A couple of hours later, it was dark and instead of being at home in bed enjoying another sleepless night, John was driving around, scanning the dark streets for . . . he wasn’t sure what, exactly. If anyone had asked, he would have told them he was looking for members of a fanatical group of serial killers—a group he, himself, had dubbed The Exsanguinators because of the way they drained their victims’ bodies of blood.
Of course, he was more likely to find one of their victims than the actual killers. In over a year of searching, that’s all he’d ever found.
His first exposure to The Exsanguinators had come when several Navy SEALS had disappeared under violent and mysterious circumstances. Days later, one of them was found dead in an abandoned building. There had been no obvious wounds and yet, the body had been drained of blood. Later victims would be found also drained of blood, but with the two puncture wounds in their neck that was to become their signature mark.
That case was a first for John and in his search for answers, he had called in the dead SEAL’s commanding officer, Admiral Charles Winslow. John had met the older man years earlier, when the admiral had been a guest lecturer for one of John’s college classes. They’d instantly struck up a friendship that had survived the years.
To his surprise, the admiral had claimed to be familiar with both modus operandi and the group responsible, leading John to believe that the problem was something the government was handling. This wasn’t the first time the police and the government had worked on the same case, so John took more of a support role, calling the admiral or one of the members of his security team whenever he found another victim, but otherwise adopting a hands-off approach.
He hadn’t closed his eyes, though, and what he’d observed had raised a lot of questions. The admiral and his team had not been exactly forthcoming with information, leaving John to draw his own conclusions which, he reflected as he parked his car and got out, were almost as disturbing as the killings themselves.
No one had ever used the word “vampire” around him; the mere idea should have been absurd. But as a detective, John could put the clues together and, regardless of how crazy he thought it sounded, the end result always came up “vampire.”
He’d considered approaching Winslow with his theories, but he hesitated. Even if the killers were actual vampires—and who would believe that?—the nature of the killings had lately undergone a subtle change.
Over the past couple of months, the victim demographics had changed. Instead of average citizens, the latest victims had been known criminals; scum of the earth who had, through power, money or the negligence of the legal system, managed to escape justice. In a bizarre sense, The Exsanguinators—or vampires, if that’s what they were—had been performing a community service. John wasn’t sure he wanted that to end.
Getting out of the car, John started walking. The park loomed like a graveyard, silent and eerie. The shadows of trees obstructed his view, but he continued forward, pulling his coat tighter to keep out the stiff January breeze and wondering if his purpose tonight would still make sense in the morning.
Last week’s snowfall lay in dirty piles of slush along the edges of the street and he had to step over several small puddles to avoid getting his shoes wet. When he reached the park, he stepped onto the paved path. His senses were hyperextended as he strained to pick up even the slightest sound and though he heard nothing, he sensed he wasn’t alone.
Moving as silently as he could, he continued on, eyeing the large grouping of bushes ahead to his right. He was less than twenty yards away when a figure suddenly appeared on the path before him.
Time stood still as John stopped to study the man whose features were too shadowed to see clearly. It wasn’t unusual to see someone in the park this late and the man could be anyone—or no one in particular. Yet, when he lifted his head, his eyes, glowing with an unnatural red light, caught and held John’s attention.
Vampire. The word echoed through his mind, no longer sounding as absurd as it had earlier.
At that moment, John heard a noise, off to the left, and turned to see what it was. From out of the darkness, the lithe figure of a woman came racing toward them, long black hair flapping wildly in the wind behind her. The exact details of her other features were lost in deference to the sword in her hand, which she wielded with apparent confidence and purpose.
Her attention seemed focused solely on the other man and, screaming like a banshee, she raced forward, showing no signs of slowing.
Almost belatedly realizing her intent, John shouted at the man to run. Then, without a thought to himself, he rushed to intercept her, leaping through the air in a flying tackle. He caught hold of her sword arm with one hand and, wrapping his other arm around her body, bore her to the ground.
They landed with a painful jolt that should have knocked the wind out of her, especially with John’s added weight on top of her. Amazingly, though, she recovered quickly and immediately began fighting him, trying to buck him off, all the while shouting at the top of her very British lungs.
“I’ll kill you, you blood-sucking—”
“Settle down,” John ordered her. “I don’t want to have to hurt you.” His words seemed to have a small effect as the woman ceased her struggling long enough to really look at him. When she did, John saw her eyes open wide in surprise.
“You’re human!”
John found her choice of words particularly interesting given his own purpose for being in the park. He took another hard look at her. “That’s right. What were you expecting?”
Instead of answering, she started to struggle, so he levered himself up, flipped the woman onto her stomach and shoved a knee into her back to keep her down.
“Oompf! Bloody Hell,” the woman swore, twisting her head, trying to look at him. Her dark hair, in wild disarray, enveloped her head like a dark cloud. “What are you doing?”
