Jess jammed her hand through the outside wall and ripped out the wiring for the alarm system. The door opened quickly. “We're in."
They moved down the hall in unison. She motioned Britt toward the morgue, then indicated she'd go straight to the coffee room.
With a nod, he slipped through the double doors into the morgue. She prayed Beverley wouldn't wake up and consider Britt her midnight snack.
Laughter filtered down the hall from the coffee room. Someone bit into a crunchy apple. Even from this distance Jess's hearing and sense of smell were acute. “Red delicious,” she muttered under her breath. She prided herself on her abilities, and ‘good news’ they seemed to be working okay tonight.
She wouldn't attempt mind control unless she had to. If she left them too foggy and with lost time it would be an easy jump for the Chief to figure out that she took the body. He probably would anyway, but he'd have no solid proof to hang on her. She pressed against the wall just outside the coffee room door, listening for any movement or sounds that meant they were going to leave. At the same time, she kept her hearing attuned to the morgue.
If she had to fog the minds of the workers in the coffee room, how much time would she have to help Britt if things got dicey? Not enough. Not nearly enough.
* * * *
Britt entered the morgue with all the hair on his body standing on end. Damn it! He still hadn't shaken his phobia of bones! What if the local forensic anthropologist had remains in here? Give him a mutilated body any day over a pile of moldy, chalk gray bones. An uncontrollable shiver wracked through him.
Not in the actual morgue, but the storage area, a full bank of person-sized drawers were tucked into the wall on his right. There were name tags in slots in the front of the drawers so he didn't have to pull out each one in order to find Beverley Kellerman. Thank God!
He found her name on the third name tag, grabbed a gurney from the corner and pulled it close before he took hold of the handle to open the drawer. With the drawer still shut, he listened for sounds of a dead person coming to life inside. Hearing nothing but the sound of his own blood pulsing through his veins, he yanked the door open and rolled out the slab.
Beverley Kellerman looked very dead when he peeked at her face underneath the green sheet. He watched her for a few seconds. Was she really dead or just zonked out in vampire slumber? He'd seen Jess in stasis, and there was no way to tell if she was alive.
At any rate, Beverley Kellerman didn't look like Jess when she was sleeping. Instead she looked lifeless to the extreme. Put a whole new spin on deathly white, but that didn't mean a helluva lot, he supposed.
He poked her hard with his index finger. Then did it again.
Dead as it got.
Good.
Next he grabbed the thin sheet, whipped it off and tossed it into the corner so he could lift her onto the gurney.
He stared at her now and swallowed. Jesus. She was naked.
But of course, she was naked. What did he expect? At least she hadn't been autopsied yet. Didn't have long hideous cuts and stitches all over her body. In retrospect, throwing that sheet in the far corner had been a huge mistake.
"Get it over with, Brittain. You don't have all day,” he growled to himself, then pursed his lips and wrapped his arms around her cold, naked flesh. He flopped her onto the gurney like she was a prize catch just off a tuna boat. She had about as much give as a tuna, too.
He cursed again when he realized her shoulder length brown hair was caught in his watch strap. He tried to get free gently at first, then realized that was of little use to the victim. She really didn't care if he pulled her hair. So he yanked, and yanked hard. He heard a tearing sound that made his knees go a little wobbly before he pulled his wrist out from under her head. Yuck.
Thank God it was only hair caught in his watch strap. After that noise he'd been afraid he'd taken part of her scalp, too.” Eeeew ... He looked down at her just as the morgue doors flew open.
"What the hell is taking you so long?” Jess hissed through the opening.
His head shot up. This looked bad. Damn it! Why'd he have to ball up that sheet and throw it in the corner?
He stepped in front of the woman. Tried to hide her nakedness, as if she had any modesty at this point. She was still a human being and deserved some decency.
"Why are you standing over a naked corpse? And why isn't she in the SUV by now?"
