There were two buildings on either side of the road, but only one of them had an entrance into the alley. It was a small two-story warehouse that had seen better days. Most of the windows along the upper floors were broken. The only ones still in place were those along the street level and they were cracked in spots and blackened with grime from the street.
Diana walked down the steps to the metal door that opened into the alley. It was locked. She went back to street level, lay down on her stomach and peered through a broken pane of glass. It was dark inside the space, except for a few weak shafts of light from the windows along the front of the building. The light wasn’t enough to let her see anything, but she couldn’t walk away without checking it out.
Rising, she brushed off the front of her white shirt, reached into her jacket and withdrew a small locksmith’s kit. She wouldn’t normally break in without a warrant and risk losing a suspect, but she had enough evidence for probable cause. Or at least, she hoped she would be able to convince a judge of that if it was necessary.
Taking out the lock picks, she worked at the mechanism until the cylinders clicked into place. She shot a glance at Melissa and Sebastian and motioned for them to join her as she opened the door.
They were familiar sounds by now. The grate of metal against metal. The groan as the door opened. The loud metallic clank as it closed again. Footsteps sounded against the cement floor and drew closer. “Back for more? The hell with you, Rudy.” He said the words out loud, but they were barely more than a whisper.
He expected Rudy’s satisfied laugh and immediate punishment. Instead, startled gasps and the rush of footsteps reached his ears until Diana, Melissa and an unknown man stood before him.
“Oh, no. Ryder,” Melissa said, and covered her mouth with her hand.
Diana met his gaze for only a second before she ordered the man to help take Ryder down. Melissa undid the ropes around his legs as the man brought over a metal folding chair. Diana climbed up on it and undid the bindings on his arms. Then her arms held him close as she and the man eased Ryder onto the ground.
He sighed, closed his eyes and let himself slip away.
His body was rigid in her arms and surprisingly lightweight.
Melissa took Ryder’s pulse and examined him as best she could. “He’s barely alive.”
Diana pulled Ryder closer, cradling his head against her and bending to lay a kiss across his forehead.
“He’s cold,” she said as the temperature of his body registered against her lips.
“We need to get him home, take care of his wounds and let him feed.” Melissa rushed into action, racing out of the building.
Diana looked up at her brother and he asked softly, “Do you love him?”
A wave of pain washed over her, and she couldn’t answer. All she could do was bow her head, press it against Ryder’s and pray. She hadn’t prayed in a long time. Not since her dad. She held Ryder the way she had held her dad as his life slipped away. Her hands had been covered with her dad’s blood in much the same way that they were now slick with Ryder’s. “Sebastian, I can’t survive this again.”
Sebastian dropped to his knees by her side and placed his hand on her shoulder. “You need to, Diana. Whether he survives or not. You need to stop the animal who did this. You can’t let him do it again.”
Melissa came back, sparing Diana from answering. The doctor withdrew a bottle and syringe from a medical bag. The needle was long and Melissa squirted out a little of the liquid, then motioned to Diana to ease Ryder away. “I need to give him this shot.”
Diana nodded and shifted him so Melissa had access to his neck. She flinched as Melissa drove the needle into his skin and depressed the plunger. Ryder’s body immediately began to convulse in her arms.
“Hold him down,” Melissa instructed.
Diana tightened her grip, and Sebastian joined her in keeping Ryder fairly immobile until Melissa had delivered all the medication.
“What is it?” she asked as Ryder strained against her hands and his body lost some of its stiffness.
Melissa looked at her and withdrew the needle. “A cocktail my dad mixed. Adrenaline to get things moving and other medicines to counteract the effects of the sun.”
Ryder opened his eyes then and tried to talk, but it was clear it taxed his strength to do so.
Diana laid her fingers on his lips. “Shh. You’re going to be all right.”
There was an almost imperceptible shake of his head in denial and then he drifted off again. She looked at her brother. “Can you carry him to the van?”
