We rounded the corner and walked two blocks. Garrett stopped in front of a plain, redbrick building in the middle of the third block and rang a buzzer. There was a pause, and someone buzzed us into the building. I couldn’t decide which thought bothered me more—that they had some sort of camera and recognized Garrett, or that they might let anyone in.
The outside of the building might have been nondescript; the inside was anything but. The door opened into a beautifully decorated foyer. A tall, thin man in a tuxedo took our coats and hung them in a small closet off to the left, then motioned us through an arched doorway behind him.
In the main room, I glanced around to get my bearings. An enormous crystal chandelier hung down from the ceiling, casting a sharp, glittering light across the scene below. The balcony overlooked the central area, a marble-tiled room with white floors and burgundy velvet drapes covering the walls and windows. A black marble staircase curved up to the balcony on each side of the room.
At the very back, a bartender manned a bar made of dark wood. As I watched, several people (or maybe vampires) slipped through the door that stood directly behind the bar, always sure to close the heavy wood behind them.
Dark niches lined the walls under the balcony, many with velvet drapes drawn across them. The ones that were open held couches, some of them with figures draped across them—sleeping or dead, I wasn’t sure. People—humans? vampires? both?—stood in small groups on the balcony and on the ground floor. Soft, baroque chamber music swayed through the room from a hidden sound system, notes from the flutes dancing across the deeper sound of stringed instruments.
And it smelled like blood. The coppery tang of it shivered on the back of my tongue.
“What do we do now?” I whispered to Garrett.
“Let me deal with it,” he whispered back, scanning the room. Then he lifted his hand in greeting to someone I didn’t see and headed across the room.
I took a deep breath and followed him.
We passed several small groups of people, many of whom turned to watch as we walked by. I heard several hisses—the sort that vampires make—as we passed. We were walking through a room full of vampires. And their willing victims.
The blood houses were an open secret—technically illegal, but ignored by both sides of the fight, as they gave a place for vamps to feed with minimal violence. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but giving the vampires access to a ready food supply helped keep the fragile peace. Doesn’t mean I actually wanted to see a blood house up close and personal. I didn’t, and I hadn’t.
My partner, though, seemed to know his way around this one.
Garrett weaved through the crowd until he came to two women standing together by the bar.
One of the women, a tiny brunette with a pageboy haircut and bright pink lipstick, sidled up to him, sliding across the two feet separating them with eerie vampiric grace. She wore a strapless pink dress, satin on the bodice, taffeta puffing out in a tea-length cloud around her. Her makeup was heavy over her pale skin, her bright blue eyes lined in a matching shade.
“Garrett, you’re back.” Her voice was high, like a child’s—totally different from any vampire I’d heard before. Most of them aimed for “sultry.” This one seemed to be going for “cute.”
“And you’re still not Claimed.” The other woman was the sultry one. Black dress, black hair, black eyeliner, black everything to highlight her white, white skin. Even her voice sounded dark.
“This is Cami.” Garrett gestured toward me. “She’s not Claimed either, but she might be looking.”
Claimed?
“Are you looking, Garrett?” the small one asked.
“Maybe.” He smiled at her, his voice playful. My stomach curdled at the intimacy I heard there—and at the realization that my partner hadn’t fully briefed me on what to expect tonight.
“Your friend doesn’t like it when you flirt,” the taller one said.
I glared at her. Vampires should not know more about me than I do.
“I’ll have to see that she gets over it,” a voice drawled from behind me. I whipped my head around in time to see a man standing up from a barstool behind me. I hadn’t even noticed he was there.
God knows how I could have missed him.
He wore jeans and a dark blue, button-down shirt. He had on dark brown cowboy boots, and as he turned away from the bar, he picked up a black felt cowboy hat from the seat next to him, placing it on his head. On anyone else, I might have assumed that the hats and boots were an affectation. On him, they looked perfect. He was utterly beautiful, with bright green eyes and dark hair that curled down to barely brush the back of his collar.
