by Cat Devon
“Should she be listening to all this?” Damon demanded, jabbing his finger in Keira’s direction.
“She’s a part of the problem.”
“I am not,” Keira denied.
“You’re the one who came looking for me,” Alex reminded her yet again.
“For help stopping the blood bank robberies,” she said.
“What is your interest in the robberies?” Damon said.
Alex answered for her. “She’s a reporter.”
Damon swore. So did Pat. Only Alex remained calm.
“I don’t know which is worse. The fact that she’s a hunter or the fact that she’s a reporter,” Damon said.
“I am not a hunter,” she said.
“We only have your word for that,” Pat replied.
“I had no idea vampires even existed until twenty-four hours ago. That’s when I found my grandfather’s journal…”
“Where is it?” Alex interrupted her.
She shook her head. “I’m not revealing that information at this time.” She couldn’t risk giving all her secrets away. If they knew everything, they might kill her.
“What was in the journal?” Alex said.
“Information about my grandfather’s … uhm … activities.”
“His vampire hunting activities? He could have been writing a book or making things up. Something had to make you believe. Something or someone.”
“You made me believe,” she told Alex.
Alex frowned. “How do you figure that?”
“Your name was next on my grandfather’s hit list,” Keira admitted.
Chapter Three
Keira eyed the trio of vampires cautiously. Damon had a smirk on his face while Pat was shaking his head. Only Alex refused to show any emotion at her words. That was strange. Of all of them, he was the one who should have been the most upset by her admission. Instead he appeared to be very calm.
“Who else was on the hit list?” Alex said.
“Just you.”
“The last one on The Executioner’s list,” Pat said. “Why did he choose you, Alex?”
“I have no idea,” Alex said. “So, intrepid girl reporter, why did he choose me?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t explain. Maybe it was your good looks and charm,” she shot back, stung by his “girl reporter” comment.
“Yeah, maybe it was,” Alex agreed with a mocking smile.
“I don’t blame you for killing him,” Damon told Alex before slapping him on the back. “You should have told us.”
“What?” Alex looked confused then angry. “I didn’t kill The Executioner.”
That possibility hadn’t occurred to Keira until now. Were the vampires determined to kill everyone in her family? She backed up as far away from them as possible.
Seeing her movement, Alex gave Damon a flinty look. “You’re not helping.”
Damon just shrugged.
Alex returned his attention to Keira. “So you came to see me believing I was a vampire. You didn’t think that might be dangerous?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Why not?”
“Because lives depend on figuring out why the blood is being stolen.”
“You say lives depend on this. Whose life?” Alex demanded.
“My godson Benji for one. He has a rare blood disorder that requires him to get frequent blood transfusions. A shortage of his blood type creates a critical situation for him. He’s only ten years old.”
“What does that have to do with your grandfather? He couldn’t have known about the robberies. They happened after his death,” Alex said.
“Unless he’s not really dead,” Pat said.
Keira’s eyes widened. “Is that possible?”
Alex didn’t answer her question. Instead he said, “Or he somehow manipulated things so that the blood would be stolen after his death to start a vampire turf war. Maybe he planned that so we’d wipe each other out.” His stare turned cold. “Are you part of his plan?”
Keira shook her head so fast she got dizzy. “No.”
“Like she’d admit it if she was,” Damon said, reciting her own words back to her. “She can’t be compelled, but there are other ways to get her to talk.”
Keira didn’t like the way that sounded.
“Let me try first,” Alex said.
Damon glanced at his watch. “You have ten minutes.”
Pat left with him.
Keira backed up as Alex moved closer. “I … uh … I’m … I’m telling the truth.” She hated the fact that her voice was shaking, but then she was being stalked by an angry vampire. Any reasonable person would be scared. Even an unreasonable person would realize that they were in deep shit here. “I’m just a reporter.”
Her knees almost buckled when he flashed his fangs at her.
His eyes glowed for real now. “You’re not just a reporter.” His voice was harsh. “A mere reporter could be compelled. You’re The Executioner’s granddaughter.”
“I thought he was a tax accountant,” she said as her back hit the brick wall.
A second later he’d ripped her messenger bag over her head and dumped its contents onto a large table.
“Hey!” she automatically protested before his snarl shut her up. She inhaled a shaky breath; then the words rushed out of her. “Never mind. Go ahead and check things out. I don’t have any weapons in there. No holy water or crucifixes or stuff like that.”
He held up a plastic container that made her blush. “Tampons,” she muttered. “And yes, those are condoms. You can read the package. Or you can open it up to make sure.” Which he did before shooting her a look that made her put her hands to her face. A second later she peeked between her fingers and saw him opening her laptop computer.
That did it. She had to draw a line in the sand somewhere here. He wouldn’t get very far trying to access information without her password.
She removed her hands from her face and put them on her hips, allowing her to inconspicuously wipe her damp palms on the cotton of her skirt. Glancing around, she searched for a way out. The windows were covered with dark wooden shutters.
The open floor plan didn’t hide much. She didn’t see any coffins or other vampire paraphernalia. She did see a huge bed in one corner … were those satin sheets? She avoided looking in that direction.