Sebastian nodded, eased his arms beneath Ryder and lifted him. With Melissa at his side, they walked to the van. Diana dialed David’s number and gave him the address and instructions on having a team in place to catch Rudy when he returned.
“Diana, you’re going to have to help me,” Melissa said. “Sebastian, you drive.”
Sebastian took the keys from his sister and got behind the wheel. Diana rattled off the address of Ryder’s apartment building. As Sebastian pulled away from the warehouse, Diana knelt beside Ryder and grimaced as she took in all the wounds he had suffered.
Deep slashes marred his chest and upper arms. A nasty wound marked the lower left side of his abdomen, as if he had been staked. It was more than an inch wide and the blow had been so forceful there was bruising around the area. There were two deep incisions, one along the middle of his chest and another along his midsection. Everywhere there was a wound, streaks of dried blood, the color of dark red rust, painted his body.
Diana reached up and caressed the side of his face. His body was cold, chilled by the sweat still pouring off of him. She slipped off her jacket and balled it into a cushion of sorts to pillow his head. Beneath her hands, his muscles were stiff and unyielding. If not for the occasional shudder from his body and his faint breath, she might have said he was gone already.
She laid her hand on his chest, careful to avoid the worst of the knife wounds. There was barely a hint of a heartbeat. She turned her head and glanced uneasily at Melissa, who was busy preparing another hypodermic. “He’s really bad,” she said softly.
“It’s too much for him—the blood loss and sun. He may be too far gone.”
Diana shook her head, unwilling to accept the other woman’s words. “We’re not going to lose him.”
Melissa looked away from Diana. “You love him,” she said simply as she tapped the hypo to remove the air bubbles.
Diana tore her gaze away from Melissa and looked back down at Ryder’s unnaturally pale face, made even paler in comparison to his dark, sweat-drenched hair. “I…He’s my only witness. I can’t lose him.”
Melissa bent over Ryder as she slipped the hypo into him again. She depressed the plunger on the syringe, slowly feeding the clear liquid into Ryder’s body. “One day you’ll be able to admit what you feel.”
But Diana didn’t respond.
Chapter 26
They were jostled around in the bed of the van as Sebastian hit a particularly big pothole.
Ryder moaned and Diana reached out to reposition his head on her folded jacket. She brushed her thumb over his lips and whispered softly, “Ryder, you cannot quit now.”
As if he heard her, he moaned again, and beneath her hand, the muscles of his cheek twitched.
“Ryder?”
His eyes popped open and his body began to shake with faint tremors. Diana laid her hands on his shoulders as the contractions increased. It was almost as if he were having a seizure. Diana glared at Melissa. “What’s happening?”
“It may be the medicine,” she said, her voice filled with doubt, as if she was beginning to question the wisdom of her judgment. “It’s never been this bad before.” She turned away and rooted around in her medical bag.
The spasms became so powerful that Ryder’s body nearly jumped off the floor of the van. Diana straddled his chest, pinning him down to keep him from injuring himself. She held his head in her hands and his eyes foc
used on her. His next words, uttered in a pained whisper, tore at her heart. “Let me die.”
Diana shook her head and bent to lay her cheek alongside his. “I can’t let you go.”
Beneath her legs, Ryder’s body continued to convulse. As Melissa injected him again, the tremors worsened then gradually slowed. Beneath her cheek, the cold sweat disappeared as his body warmed. Diana sat back up. His eyes were closed. His breathing was a little deeper and more regular. She slipped off of his chest and joined Melissa in binding his wounds. “What now?”
Melissa put pressure bandages on the incisions on his chest and midsection, while Diana packed the deeper puncture wound on his side and taped the packing into place.
“I need to close up the more serious wounds. Then he needs to feed,” Melissa said calmly.
Sebastian shot a look back as he rounded a corner. “Feed? What kind of feed?”
“Sebastian, watch the road,” Diana said as he hit the curb and barely avoided a pedestrian in the crosswalk.
