Blood Unleashed (Blood Stone)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Roman studied him, his head tilting. “Really,” he said flatly. He straightened up. “I don’t know how long it will take. A piece of lead isn’t much to work on.”

  “It’s a boutique cartridge,” Marcus pointed out.

  “So I saw from the crimping marks on the copper outer layer. Give me three days. I’ll see what I can find. If I strike out, you can always try bribing someone from your people to do the search covertly.”

  “I’m a poor civil servant,” Marcus pointed out.

  “You have my felicitations.” Roman stood up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a Monroe dress coming up that I want to add to my stock.”

  “Marilyn Monroe?”

  “Norma Jean herself.” Roman grinned. “This business sucks, most days.”

  He headed back to the auction room, turning the heads of staff and female buyers and the odd male, too. He radiated power and was filled with a quiet, deadly self-confidence that was rare, but otherwise he seemed utterly human.

  Marcus shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, analyzing his first encounter with a vampire. It had been extraordinary for its ordinariness. However, Roman had shown no discomfort with a covert conversation and he had palmed the bullet like a pro. It spoke of hidden experience. Vampires would have a lot of that, Marcus realized.

  After a while, he glanced at his watch, then headed for the exit and his car. He had done everything he could. He had to wait to see what Roman found, now. Surprisingly, he felt supremely confident that Roman would track down The Whisper for him. He had given off such a competent, capable air – one that usually came with a lot of experience. Centuries of it, in Roman’s case.

  Chapter Nine

  There was no one in the front office room when Rick walked in to Nial’s place, thirty minutes later. A computer screen was showing something that looked like diagnostics, being run from the command prompt.

  Rick listened and heard murmurs from the big formal lounge room just down the hall. He hurried there and found Winter sitting on one square Ottoman, while a strange woman sat on another, opposite Winter. It was hard to tell if the woman was young or old. She had collar length black hair with a deep white streak running through it from her temple, but her eyes were young and unlined.

  Both of them looked at Rick as he entered.

  “Where is Nial?” he asked.

  Winter blinked.

  “He is anxious,” the woman said, apparently to Winter.

  “Is that…the same shirt you were wearing three days ago?” Winter asked.

  “It is. Where is Nial? This is important.”

  “I figured, “ Winter replied serenely, standing up. “You look paler than usual. When did you last feed?”

  “What?” Annoyance poured in and mixed with the frustration swirling through him.

  “You’re experiencing the first symptoms of blood fever. Can’t you tell?”

  Rick frowned. Then he registered the fact that some of his frustration was actually a building and unmet need. He was hungry. He gave a small sound of exasperation. “I don’t have time for this,” he muttered. “Where is he?”

  Winter tilted her head, her eyes narrowing. “If the matter is really that urgent—”

  “Damn it all, yes! You didn’t understand that the first time? I’m wearing the same clothes I was wearing three days ago, I’m clearly in a hurry and I’ve repeated my question twice and rephrased it once. If that doesn’t—”

  Winter took his hand.

  “What on earth…?” He tugged to remove her grip, but she held on.

  “I can help,” she told him. “Shh…” She was staring at him with a peculiar intensity, made more powerful by the clear green of her eyes. They were the exact same color as Sebastian’s eyes, Rick realized. Why had he not noticed that before? Truth is, he had taken very little notice of anyone in the house unless they were an obstruction or of assistance.

  Something inside him loosened and relaxed. He could take a full breath again. He gazed into her eyes. “You stopped the hunger,” he breathed. “How?”

  “I’ve masked it.” She dropped his hand. “It will only last for a few hours and then the need to feed will be much stronger, so make sure you take care of it before it wears off. You’ll have little resistance when it kicks back in.”

  He took another deep breath. It felt wonderful to just breathe. “I will. Thank you.”

  “Nial is in the upstairs living room. You know where that is?”

  “I’ll find it.” He nodded at the dark-haired woman, turned and hurried through to the winding stairs and climbed them. He took the stairs two at a time. His blood fever might have been temporarily halted, but Winter had not removed the irritation at being delayed by stupid questions.