To her left was a tiny galley kitchen with a large high-end stainless-steel fridge. Was it packed full of stolen blood? Not that it was big enough to hold the large quantities that had been stolen.
To her right were a battered leather couch and two chairs. They looked like werewolves had attacked them. Maybe they had. A huge flat TV hung from the far brick wall along with a state-of-the-art media system.
“Give me your password,” he ordered.
“No.”
A millisecond later he was right in front of her, his hands on either side of her head, imprisoning her as his body pinned her to the wall. “Tell me.”
His breath was warm on her cheek. She thought vampires were supposed to be cold. Alex was definitely hot.
She shook her head, but that only made his lips brush against her skin. She kept her own lips sealed, refusing to answer him. She wished her body’s response to him could be equally defiant, but her hormones had other ideas.
Normally she wasn’t the type to melt in a puddle when faced with raw sex appeal like Alex’s. Not that she’d ever experienced the kind of charisma he radiated. It had to be a vampire thing. Too bad she couldn’t be totally resistant to it the way she was to being compelled.
“Talk to me.” He made the words sound part husky coax, part smoldering order.
She shivered. She wasn’t cold. She was burning up. It was as if her body recognized him on some primal level. Even the tattoo on the small of her back seemed to heat up. She hoped that meant it was providing protection, but instead it seemed to throb in time with her heartbeat.
When he lowered his hand to her bare leg, she once again seri
ously regretted her wardrobe choice for this confrontation. She should never have gone to see him in a skirt. She should have put on jeans and multiple layers of leather … preferably with silver spikes.
“Answer me,” he murmured against her skin.
His soft words frightened her as much as his earlier snarl had because her body was responding to him as if it had a will of its own. “What are you doing to me?” she whispered unsteadily.
“What does it feel like I’m doing?”
“Trying to scare or seduce the truth out of me. Maybe … maybe both.” Her breathing was ragged as he licked her cheek near her ear. Was he tasting her to see if he wanted her as an appetizer?
Her grandfather’s notes had claimed that vampires couldn’t suck her blood because she was descended from a hunter. What if he was wrong? Maybe Alex didn’t know he couldn’t drain her blood. Maybe she should tell him, pronto.
“Hunter blood is not good for you,” she said.
Couldn’t you have put it more forcefully? she silently chastised herself. You’re a writer. The phrase not good for you sounded so pitifully nerdy. She should have said hunter blood was toxic. Deadly.
Wait, vampires were immortal. Could her blood kill Alex? Her grandfather hadn’t gone into details on the matter. That seemed to be a theme with him. She really should have done more research before marching into that police station and accusing Alex of being a vampire.
“I don’t want your blood,” he murmured. “I want your grandfather’s journal.”
Sure he did. And once he got it, he’d kill her … or do whatever it was that Damon had threatened her with. She might have been impetuous in her confrontation with Alex earlier, but she wasn’t stupid.
She had no intention of giving him the journal, but she was all for using it as a way of getting out of the mess she was in at the moment.
“Let me go and I’ll show you where it is,” she lied.
He shifted his attention from the crook of her neck to her mouth. She nervously licked her lips. He looked at her as if he wanted to taste her. Was that sexual hunger or vampire hunger?
“You’ll show me where it is, huh?” he said.
She nodded.
“Liar.”
She was becoming increasingly pissed and tired of feeling like the victim here. Putting her hands on his shoulders, she shoved him away. “I’ve been up front with you. I told you I know you’re a vampire. I could have played ignorant.”
“You wanted to get my attention. Well, you’ve done that. Happy now?”
She wiggled in his hold. She’d only moved him a few inches. “Let me go!”
He continued to pin her in place. “Not gonna happen.”
“I can’t breathe,” she gasped before pretending to faint, going limp in his arms.
Her move caught him by surprise, as she’d planned. When he readjusted his hold on her she kneed him in the groin.
“Shit!” He released her for a second.
Keira raced for the door, her only thought to get away. She was willing to leave her laptop and everything else behind at this point. Damn right that lives were at stake here—primarily her own. She couldn’t help Benji if she was killed by angry vampires.
Reaching out her shaking hand, she yanked the door open only to find a woman standing there blocking her way.
“What the hell is going on here?” the female newcomer demanded.
Chapter Four
“I know you,” Keira said. “You’re the author S. J. Brennan.”
“That’s right. You can call me Sierra.”
“This isn’t a good time,” Alex said, clamping a hand on Keira’s shoulder.
Keira didn’t know what to do. Would Alex hurt Sierra? She’d feel awful if something happened to one of her favorite authors. Hell, she’d feel awful if something happened to anyone else as a result of her actions.
None of this was going the way she’d planned. She’d thought that she and Alex would somehow be partner crime fighters and catch the bad-guy blood robbers. Or that he would use his superpowers to get the job done quickly. She hadn’t anticipated that her apartment would be ransacked or that she would be snatched and whisked away to some secret location.
“Really, Alex?” Sierra said. “Not a good time? You’re holding her hostage.”
Keira was scrambling to catch up. Clearly Sierra knew Alex. Did she know what he was? And how did she know about him holding her hostage?