I am undercover, I reminded myself sternly. Here to do a job.
When Garrett caught my gaze in his, flicking his glance toward the cowboy vamp, it was all I could do to keep from sighing aloud.
Would it have killed my partner to be a little more descriptive when he briefed me?
Of course that was the vampire cowboy I had to get close to tonight.
No making eyes at the informants, Cami.
But damn, he was hot.
“Nice scars.” His gaze skimmed along my bared shoulder.
“Thanks,” I said, almost breathless.
And I am absolutely not attracted to vampires.
I could keep telling myself that.
“But I thought you didn’t do un-Claimed strays, Reese.” The short woman managed to both pout and smile at the same time.
“I might make an exception for this one, Dahlia,” he said.
“Really?” the taller woman asked. She eyed me critically. “I don’t see anything especially interesting there.”
“Then you aren’t paying close enough attention,” Reese said, his voice sliding across my spine like velvet. I shivered, forcing myself not to try to shake it off.
“Apparently.” Her nostrils flared. She sniffed the air ostentatiously, and I got the impression that she intended to snub me. But then her expression changed. She tilted her head and looked at Garrett, then drew closer to me, closing her eyes and drawing deep breaths.
“Who is this?” she asked Reese.
He smiled at her. “Not for you.”
With a sneer, she flipped her hair and turned her back on us, stalking away.
“Would you like to join me in one of the private rooms?” Reese asked me.
Yes. My stomach clenched at how quickly the thought formed.
I am in so much trouble.
“Sure.” I hoped the vamps couldn’t hear the way my heart raced. “It’s why we’re here.”
“Oh, goody,” said Dahlia, still not looking at me. “Does that mean you’ll come away with us, Garrett?”
He shifted his eyes toward me. “I don’t know, Dahlia. It’s been a while.”
I leaned forward and rested my fingertips on Garrett’s arm, hoping to remind him that he’d promised not to get a fix while he was here. But I couldn’t say anything—not without blowing my cover.
Reese’s hands reached out to encircle my waist, and he pulled me back against his chest. “Leave it alone,” he breathed into my ear, so quietly that I felt the words more than heard them.
I forced myself to stay still, ignoring the vampire’s presence at my back, his hands on my body.
This was the first time I’d let one get this close since the arrest-gone-wrong that had left me with the scars.
And definitely the first time I’d ever thought of wanting to let him get even closer.
Crap. Big trouble. Vampires usually horrified me, with their cold, cold skin and their predatory eyes. But this one didn’t repel me, and I worried about what that meant.
My reaction could mean that I was reading an interest in saving humanity, not devouring it—that was, according to Garrett, part of why Reese was an informant.
Or maybe it meant he was a better actor than most of them.
Garrett’s gaze flickered back and forth between me and Dahlia.
“Goodn
ess,” said Dahlia. “Your friend is worried about you? But, sweetie,” she turned to me, “I’ll take care of him. Garrett never gets hurt when I take care of him.” She placed a proprietary hand on his arm.
I stared steadily at Garrett.
I have to maintain my cover. I repeated it over and over to myself, a mantra that did little to convince me I was doing the right thing by letting Garrett go with the vampire women.
“Have fun,” I finally managed.
“Come with me.” Reese’s hand moved down my arm, his fingers entwining in mine, and he moved away from Garrett and Dahlia, pulling me along behind him. I watched Garrett over my shoulder as I went. Not until Reese snapped a velvet curtain shut did I realize that he had led me into one of the alcoves under the balconies.
I meant to ask him what the sniffing business with Dahlia’s companion had been about, but I forgot everything else when he pushed me down onto the red velvet couch that took up most of the space in the alcove.
“I told Garrett it was a bad idea to meet in a blood house,” he hissed at me. For the first time since he’d spoken up at the bar, he actually sounded like a vampire. The irises of his eyes were beginning to glow the blue of a vampire’s bloodlust—a color I had learned to loathe during my time on the Sucker Squad.