  At the top of the stairs he detected muffled noise to the right. He moved in that direction and came to a pair of doors, closed. The noise was coming from inside. It sounds a lot like rain.

  Curious, he opened the door. It was very dim inside. There was a projection TV screen hanging from the ceiling, at the far end of the room. The screen was nearly ten feet in depth. Playing upon it was what looked like a movie. The sound of rain was coming from that.

  “Here! Here it comes. Watch,” Sebastian said. He was sitting on a sofa that was turned to face the screen. Garrett and Nial shared another sofa, and Dominic had the third all to himself. This was a home theatre room.

  The woman in the picture jumped from the ledge of a very high balcony, and dropped like a graceful stone down to the pavement, where the impact didn’t grind her into jam. She landed delicately on one foot and walked off into the rain, her long black leather coat flapping behind her.

  Rick blinked, while Nial and Garret laughed aloud.

  “I told you,” Sebastian. “But further on, it gets even more bizarre.”

  “You’re watching movies?” Rick asked in disbelief.

  Nial turned to look at him. So did Garrett. Sebastian paused the movie with a remote. He did not look pleased at the interruption.

  “It’s a movie about vampires,” Garrett said, his tone friendly. “Stupid ones, so far.”

  “It’s amusing,” Nial added.

  Rick grimaced. “A real vampire could drop like that and survive, but the ground where he landed would be crumbled dust.” He nodded his head toward the screen. “They didn’t even try to pretend there are laws of physics they should make allowances for. That not amusing. It’s stupid.”

  The room lights came on. Dominic stood at the controls, blinking. As the only human here, he wanted light to see properly.

  Nial rested an arm on the back of his sofa. “You look…ruffled. What is the matter?”

  Rick pushed through the sofas to the small clear area in front of the screen. They all turned to face him. Nial’s expression was subdued, while Sebastian looked irritated. Garrett wore a small smile. Of everyone in this room, he had been the friendliest and most welcoming – when he had been in Los Angeles. Dominic sat on his sofa, leaning forward, watching carefully. Rick didn’t know if he had any ability to read lips. He hoped so. He wasn’t going to write this down.

  “Dominic, when I was here three days ago, you asked me who had shot Winter and Nial last year. Why did you ask that?”

  Dominic frowned heavily. Garrett tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to Sebastian, who signed quickly.

  Dominic shifted his gaze back to Rick. “A friend.”

  Rick detected the flush of color in his cheeks. “A date?” he asked.

  Reluctantly, Dominic nodded.

  “What the fuck?” Sebastian asked. “No one but us knows about that!”

  Nial was watching Rick. Rick could tell by his expression that he had figured this out already. “The shooter knew,” Nial said quietly. “So did the person who gave the order.”

  “Dominic,” Rick began, again. “Your date. Pretty, about this tall—” He held his hand at the five foot two mark. “Black hair.”

  Dominic pulled his gaze away from Sebastian�
��s hands and looked at Rick. He nodded.

  “Okay, I’m interested. How did you know that, Rick?” Garrett asked.

  “It ties in with Sushi?” Nial asked. “You’re wearing the clothes you had on when we talked about him and you left here thinking about him. Is that what this is about?”

  “Sushi and much more,” Rick told him. “Dominic just confirmed it for me.”

  Everyone glanced at Dominic, who lifted his hands up in an I-don’t-follow shrug.

  Rick explained. “Lowenstein – Richard Lowenstein. He’s the Speaker for the House, and he’s been missing for ten days now. We all know he’s one of the primary figures in the Pro Libertatus.”

  “What about him?” Sebastian asked.

  “He’s dead,” Rick said flatly. “I have two pictures that show the big front window of his apartment in Washington. One was taken the day after his disappearance was reported. The other is from a tabloid piece done two months ago. The window has been replaced.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s dead,” Garrett pointed out reasonably.