“You’re frightening her,” Sierra added.
“That was my intention before she attacked me,” he said.
Sierra looked at Keira in surprise. “You attacked him?”
“I need to get out of here,” Keira said.
“Sierra can’t help you,” Alex said.
“Well, I could but I’m not allowed to,” Sierra said regretfully. “My loyalty is with the locals who live here. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stand for you terrifying her, though, Alex.” She shot him a reprimanding look before returning her attention to Keira. “You’re Keira Turner, right? I follow your blog and your stuff on ReadIt. Your photo doesn’t do you justice. I just loved your story about road rage. And before you ask, yes, I know Alex is a vampire.”
“Stay out of this, Sierra,” Alex ordered her.
“Pat and Damon sent me. Yeah, I know. They’re vampires, too. Oh, I almost forgot.” She reached into her tote. “I brought you a cupcake from Heavenly Cupcakes. I hope you like red velvet?” She pulled out a cardboard container.
Keira reached out as if to take it but instead dodged around Sierra before being stopped in her tracks by some sort of invisible wall. She hit it so hard she smashed her nose and saw stars.
Sierra said, “You could have warned her that there was—”
Alex cut her off. “The less she knows, the better.”
Keira blinked the tears from her eyes before lifting her hand to her face.
“She’s human. She doesn’t heal the way vamps do,” Sierra said, putting her arm around Keira and leading her to one of the battered leather chairs.
“She’s not human,” Alex said. “She’s got hunter blood.”
“She’s the granddaughter of a hunter. Yes, Pat filled me in on the story,” Sierra said.
“I can’t believe you’re okay living with vampires,” Keira told Sierra.
“I know. I couldn’t believe it at first, either,” Sierra said. “I didn’t have a clue. I’d come to Chicago to inherit a house from my great-uncle.”
“Did Pat and Damon say why they wanted you to come up here?” Alex demanded.
“To stay with Keira while you go get an update from them.”
“Don’t try to leave,” Alex warned Keira. “The place has a high-tech security system like the kind of invisible fences that keep your dog in your yard.”
“I’m not some bitch you can lock up,” Keira said, lifting her chin.
“Yeah, you are.” With those words, Alex left.
* * *
Lawrence Lynch was not a happy vampire. He displayed his displeasure while sitting behind his elaborately gilded and carved Louis XIV desk in his penthouse headquarters by tapping a tungsten knife against his crystal glass of blood. Had he not been so distracted by his medical experiments, he would have realized faster that the human female at the police station with Sanchez was The Executioner’s granddaughter.
“We sent a crew to search Keira Turner’s apartment,” Douglas Dimato told Lynch. As the director of operations, he’d been with the Gold Coast vampires since he was turned in Capone’s time back in the 1920s. He’d worked as the mob’s attorney for various kingpins before being attacked by Lynch and transformed into a vampire. “But they didn’t find any journal.”
“Did they find her?”
“They almost got her—”
“Almost?” Lynch interrupted. “Almost doesn’t count in death and horseshoes.”
Douglas frowned. “I’m not sure that’s the actual quote.”
Lynch banged his clenched fist on
the desktop. “I don’t care if it’s the actual quote! Shut up and let me think.”
Lynch had been immersed in his latest project to the point that he’d let the ball drop regarding following up on the search for The Executioner’s journal. While he possessed other vampire hunter journals, they were nothing special. Chances were The Executioner’s would be the same. But there was a slim possibility that the whispered rumors about it might be true. That it was more of a Hunter Manifesto with new ways to dispatch vampires not reported in other places. Still, all was not lost. Not yet.
Lynch took a deep breath before speaking. “Tell me exactly what happened. You sent two of your best vampires…”
“Actually I, uh, sent two new vampires—”
“Define new,” Lynch interrupted.
Douglas shifted nervously. Lynch had not invited him to be seated so he stood there like a recalcitrant schoolboy in front of the headmaster. “They were eager to do the work.”
“Define new,” Lynch repeated.
“They were fledging mercenaries.”
“Fledging mercenaries as in they hadn’t eaten in days? That kind of fledging?”
Douglas nodded, beads of sweat appearing above his lip.
“You didn’t consider the risk that they might drain Miss Turner of her blood?” Lynch inquired.
“They knew her blood would be toxic to them and I promised I’d give them plenty of fresh blood upon their return. I thought they could handle the job.”
“You thought wrong,” Lynch said before flicking the knife through the air and through Douglas’s throat.
Douglas instantly disintegrated into a pile of dust.
“Time for a new director of operations,” Lynch noted to himself before holding out his hand and compelling the knife to return to his desk, where he wiped it clean. The tungsten knife was a new addition to his arsenal, one he’d developed himself, giving him yet another way to destroy those who would not successfully complete their assignments. He had no tolerance for incompetence. No tolerance at all.
* * *
Damon was waiting for Alex in Vamptown’s underground security center beneath the All Nighter Bar and Grill. Many of the buildings in the neighborhood had been built in the early 1900s, and most were connected with the tunnels used during Prohibition in the 1920s for those bootleggers transporting illegal alcohol. The tunnels came in handy for the vampire residents … as well as the resident witches.
