Blood Lust

by T. Lynne Tolles

  “So do you think you could ever call the east coast your home?”

  “I don’t know. I never thought I’d live here, and I’ve been here since November. I guess anything possible. Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I would miss you if you moved. You’re kind of okay to hang out with.”

  “Well, thanks. I’d miss you too.”

  “Scootch down, here comes another car.”

  “Is ‘scootch’ a technical P.I. word?”

  “Shut up and scootch. Uh huh. Here we go. Bright red expensive car.” Mark wrote down the license.

  “That’s definitely the car and…yep, that is definitely her.” Libby never even turned to look around her to see if anyone was watching. She was so confident she just slinked her way to the door and let herself in with a key.

  “She must have one hell of a set of keys,” Mark joked.

  “Yeah…no kidding. So last time you were here, was it an all nighter, a late nighter, or a quickie? I can’t imagine these guys have much to give anymore.”

  “You’ve been brushing up on your P.I. lingo. Last time it was a late nighter, but these guys have got to be pretty spent after six months of this; I’m hoping for a quickie.”

  “You’re such a smooth-talker, Mark. You use that line on the ladies?”

  “Sometimes, what of it?” She shook her head. “Whoa, scootch, quick.” Libby was back out of the house and getting in the car. “Now the fun begins.”

  “For who?” Darby said.

  “Secure the pizza and put on your seatbelt.” He started the car as Libby turned the corner, but didn’t turn on the lights.

  “You don’t think she killed him, do you? It was certainly not long enough for her to do the quickie.”

  “I don’t know. Can’t worry about him right now. We need to stay out of sight and watch where she goes.”

  “You know you shouldn’t drive without your lights on; it’s very dangerous and it’s against the law.”

  “Darby…”

  “What?”

  “Shut up.”

  “I’m just saying, you could get hurt, but hey, I’ll just sit over here and shut up.”

  “You’ve had too much Pepsi.”

  She laughed. Libby turned on to a main road and that’s when Mark turned on the lights, before he turned the corner to follow. He stayed back a couple of cars. The bright red car was easy to keep an eye on. “I think she’s going to get on the turnpike.”

  “Okay, fine. Why do they call them turnpikes? In California we don’t have to pay to get on a freeway, hence the name, I suppose. Bridges yes, highways and freeways, no.”

  “Shhhh. I’m concentrating.”

  They followed her to Fairfield, Connecticut, not too far from the Larsens, to a large house near the beach. She didn’t park in the garage. Which either meant it wasn’t her house (maybe another gentleman’s), or there was another car in the garage. Which didn’t tell them anything, but they had an address.

  “So you never told me what became of the address on the post-it note in New York,” Darby said.

  “Would you believe me if I told you it was THIS address?”

  “No way!”

  “Way. I had a suspicion, but I wanted to follow her to make sure. I’ve never seen the red car out front. There’s usually an indiscreet BMW in the driveway.”

  “That’s probably what’s in the garage.”

  “So who owns the place?”

  “A Leon Openheimer.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Yeah, doesn’t help much unless he’s on the list of pure bloods.”

  “Good point.” She called Anton. “Hey, it’s Darby. How are you?”

  “Fine, Darby, How are you?”

  “Good, and Dominic?”

  “Everything’s fine here. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, I need to meet with you right away.”

  “Okay. Is tomorrow soon enough?”

  “Sure! Would you be willing to pay for a taxi to come pick me up?”

  “I can send the driver.”

  “No, a taxi is fine. In the interim, though, you wouldn’t happen to know of a Leon Openheimer, would you?”

  “Yes, why do you ask?”

  “Is he a vampire?”

  “Was a vampire. He died about a year ago.”

  “Pure blood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I just followed your little red flashy car to his house and guess who was driving?”

  “You found Devon?”