“So why didn’t we meet elsewhere?” I asked. “And what’s a stray?”
He ignored my first question. I knew the answer, anyway—we had met here because a vampire meeting a human anywhere else might draw suspicion from both sides of an undeclared war.
“Anyone who hasn’t been Claimed.” He continued before I could ask, “Being Claimed creates a bond between a vampire and bloodgiver. A vampire can always tell where his Claimed bloodgivers are, sometimes what they’re thinking or doing.”
I shuddered at the thought of such an intimate connection with the monsters I hunted.
Reese leaned back a bit. “You don’t know what Garrett did to get you in, do you? He told the administrator he had someone who wanted to be Claimed,” he said, narrowing his eyes and tilting his head to one side.
I froze. “What?”
Reese’s voice dropped. “Your partner had been banned from the blood houses. He really didn’t tell you anything, did he?”
Oh, shit.
“Shh,” Reese whispered, holding one hand up to forestall any comment from me. Suddenly, he was over me, his knee pressing down the cushion between my legs, his arms pinning me to the back of the couch, his body hovering inches above mine.
I stared into his face, breathless with some combination of anger and anxiety. The vampire’s eyes flared an even brighter blue, the color creeping out to cover the natural green of the irises.
Over his shoulder, I saw the curtain twitch open. The taller of the two female vampires I’d seen earlier—the sniffer—poked her head into the room.
“You two want company?” she asked, flashing her fangs in a predatory smile.
“Go away, Katrina,” Reese said.
“You want this one all to yourself, I see. Fine. Go ahead and be greedy. See if I care.” But she didn’t leave. She stepped inside and leaned against the frame of the wall that separated our alcove from the next one. “Can’t I at least watch?” she cajoled. “I promise I won’t touch.”
“Get. Out.” Reese was practically growling.
“Okay, okay.” She heaved a big sigh. “But I’ll be out in the main room if you change your mind.”
She left, the curtain swaying shut as she dropped it back into place.
Reese leaned back but didn’t move from his position over me. “You can’t leave this room without being bled.”
“Bled?” I was pretty sure I sounded and looked as horrified as I felt.
“Addicts like your partner aren’t welcome here. But then he offered to bring someone new.” Reese watched me carefully. “If you leave this room without being bled, it will put all of us in danger.”
My breath caught in my throat, and I pressed my lips together, unwilling to respond.
Had Garrett really used me to get back into the blood house? Or was that just part of the undercover op?
“How will anyone know if I’ve been bitten tonight?” I realized I had been unconsciously running my fingertips over my scars when I saw Reese’s gaze tracking the movement.
“They’ll smell it.” He leaned in close to me again, breathing in deeply. “You’ve been bled before,” he whispered, running his own finger lightly over the scars on my shoulder.
I whimpered. I couldn’t help myself. But then I pulled myself together enough to say, “Not voluntarily.” My heart beat wildly against my ribcage, and I fought to maintain some air of professional detachment.
His hand trembled and he pulled it away from me.
“I won’t hurt you.” He leaned his face in and nuzzled my shoulder.
“Oh, God.” I shuddered, my voice quavering as I lost all pretense of calm. “Please don’t. I don’t want to end up like Garrett. Please. This was supposed to be for show.”
He drew back a little and looked into my eyes. The glowing blue had taken over his irises entirely and was spreading out to cover the whites of his eyes. The eerie glimmer matched the light that had shone from the victims at the crime scenes. I was certain the two were connected, though I couldn’t do more at the moment than file the similarity away in my back-brain, to be examined later.
“You won’t end up an addict, Cami,” Reese whispered, his voice hoarse. “This is for show. But I have to take some. If I don’t, those vampires out there will begin to suspect that you’re not what you seem. And if that happens, they might not let either of us out of here alive.”