He raised his arm, displaying his watch. “Her hair got caught in my watch strap. I just got it out when you threw the door open,” he whispered. “Where are the others, anyway? Why aren't you watching them?"
If looks could wither, hers just withered him. Shit.
"You took so long I had to create a slight fog in their minds. Here's hoping the discrepancy in their time doesn't set off any alarm bells within the Department."
She was so angry her teeth had grown to a sharp point and her eyes had turned black. “Now, could you please get that naked woman off that slab and into my truck?"
She must've seen him look at the sheet in the corner because she went into super-fast mode, grabbed it and wrapped it around the dead woman.
"At least she hasn't turned into a vampire, yet.” She looked at her watch. “Now, let's hurry."
Tired of manhandling a naked, dead person, he shoved the gurney through the morgue doors, and raced down the hallway. Even at his accelerated speed Jess had no problem making it to the door before him. She held it open, looked both ways, and beckoned him to proceed.
By the time they had the dead woman shoved into the back of the SUV, Britt had a fine sheen of sweat across his brow. His shirt felt equally damp and uncomfortable.
"That had to be the highlight of my career,” Britt said, ripping off his latex gloves and holding his hand out for Jess's gloves. She peeled them off and tossed them to Britt. Jumping into the passenger seat, he shoved the gloves into the center console while Jess revved the engine and put the vehicle in gear and pealed onto the street.
"Way to stay low key.” Britt grabbed the dash, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one saw them.
"Had to. Didn't you see Chief Brown walking up the sidewalk?
"No. How far away was he?"
"Probably far enough that if you couldn't see him, he couldn't see us. That's why I wanted to get away as fast as possible. If he made our plates, we'd have been screwed."
Jess finally let up on the gas pedal, and Britt let go of the dash. “Where are we going? Back to Sampson's lab?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Jess stopped the vehicle at a red light, and turned to look at him. “Because it's the first place the cops will look. We can't tell Sampson where she is, either. Plausible deniability."
"Great. Where are we taking her then?"
"I've been thinking about that. For now, we need to stash her. I was thinking your old partner's crypt would be a good place."
Britt's hair stood on end yet again. He hated that damned graveyard, and he hated that crypt even more. There were definitely bones in that building. And even worse, he'd seen them, smelled them and heard them rattle. He shuddered violently.
"Sure, no problem,” he said, releasing a slow breath. Maybe he should see a counselor. Imagine a shrink's reaction if Britt said he wanted the ability to handle seeing or being in the presence of human bones. Yeah. Not a good plan.
He looked over his shoulder at the corpse piled into the back of the SUV. “Do you think there's still a chance she can become a vampire?” He'd already met one too many vampires in that particular cemetery.
"Actually, there is still a chance. I'm going to take a blood sample after we get her inside, then I can analyze the VNA content when we get back to the lab. I know enough about rudimentary lab work to be able to do that without implicating Sampson.” She grinned just slightly. “And Sampson knows enough about me, not to ask questions if I decide to run a few tests of my own."
Britt ground his teeth together. It wasn't the right time.
Hell, of course it wasn't, but he wanted to talk to her about her comments in Regent's office. She didn't mean them. She couldn't.
But if he brought that subject up now, she'd probably toss him out of the vehicle without stopping. “I'll keep watch outside the crypt while you take her inside and lay her on Grandpa Starr's sarcophagus to get a blood sample."
She laughed out loud, and this time he wasn't amused. Then she said, “I'm pretty sure his final resting place is called a coffin, not a sarcophagus."
[Back to Table of Contents]
CHAPTER NINE
Vaslov stepped into the boardroom. Sitting around the massive oak table were some of the most powerful vampires on the planet. Vampires who liked their privacy, and the women he was able to provide for them.
They'd had lower class women for years. Now they wanted important women, women in power, to be theirs, if only for a weekend. Any longer and their disappearance would be hard to explain—not to mention Drago would have a hard time wiping their memories beyond that.