  “I don’t know yet, but your wife was driving the car. I’m also bringing you proof tomorrow that your wife sent away Colleen Heenan and Angela Marcus, buying them new lives. However, Samantha Collins put up a fight for you and Libby had her committed at Mclean’s Mental Hospital. I visited her this morning. She told me how a beautiful angel with long golden hair, and scary teeth, told her to leave you alone and when she refused, Libby started messing with the poor girl’s mind. She saw the scary angel everywhere and no one believed her and they took her to the hospital where she doesn’t see the scary angel anymore.”

  “Darby. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say that you believe me, finally, Anton.”

  “I do, Darby, I do and I’m sorry.”

  “You might also want to have someone check on Simon Corbel. She may have left him for dead tonight like she tried to do to you. I also have more proof on that story that I will give you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll come and pick you up myself tomorrow, Darby.”

  “That’s silly, Anton, a taxi is fine.”

  “But I want to.”

  “Fine, then I’ll see you at 10:00.” Darby clicked the ‘End Call’ button.

  “So it looks like it’s all coming together,” Mark said.

  “You think? Nobody has believed me in so long, I’m not sure anymore. Do you think Devon’s in there?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anyone come out.”

  “What if we just went in there?”

  “Come on, Darby, you and me against a vampire with special seduction skills? I’d be a goner and well, you, she’d swat you like a fly with all the weight you‘ve lost.”

  “Yeah, I guess without more vampires to back us up, it would be suicide to go in. Can we stay here a little while to see if she leaves again? Then we could break in while she’s gone and check it out. Even if Devon isn’t there and a vampire is, he’s probably a very weak vampire. We could handle that.”

  “And if she finds out we’ve been there and Devon wasn’t there, then she takes off with him again and you’re at square one.”

  “Damn it. Then what? What do we do?”

  “We wait. We see if she goes anywhere. We follow her through her cycle of men.”

  “But what if he’s dying right now?”

  “I don’t know what to say to that, Darby. You asked me what we should do, I’m telling you. This is what we should do. Find all her haunts. One of them has got to be Devon, unless he’s already dead.”

  “Please don’t say that.”

  “You need to face facts, Darby. We may be too late, or he may be in on it.”

  “Fine. We stay here until morning, and then I’ll meet up with Anton.”

  “Okay. I’ll come back and try to pick up where we left off in following her.”

  “So how many houses have you found then?”

  “Well, there are the two we visited tonight, Porter’s, one in Bradford, RI, and one in Chesterfield, CT.”

  “That leaves at least two or three more. Crap.”

  Unfortunately, Libby settled in for the evening and did not go anywhere else. It killed Darby to think that Devon might be just several yards away and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Mark took her home in the morning and then headed back to the stakeout.

  Hopefully Libby wouldn’t leave while he was gone or he’d have to sta
rt over again in his tracking of her. After depositing Darby at the house he said that he would keep her posted with his progress via texting or the cell phone.

  “Don’t endanger yourself, Mark, but please don’t lose her. I don’t know how much more time we have.”

  “I’ll do my best, Darby, and I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Thanks.”

  She ran in the house and quickly changed just in time for Anton’s knock at the door.

  Chapter 15

  She grabbed Devon’s overcoat, a bunch of file folders, and opened the door.

  “Darby, my God, you’re as thin as a rail and it’s colder inside than it is outside. Why didn’t you come to me if you needed help?”

  “We have other things to talk about right now. Let’s go.” She shut the door to the house and Anton opened the car door for her.

  The ride back to the house was quiet. Anton wasn’t sure what to say. He knew she must be angry at all who had been so skeptical about her story. She didn’t seem angry though, just distant. When they stopped the car in front of the house at Westport, Sammy came running to greet her, with his ball.

  She opened the door and gave him some well-appreciated ear rubs, before she grabbed her stuff and got out of the car. Dominic and Bernard were both at the door to greet her and she gave hugs all around. It wasn’t said, but the men were exchanging glances, observing her appearance and especially loss of weight. She didn’t see this, but the rest of the day, she found Bernard forcing food on her; cookies, sweets, an entire ham at lunch.