Sebastian cursed under his breath, muttering about domineering women, and sped up a little. Diana caught a glimpse of a familiar landmark from the view out of the windshield of the van, and she realized they were only blocks from the apartment building. “Does he need to feed now?”
Melissa shook her head. “He’s weak but seems to have stabilized a little. But I don’t know how long this will last.”
“What do you mean?” Diana asked.
Sebastian brought the van to an abrupt halt in the small loading dock of the apartment building and turned to face the two women. “How are we going to get him inside without anyone noticing?”
Melissa reached into a small bag tacked to the side of the van and hauled out a raincoat. “Help me get this on him,” she said to Diana. Between the two of them, they slipped the garment on Ryder so that his wounds were hidden.
Melissa motioned to the back door of the van. The chrome of a wheelchair caught Diana’s eye. “Go around the back and get that chair ready.”
Sebastian quickly popped open the large back doors of the van. He undid the bungee cords that held the chair in place, unfolded it and placed it on the ground. Then he helped Diana and Melissa in half dragging, half carrying Ryder to the chair. Ryder slipped into a heap in the seat, his body loose, but lacking control since he was still unconscious.
“We’ll get him upstairs, Sebastian. Go park the van and come back. Apartment 2401,” Diana said.
Sebastian nodded, and they wheeled the chair up the loading ramp and to the freight elevator. Melissa pushed the button and within seconds, the elevator opened. They boarded and headed up to the duplex apartment. That was easy. The hard part was getting Ryder into Melissa’s bed on the lower floor of the duplex. His body was heavy and cumbersome, even with the two of them working together. It took some time, but they finally managed to get him comfortably settled.
Melissa filled a basin with warm water and brought Diana a towel. “Get him cleaned up while I get some sutures and bandages ready.”
Diana nodded, then stripped off the raincoat and went to work wiping away the dried blood on his chest and abdomen. She winced as she realized how much blood had soaked into the bandages they had applied in the van. She was nearly done when Melissa returned, holding a tray with various sutures, instruments and bandages.
Melissa’s gaze met hers. “You may want to leave for this.”
Diana had spent too much time running. She stepped away but couldn’t leave.
Melissa took a spot on the edge of the bed and laid the tray on the nightstand. She inspected one incision on Ryder’s chest and then began to stitch it up. With each pass of the needle, Ryder’s body twitched, but he didn’t wake.
Diana passed Melissa the items she requested while tending to Ryder’s wounds. As Melissa applied disinfectant, Diana was actually relieved to hear Ryder moan. The sound reassured her he was still alive. They were just patching up the stake wound when the doorbell rang.
Diana ran to open the door for Sebastian. As soon as he saw her, he held his arms wide. She took comfort in the tight hug he gave her. “Have faith, Diana.”
She let out a harsh little laugh. “Faith? Even if he lives…” She lingered in his embrace for a moment. “I have to go see how he is.” As she started to go, he took her hand. “Is there anything I can do?”
Diana gave her cell phone to her brother. “Call David and tell him…He doesn’t know about Ryder, so just tell him we’re still with Ryder at the doctor’s. Ask him where we stand with the stakeout of the warehouse.”
“If he asks when you’ll be there—”
“Tell him I’ll be there as soon as I can.” When Diana entered the bedroom, Melissa rose from the bed.
“I’m going to get a bag so he can feed.”
Ryder was pale and very still. His chest barely moved as he breathed. Diana reached out and lightly touched him. His skin had grown ice cold again. The cold transferred itself to her and settled within her heart.
Melissa returned and held out the bag of blood to Diana. “I think he might be more willing to take this from you.”
She grabbed the blood. It was warm. “Did you just draw this?”
Melissa shook her head. “Just nuked it a little. It would be better if it were fresh. It’s more potent when it’s fresh.”
Diana sat on the edge of the bed and ran her hand along Ryder’s shoulder. He roused slightly, glanced at her and the bag she held, and then shook his head.
