nced in your trailer park.” With one hundred-plus walking, talking meals. He must have seen something in my face, because he added, “The inhabitants will not be harmed, Ms. Harrison. I give you my word. All of my children were informed to feed well before arrival, and provisions have been provided in case this drags out.”
“Where the hell did you put them all?”
His mouth twitched. “Everywhere we could find room. Few are happy about the arrangements, but they agree with the measure. My people are now the hostages of your police officers, as much as the trailer park residents are hostages of mine. Whoever is taking vampires will have no opportunity to take from me again.”
The faintest snarl was attached to his final statement, and I found myself sympathizing with Tennyson. The very idea would make my djinn father laugh his head off, right before he verbally smacked me around for it. Earth djinn were mostly harmless compared to other djinn, but he had the temper of his people. Djinn hate vampires. It’s that simple.
“So let’s make sure I’m understanding your intent,” I said. “You want to leave your entire line here, with a hundred innocent human beings, surrounded by local police that will keep anyone from getting in or out of the park, until we figure out who’s kidnapping vamps and wolves, and why?”
“Yes.”
What would Julius do? It was my go-to question when faced with a situation I didn’t know how to solve. Julius was levelheaded. Former Army Ranger. He’d consider the pros and cons of accepting this vampire’s terms. He would make sure everyone’s cards were on the table. Tennyson had promised no harm would come to the trailer park residents—no harm had a lot of interpretations.
“And if I say no?”
His thin eyebrows rose into almost comical arches. “Are you saying no?”
“I’m asking a question. Can you answer it, please?”
The red sparkles in his eyes coalesced until both orbs gleamed crimson, leaving no trace of the previous blue shade. They glowed like headlights. He drew back pale lips, revealing the tips of his gleaming fangs. Showing off the predator he was and could become at a moment’s notice. He couldn’t turn me, but those fangs could certainly rip my throat out faster than I could pull my weapon.
I didn’t shrink back, didn’t flinch, even though my stomach had twisted into painful knots.
“If you say no, Ms. Harrison, we will leave this town tonight. However, we will be taking forty-six with us to hold until those we have lost are returned to their Masters. And we will continue to do so for every further vampire who goes missing afterward. We will start, of course, with your mother.”
The world went perfectly still. Voices rose up behind us, and I knew my team was reacting to his words. Probably waiting for me to haul off and shoot Tennyson for making a threat against my family. But I couldn’t move. I had to force my lungs to suck in air, expel, suck in again.
“Don’t make threats you can’t carry out,” I said, “or you’re going to piss me off.”
“I make no threats, Ms. Harrison, only promises.” Tennyson’s voice was as cold as winter. “I find no joy in this, do you understand that? My people are being taken, not murdered. Taken, and for what purpose I can only guess. You love your mother, I see it in your anger. Imagine if twelve people you loved were taken. Would you not do anything to seek justice?”
“You ask me that while threatening someone I love?”
“Djinn are emotional creatures, and while you are only half-blooded, you do carry that trait. You are more honest in your anger than most humans in their calm.”
If my surprise at his statement showed on my face, he didn’t react to it. How on earth did he know—
“I can smell your blood, Ms. Harrison,” he said, as if reading my mind. Maybe he was. Bastard.
“So you get me mad, get me honest, and then secure my help through blackmail. Good plan.”
“I do what I must to protect my own.”
“Me, too. And part of my own is all those innocent people in there. So keep that in mind.”
“Oh, I do. As I said, nothing will happen to them . . . unless.”
“And as I said, that ‘unless’ is not exactly the assurance I’m looking for.”
“Then maybe you should do your job and make sure it never comes to that.”
What.
An.
Arrogant.
Jerk.
Yet, even as he said it, I realized what a bind I was in. And the more I thought about his situation, I found myself struggling with the notion of him loving each of his vampires the way a daughter loves her mother. The way a father loves his children.
Crap.
“Look, I’ll talk to my team and see what we can arrange.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank me later.” I took a half step forward, hands bunched into fists. “And if you or any vampire you know comes after my family, I will make it my business to ensure the Master who ranks below you gets a promotion.”
Tennyson threw back his head and bellowed laughter, the same musical sound from our introduction. His eyes lost the red glow and regained their icy blue sheen. “You do not fear me, Shiloh Harrison. This will prove a fascinating partnership.”
Frustrating partnership sounded a lot more accurate. “Hang out, I’ll be back.”