One of his customers had gotten carried away, but he wasn't about to blame any of these monsters for her death. Not openly. They'd all signed contracts with him promising they would stop themselves from actually taking all of their victim's blood. It kept him in business, and it kept them happy with whatever women they wanted.
"We've heard the news about Beverley Kellerman,” said Vincent Broderick, a tall, thin man with eyes so cold and dank Vaslov felt like his soul had been compromised just by looking into them.
Damn, he was hoping no one would mention Kellerman's death, but now that it was out, he had to do damage control.
"Yes. I've got my best man looking into the problem. Please rest assured none of our clients are involved. Nonetheless, we don't like being linked to anything like this. It's not good for any of us because it has the possibility of bringing attention to this club."
Six vampires sat at his table, soulless killers all. They didn't care that Kellerman was dead, but they did care if any of the tainted blood spilled onto them.
For the most part, these were dark Lords who'd been able to transition into the business world as legitimate leaders. They had money, and they had reputations to uphold. Problem was they still had to eat to live, and they preferred warm blood from living hosts. And why not? The rich imbibed expensive champagne, not wine from the box. So, too, these affluent vampires preferred top notch victims for their palates.
"Will this affect your ability to supply us with new product?” Marrtin Bruner leaned forward, elbows on the table, he stretched out a hand displaying a blood diamond the size of Mount Vesuvius.
"Definitely not. There will be no slowdown in services."
"And me? Have you got my next order ready?” A voice interrupted from a communication device in the center of the table. He was the weirdest one in the bunch, and it had taken Drago quite a while before he'd even let the guy phone in. He said his name was Kaled, but Drago didn't believe it. Even with his vast resources he could find nothing on any vampire by that name. And Drago had very well connected contacts. In the end his money was too lucrative to turn down, and since the other vampires weren't threatened by him, he decided to allow this method of interaction. He still had some reservations about the guy, but he'd been a client long enough to know he really was a vampire with a very healthy appetite and a lot of cold, hard cash.
"She's nearly ready. As I'm sure you can appreciate, she's the most difficult of our clients to handle without raising suspicion. The fact that she's both a vampire and a cop makes it that much more difficult. Are you sure she's the one you want?"
"Either you can supply her to me, or you can't. It's that simple.” Irritation spiked behind the monotone words coming through the communication device.
"I can. But it'll take more time. We can't rush this one."
"Maybe I'll have a go at her when you're finished,” Reinhold Vasser leaned forward, an excited glimmer in his eyes.
"Not likely. This one is going to be exclusively mine. I've paid ten million to have her, and if I find out any of you have even touched her, I'll kill you myself,” Kaled said.
Laughter erupted around the table. Pheromones and power spiked the air. Kaled had done nothing but make everyone in the room interested in his quarry.
Drago cursed under his breath. A client had never demanded exclusivity with a victim before, but then, he'd never reeled in a vampire before, either.
His talents worked well on humans, but he still had to figure out if he had the ability to wipe a vampire's mind for forty-eight hours. Quite a bit longer than even the oldest master vampires could manage fogging minds, otherwise, Drago wouldn't be in business.
Danger always gave Vaslov a rush. He couldn't wait to find out if he could make Jess Vandermire, vampire hunter, his slave. What a coup that would be.
He looked up at the ceiling, and allowed a half grin at the secret camera taping every meeting. So far his methods were working on Jess. He'd been able to liberally lace her flesh with the powerful drug that enabled his mind to control hers. A few more doses and she'd be his.
* * * *
The moon had slipped behind heavy clouds just before Jess ripped open the door to Randy Starr's crypt for the second time.
Britt lifted the corpse out of the back of the truck and carried Beverley Kellerman forward as gently as he would a living woman.
An uneasy feeling settled in Jess's stomach. He was too good for this job. It would be the death of him. And it would be her fault.
"Damn it,” he said, when he stumbled over a hefty bit of grass. “Wish I could see in the dark like you do."
