Last Vampire Standing

by Nancy Haddock

  Pandora sat on the hood of Saber’s car.

  I will stay on the scent while you see to your man.

  “The orange scent?” I asked, clicking the unlock button.

  Yes, and I will alert Triton to the trouble.

  “Well, bring reinforcements, will you? We’ll be at Saber’s place.”

  She hopped to the pavement. Keep wearing the charm. I will find you.

  Three hours later, Saber’s arm was in a cast from his hand to the middle of his forearm, the cast in a blue and white sling. We’d filled Saber’s prescription at a twenty-four-hour Wal greens. Next stop, his condo, where I’d help him clean up, give him a pain pill, and tuck him into bed.

  “Nice place,” I said when he told me to turn into the driveway of a building near the Intracoastal. A very nice building. Five stories, balconies on every floor, built in the 1970s or ’80s.

  “I bought the place a long time ago. Cheap,” he muttered as he hit the button of a remote control device.

  The security gate slid open, and my tight-lipped-with-pain darling guided me to an under-the-building parking place, pointing out the location of the elevator we passed. With his pain meds in hand, I helped him into the elevator.

  “Hit five,” he said.

  “Oooh, the penthouse floor,” I said lightly. “I bet it has a great view.”

  Saber just grunted, and I held his good hand until I unlocked the door to his condo.

  He had a corner unit, and dawn was just creeping through huge plate glass windows on the west and north walls of the living room. I only glanced at the view as I supported Saber down a hall, and I eased him onto his king-size bed.

  “Lie still a minute. I’ll be right back.”

  Light from another huge window in the bedroom lit my way to the bathroom. I groped for the light switch and flipped it on. Wow, no wonder Saber wanted Neil’s house. The decor was so similar, Maggie might’ve been at work here. I grabbed a fresh tan washcloth from a brushed nickel towel rack, wet the cloth with warm water from one of the two sinks, and wheeled back to the bedroom.

  “Here,” I said as I sat next to him on the bed, “let me clean you up before I strip you.”

  “Now that sounds like a plan.” He waggled his brows at me, but halfheartedly.

  “Rein in your libido, lover. You need to take a pain pill and sleep.”

  “No, I need to find out who killed Ike, who grabbed Laurel, and what the hell might happen next.”

  “And what oranges have to do with our mystery vampire.” I dabbed away dirt smudges the ER hadn’t cleaned. “Pandora is tracking the scent. Right now, we can’t do more.”

  “I can. I can search the VPA records and try to make more sense of this.”

  “Those records list some personal info on vamps, don’t they? Habits, companions, and whatnot?”

  Since I was patting the washcloth on a cut near his lip, he merely nodded.

  “Then I’ll get on your computer. Root around in the records, and see what I can find.”

  He caught my hand. “The records aren’t in an area of the site you can access.”

  “Well, um, actually, they are.”

  “You memorized my codes?”

  Since he was giving me his “Lucy, you got some ’splainin’ to do” glare—the look that made him seem very Latino and all the hotter—I just shrugged.

  He sighed. “Do it, then, and leave the printouts on my desk. I’ll get on them tomorrow.”

  “Nuh-uh. You’re going to rest tomorrow. Doctor’s orders.”

  “We’ll see.” He squeezed my hand. “Did you see Donita in the ER?”

  “No. She must’ve been taken to another hospital. That or she’d already been released.”

  “Doubtful, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll catch up with her later.”

  “Do you think she’s in danger?”

  “From Laurel?”

  “Or the nest.”

  “Again, doubtful. But we need to question her and the vampires—thoroughly this time.”

  “We will. Can I ask a question before I get your pill?”

  “You want to know if those are blackout drapes? Yes, they are. I got them because of my odd hours, but you’ll be fine sleeping in here next to me. In my bed, for a change.”

  I grinned. “Good to know, since I didn’t bring my super sunblock, but I have a different question.”

  “Fire away.”

  “What do you know about Ray?”

  “He was Ike’s friend and attorney, and he joined the nest in April or May. Why?”