“Are you sure? Maybe they’ll ignore us.” I knew I sounded desperate, but I didn’t care.
He chuckled and his voice regained some of its normal timbre. “Sweetheart, I just took a woman into a bleeding room for the first time in…well, in a very long time. Longer than some of those people have even been vampires. Believe me, they’re going to be paying attention to us when we walk out of here.”
“A woman?” I said, a little wildly. “Does that mean that you’ve brought men here?”
“No,” he whispered, leaning in again and putting the full weight of his body against mine. “Not men. Not women. No one.”
“Promise you won’t take too much?” My voice was small and breathy.
“Yes,” he whispered against my neck.
“Okay.” I hardly even voiced the word.
And then his fangs were in my shoulder, slicing cleanly through the knotty scar tissue, sliding into the muscle below.
I had tensed, prepared for pain, but the hurt didn’t come—not like I expected, anyway. It was more like a needle sliding in: a sudden, sharp pinprick, then gone.
And then it was all pleasure.
“Oh,” I gasped in surprise, then deeper, “oh.”
Reese moaned as his mouth worked against my shoulder.
“Um. Cami?” Lieutenant Iverson’s voice echoed in my ear.
Dammit. I had forgotten they were listening in.
Apparently, Reese heard it too, because he pulled away from me and sat up.
“I’m here, Iverson.” My voice shook.
“Everything okay in there?”
“Fine,” I said quietly. I had regained control of my voice, at least.
“Need us to come in?”
“No. I’ll be out in a bit.” I pulled my sweater up over my shoulder, as if Iverson could possibly see me, and pulled the plug on the wire. I’d reconnect it later. After I regained some composure.
I patted my dark, shoulder-length hair into place and glanced at Reese. His eyes had returned to their normal green.
“Is that good enough?” I asked.
He grinned at me wryly. “I guess it’ll have to do, since you brought a chaperone.”
I ignored that bit, plugging the wire back in. Reese pulled the curtain aside, ushering me back into the main room with his palm on the small of my back. I
took a step out and was suddenly glad for his steadying hand; I felt dizzy and breathless for a moment. I didn’t know if it was the events of the last twenty minutes or the effect of all the vampiric eyes on me.
Reese had been right: The vampires stared at us as we came out of the alcove. And did more than stare too. They drifted closer, eyeing me up and down. Several of them even slid up beside me and circled around us, their noses twitching in the air like predatory animals scenting their prey. I glanced at Reese a little anxiously. He didn’t look back at me, though. He was too busy staring down the most aggressive of the sniffers. One woman even tried to touch me, but Reese snarled, lifting one side of his lip and revealing a fang. The female vamp backed off.
“I think that’s enough for tonight.” Reese glanced over his shoulder at the retreating vamp and steered me toward the exit.
“Mmm,” I murmured in agreement. I had planned to have Reese introduce me around so I could start to get to know the other players in the Dallas vamp scene. But I didn’t feel up to it now.
That was fine. Tonight was all about show—setting me up as Reese’s blood-tramp, giving us a public reason to spend more time together later as he worked to gain entry into the Vampire Admin and learn more about the Sanguinary.
We had certainly accomplished our goal for the evening.
I tamped down a shudder.
Even I couldn’t have said if it was a tremor of revulsion or desire.
Chapter 2
Two days later, staring at the reports from the Winspear Opera House scene, as well as photos from a brand new, West End crime scene, I was fairly certain it was revulsion—even if the twinges coming from the fang-marks Reese had left in my shoulder suggested otherwise.
For the first time in the investigation, the crime-scene photographer had caught the eerie blue light that had appeared at every scene. In the picture, it swirled up from the new victim’s body, the beams bending in to meet one another in a bright blue spark about five feet off the ground and reflecting off the back windows of the Dallas County Administration Building—better known by its former name, the Texas School Book Depository.
Sanguinary (Night Shift Book 1) Page 2