  “It does once everything else is added in,” Rick assured him. “Then there’s Suresh Harris – Sushi – dying in Istanbul. He was Danich Wulfson’s narish, so what was he doing in Istanbul with his brain and blood saturated by a speedball? Clearly, it was murder, but why? And why Turkey?”

  “Connect the dots for us,” Nial said gently.

  “Wulfson is dead. He was possibly killed in Turkey, or here, if he’s one of the leaders of the League as I have previously surmised. Which leaves a vacuum at the top of the League….and the Libertatus.”

  “It might explain the silence and lack of movement from them the last few weeks,” Garrett suggested.

  Rick shook his head. “Sushi was killed only seven days ago. Wulfson would have been two or three days later. He would have milked Sushi for all he knew, then hunted down Wulfson immediately after that so Sushi’s absence didn’t tip him off.”

  “Who milked Sushi?” Sebastian demanded.

  Rick shrugged. “Who else?”

  “Heru?” Nial asked.

  “He flew to Turkey ten days ago,” Rick said.

  “Turkey…that’s turning up a lot in conversation,” Garrett said. “Kate found the Blood Stone there, Sushi was killed there. Lowenstein did a meet and greet in Istanbul about three months ago.”

  Rick looked at him.

  “I got an invitation to attend,” Garrett explained. “But I didn’t go because I didn’t want to be anywhere near Lowenstein and his cohorts and not have at least Nial standing with me. Lowenstein probably knows who I am by now.” He grimaced. “Knew who I was,” he corrected.

  “What’s the connector?” Nial asked Rick.

  Rick held up a finger. “Lowenstein was taken out by a sniper.”

  “Bullets don’t kill vampires,” Sebastian shot back instantly.

  “They halt them long enough for someone to finish the job,” Rick replied blandly. He checked off the second finger. “You and Winter were taken out by a sniper. The sniper was Pro Libertatus, because the League made their own independent move a day later, which doesn’t make sense if they had taken the shot. So, it was Pro Libertatus. But why turn that sniper around and shoot the leader of your own faction?”

  “They didn’t?” Nial replied. He was letting Rick explain this how he wanted to, and feeding him the responses he needed, even though it was possible that Nial had already realized the outcomes from what Rick had said so far.

  “The sniper was part of the League,” Rick said. “The Pro Libertatus ‘borrowed’ them for the desert job. But there’s no honor amongst thieves—”

  Sebastian grinned.

  “—so the League covered their tracks, or perhaps they simply didn’t like how powerful the Libertatus were. They took out Lowenstein – cut off the Libertatus head and brains. Then they paused to reconsider their options now that the Libertatus were weakened. But then a new factor appeared. Heru abducted Sushi and sucked out everything he needed to know about the League, then flew straight to America to deal with Wulfson.” Rick dropped his hands. “Heru has control of the League. The Libertatus are in disarray, which suits him perfectly.” He pointed at Nial. “The sniper is coming after you, next.”

  There was a tight, hard silence. He had everyone’s complete attention now.

  “You know who the sniper is, don’t you?” This time, it was Sebastian who asked the question. Rick had shocked him out of his negativity.

  “Dominic’s date,” Nial breathed and turned his head to look at Dominic.

  Dominic moved his gaze from one man to the next as he tried to fathom why the sudden interest in him. He gave a self-conscious grin.

  Sebastian waved to get Dominic’s attention, then signed a short explanation.

  Dominic’s grin faded. He looked at Rick. “I never saw her again. The number she gave me doesn’t work.”

  “Burner phone,” Sebastian replied.

  “So, who is she?” Garrett asked.

  “I don’t know her name,” Rick replied. “But I know what she is. Western world law enforcement knows her as The Whisper. I’ve heard of her as The Black Breath. She is one of the top three snipers in the world.” He paused. He had their attention completely now. “She is vampire,” he added.

  Nial sat back. “So, she’s a League member and rented herself out to the Libertatus.”