“No,” he whispered. “Let me go.”
“Ryder, please.” But he answered with a stronger no that seemed to drain him of what little strength he had left. He lapsed into unconsciousness and nothing Diana did seemed to rouse him.
“What do we do now?” she asked Melissa.
“I don’t know.”
It wasn’t enough of an answer for Diana. She grabbed Melissa’s arm. “What do you mean, you don’t know? You and your family have been with him for—”
“One hundred and thirty-eight years,” Melissa finished for her.
“There must be some other way of helping him if he won’t feed. You have to know how to help him after all that time.”
“My father had journals kept by each and every Danvers. Histories of their lives, Ryder’s, and all that they knew.”
Diana sensed reluctance in the young doctor’s voice. “There must be something there.”
“Ryder never wanted me to look at the journals. He felt they were too much for me to handle, at first….” Melissa stopped, clearly uncomfortable.
“So what do we do?”
“I don’t know,” Melissa answered softly.
Tears came to Diana’s eyes, and she fought them back. Taking a deep, shaky breath, she said, “We have to try something.”
Melissa laid a hand on Diana’s shoulder and gave a squeeze. “I can try, but nothing will help if he’s made up his mind—”
“To die? We’ll just have to convince him otherwise.”
“Not we, Diana. You. You are the only one who has the power to convince him.”
Diana dropped her gaze to Ryder. He lay nearly motionless on the bed, his skin paler than before. She laid her hand on his chest. A fine sweat was breaking out all over his body once more. She raised her face to look at Melissa. “What do you want me to do?”
“Talk to him. Convince him to feed. And I need you to donate some blood.”
Diana nodded. “Take as much as you can.”
“Diana,” Sebastian interrupted, waving the cell phone in the air as he stood by the door. “David says he needs to talk to you.”
She took the phone from her brother. “What’s up?”
“We’ve got the place surrounded. Can you get any more info from Ryder?” David asked.
“Ryder isn’t conscious. He’s…We don’t know if he’ll make it,” she confessed as she watched Melissa draw the comforter over Ryder.
“I’m sorry. I know that you and he—”
“What do you nee
d, David? I’d like to get back to Ryder.”
“We need you here. Soon,” he replied in a whisper. “ADIC Hernandez thinks the special agent in charge should be in charge.”
“Tell Hernandez to go…” She stopped herself, knowing it would accomplish nothing. “Tell the ADIC I’m with one of the victims and trying to get a death-bed statement. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Diana—”
She shut off the phone, unwilling to waste another second with her partner, knowing every moment she delayed might be one she missed with Ryder.
Chapter 27
The blood bags lay on the nightstand next to the bed, still warm. Diana sat by Ryder’s side as Melissa drew her blood. Ryder’s companion was now with Sebastian, getting his donation. After, Melissa planned on giving some herself.
Diana leaned close to Ryder, laid a hand on his chest and spoke softly. There was no response, which meant she had only one choice. She reached for the hypo Melissa had prepared and left behind after instructing her on how to use it. Diana’s hand shook as she removed the bandage covering the middle of Ryder’s chest and placed the hypo directly above his heart. Melissa had said it was extreme to do it this way, but they had reached the moment for extreme measures.
Feeling for the bottom of his sternum with one hand, Diana shifted the needle and slowly eased it in. She took a deep breath as she depressed the plunger, forcing the drugs into him. As soon as she was done, she quickly removed the needle, knowing he would respond to the medications.
It took only a second for the reaction to begin.
Ryder’s eyes popped open and his body gave the first twitch.
She leaned over him and called his name. He focused on her face and whispered, “Don’t do this again. Please, don’t.”
“You need to feed.” She grabbed the bag and held it up for him to see.
Ryder shook his head and looked away from it. “No.” He grabbed the comforter as his body started to shake more violently.
Diana cupped his cheek and applied gentle pressure until he was facing her. “You need to feed otherwise—”
Darkness Calls Page 20
