by Mary Hughes
Can you trace this plate number? I typed.
Piece of cake. BTW, I have news. My bot got a hit. Bloody-Skull is on the North American continent.
A nasty jolt hit me. My parents’ murderer? Where?
Not sure. I’m working on it.
I pushed my uneasiness away. Somewhere on the continent wasn’t immediate enough to distract me from my current quarry. It couldn’t be. Thanks.
While she consulted her databases, I idly replayed the video, letting my mind wander. The king, so weirdly diminished. Ryker, saying his power had been sucked out. V-power, like Alexis’s v-factor. “V-guy tissue samples are human, but lacy. Full of holes.” She was stumped because she couldn’t see the v-factor.
Max had always said, “You don’t have to see a sucker to find him. You just follow what he’s left behind.”
Connections snapped in my mind so fast and hard my whole brain lit up. My finger shook as I found Alexis’s phone number and punched it in. When she answered, I said, “Your lacy v-guy tissue. Is that only the skin, or all over?”
“All tissue. Especially the bones. Long bones are hollow.”
I frowned. “No bone marrow? Then how do they make red blood cells…?”
“They don’t. I think the v-factor takes over the marrow factory in a living vamp to make more v-microbes.”
“They can’t manufacture fresh blood?” Hattie had spoken the truth. My cheeks heated in chagrin. “Alexis, I called because I had an idea. You can’t see the v-factor—like I can’t see the actual sucker when I hunt. But I can track what he leaves. Drips of dinner. Broken or clawed stuff. It’s the v-guy equivalent of scat.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Everything poops.” I paused for effect. “Probably even microbe thingies.”
A startled silence. Then, “That’s brilliant, Kat!”
I’d made her day. As she said goodbye I smiled, glad I’d connected with at least one member of the extended Stieg clan.
Clicking back to Black Widow, I found she’d made mine.
Chapter Fifteen
Skin prickling with heat, Ryker trotted on Officer Keydew’s thin legs into the impound lot, rehearsing what he’d say to the attendant. “Some discrepancies with the paperwork. This is simply a quick peek to clear up our records…” In the distance, a forklift bashed something white inside a box the size and shape of a shipping container, if it had foot-thick walls and one side sheared away. A compactor.
A curl of beguiling feminine scent waylaid him, followed by a shout in a golden alto. “Stop!”
Prickling skin disappeared in a numb haze. Kat? How had she arrived here before him?
She was yelling at the forklift operator. “That vehicle holds evidence in a possible abduction.”
Without even checking if the forklift had stopped, she climbed into the belly of the compactor.
Terror fired his muscles, and he dashed between the forklift and her. “Halt.” His voice, heavily layered with compulsion, was barely audible over the noise. He lifted both palms.
The forklift ground to a stop. The noise level dropped as the operator turned off the machine. Jumping out, he gave him a disgusted, “I’ll be on break. Have fun.” He stalked away.
Ryker jogged toward Kat, jumping onto the floor of the compactor, cursing Keydew’s clunky duty shoes.
She’d discovered this lead, too. A large, warm dose of pride inexplicably swamped him. She had ingenuity and perseverance. If ever he could have a mate, he’d be proud to be hers and to call her his.
Which he couldn’t.
A white van sat in the open box of the compactor. The operator had been using the forks to shove in the sides, perhaps to get it to fit completely inside the machine.
Kat peered through a broken window into the van. Ryker quietly edged up behind her.
Her flashlight stabbed into the shadowy back of the vehicle. She was unaware of him. He took the opportunity to crane his neck and peer over her shoulder. The beam of light revealed two restraint anchors bolted to the floor, one bent open as if a great force had burst it from within.
Elias. Ryker broke out in a cold sweat.
Stowing her light, Kat grabbed the handle and tried to open the door. It wouldn’t budge, the frame bent too badly either by the accident or the skewer of forks.
She stopped cranking, slapped her fists onto her hips, and muttered, “Now how will I find the vampire king?”
Good question. Damn it all to Kur, if only he’d been in town when Elias was taken. He’d left to avoid detection, not wanting his friend to discover him snooping in his backyard, but he hadn’t thought Elias was the target. If only his spy network had provided that one small, salient detail. They’d had when and where, yes, but not who.
Stepping back, he signaled his presence with an astonished whistle. “Miss Kat? Is that you?”
She jumped and spun, nearly falling off the platform. “What the hell are you doing here? Officer…Keydew, was it?”
Character was all. Though part of him wanted to charm her, he rested his hands on his belt and scowled (in a friendly manner) at her. “I’m here because I believe that’s the van that took Mr. Elias. Why are you here?”
“Because I know that’s the van.” She peered closer at him. “You’re a little red. Sunburn?”
“Running.” He pasted on an inane smile, but inside he was annoyed with himself for not taking more breaks, sunburn a red flag to a smart vampire hunter like her. Although then he wouldn’t have gotten here in time. “How are you so sure this is the kidnap vehicle?”
“There’s a private house on the Roller-Blayd lot with a camera that got a perfect shot of the event.”