“I would think it’s obvious,” he replied, trying to ignore her enticing shape as he ran his hands up and down her body, searching for hidden weapons.
“You’re letting him get away! Let me up now before it’s too late.”
John glanced around and saw that the man had, indeed, disappeared. The observation brought anger and disappointment. He’d never know, now, if that man was the one he’d been searching for.
He turned his attention back to his prisoner and saw that her sword now lay harmlessly off to the side. He picked it up to move it a safer distance away, noticing that there was something familiar about it, but he couldn’t remember what. Then he flipped her over and helped her to sit. “You want to tell me why you’re running around the park at night with a sword?”
A glare was the only response he got.
“Look, here in the states, we don’t go around waving swords and trying to lop off people’s heads. And I’m betting over in England—that’s where you’re from, right?—I’m guessing they don’t allow it, either. So, bottom line, you’re in serious trouble.”
Still, she ignored him.
John cast a furtive glance in the direction that the man had disappeared. “Who was that? Your boyfriend?”
She huffed at him in anger. “Not bloody likely.”
He tried to read her expression. Green eyes, darkened to the color of emerald gem, looked up at him from between the twin silken curtains of ebony framing her face. Suddenly, the screaming banshee was gone and in her place was a lost waif.
When she spoke, her words were soft and beseeching. “Please, you have to help me. More people are going to die if we don’t stop him. You have to let me go.”
She sounded so sincere, he was almost tempted to do as she asked. “I don’t think so.”
She swore and renewed her struggle to break out of the cuffs. John let her try, knowing that she wasn’t going anywhere. Watching her, he was reminded of her strength when she’d fought him and one thing was very apparent. This was no lost waif. This was a deeply disturbed, possibly clinically psychotic woman in desperate need of
a seventy-two hour lockdown and a Thorazine drip—and he knew just the man to arrange it.
John was jerked from a deep sleep by the sound of his phone ringing. As he lay there debating whether or not to answer it, the ringing stopped. He held his breath, waiting to see if it started up again and when it finally seemed like it wouldn’t, he closed his eyes and let his mind drift . . .
His cell phone started ringing.
Glancing at the bedside table, he noticed two things. His cell phone wasn’t where it should have been and the clock showed it was almost noon, which meant he’d had almost two hours of sleep. Throwing back the covers, he half-rolled, half-fell out of bed, still fully clothed in yesterday’s wrinkled outfit, and stumbled across the room to where his coat lay draped over the back of a chair.
Hauling it up, he dug in the pocket closest to him until his hand reappeared on the other side, having slipped through the hole he hadn’t known was there. There was something about that new hole that should have bothered him, but the incessant ringing demanded his immediate attention. Reaching into the other pocket, he dug out his phone and answered it just before it rolled over to voice mail.
“Boehler, here.” His voice sounded like wet gravel under rolling tires.
“I want to see you in my office. Now,” Gamble ordered.
“Yes, si—” He was speaking to a dead phone. Gamble had already disconnected the call.
John stared at the phone in dumb fascination for a minute. “Good morning to you, too,” he mumbled, wondering what he’d done wrong this time.
The events of the prior evening came racing back—the dark figure in the park, the screaming banshee with her sword. With his luck, the man was someone of influence and power and had shown up at the station to press charges against the woman who’d tried to kill him, only discover that she wasn’t in custody. Why he hadn’t arrested her, John couldn’t say. He attributed it to the judicial insanity that seemed to be sweeping the city lately. After all, why should he follow the rules when no one else did? Okay, he knew the answer to that, but chose to ignore it.
John remembered the look of hate and betrayal when he’d dropped the woman off at the psych facility for lockdown. He could keep her there seventy-two hours for observation, after which time, she’d either have to face charges or be admitted for a full psych evaluation. He’d been hoping that twenty-four hours would be enough to convince her to cooperate. His plan to pay her a little visit as soon as he woke would have to wait.
Not bothering to change clothes, John ran his fingers through his hair and put on his shoes. His holster was slung over the bedpost, so he strapped it on and then checked the gun to make sure the safety was on. As he left the bedroom, he grabbed his coat and pulled it on as he walked through the small apartment, checking all his pockets as he went. He was almost to the front door when he froze and rechecked his pockets.
His wallet was there but his ID badge was missing.
He put his hand into the right coat pocket and felt it slide all the way through the fabric. The hole! Great. Just what he needed.
He pulled out his cell phone and called the main desk of the police station. “Hi, Joyce. I need to report a lost ID. Yeah—mine.”
The call took about ten minutes and by the time he clicked off, he was in his car, already halfway to the station. Traffic wasn’t a problem and fifteen minutes later, he was walking through the building, headed for Gamble’s office.