  “That’s where it gets foggy,” Rick confessed. “I tracked her back to the Second World War and apart from time during the war as a French Resistance fighter, she has always been freelance. Being loaned out to the Libertatus doesn’t fit with being a gun for hire.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t her who the Libertatus used,” Sebastian suggested.

  Rick shook his head. “The shot was technically near impossible. There were people everywhere and everyone was moving. She had to have been half a mile away, for that was the nearest cover. She carefully hit her targets and didn’t hit any humans and she took one shell to do it.”

  “So why would she come after Nial?” Sebastian asked. “He’s always with someone. Even if she took him out, no one would be able to get close to him after that to finish the deed. Sniper shots are only lethal for humans.”

  “It fits the pattern,” Nial said. “Lowenstein and Wulfson are both gone. That leaves just me.” He looked at Rick. “Right?”

  Rick nodded. “And now Heru has control of the League. If he takes you out – however he takes you out – he’s won the game. He will have control over vampire affairs and can do anything he wants.”

  “Does that include using the Blood Stone?”

  Rick took a deep breath. “I think that…if Heru managed to kill Nial and gather all the reins of power in his hand, then he would not find it necessary to use the Stone. It’s too powerful and too much an unknown factor. Even he does not fully understand it, but he knows that to use it would be to use an atom bomb against a mosquito. I think he’ll keep the Stone to gloat over it…and as back-up insurance to hold over everyone’s head.”

  “’Behave or I’ll use it?’” Sebastian blew out a gusty sigh. “Jesus….”

  “Why not?” Rick asked. “He would only use the Stone to gain world domination over vampires, the only race he considers important. If he kills Nial and thereby gains control over every vampire political faction, then he’ll have what he wants and no need to use the Stone unless his control slips. Heru won’t let it slip once he has it.”

  The silence was thought-filled. Nial looked calm, but then, Rick had seen him hide the most hideous anger until it was politically safe to vent. He had superb mastery over his emotions.

  “Then, I suppose I must make sure I’m not killed,” Nial said, his tone light.

  “With the world’s best gunning for you?” Garrett asked, his tone just as light.

  Sebastian had his hands twined together. His knuckles were white, but he didn’t say anything. He was watching Nial closely.

  Nial looked at Rick. “Did you surmis
e anything else from this…disparate set of clues?”

  Rick shook his head. “There are more questions – there always are. Why is she with the League and not out on her own as she has always worked? Why this human method of execution when vampire methods are more effective? But there is enough here for me to be ninety percent sure of my conclusions.”

  Sebastian leaned forward, his hands still linked, and looked at Nial. “I’m going to nail you into a lead-lined room with a quart of blood and leave you there for the next month.”

  Nial smiled at him. “I think you’ll find that the sort of cartridges this sniper uses will go straight through lead.”

  Sebastian fell back against the sofa cushions and pushed a hand through his hair. “Fuck,” he said, his voice low.

  For once, Rick agreed with him.

  Chapter Ten

  It was an hour after sunset when Rick slotted the key in the door of his borrowed apartment and stepped inside.

  He sniffed, then grew still, the keys dangling from his fingers. His heart started beating heavily. It was quite dark in the room but he didn’t need light. In one sweeping analysis; female scent, light, spicy and enticing; the blinds have been drawn and I left them open; the neighbors’ balcony light was taken out to prevent light spilling in through the front windows; no movement in the room, but she’s here; professional level skills; he knew who was waiting for him. The secondary analysis – why him? Why not Nial?—would come later.

  “You shouldn’t have worn perfume,” he said to the dark.

  Silence.

  “Isn’t your usual range closer to a kilometer? Five meters is extraordinarily intimate.”

  He heard the faintest swish of movement in the kitchen.

  Her legs thrust out from the counter next to the fridge, which was hidden from him where he stood just inside the front door. The long legs were followed by the rest of her body in a sinuous arc. She landed on one booted foot and stepped toward him.

  Rick did a quick assessment, tallying her appearance with the photos he had pinned to the wall upstairs. Pitch black hair, silky, with a sheen despite the dark. It swung gently with each step, brushing her elbows.