by Hughes, Mary
Elena tapped the table with the tines of her fork. “Look, sorry I blew my mouth before, but we shouldn’t talk about v-guys in front of her.”
Gretchen shrugged. “Elias is going to erase her memory anyway.”
“Don’t think he is.” Liese cut herself a second piece of cake. “First, mated to a vampire, she’ll be in on the secret. Second, she’s immune. She already knows.”
“She does not.” Elena stared at her like she’d grown a second head.
“Does too.” Liese munched cake. “Remember what she said before all heck broke loose?”
“Excuse me.” I raised my hand. “Not to take sides or anything, but I do know. I’ve known for a while. Why do you think I’ve been feeding you guys information from Nosferatu Central?”
Elena transferred her stare to me. “But Elias erased you!”
“He fuzzed things out,” I admitted. “But I pieced them back together, and then Dragan filled in the cracks. Now, why do you think he’s my mate? He’s a playboy. Not anybody’s idea of a mate.” Though the thought of Dragan permanently in my bed sent luscious hot shivers running over my skin.
“Sure, vamps have tons of sex,” Nixie said. “They’re sexual machines, doing anything and everything to anybody and everybody. But each of them has a Goldilocks out there who tastes and smells just right, who’s also immune to their mind zapping. When they bond, it’s forever.”
“Oh. Well I’m not Dragan’s ‘forever’. He hasn’t said anything about me tasting or smelling right, and he certainly isn’t talking mate.” Although he did think I was special. I let the golden pleasure of that take me for a moment.
“You keep thinking that. Meantime, who’s in for how long she lasts? Me, I’ve got a five that says a week.”
“I’m in,” Elena said. “Put me down for three days—”
A baby’s cry interrupted her.
“That’s Jaxxie.” Nixie jumped to her feet, scooped the monitor from the table and ran from the room. The rest of us exchanged a concerned look.
“Go,” Gretchen said. “Make sure the babies are okay. I’ll clean up.”
We thanked her and ran out the kitchen door after Nixie, catching up at a three-way intersection of corridors that looked like a line bisecting an arrowhead.
She stood, baby monitor in hand, head swiveling three ways, forward, right, and back the way we’d come. “I don’t remember how to get back to our room. God, my baby needs me and I can’t remember where she is! What kind of fucked-up mother am I?”
Elena grabbed her shoulders. “We’ll find her.” She frowned at the three corridors. “Won’t be easy though.”
“That one.” Twyla shot a finger toward the forward corridor. “I recognize that excellent Dali reproduction. At least, I think it’s a reproduction.”
“Good enough.” Elena took the lead and we ran down the corridor.
It led to the foyer with its sweeping central staircase. We ran up, only to find ourselves at the elbow of a long, bent hallway. A freshly showered man came out from a door. The cutting scent of chlorine and pungent tang of a gym wafted out after him.
There were no stairs we could see, no elevator. No way up. The baby continued to cry on the monitor.
“Ahead. It’s the only way.” Elena led us down the length of the hallway, around a bend and down another hall, the baby’s thin wail urging us faster.
My hands were clenched and my teeth nearly powder before we found a cramped stairwell. If we’d gone two feet to the right, we’d have found a bank of elevators. But we didn’t. We slammed into the concrete chimney and ran up three flights.
Panting hard, we piled out on the fifth floor. Three halls confronted us, bend left, bend right and central straight. “Which way?” Nixie yelled.
“They’re marked.” Liese huffed out of the stairwell behind us. “I noticed before.” She pointed at plaques labeled 510-519, 520-523, 501-509. We were in 517.
“Left!” Nixie ran.
We went left. 510, 511…up ahead, after 512, the corridor jagged right. We were almost there.
The cries stopped.
Liese, hand to her side and gasping like a fish, slowed. “She’s…feeling…better.”
Nixie kept running. “No. She’d’ve trailed off. Something’s wrong.”
We careered around the corner and thundered down the hall. Second-last door before the next bend was 517. Elena threw it open and we piled into the room.
Jaxxie’s crib was empty.
“What the fuck?” Nixie ran straight to the crib, tossed the bedding, then dug one hand through her short curls.
