Power runs through me, sweeping away the trepidation and anxiety of before. In its place, eagerness and startling clarity.
The reason I’m here is to kill him.
The reason I sent David away is to kill him.
CHAPTER 4
“Well, well. Look who we have here. Anna W. Strong.”
Harris.
No. Don’t look around. Don’t stop. Kill him. He’s a murderer.
I take another step forward.
“Anna? What’s wrong with you?”
The guy in the window finds his voice. “Help me. The bitch is nuts. Look at her eyes.”
I sense Harris come closer. He can’t know. It stops me. I straighten. Close my eyes. Calm the wild beating of my heart. Jaw relaxes, fists unclench.
When Harris touches my arm, the human Anna is back in control.
“What are you doing here?” He jabs a thumb toward the guy in the window. “I know it’s not him. He hasn’t been charged with anything. Yet.”
“David and I—” I let the explanation hang, drag my eyes toward the window where the guy is being pulled back inside by a couple of cops.
He isn’t protesting.
“Who is he? What’s he done?”
Harris waits until the cops inside yell that they’ve got him before answering. “His name is Joe Black. A couple of hours ago, he murdered his wife and her boyfriend. We got a tip that he rides with the Angels. Took a chance we’d find him here.”
He turns and motions for me to follow. I do, reluctantly, processing the fact that I knew Black had spilled blood before Harris’ words confirmed it.
When we’re back in front of the bar, I ask, “Why are you here, Harris? Out of your jurisdiction, isn’t it?”
He shrugs without answering, instead issuing instructions to the cops holding Black. They cuff him, read him his rights and shove him into a waiting patrol car. The rest of the cops still have their guns trained on the Angels, all facedown on the dirt.
Harris snaps an order and the cops withdraw to their waiting cars.
I watch as the bikers climb silently to their feet and shuffle back into the bar. No one so much as glances in Harris’ direction. They’ve danced this dance before. They know how cops operate. If they’d done anything less than cooperate, the cops would have torn the bar apart. They’d have searched every biker. Guns, dope, illegal contraband. They know what’s at stake. Better to take a little shit from the cops than let things go too far. Unwritten biker code: the good of the many outweighs the good of the one.
In a minute, the music is back on, so loud the building shakes.
The patrol cars pull out. The Ford with Black follows. Harris and I are left alone in the parking lot. He turns his attention to me.
“You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here?”
Harris is about five feet ten inches of bulldog. Past experience has shown that there’s no way to blow him off. I don’t bother to mention that I’d asked him the same question a minute before. And that he’d ignored it. Instead I reply, “David and I had a job. He’s on his way downtown with the guy now.”
He looks around. “I don’t see your car.”
“What are you, a detective? I was just about to call for a ride.”
He shakes his head. “Your partner left you here? I know you’re a pain in the butt, but I can’t see that overgrown Boy Scout dumping your ass in a biker bar even if you deserved it. Which I have no doubt you did. So what’s the story? Why’d you stay behind?”
There’s no way to explain why I stayed—especially to a human. I’m not sure I can explain it to myself. “Look, you got me. I pissed David off and he left.”
Harris looks surprised at the answer. And aggravated. Which aggravates me. “David knows I can take care of myself. I don’t need anyone to protect me.”
The cynical twist of Harris’ mouth takes a downturn. “I’ll take you back to town. Get in the car.”
His condescending tone sparks a maelstrom of indignation. The instinct to show him just how well I can protect myself is drowned by the more rational desire to get home. I need to think through what happened tonight. I need to talk about it with Lance and see if he has an explanation for a human exerting such influence over me. I might have killed Black if Harris hadn’t appeared. I wanted to. Why? Because I knew he was a killer?
How did I know?
How could I have known? The smell of blood could have meant he was a victim not a killer. And yet, I had no doubt which he was.
Harris is at the car, holding open the door, tapping his foot and frowning like an annoyed parent who caught his kid out after curfew.
It takes all my willpower to resist the desire to grab his foot and dump him on his impatient ass.
I shrug off the impulse.
He’s a human. A cop, no less.
And I can use the ride.
“Okay, okay. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 5
Harris drops me off at the office. Our entire conversation on the thirty-five-minute ride consisted of Harris asking me if I wanted to go to the office or if he should take me home.
It was a long thirty-five minutes.
At last I’m in the Jag and on the way to the cottage, away from Black’s strange influence and Harris’ annoying air of disapproval. I can think rationally about the night’s events.
The rationality is slow to come.
How could I have been so strongly affected by Black? He was human. Not that humans aren’t capable of evil—I’ve certainly met a few. But he projected evil. So strongly it caused a physical reaction. That’s a disturbing new twist.
Evil. A primitive word.
Why did I pick up on it? Why did I know he had spilled blood? What compelled me to want to kill him on sight?
Maybe Lance can help me figure it out. He’s been a vampire a lot longer than me—seventy years. He’s helped me through other troubling times. The last three months, we’ve gotten closer. Especially after what happened with Williams.
It’s been three months since Williams and I had a confrontation over the death of Ortiz, a vampire he loved like a son. Three months since his wife threatened me because I chose the well-being of another over her husband’s. I’ve stayed away from them both, withdrawn from the supernatural community and kept to myself. My only tie has been to Lance. And Culebra, to feed.