  “Other than I’m still trying to wrap my head around Ike having a friend, never mind an attorney, why did he help you tonight?”

  “To make points? Show he’ll be a kinder, gentler head of the nest?”

  “Maybe, but I have this feeling it’s more than that.”

  “Did you read him?”

  “Not him, just his manner. He’s very different from the other vamps.”

  Saber’s gaze narrowed. “How?”

  “They seem, well, aimless, I guess is the word. They don’t have much personality zing. Except for Suzy. And maybe Charles and Miranda.”

  Saber shrugged. “Many vamps are simply satisfied to have the protection of a nest.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it.” I bit my lip. “You are going to let me be there when you question them, right?”

  “You don’t have to work?”

  “If I’m on the schedule, I’ll take time off.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” he said, shrugging out of the sling. “The vamps aren’t a threat to me.”

  “Maybe not, but I might be able to read something from them that will speed up the investigation.”

  “It’s worth a shot.”

  His eyelids drooped, and I kissed him lightly on the mouth. “While I’m here nursing you, I can start staging your condo for a fast sale.”

  I gave him his pill, got him stripped to his boxers, and tucked him in. From a chair on the other side of the bed, I kept watch until his breathing evened.

  I was still hopped up on adrenaline, too restless to concentrate on the computer, so I burned worry energy by touring the Spartan but updated condo. Cherrywood floors stretched through every room save the tiled bathrooms, and the overall style was modern. A couch and two chairs in the living room took advantage of the view. A coffee table, a side table, and two lamps rounded out the furnishings.

  The living room opened to a kitchen dominated by sleek black appliances and the same light brown countertop that Saber had in the bathrooms. A long bar separated the kitchen from the dining room, and there was room for a dining set, but Saber didn’t have one.

  I found the second, smaller bedroom that Saber used for his office, where tall bookshelves lined one wall. A desk on the opposite wall held Saber’s laptop, a printer, and some loose papers.

  The condo’s paint job seemed fresh, and everything was neat and relatively new, so the staging list I jotted on a pad from Saber’s desk was short. A dining set, some art, and a few more accessories, and the condo would be ready to show. Unless Saber’s Realtor wanted something else done. I’d check with Saber before I went shopping.

  I peeked in on Saber and smiled to find him lightly snoring. With a swift kiss on his forehead, I moved to the next order of business. Researching the VPA records.

  Ice clinked in my glass of water as I went back to Saber’s office. Good thing I didn’t have a mouthful of anything because, as soon as I sat in his desk chair, my breath caught.

  Three small picture frames with black trim sat to one side of the desk, partly hidden by the printer. One held a photo of me coming out of the ocean lugging my surfboard. He must’ve taken the picture during our first official date when we’d taken a picnic to the beach and Saber had insisted on watching me surf. That he had the photo on his desk made me go warm and mushy inside.

  Another frame displayed a photo of two couples standing side by side in their Sunday best. One couple looked
to be in their fifties, the other in their twenties or thirties. The younger woman held a baby in her arms, and the photo had been taken outside a church with palm trees in the background. The two men were near clones, so I figured them for father and son. Was Saber the baby? Nah. The ladies’ hats were from the 1940s.

  The last photo made me smile. A boy, maybe three years old, was dressed in a cowboy outfit complete with a white hat, and a six-shooter like those I’d seen in old Westerns. The child stood in front of a Christmas tree, blond furniture I thought was from the 1940s showing in the edges of the shot. Little Deke Saber? I’d seen that fierce expression before. It was eerily similar to his cop face, in fact.

  Something written at the bottom of the photo looked to be in Saber’s firm, slanted handwriting. I turned the frame toward the brightening light outside to read the script. Remember, 1951.

  Nineteen fifty-one? If the little cowboy was Saber, and he was three in the picture, that would make Saber—

  No. It couldn’t be. We’d celebrated his birthday on April fifth, and though I hadn’t asked his age because I didn’t want to feel like an ancient cradle-robbing hag, he couldn’t be much over thirty-six. Not with his washboard abs, tight butt, and a whole list of muscle groups that so were not sagging.