Elena ran to Rorik’s crib. He blinked big brown eyes up at her, awake but almost unnaturally quiet. She scooped him up.
Hugging her baby to her, cop mode hardened her gaze and her head swiveled, taking in the scene. “No indication of a break-in.”
I started for the door. “I’ll go look for her.”
“Someone took her.” Nixie spun in a circle as if looking around the room, but the frantic glaze to her eyes said she wasn’t seeing anything. “Why? Who? She’s a good baby. She’d never hurt anyone. She smiles like a little angel. Who could have taken my angel?”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Elena said, but her arms were tight around her own baby. “Maybe one of the neighbors heard her and came to comfort her.”
“Of course!” Nixie ran out of the room, knocking into me and nearly tossing me on my butt though I outweighed her by ten pounds. “Sorry.”
“’S’okay.” I followed her out. She was rapping on 516.
I went down the hallway and knocked on 515. Liese went to 518.
A cheerful forty-ish brunette answered my door. I asked if she’d heard anything.
“The poor baby crying. I was going to go see what I could do, after I got my own kids off to school.” She turned into the apartment and raised her voice. “Time to go! Grab your lunches and get out here tout de suite!”
I thanked her. Nixie had turned from her door, her too-pale face telling me she’d also struck out. Liese was still knocking. “I don’t think anyone’s home here.”
“We’ve got to find her,” Nixie said. The monitor was still in her hand.
“We will,” Elena repeated. “Let’s find someone in charge.”
We turned that place upside down before we finally found the lady with the clipboard who turned out to be the housekeeper, a Mrs. Shaddeline. Nixie described Jaxxie’s bright yellow sleeper, blue eyes and black curls while Elena swayed with Rorik. I clasped my elbows, fighting down rising panic. Who’d take a helpless baby? Battling vampires was easy compared to being a mother.
The housekeeper touched an ear piece and put out a call for information.
The answer came a few nail-biting moments later. Someone had heard a crying baby in the office sector.
The housekeeper led us to the bank of elevators we’d missed earlier and pressed the button for the third floor. It seemed to take forever to descend the two flights but was probably only a few seconds. I only knew my heart was pounding and my breath rasping before the housekeeper led us past an office reception area and pointed to a long corridor punctuated with doors. “Your child was heard that way.”
The office doors were open. We sped down the corridor, barely pausing to check inside each. Most were empty.
Then we came to a windowless office so vast and richly furnished it had to be a CEO’s. We slowed.
It was definitely not empty.
The biggest, most horrific vampire I’d ever seen was behind the desk, a nightmare who made even Gravloth look like a dab of indigestion. Horned faceplate, tusks for fangs, he was a mountain of muscle. Despite the size of the room he dominated it.
My heart skipped a beat, lub…lub dub. My breath caught in my throat and my skin pricked with sudden heat and cold as I burst out in a sweat.
The vampire’s eyes burned at us with the red fires of hell. I tried to swallow. The eyes shifted to me. I froze.
Then I saw, draped o
ver his arm, a bright yellow sleeper with a curly black head.
Chapter Twenty
Nixie choked a scream and tried to run into the office.
“Silence,” the vampire hissed. My bowels spasmed. Nixie froze. His command was all the more terrifying for being barely audible. “One step closer and I’ll tear you to pieces.”
Elena clasped Rorik in one arm and drew her gun. Even her steady aim faltered. “Put the baby down.”
The vampire’s eyes flared. He snarled, his whisper harsh as death, “I said silence.”
Elena’s gun lowered, as if her muscles had shriveled in fear.
I tried to swallow. My throat locked halfway and I couldn’t even breathe. Fear burned like acid through my muscles, my veins. I felt nailed in place by that horrific red glare.
“I will kill you all—” his bloodcurdling gaze fell on us, one by one, “—if you wake the baby.”
I was so burned by fear that at first his words didn’t make sense. Kill…all…that’s what I heard.
Then Jaxxie made a little coo and shifted on the vampire’s forearm.
She wasn’t dead.