I’ve been living as a human. Going to work every day with David. Going to movies with Lance. Simple things. A couple of weeks ago, I even flew to France for my mother’s birthday. A feat made possible by the fact that I own a private jet—the one part of Avery’s legacy I’ve accepted for myself. Selfishly. Avery was the first vamp I met as a newly turned. Even though he ended up trying to kill me and I’d vowed to accept none of the estate he’d left me, having a jet makes travel too convenient to pass up. Especially with family in Europe. No worries about someone noticing the lack of a reflection in a dark window or why on such a long flight I didn’t eat or drink or have to go to the bathroom.
It was only a three-day visit—I didn’t want to push my luck—but it was wonderful.
I enjoy the illusion of being human.
Maybe that’s what has me upset. Tonight, Black shattered the illusion.
I pull the Jag into the garage, next to Lance’s silver Aston Martin DB9. The top is down. I run a finger over butter-soft leather when I walk past. Such a boy’s toy. Warmth still radiates off the hood—Lance must have arrived just minutes before. I slip out of the garage and hit the remote on my keychain.
The door is sliding shut when a blur catches the corner of my eye. From inside the garage, something propels itself toward me. Too fast. I’m hit broadside, thrown back. I recover, regain my balance, but not quickly enough. I feel the blade enter, just below the sternum, slash upward, scrape against bone. No pain at first. Just surprise.
Then rage.
The human Anna is gone. The vampire grabs the knife before it can strike again. I don’t know what I’m fight
ing. I can’t see a face, can’t get inside the head. No time to figure it out. It doesn’t matter. I turn the knife on the attacker—plunge it where it will do the most damage, yank it down. The abdomen rips apart, spilling intestines in a spray of blood.
An animal scream.
It tries to turn away.
It’s not human.
Finally, a flash of recognition. Vampire.
I grab it, pull it back. Why?
No response. My blood is on fire. Self-preservation and fury swamp restraint. I raise the knife and slash at the throat. Blood arcs, splashes across my face before my mouth closes over the wound.
I drink until I feel the last flutter of life.
I let the body fall. Watch as it shrivels into the image of an old man.
Vampire.
Lance is suddenly beside me—teeth bared and claws extended. He sees the body on the ground.
Then he looks at me. My hands clutch at my chest. Blood flows over my fingers. He knows. My blood.
He pulls me to him, rips the torn fabric of my shirt. He places his own mouth over the wound and begins to suck at it.
I groan with the pain and pleasure. Healing starts from the inside, organs repair themselves, cells regenerate. Lance’s arms are steel around me. His concentration shifts once he knows I’m all right. Blood—mine, the attacker’s— its smell and texture, a siren song. Lust replaces alarm. Need replaces concern. He lowers me to the ground.
We fumble with our clothes. We’re both in jeans. It takes too long to try to wriggle free. Zippers are ripped apart, denim shredded. When he mounts me, it’s with relief and joy.
No shared thoughts. No shared desires.
Joy.
A primal celebration. Acknowledgment that I escaped the death from which no vampire returns.
After, he raises himself up on his elbows. “What just happened?”
I run my nails down his back. “I don’t know. Right now, I don’t care.” I raise my hips and clench my thighs to push him deeper inside. “We can figure it out later. I’m not finished with you yet.”
He moans and pushes back. “I hope not.
* * *
A while later, calmer, sated, reason returns.
Lance sits up, looks around. “Maybe we’d better go inside.”
We’re on the driveway, in the shadow of the garage, but he’s right. A glance at my watch. We’ve been out here forty minutes. We can’t have made too much noise since I’ve sensed no neighbors approach to have a look. Still, we do have a body to dispose of.
We scramble up, clutching ruined clothing, air cool against bare skin.
Lance points to the mummified corpse. “What are we going to do about him?”
The knife is where I dropped it. Blood and intestines are a rusty smudge on the driveway. Lance smears dirt over the spot and picks up the knife. I grab the corpse by a desiccated arm and drag him through the gate into the backyard. When a vampire is killed by stake or fire, he turns to ash. When he’s drained, his corpse reverts to what his human age would be. If it’s twenty, he looks like a twenty-year-old, if it’s fifty, a fifty-year-old. Judging by the looks of this guy, he must have been well over one hundred.
Which adds another piece to the puzzle.
I close and lock the gate. Why would an old-soul vampire attack me?
Lance and I take time to shower, soaping off blood and dirt, losing ourselves for a few minutes longer in pleasure rather than the problem lying in the grass outside the back door. But reality can’t be shut out forever, and reluctantly, we leave the warm cocoon of the bath to get dressed and face the corpse.
Soon we’re in the backyard, steaming mugs of coffee clutched in cold hands, looking down at what’s left of my attacker. I hand my mug to Lance and bend down to riffle the guy’s clothing. Cotton long-sleeved T-shirt, black hoodie, cotton slacks, tennis shoes.
No jacket. No wallet. No ID.
“Any idea who he was?” Lance asks.