  She sat down in the library at a table with Dominic and Anton as her audience, and relayed the accounts of her findings over the last four months.

  She started with Anton. She pulled a folder out. “Anton. I told you I was going to look into this, because you deserve to have love in your life. Your wife saw to it that whenever you got too attached to any one person, they suddenly disappeared. Here is a picture of Colleen Heenan. She now lives in a beautiful loft in Paris, and here is a bank deposit to her account just before she disappeared. Here is a picture of Angela Marcus in her new gallery. She too, has a huge deposit to her account the day before her disappearance not to mention a brand new Jaguar. Here are all the committal papers for Samantha. You’ll find your wife’s signature right here. When Samantha fought for you, she drugged her and started messing with the poor woman’s mind making everyone around her think she had gone insane. I spoke to her, and she told me everything. She’s heavily drugged, but she is coherent. I just hope the drugs haven’t done any permanent damage to her psyche.

  “I know you don’t believe that she was controlling you, but I’ve come across some ancient writings that suggest otherwise. Your wife, I believe, is a rare breed of vampire that is only born once in a century. If they are careful and ungreedy, they can survive undetected for a very long time, but like most of her breed, the temptation of power and the insatiable appetite for blood and sexual energy, usually overpowers them and that’s how they get caught. It’s documented that in every instance of detection of this breed, it was due to their lust for the power.”

  “What breed can control a vampire?” Dominic asked.

  “Another vampire with a very special ability. This vampire is born able to control other vampire minds, much like you can control a human’s. They are able to block a vampire’s mind just like you can when feeding on a human. I’m sorry to say, Anton, but she was feeding on you. She can attain great strength and power from feeding on vampire blood and I believe she was enjoying draining you sexually too.

  “Having dined on such decadent noble blood, such as yours, your wife has become very particular in her tastes. She will only feed on male vampires of pure noble blood, Anton, and that’s what’s broken the case open for us. The private investigator that I’ve been working with has uncovered at least five men she frequents. Simon Corbel is one, Michael Porter another, and Leon Openheimer was another, but he, as you know is already gone. We believe she has seven in total including Devon. The PI is following her right now, in hopes of finding all the residences in time before anyone dies. We feel that when these men become too drained, she sucks them dry and leaves them to die as she had done to you, Anton. Then she finds another to take his place. In your case, it was Devon.

  “It’s been reported that Simon Corbel and Michael Porter have not been seen in person for at least six months and we believe she is about to drain them and move on. The other address he has is Bradford, RI and Chesterfield, CT. We need to find the other two before it is too late. We suspect that Devon may be at Openheimer’s house in Fairfield. We followed her there last night after she went to Corbel’s house and she never left.”

  “So is she a vampire? Or not?” Anton asked.

  “She’s a vampire; she’s just a very special kind of vampire. In ancient times they were known as ‘Insatiables.’ More recent folklore would define her as a vampiric succubus – a vampire that only feeds on vampires.” She handed them a folder with a copy of the ancient story and writings from her research. “She won’t stop, Anton. She has to be killed. Who knows how many of your kind she is responsible for killing, maybe even some of your relatives since she has a very specific taste.”

  “But why would she have dumped Devon in the beginning only to have him later? That doesn’t make sense?” Anton asked.

  “Actually, it does. She wanted a pure blood to call her own, and you were the man she had her eye on. Devon was not a true pure blood.”

  “Okay, but why now?”

  “Because as far as she knows, you’re dead. Pickings are getting a bit slim. She’s not as picky, now that she doesn’t have you. What’s the next best thing? Your cousin.”

  “So you think that Devon is in the same situation as I was? In a bed somewhere being drained of blood and well, other things?”