The vampire glanced down at her. Without his red glare shooting bolts of terror into my brain, I caught on that not only wasn’t she dead, she was happily snoozing.
He murmured, “I just got her to sleep, poor thing.”
The words shattered my paralysis and I looked again. Jaxxie wasn’t limp across the vampire’s arm, she was nestled into the crook, belly down. His broad forearm was like a Jaxxie-sized mattress.
“What are you doing?” Nixie croaked.
He looked up. “Soothing your daughter’s colic, Ms. Emerson. I heated my blood under her tummy to 102 degrees. It seemed to help. I’ll teach your husband.” His snarl had smoothed back to the deepest, blackest voice in the world.
Slowly, his plate dissolved. First his cheekbones appeared, almost as high and sharp as the plating. Then his forehead, smooth and intelligent, a lock of black hair curling carelessly over it. The red fires banked to brilliantly dark eyes. His lips were firm and his honed jaw begged to have a finger run along it.
The newly revealed face was so beautiful I wanted to cry.
“Mr. Elias,” Liese breathed.
We were in the presence of Kai Elias, the Ancient One.
“I’ve wanted to ask you so many questions…” Liese took a single step into the room, then seemed to remember he’d just scared us all to the point of…well, burping up cinnamon, to put in politely.
“Come, but quietly. Pull those over.” Elias nodded toward a set of guest chairs around a corner table. The lock of black hair fell over one eye at the gesture. His hair wasn’t long but he didn’t seem to keep it closely trimmed. “We can talk if we keep our voices down. Ms. Emerson, allow me to continue to hold your child? She’s comfortable for now.”
Nixie compressed her lips. “All right,” she said at last. “But if you harm one hair on her head—”
“Flaying alive, disembowelment, decapitation and garlic sunscreen. Yes, yes, I know the drill. Please sit.”
We moved into the room and got chairs, setting them in front of Elias’s gargantuan desk.
Elias’s eyes—black like Dragan’s, but deeper somehow, maybe wiser, maybe just sadder—followed Elena as she arranged herself with Rorik in her lap. His gaze narrowed on the baby, his head tilted, nostrils flared ever so slightly. “Something about that one…ah, well. Ladies. I assume you wish to know how this new vampire threat impacts your mates and households.”
“I’d like to know about your computer and satellite network,” Liese said.
The hint of a smile lightened Elias’s face. “Perhaps another time, Ms. Steel. I can’t overemphasize the horror this ‘mega’ vampire represents.”
“I heard he’s as strong as an ancient,” Twyla said. “Like Nikos was, only more so, right? Speed, strength, stamina, shape shifting, the works.”
“Instant healing.” Elena cuddled her baby. “We blew holes in him that would have stopped a younger vamp in his tracks. This guy closed them up like the Terminator.”
Elias nodded his black head. It was an odd gesture. I’ve seen a thousand people nod. The incline of head, the moment of reversal, the return to straight. It wasn’t that his nod was reptilian like Gravloth. It wasn’t vampire fast or anything especially out of the ordinary. But it looked…practiced. Like he’d practiced acting human, practiced so long and hard it was ingrained—but it was still a mask. That underneath was still something…other. Something wise and strong, but definitely not human.
“His power is only a small part of the problem,” Elias said. “In draining the ancient Tamayori, he has instantly absorbed that which she spent millenniums learning to control.” He studied us each carefully. “Imagine pouring the ocean into a thimble. If the flood of power hasn’t made him insane, it’s driving him there.”
“Fuck me,” Elena said. “An uncontrolled, insane vampire with the power of ancients?”
Liese sat like a stone, her only sign of comprehending a slow blink. Nixie and Twyla exchanged a worried glance. I shuddered.
“Yes,” Elias said. “It would make any sane person tremble with revulsion and fear. That is why the act is called soul stealing, and the perpetrator a Soul Stealer.”
Elena leaned forward. “Just tell me how to destroy him.”
“That’s the problem,” Elias said. “An ancient’s power of personal regeneration is almost limitless.”
“Translation?” Nixie said.
Liese turned toward us. Her face was white. “He means the Soul Stealer is indestructible.”