  The photo must have been of Saber’s dad, and the other one of his grandparents and great grandparents. Had to be. Right?

  I chewed on my lip as I replaced the frame. I considered going to the bedroom to look for Saber’s driver’s license, but a glance out the window at the growing day changed my mind. I had research to do, about two hours to do it, and I’d promised Saber printouts of all the data I could find.

  I logged into the protected part of the VPA site with Saber’s user name and password and pulled up every file on everyone in Ike’s nest, starting with Ike himself.

  Born in the late 1860s, Ike was reportedly the product of a black mother and Chinese father, and had resided in California until some point in his mid-twenties. The facts pretty well fizzled after that, other than to note Ike had been in Florida since 1955, and in Daytona by 1979.

  Miranda and Charles were listed as being one hundred and twenty and twenty-one years old, respectively. Both had been born in Devonshire, England, had met while serving on an earl’s domestic staff. They’d been married and had one adult child at the time they were turned in their early forties.

  Coach, the guy who looked thirty, was ninety in combined human and vampire years. He’d been turned in 1949, and had really been a football coach, though the records didn’t say where. Suzy was forty-five and had been turned at age nineteen while in college. Again, the records didn’t reveal where Suzy had gone to school, but her favorite food had been a Frito pie served with a Dr Pepper. Ooookay.

  The information on Tower and Zena was sketchy, but they were listed as being over three hundred years old. The record did mention that Tower had known Laurel for many of those years, and I wondered how close they might have been. Would Tower aid and abet Laurel if she came to him for help?

  Ray’s fact sheet held the most information. At close to two hundred thirty, he was a few years older than me and was of direct Spanish descent. He had, in fact, lived in Alta California in the days that made me think of Zorro. He had studied medicine in the 1800s, law in the early 1900s, and still held his license to practice law. Had Ray known Ike back on the West Coast in the old days? Was Ray Ike’s sire?

  I pulled up Laurel’s information last. A former slave, she’d been turned in 1863 while escaping in the Underground Railroad system, and had lived in the North until the late 1980s. She’d come south gradually, joining nests, then moving on. She hooked up with Ike ten years ago.

  The records didn’t list any known regular companions for Laurel, or for any vamps in Ike’s nest—except each other.

  I left the printouts on the desk and then almost went back into the VPA files to research Saber. I wanted to. My hands poised over the keyboard, but a glance at the clock changed my mind. It was nine thirty in the morning, and I was fading.

  Instead, I e-mailed Old Coast Ghost Tours to tell them to take me off the schedule for the next three days. Probably more time than I needed, but I’d been working almost nonstop for months. I could use the break. And, yes, I did feel the tiniest bit guilty for the short notice, but I squashed it. I’d filled in dozens of times for other guides. Someone else could jolly well fill in for me.

  With a last glance at the photos, I tiptoed into the bedroom to close the blackout drapes, quietly opened drawers until I found what I wanted, and traded my jeans and top for one of Saber’s T-shirts.

  As I crawled into bed, I kept wondering about the boy in the picture. Should I ask Saber about it? Could I admit to being that nosy? Would he tell me about it on his own?

  Should, could, would swirled in my head for only a few minutes before I drifted to sleep.

  I bolted out of bed at three in the afternoon, just as soon as I realized Saber wasn’t in bed with me. I charged down the hall toward the living room, only to come to a whiplash halt at the office doorway.

  “Where’s the fire?” Saber flashed a tired grin.

  He was dressed in shorts and a short-sleeved button-up shirt, sans his sling. He looked worn but not unwell.

  I sagged against the door casing, my heart still racing. “Geez, Saber, I was worried you’d gone out.”

  “I did, but only for some Starbloods. It’s in the fridge.”

  “You drove with your cast? On pain meds? Saber, I could’ve picked up Starbloods later. And where’s your sling? You’re supposed to keep your arm elevated so it doesn’t swell.”

  He looked at his swathed arm where it rested on the desktop. “It is elevated.”