  “Yes, I do, along with Simon Corbel and Michael Porter and four others. If she visits them only once a week, they have enough stamina to meet her needs the next week, but I don’t think Devon is as lucky. I think, like you, she prefers your family. If Blake were here, he’d probably be on her list too and Dominic, you would be like the whipped cream on the desert. I’m actually quite surprised she hasn’t come after you.”

  He averted his eyes. Anton looked at him. “Dad? Has she…?”

  “I’m so sorry, Anton, yes.” Looking horribly ashamed, he nodded.

  “You shouldn’t feel ashamed, Dominic, you had no control. She probably let you remember only so she could guilt you into doing things for her benefit.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so, sweetie. And Anton, you couldn’t have known. She’s been manipulating this family for a very long time. I just hope I’ll be in time to find and save Devon.”

  “So you still think that she controlled him into going with her?”

  “I think at first curiosity and his old feelings confused him into following her. But you yourself called him a boy scout – loyal to a fault. My guess is once she came on to him hot and heavy, he would have tried to leave. He’d never sleep with her while she was married to you, and I like to think there was a little of his loyalty to me in there.

  “Dominic, don’t you remember the morning they left, how odd Devon looked? How strange he had been behaving? He was like in a daze or a stupor. He was like that too down at the cottage when I tried to talk to him. The night I got cut. Somehow she was controlling him, maybe so she could get to me without him interfering. Then once she got him to New York and away from here she turned the charm on in hopes he would feel the same, but when she couldn’t beguile him with her charms she forced him with her mind.

  “So now we know what she is, and what she’s capable of, what now?” Dominic asked.

  “I wish I could say that we go to all the houses we know of, save the men we can, and hopefully destroy her in doing so.”

  “But?” asked Anton.

  “But we don’t know where all the men are yet and I’m scared that the clock is ticking f
or Devon. If we go in before we know where all the men are and spook her, she’ll drain and kill them and disappear and we’ll never find her. Now she knows Blake is on the West coast, she may go there, I don’t know. I don’t know how she thinks; I just know that she has very specific tastes so all you Larsens need to be aware and alert. And Anton, if she finds out you’re alive, she will definitely be back for you. She can’t stand you being with anyone but her.”

  “So what CAN we do?” Dominic asked.

  “Well, Dominic, if you can make a list of all the pure bloods you know in the area, maybe we can find the other two and hopefully, Devon. It has to be somewhat close, within driving distance. She frequents these guys once a week, like clockwork.”

  “How do we get rid of her?” Dominic asked.

  “Like any other vampire.”

  “But I don’t think I can kill her,” Anton said.

  “She left you for dead, Anton,” Darby proclaimed.

  “I know. I’m ashamed to say it, but I just don’t think I can. I mean there is no love lost, but we do have forty years of history.”

  “Even if she goes after your family again? She’s draining your cousin and she will eventually find Blake and do the same to him, not to mention your father. Are you willing to lose your family for her?”

  “No, but I still don’t know if I can do it.”

  “Well, the only other option is to bring Dean and Rowan out here and let the werewolves at her then.”

  Dominic cringed. “Dominic…please. She’ll kill all of you eventually. You’re just going to let her?”

  “Dad, she’s right. Darby’s practically given up her family for ours, where we have failed Devon. She has been the only one who has believed he was in danger. If nothing else, we need to do this for Devon.”

  Darby said, “I wouldn’t have suggested Dean, if I didn’t trust him like a brother. He has fought for my family and me and if I ask, I think he will fight for yours. He’s a good man. I know you have your problems with werewolves and I understand your concerns, but I think if you talked with him and got to know him you would find many similarities in your species.

  “He too had been brought up to hate vampires. It wasn’t until he came across Devon and Blake that he realized that not all vampires are bad. Just like not all werewolves are bad, or witches for that matter. Dean teases Blake more than Devon; they’re like brothers. Dean doesn’t have any family and moved to California from Colorado, because he considered Devon, Blake, Rowan, and myself to be his family.