I started to turn around, then remembered what Kathleen said about giving him my back. So I shuffled sideways a good ten feet, until he bowed at the waist. I took it as a dismissal and quick-stepped it back to the barricade.
“You heard everything, right?” I asked as the team, plus Lieutenant Foster, surrounded me.
“This is one for the books,” Novak said. “Weirdest blessed situation I’ve seen in decades.”
Kathleen’s eyes glittered red as she asked, “Are you seriously going to help him?”
“We are helping him, yes,” I said.
“But he’s taken an entire community hostage. He’s a terrorist.”
“He’s scared. And I don’t blame him. I admit, his methods are pretty fucked-up, but he’s trying to protect his family, widespread and bloodthirsty though it is. That’s an awful lot of vampires and werewolves to go missing over a short period of time, which means they’re either being hunted or captured.” I didn’t think they were being hunted, though, and Jaxon agreed.
“There are no bodies,” he said, shaking his head. “Capture sounds more likely.”
“Capture for what and by whom?” Kathleen asked.
“That’s what Tennyson wants us to find out,” I said. “Julius would make the deal.”
“Should we run this past Weller first?” Jaxon asked.
Adam Weller led the West Coast Para-Marshal unit, and he held the same seniority as Julius. I’d spoken to the man on the phone a handful of times, and met him in person once. Someone higher up than me trusted him enough to put him in charge, but Weller wasn’t my unit leader. I didn’t know or trust him like I trusted Julius.
“I’m fine with copying him on the decision,” I replied, “but as team second, I don’t need his permission to act.”
Jaxon nodded.
Even after saying that, though, I glanced at Novak and Kathleen. This wasn’t a vote, but their support—or lack thereof—would either see this through or stop whatever we did next dead in its tracks. With a small sense of relief, I saw agreement in both their eyes. “Good. We get some marshals out here to back up the state troopers who are watching the town and make sure they understand no one goes in or out. Tennyson seems to know what’s going on with the missing vampires, so we’ll need to contact the Florida and California Pack Alphas. See what their wolves had in common.”
“Speaking of Julius,” Novak said, “we checked with K.I.M. while you were chatting with the vampire. He’s not reported in since yesterday, noontime, and the office insists he’s not on assignment.”
Noontime. Our boss had been off the grid for close to sixteen hours.
“The timing of his disappearance is unsettling,” Kathleen said.
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“To say the least,” I said.
“The vampire threatened your mother,” Jaxon said in a tone colder than I’d ever heard. He adored my mom, and she still occasionally fussed at me for our breakup. “Could he be the reason Julius is missing? An ace up his sleeve?”
“It’s crossed my mind.”
“But?”
I held my hand up for silence and used the other to palm and dial my phone. It rang and rang, so long I felt a cold nugget of worry settle in the pit of my stomach. Then it connected, and a sleep-heavy voice asked, “Yes, hello?”
“Mom?” Instant relief at the sound of her voice released a surge of adrenaline.
“Shi, sweetheart? It’s almost four in the morning, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I just . . . needed to hear your voice.” Close enough to the truth without being a lie. “Sorry I woke you.”
“Are you working?”
“Yeah, go back to sleep. I’ll call you when I can.”
“All right. Be careful.” Her ability to accept my call and subsequent dismissal without arguing or showing a hint of annoyance was a testament to how normal such a thing had become. Born to gypsies and raised by djinn, my mother has a very unique perspective on “strange.”
I hung up and slipped the phone back into my pocket.
Novak fixed me with one of his patented glares. “Feel better now?”
“No, but I’m pretty convinced Tennyson has nothing to do with Julius being MIA. If Tennyson wanted that kind of leverage, he’d have used Julius against us, not threatened to kidnap my mother.”
“I agree,” Kathleen said. “He is a Master vampire, he has no need to hide his intentions. If he meant to use Julius, we would be aware of his captivity.”
“And it’s not as though Julius has some sort of useful ability,” Jaxon said. Our boss—a man who led a team comprised of a half djinn, a fallen incubus, a skin-walker, and a dhampir—was completely human. He had twenty years of combat experience and full working knowledge of most known paranormals, sure, but still human.
“No, but Tennyson does have enemies,” I said, recalling part of my conversation with him. The fellow Master he’d accused of hunting his people was on my list, but not at the top. That Master—I needed to get a name—had lost vampires, too. It had to be someone else who didn’t want us helping Tennyson.