  “It’s supposed to be higher than your heart.”

  He slouched down in the desk chair until he was in danger of sliding out of it. “How’s that?”

  My lips twitched, but I shook my head. “Not good enough. Come on, at least lie on the couch.”

  “Don’t you want to hear my report?”

  “Absolutely,” I said, marching over to him. “But you can tell me in the living room.”

  I went to take his good arm to get him moving, but that close to the desk, I couldn’t help but glance at the photos. When I looked at Saber, he met my gaze in silence, and I saw the wheels spinning in his head. Then the moment passed.

  “I’ll come peacefully as long as you’ll leave that shirt on.” He winked. “It’s making me hot.”

  I laughed as he wanted me to do, and settled him on the couch with pillows from the bedroom. (Note to self: Add throw pillows to the shopping list). After downing the Starbloods he’d made a special trip to buy, I cleaned my teeth to a minty fresh shine and rejoined Saber for my briefing.

  “Good work on the research last night,” he said when I plopped in the chair opposite him and tucked my legs under me. “I’ve learned a little more this afternoon, and we just might catch a break.”

  “Well, don’t leave me in suspense. What did you get?”

  “First, I called Jackson. The carving on the weapon is too intricate to give him a good print, and the techs haven’t found unaccounted for hair or skin or anything else I can compare with DNA samples the VPA keeps.”

  “Any word about the carvings on the knife?”

  “Nada. Jackson sent an e-mail with some good shots of it, and I forwarded those to Neil.”

  “I doubt Neil’s checking his mail.”

  “He’s checking. He gave me his cell number in case anything came up with the house, so I gave him a heads-up.”

  “Can I see the photos?”

  He passed five sheets of paper across the coffee table, and I quickly examined each one.

  “Does the style look familiar?”

  “They’re not particularly Spanish, Italian, British, or anything else I’d recognize.” I looked up at him. “If Neil can’t give you any leads, will Jackson send these to other experts?”

  Saber took the papers
I passed back. “Yes, but I also e-mailed these to Jo-Jo on the chance he might recognize the weapon itself.”

  “You mean recognize it as belonging to Atlanta Marco?”

  “Makes sense to ask. If Jo-Jo can verify it’s Marco’s, then we can tie the murder weapon to him.”

  “But if Marco is out of Atlanta, shouldn’t his tracker readouts show that?”

  “Yep, which is why I’ve also talked with Candy again.”

  I blinked. “You have been busy. Exactly how long have you been up?”

  “A while. You want to hear what Candy said?”

  “I do. Is Marco in Atlanta or not?”

  “He is. Maybe. Candy and Crusher are putting a task force together. That may take a day or two, but they’ll go back to Vlad’s and demand a little habeas corpus action.”

  I read and watch enough mysteries to know what that means. “They’re going to get Vlad to turn Marco over to them?”

  “They’re going to find out if Marco is really there at all. His tracker still indicates he is, but he’s been stationary for ten days. We’re thinking he’s removed the tracker.”

  “And just left it at Vlad’s place? I thought there was a body mass sensor or some kind of fail-safe in the trackers.”

  “There is, but Marco could’ve gotten around that by implanting it in someone else.”

  That thought made the Starbloods sour in my stomach.

  “Candy can’t raid Vlad’s nest any sooner?”

  “She can’t do that and ensure the team’s safety, much less meet their objective. They need to go in full out this time.”

  “What about Laurel’s tracker records? Is the GPS working?”

  “She’s completely off the radar as of last night. The tracker has been removed. The past records show that the flatline signal started six weeks ago, while she was in Atlanta. So, besides making Ike’s payoffs to Vlad, she was up to something else. What, we don’t know.”

  “So, she knows immune-to-silver Marco, too, and she knew Jo-Jo was in town almost before we did, though I don’t understand how she pulled that off.”

  “It was Jo-Jo, indirectly.”

  “What?”

  “I’m pretty sure his computer and cell phone were bugged. I told him to check out my theory first chance he gets. I also suspect that Vlad has had someone hack into the VPA site.”