His cell phone rang again and he recognized Joyce’s number. Hoping someone had turned in his badge, he answered the call. “Tell me you have good news.”
“Sorry, John, not the kind you’re hoping for,” she replied sympathetically. “Sammy, over at Impound, called. He said to tell you they just brought in a car you might be interested in—a rental.”
John knew the Jane Doe from the night before hadn’t materialized out of thin air. He figured she’d left her car close enough to walk, so had asked to be notified of any cars being towed in that were picked up inside a two-mile radius of Thompson Park.
He glanced at his watch and saw that it was almost noon. “Joyce, Gamble’s expecting me to walk in the door any second. Can you call Sammy back and tell him not to do anything with the car? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Will do.”
“Okay, thanks. I owe you.”
Once he reached Gamble’s office, he took a bracing breath and then knocked on the closed door.
Gamble’s voice erupted from inside, “Come in.”
John opened the door, but hadn’t even made it to the chair in front of Gamble’s desk before the assistant chief started in on him. “Were you in Thompson Park last night? South side?”
Warning bells started pealing inside his head, but he saw no reason not to answer. “Yes.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Just taking a walk.”
Gamble stared at him, his hard glare boring through him. After a second, he opened his middle desk drawer, reached in to grab something and then tossed it across the desk to John. “Lose something while you were there?”
John stared down at his badge, realizing now it must have dropped out of his pocket when he was wrestling with Jane Doe. That part made sense to him. What didn’t make sense was how Gamble came to have it.
Resisting the urge to snatch it up, he held Gamble’s steady gaze. “Where’d you find it?”
“Under a bush, about eight inches from Simon Brody’s dead body.”
Authors Dish
What could an author of historical romances and an author of contemporary vampire fiction possibly have in common? We find out when authors Kathryn Caskie and Robin T. Popp chat online about their books.
Robin T. Popp: Do you know that the hero of Seduced by the Night, Dirk Adams, was never intended to be a long-term character and end up with his own story? When I first created him in Out of the Night, he was supposed to be like one of the extras on Star Trek—killed off in the first fifteen minutes of the show.
Kathryn Caskie: You mean the guy in the red shirt with the landing party, right?Don’t tell anyone, but I grew up watching Star Trek.
Robin T. Popp: Me, too. I loved that show. So, what about in Love is in the Heir (on sale now)? Any “red shirts” turned heroes?
Kathryn Caskie: No red shirts, but over the course of the book my hero did split into two characters. You see, my heroes are usually bad boys, but Griffin, the hero of Love is in the Heir, couldn’t be. Problem was, no matter how hard I tried to keep him in line, his wicked side kept showing up, making my heroine hate him. Then my heroine thought, it was almost like he was two different men. And that is exactly what he became: two separate people. The good twin, Griffin, and the rakish twin, Garnet, who are both pretending to be the same man.
Robin T. Popp: I foresee many interesting situations.
Kathryn Caskie: It’s especially bad when Griffin tells her he loves her and wants to marry her, and they make love. Then the next day, she runs into the rakish twin who acts like it never happened. She thinks she’s fallen for the oldest trick in a rake’s book.
Robin T. Popp: Why are Griffin and Garnet pretending to be the same man?
Kathryn Caskie: There is this law called primogeniture. The eldest inherits everything—titles, houses, money—but if no one knows which twin was born first, meaning no clear heir, the Crown can reclaim it all. The ailing earl in my story doesn’t want that to happen when he dies so he makes a deal with the twins. The twin to marry a woman of quality first will be named “firstborn.” This is all pretty illegal, so the bride hunt has to remain a secret.
Robin T. Popp: Ah, secrets, lies, and deceptions. In Seduced by the Night, I have a similar situation when Beth (the heroine) believes Dirk is something he isn’t. She’s a biochemist and vampires are trying to kidnap her because they want her to duplicate the chupacabra venom that turns humans into vampires—they plan to sell “immortality” on the black market. So Dirk, as her bodyguard, is trying to protect her without h
er knowing that he, himself, is a changeling—half-human and half-vampire.
Kathryn Caskie: Griffin’s dilemma is that he wants to tell the heroine everything, but he can’t because he doesn’t want to betray his brother’s trust. It’s a case of honor and integrity versus love.
Robin T. Popp: Dirk faces a similar choice. If Beth discovered the truth, she’d be terrified of him. This is further complicated because Beth is engaged to another man and while honor dictates that Dirk keep his emotional distance from her, his heart demands otherwise.
Kathryn Caskie: I wouldn’t have thought our stories could be so different and yet share so much common ground—two books about deception and dual identities.
Robin T. Popp: Tough issues to overcome, especially in a romance story.
Kathryn Caskie: But as you say, our books are romances, so our characters will live happily ever after.
www.kathryncaskie.com www.robintpopp.com
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