So that was her idea the day before yesterday. He was both irked at her secrecy and proud of her ingenuity. “You should have told me.”
“Does it matter now? We need to get inside.” With a frustrated noise, she cranked on the handle again.
“Why?”
“I really want to see that.” She pointed her flashlight inside. The light hit shards of glass and glittered.
“A broken window?”
“Not from those edges. They’re curved. And there’s a reddish sheen on the glass. And lines, like measuring marks.”
His blood chilled at the implications.
Leaping off the compactor’s bed before Kat could figure out what he was doing, he trotted to the end and leaped back on.
Out of her sight, he accessed his vampire strength to tear open one of the back doors.
Kat appeared at the back of the compactor and stared with awe. “That’s amazing.”
“It was already partly open.” Despite his best aw-shucks voice, a glow inside told him he liked impressing her.
Don’t care. Can’t care.
Cautiously, she climbed up and through the opening into the back of the van. He eased in behind her, ducking his head.
She ran her light over the mess. “Did a bomb go off in here?”
Jagged detritus inside was mute evidence of a horrific fight. The remains of a large bin caught his eye. “What’s that?”
She shone her light at where he pointed. “A plastic container of some sort. Mangled, now. There’s a smaller one beside it.”
One bin had been over six by three feet. The other had been a cube that was a couple feet on each side.
Ryker’s breath stopped as the significance hit him. A body box for a giant.
And a separate head box.
His stomach heaved. The enemy was going to ship Elias somewhere, in pieces, so he couldn’t move.
Yet he’d be aware.
Cold nausea choked him. Heinous. These vampires weren’t simply dangerous—they were depraved.
Crouching, Kat aimed her beam at the broken glass. The red sheen and yellow marks were more obvious now.
He crowded behind her, pulling out his own flashlight and adding its beam to hers. “A hypodermic?” His voice rasped.
“Yeah.”
“Covered in blood?”
“I don’t think so. It’d be dry by now, and more brownish.”
Which meant drugs. They’d pumped poison into Elias to incapacitate him, to make him feeble for mutilation and transport.
Ryker clenched his eyes shut. While he’d been worried about Elias, he’d been confident everything would turn out all right. His brother was savvy.
But a poisoned injection? Elias would be vulnerable. He might truly be kidnapped, dead…or worse, paralyzed for some leech.
His eyes snapped open. I won’t let that happen.
“Do you carry evidence bags?” She reached out a hand.
Wordlessly, he got one from a pouch on his belt. She snagged it from his hand then reached into an ankle holster and removed a knife, about to scrape the glass and needle into the bag.
He barked, “Wait!”
She jumped. “What?”
When Ryker played a role, he played it to the hilt. The original method actor (though Euripides said the style was an insult to the gods, aka crap).
“I need to document this in situ first.” He took out his phone and snapped a picture.
“Can I take it now?” Her tone held a hint of acid.
“Let me collect it—to keep the chain of evidence intact.” He held out his hand for the bag.
She hung onto it. Irritation flashed through him. He snapped out his own pocket knife and wriggled fingers for the bag.
“Officer Keydew. Elias is a special man. This needle contained something meant for him, and it’ll take a special lab to discover what. With all due respect to your crime lab, I have a specialist who can analyze this.”
She meant “special” as in “vampire,” though she wouldn’t think Keydew would pick up on that. Kur take it, though, she was right. The police lab wouldn’t have the means to determine vampire-specific drugs.
She didn’t wait for him to argue, using her knife to scrape the glass and metal shards into the bag.
“Where are you taking that, Miss Kat?”
“Let’s check out those containers, first.” She rose fluidly from her crouch, slipped her knife in its ankle sheath, and moved to shine her light on the broken bins. He added his.
Both were crushed, broken packing foam showing in the cracks.
Kat got it after a moment. “Damn. I know what those are for.”
Struggling for Keydew’s sunny, clueless tones, he replied, “What, Miss Kat?”
“Here’s what I think happened. Four of them wrestled Elias in here, though he was really stringing them along, trying to find out their deal. But a fifth monster, bigger and stronger than the rest, was already inside the van.”
A fifth captor? She was far ahead of him. His pride in her was swamped by a chill.
What if he couldn’t find Elias without her help? What if she found Elias first?
What if the kidnappers found her, Ryker nowhere near, and they hurt her? His bones iced.
“The big one pumped this drug into Elias.” She jiggled the baggie. “That’s the game-changer. Elias fought with every bit of strength he had left. I think they were going to use this to mail him somewhere.” She nudged the larger broken bin with the toe of her shoe, turning it enough to reveal the remains of a shipping label, now all but destroyed. “Too bad we can’t read that label.”
He agreed. It would tell them where and might even hint at who and why.
Grim as he’d ever seen her, she edged past him and out of the van.
He followed. “Where are you taking the needle to be analyzed, Miss Kat?”
She jumped off the edge of the compactor. “I’ll call you with what I find.”
He bit back an acid reply. Keydew wasn’t the sort. Instead, he said, “He’s a good man.”
“Who?” She paused.
“Elias. Everything the chief has said about him, all the facts of the case. He let himself be taken to get more information. To help stop these kidnappers. To make sure they don’t take anyone else.”