I straighten and shake my head. “Not a clue. I haven’t pissed anybody off lately. At least, not that I know of.” I glance toward the garage. “He came from inside the garage. Maybe he wanted your car?”
Lance snorts. “He’s not very smart if he was after my car. That thing has so many anti-theft devices, it does everything but blow itself up if it’s tampered with. Besides, if he was already in the garage, and you didn’t see him, why wouldn’t he just wait for you to leave?”
“Not only didn’t I see him, I didn’t sense him. Not then, not during the attack, not after, when I bled him.”
“He was shielding himself from you,” Lance says. He holds out my mug.
“Right to the end,” I reply, taking it.
Lance releases a breath. “You and David have any jobs lined up the next couple of days?”
I shake my head.
The sun is beginning to tint the sky. He squints up at it.
“Let’s take a drive,” he says.
“Where?”
“To my place in Palm Springs. We can bury the mummy in the desert along the way. We’ll spend the weekend.”
“I’ll get a sheet.”
Lance follows me inside. “And we’re taking your car.”
When I raise a questioning eyebrow, he replies, “The Jag has a bigger trunk.”
But his thoughts say, No way am I putting a rotting corpse in the Aston Martin.
* * *
The ride through the desert on an early July morning is lonely and quiet. Not many souls willing to brave temperatures already into the eighties. Having a vampire’s constitution, however, allows Lance and me to put the top down on the Jag and let the warmth of the sun bake our bones.
I’m driving. We take the 15 to 74—the scenic route on a road that hairpins back and forth as it gains elevation through the Santa Rosa Mountains. This is rattlesnake and coyote terrain. Desolate in a beautiful way.
We choose a place to turn off at a junction between the highway and an unmarked dirt road. In the fall and winter, this is a popular ATV playground. In the summer, the only visitors slither or scurry away at the sound of the car’s approach.
We drive miles into the desert, the road so well traveled the Jag has no trouble on the hardscrabble surface. Ten miles from the highway, we park. We’ll have to go on foot from this point if we want to bury our mummy friend where he’s not likely to be found when the change of season turns the desert back into a four-wheeling playground.
Lance hoists the sheet-shrouded body over his shoulder. I grab a pick and shovel, and we start toward an outcropping of rock in the distance. Up until this time, we’ve traveled in silence, enjoying the sound of the desert wind, the feel and smell of it in our faces, the guttural purr of the Jag’s engine. But after a few minutes, I feel Lance’s gentle intrusion into my head.
What should we do about this guy?
I frown. Besides bury him? I don’t know. What do you think? After all, we can’t be sure he wasn’t after your car. Maybe he’s just a thief.
A snort. If he’s been watching the house at all, he knows we’re vampire. Not too smart to try to steal from one of your own.
Maybe he was down on his luck. Saw this as an opportunity to make some real money.
Lance shakes his head. He was an old soul. Even if he hadn’t understood the concept of compound interest, he would never have gotten so desperate he’d resort to stealing. He’d seduce a human into supporting him first.
I’ve run out of excuses. Lance doesn’t follow with the logical conclusion, just lets the idea drop between us where it lays until I pick it up and put into words what we’re both thinking.
“Which means, he wasn’t a car thief at all. He was after me.”
CHAPTER 6
Saying the words out loud plunges me right back into the nightmare of Ortiz’ death and Williams’ threat. Williams is the only one I know who hates me enough to want me dead. Was this an attempt to make good on that threat?
Lance reads my thoughts. Why now? It’s been th
ree months since the fire. And why would he send someone to do a job he’d want to do himself?
Both good questions, and ones to which I have no answers. I shrug them off and look around for a gravesite. We’re at least ten miles from the car. The wind whistles in my ears and whips my hair into my face. I want to get this over with.
“Let’s bury him here.”
Lance drops the body onto the ground and reaches for the pick.
Despite vampire strength, the rock beneath our feet doesn’t yield easily. It takes Lance and me fifteen minutes to gouge out a hole long enough and deep enough to make sure this vampire jerky treat doesn’t become some scavenger’s late night snack. No wonder the bikers wanted David and me to take care of Curly Tom. They knew it’s not easy to dispose of a body in the desert.
The effort is enough, however, to distract us from the puzzle of why I was the target.
When we’ve finished filling the hole, we top it with rocks, a subtle pyramid for our mummy. We’re covered in dust. We brush ourselves off the best we can and jog back to the car. I’d thrown a towel and a couple of bottles of water in the trunk. We sponge most of the dust off our faces and hands.
Then Lance holds his hand out for the keys. “Want me to drive?”
I toss them to him and he slips behind the wheel. “We’ll be at the house in about an hour.”
I rest my head against the seat and take in the view. It’s been three hours since we left Mission Beach. We’re about halfway to Palm Springs, winding our way through the San Bernardino National Forest. The sun is high in the sky and its heat is a salve to my spirit. I realize the attack took my mind off the subject I intended to bring up with Lance last night—the curious reaction I had to Black.
I glance over at Lance, gently probe to see what’s on his mind. He’s thinking of where he wants to take me tonight. A bar he thinks I’ll find interesting. And of friends he wants to introduce me to.
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