"No, you really don't. Nothing is worth this.” She didn't mean for her statement to sound quite so cynical. The last thing she needed right now was for him to feel sorry for her. Her anger hiked up a notch.
He ignored her statement. Smart guy.
"Is everything clear inside?” he asked.
She looked in. “Not sure what you mean by clear, but, yes."
His groan was barely audible. “No open coffins, I presume.” He hated to be weak, but couldn't help his phobia. He really couldn't handle human bones.
"Nothing much. No vampires. No bones. Nothing but dust and a few desiccated flowers."
"Great.” She heard his teeth grit.
A thin beam of moonlight sliced through the tiny window at the back highlighting the cement coffin in the center of the room. “Just lay her here for now."
"Do we leave her here and go back to the lab to do the blood tests right away?
"No. I've got to stay with her."
"Ah, tonight's the night if it's going to happen?” He shuffled his feet and put Ms. Kellerman down on the cement. When her head smacked harder than expected, the hollow thunk made him cringe. “Sorry about that Beverley."
"She'll forgive you,” Jess said dryly. She could hear Britt's heavy breathing, his increased pulse rate vibrating between them. The darkness reminded her of the two of them entangled in the sheets a few nights ago. She had to push that image out of her head.
"What will you do if she is a vampire? Take her to Regent? See if he can save her the same way he did you?"
"Not possible. Regent's too old. It takes a lot of strength and love to do what he did for me and James."
"So, you'll what? Kill her?"
"Yes, Britt. We'll kill her.” She gave him her most solemn yet understanding look. “Just like we killed Prometheus and his horde of vampires. It's what we do."
"I don't like killing women.” She heard the regret in his voice. The fear that maybe he couldn't do it if he had to. Obviously his feelings for her were clouding his judgment.
"She's not a woman. She's a creature. A vicious, horrible creature with needs and desires that have no place among humans."
"Stop it, Jess. You're not going to drive me away."
"Who said I was talking about me? You asked me about Beverley.” She shoved her hands onto her hips.
"Please, give me credit f
or having some intelligence. You're trying to force me to acknowledge that you're one of them."
Even the wind had faded to a whisper outside, and the air inside the crypt remained lifeless and thick.
Normally, she didn't feel the affects of bad air, but for some reason, tonight she felt as if she couldn't get enough oxygen.
He sucked in a deep breath, too. “It's hot and stuffy in here, isn't it? Maybe we could catch a breath of air if I shove the door open a bit wider."
* * * *
Britt's gut didn't feel right. His skin prickled with Goosebumps even though he was sweating from the heat inside the crypt.
He swallowed hard. Could barely see Jess's outline in the dark. She'd moved toward Kellerman and had leaned over her corpse. Maybe she didn't sense anything but fine hairs rose on the back of his neck.
Not a sound permeated the crypt. Just death.
He needed that door opened wider—to get air. His teeth ground together as he inched forward in the cloying darkness.
One hand reached out and contacted the heavy oak door. It creaked open slowly. Its rusty, high pitched moan interrupted the silence vibrating in Britt's head like an alarm. Stepping outside, he paused. Looked around. His gut sense heightened now.
It was calm outside. Dead calm. And dead wrong.
[Back to Table of Contents]
CHAPTER TEN
"Britt, wait!” Jess shouted, chasing him outside in a blur of speed.
She was too late. When Britt looked back, pain exploded in his right shoulder. He dropped to the ground in dizzying agony. At first he thought he'd been shot, then realized he'd been whacked with something hard.
He was sure the intent had been to knock him out, but his attacker had just barely missed his head and neck area. His shoulder screamed in pain, but he was lucid and played dead long enough to figure out what his next move should be.
Through half-closed eyelids he saw two vampires moving in on Jess. They had some sort of rudimentary, jerry-rigged Taser. Red sparks arced from the center as they got closer to Jess.
"Surely you don't think you can capture me with a little Taser, do you?” Jess laughed. “Since when do vampires need Tasers, anyway?"
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