She remained silent.
“Smart, too. His companies are some of the most successful, the most forward-thinking, in the world. He’d be a billionaire several times over, but he doesn’t use the money to puff up himself. No, he plows all the profits back into the business or turns them over to charities.”
“The great humanitarian.” Her tone was low, sarcastic, and she put the slightest emphasis on human.
“Miss Kat…” Please don’t kill my friend. “We need to find him. He’d be a great loss to this world.”
Another silence. Finally, she repeated, “I’ll call you.”
She strode away with that no-nonsense sway to her hips, which somehow mesmerized him until she disappeared from view.
He shook himself. His only hope of getting to Elias and his enemies first was to find a clue she didn’t have.
Reentering the remains of the van, he extended his sharper vampire senses. His vision went red, a sign his eyes were also glowing, but the metal sides would hide him from the compactor operator if he returned.
Kat had given the containers a cursory examination. Now he inspected them thoroughly.
The labels were ruined, torn and scraped into shreds. He managed to flatten the peels of one to read Str. V followed by a smudged number, and on the next line, Chi like Chicago…or China or Chiang Mai or Chile or Chikmagalur or any of a dozen places. He heaved a bitter sigh.
“A partial address is better than nothing,” he murmured. Creating a claw, he cut through the plastic around the label, thinking perhaps the police lab could make something out of it.
Exiting the compactor, he braced for the sun, but the cloud cover had thickened. It gave him time to find where Kat had gone. He sniffed to locate her scent.
Fresh, beguiling. Stronger every time he met her.
Or perhaps he’d simply come to understand and appreciate her more each time. Now there was a truly scary thought.
Nose leading him, he trotted after her.
…
I got out of there as fast as I could walk. I was taking the broken needle to my top vampire researcher and didn’t want anyone following me for this, not the inquisitive young police officer or any too-handsome PIs who might be lurking.
Unless he had more chocolate.
Once I was sure I wasn’t being followed, I pulled out my phone and did a search for “Adelaide’s Heart,” Alexis’s shelter. East Fourteenth and Adams.
Mounting my scooter, I headed east.
My vampire researcher. As if she hated suckers as much as I did. Cure them, for heaven’s sake. Hopefully she didn’t love them like Hattie did, or this would be awkward if she’d heard about my blowup with “Dad.”
Was Alexis even aware of Race’s condition? She lived in the same small town, and she was sharp. She probably knew. Maybe Race was even the reason she was trying to develop a vampy cure.
The shelter receptionist was a waiflike brunette with an unexpectedly strong grip. “Any relative of Alexis is welcome here. She’s not in yet, though. Try her at home.” She pointed at a small apartment building across an open, parklike space.
I made my way to the lobby where I scanned a list of names, found Steel next to B1—basement level—and pressed the button beside it. When Alexis answered, I started, “It’s Kat—”
“Kat! What a nice surprise. Some fun at breakfast yesterday, am I right? Come on down.” She buzzed me in.
So, not as awkward as I feared, only weirder.
Behind me, the building’s outer door clanged open. I paused pushing open the inner door, threw a glance over my shoulder, and swore.
A red-faced Officer Keydew stood there, panting. “Miss Kat, ma’am, wa
it! I want to help.”
Judging the distance, I could get the inner door shut and locked before he reached it.
Yet his hat was askew and his clothes were rumpled and it was obvious he’d run all the way here. Shutting him out would’ve been like slamming a door on a puppy.
I sighed. “Come on.”
Beaming, he clomped gratefully toward me. Hopefully he’d be satisfied, now that he’d see who my special researcher was.
The inner hallway had an elevator. We got in, and I pressed B.
A smiling Alexis opened B1. “Hey. Liese said you took the news about Race rather well. Whatcha got for me?”
I gaped a moment at her. I’d taken it well? When I’d yelled and stomped out?
She shrugged. “You didn’t try to take his head off.”
“I didn’t have my swords,” I shot back. She laughed, though I’d been serious.
“Officer Keydew, good to see you again.” She led us into a warm, welcoming living room. Childish voices came from down the hallway.
“The nieces and I are headed out for the Oktoberfest fun fair in a bit,” she said. “I take it from the way you’re gripping that baggie that it’s important. What is it?”
I gave her the bare bones. With Keydew there, I couldn’t come right out and tell her I suspected vampire drugs. I did say, “I think it’s like your serum, the one you gave me the other day. Do you think you can analyze this?”
“You think this was used on Kai Elias?” She’d gone from smiling to alarmed. “I’ll get on it right away. At the very least I should be able to isolate the family of drugs it belongs to.”
“Thanks. Speaking of… Can I have another tube of your serum?”
“If you promise not to use it on Race. I have a few in the lab. I’ll be right back.” Baggie in hand, she started down a hallway.
“Let me help.” I ran after her.
Her lab was the size of a master bedroom. An array of high-tech equipment sat on tables lining three walls. A bench table mid-room had more equipment including a computer. She led me in and shut the door. “What is it?”
“I wanted to talk without Officer Big Ears.”