“Virtually so.” Elias glanced down at the baby sleeping on his arm. She sighed and snuggled deeper into the crook. “Soon, little one,” he murmured.
“Virtually means almost,” I said. “So there is a way to stop him.”
“Yes, Ms. Hrbek. While the ancient blood makes us physically near-immortal, vampires start out human. And every human has a weakness. An Achilles heel, if you will. Find the Soul Stealer’s weakness and he is no longer indestructible.”
Elena snorted. “That’s a long way of saying you know how to kill him.”
“But I don’t, Detective Strongwell. I only know he must have a weakness, not what it is. That is why I activated the Shield and pulled back noncombatants.”
“You must suspect what his weakness is,” Liese said.
“Suspicion isn’t the same as knowing, Ms. Steel. Now, Ms. Emerson, I believe your daughter is ready to return to her crib.” He rose from behind the desk. Seated, he was massive. Rising, he was like the opening shot of Star Wars IV. He kept coming and coming and just when you thought he was done, more of him unfolded. He was taller than the bookshelves and his shoulders were immensely broad. His waist was surprisingly lean in comparison.
Nixie went to him, arms out. She cleared his belt, but not by a whole helluva lot. He bent to transfer the baby. Despite his size, he was infinitely gentle settling Jaxxie in her mother’s arms.
The moment he released the baby, like a switch, a dark sexuality spilled from him, a flash bang of pheromones. As he glided back to his chair I was suddenly aware that he was very, very male, powerful and heavily muscled. I could rub my sweating forehead against the deep groove of his chest and his tight waist would be perfect to wrap my thighs around.
He turned. A black brow winged at me. Laughter lit his eyes, along with the sure knowledge that he was the apex sexual beast and could have any mare in the paddock.
I shuddered and briefly dropped my stupid sweaty forehead into my hands.
“Wait.” Elena was breathing kinda heavy too. “Can’t you fight him? Mano-a-mano?”
“Yeah, use your ancient mojo,” Nixie said.
“I could.” Elias sat. Again, the motion was familiar yet not, imbued with a graceful sensuality that made me want to lick every muscle he used to do it.
I slapped hands to my hot cheeks.
“But there’s a risk.” He set his elbo
ws on the armrests and steepled his fingers, considering us all over the tips. “If I did not defeat him immediately, he’d glean more advanced fighting techniques from me in the process—techniques which could make him vastly more dangerous. It would be better to search for his Achilles heel first.”
“I’d hate to think of him being more dangerous than he already is.” Elena stood. “Well, I’d better get Rorik back to bed.”
We all followed suit, standing and filing out.
“Ms. Hrbek. A moment.”
I got out of line but didn’t turn. Fingers of lust walked up my spine. As soon as the others were out the door I said, “Could you dial down the do-me vibes?”
“Hmm.” The sound burred with a chuckle. “You seem to be even more sensitive to it than your friends. Probably because you are on the crux of mating.”
That spun me around. “My friends seem to think the deed’s already done.”
“Yes and no. Sit, please.”
I tested my reaction. I no longer wanted to immediately jump his bones. Good enough. Cautiously, I returned to my chair. “So am I mated to Dragan, or not?”
“Mating is a complex process,” he began. “A vampire’s mate must have certain characteristics, of which immunity to mind control is primary. Then there must be physical attraction, which, on the part of the vampire includes an overwhelming desire to—hmm, I can’t quite translate the sensation but ‘merge’ is the closest word—merge with the mate, in taste, scent, feel.”
“Merge?”
He threw out an elegant hand, reminiscent of Dragan but much, much larger. “Draw scent and smell deep inside. Rub against the skin and bask in the scent. Taste…everything.” His eyes flared a momentary red, then cooled to black. “As I said, it doesn’t translate well.”
I tamped down a lusty shudder. “It translates well enough.”
“The attraction prompts increasing physical encounters. At some point in the process, a deeper bond is formed.”
“How?”
“Nobody knows for certain. But it is thought it happens when the pair exchanges words of love while sharing a—the only phrase which comes close is rather mawkish, but I’ll use it nonetheless—while sharing a soul-deep gaze.”
