Into the Flames

by Multi-Author

  “Oh, please, don’t insult me with your doe-eyed-innocent act. It’s all documented in the papers in the briefcase on your desk. He wrote meticulous notes on how he brought them to the brink of death trying to make them human and how you offered your vampire talents saving them from the human frailty of death and restoring their immortality when his cure didn’t work.” He snapped his finger, the noise echoing like a clanging cymbal to her sensitive ears. “And it seems you were busy helping him burn those who didn’t survive.”

  “I didn’t know about the fires.” Her defeated words came out in a whisper. “He confessed to me later that he’d only wanted to give the dead vampires a proper funeral pyre. I thought he’d stopped …” The words winded her and Alex inhaled deeply, trying to catch her breath. “He was only trying to help people like me, pulled into this ungodly world without consent. Glenn saved me from the monster who left me for dead. I will never blame him for completing the transformation. But I never wanted this life.”

  A small pop sounded above them as if something had fallen.

  Ronan looked at his watch. “Right on time.” The smile he sent her held no mirth. “And so the final chapter begins.”

  “What’ve you done now?”

  “The chemicals I set up have started a fire in the bar. But like every fire I’ve started, it will smolder slowly and leave no trace of arson. I’ve still got time to cleanup a few loose ends for you.” Ronan squatted in front of her and stared into her eyes. “Look at me, Alexandra. Really look at me.” With a vicious growl, the vampire within him was unleashed.

  This close, with his fangs hanging in her face and the fires of hell burning in his eyes, she recognized the vampire who had possessed her dreams for thirty years. “You? But that can’t be.”

  Ronan squeezed her chin. The unexpected spike of pain burned hot behind her eyes as he dragged his tongue up her cheek. With a sharp hiss of air, he filled his lungs with her scent. “The night my mother died, I ran from the house.” His voice was hot in her ear. “I was angry and alone. I wanted to kill. To feel the power of the vampire. You were a student of my father’s. So young and weak. I recognized you in town and I followed you to the tavern. I waited patiently until you left and I took you. Dragged you into the woods. Pierced your neck with the canines that had become my life’s salvation. I drank greedily, your blood as sweet as liquid honey filling my mouth. You were my first. A vampire never forgets his first.” His fangs grazed her neck just above her scarf. “I drank until I couldn’t feel your pulse. I figured I’d killed you. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I returned to South Kenton and found you alive. My sweet Alexandra.”

  “The creature who attacked me was no more than pimply faced teen. You wouldn’t have aged.”

  “You would have thought. But just like my own father—no one in this shitty town has recognized me.”

  “It’s just not possible. You look—”

  “Different? Powerful?” He scoffed. “Suffice it to say that even a half-breed vampire can learn to fight like a warrior, when accepted by a true clan of vampires.” He brushed his fingers across her cheek, his fetid breath hot across her lips. “Six years. Six long years I trained with vampires hiding high in the mountains. And the night of my twenty-first birthday the leader of the clan, a beautiful vampire with ivory skin and firm, tight tits came to my room …” He slid his hand from her throat to her breast and squeezed. “… with the lust of youth and the passion of a grown man, I loved her. And as my seed filled her, she sank her fangs deep, drinking my blood, sharing her immortality and making me fully vampire.” His thumb dragged across her bottom lip, slicing it with his nail. “Maybe we could share that you and me, Alexandra. My fangs deep in your flesh, while we …”

  She refused to listen to his repulsive description. He’d turned her. The man she’d come to hate had been the one who’d pulled her into a world she abhorred and an existence she hadn’t chosen. Alex let the hatred fill her. With all the years of rage behind it, she retrieved the splintered wood from under her leg and swung with everything she had toward Ronan’s heart.

  At the same time, Chris stood on unsteady legs coming at the vampire from behind.

  With explosive reflexes, Ronan wrenched the wood from her grasp with one hand and retrieved the warped piece of the file cabinet with the other. Her world suddenly morphed into a sickly horror movie playing out in gruesome slow motion as Ronan let out a warrior’s cry, swinging the shard of metal with deadly accuracy at Chris’s throat, separating the vampire’s head from his body.

  “No, Chris!” She crawled to him, screaming until her throat was raw.

  “Don’t mourn for that inferior creature.” Ronan grabbed her by the hair, hauling her to her feet. She barely registered the additional pain. “He was no more worthy of being a vampire than you.” His chill tone froze her heart. “And like everyone inferior—he was totally expendable.” As he half carried, half dragged her back into her office, something exploded above them. “Perhaps my father’s serum was working and you are human. You’re not fighting half as hard as your reporter friend.” He threw her on the floor next to the desk.

  She couldn’t convince her muscles to move. It took all her energy just to push air over her vocal chords. “Hope? What the hell did you do with Hope?”

  “Ah yes, your dear friend.” His demonic laugh bounced eerily around the stone walls as he pulled papers from a leather briefcase and scattered them about the office. “Glenn tried to save her that night you know? Such a waste of lovely flesh that one.” He shook his head as if her demise really mattered. “And Chris? Chris was such a team player, ditching her car in the lake while I killed Glenn. Burkett will never find that body. And isn’t that so sad for him?”

  Glass shattered above them. Surely, the fire department had been alerted. Reese would come, run into the flames and rescue her. But unlike Glenn, she prayed he wouldn’t be too late. At the thought of him, sadness poured into Alex’s hollow chest. She wasn’t sure when Reese had stolen her heart, but it belonged to him as surely as the Grim Reaper was whispering her name. Alex refused to cower at his beckoning. “You won’t get away with this. Reese will hunt you down and destroy you.”

  Ronan snorted in disgust. “RISEN will never suspect the one they seek is hidden right beneath their stuck up noses, especially when he stands beside them mourning the death of so many honorable vampires who were trying to improve their existence.” He fingered air quotes even as his face wrinkled in disgust.” He knelt beside her, running his hands over her body. She was too weak to fight his intimate touch. “I came to South Kenton looking to avenge my mother’s death. It was a pleasure when I’d discovered it was you fermenting the blood wine. The fact that you’d been working with my father—bonus!”

  “What makes you think I won’t tell Reese all of this?”

  Ronan pressed his mouth to hers, crushing her lips against her teeth before pulling back with a sigh. “Because, my sweet love, you won’t be alive when he arrives. And all the evidence exonerating you,” he waved his hand across the floor at the papers scattered there, “well, they will be ashes.”

  He got up and walked into the cask room. Alex heard boxes moving and loud rush of wind.

  So this is how it would all end. She wondered if Paul Morgan had known his son was the cause of her tortured life. The professor’s questions at her initial interview for his drug experiment would have corroborated when and where she was turned. Perhaps Paul believed saving Alex would atone for his son’s brutality. Glenn had simply pulled her out of death’s arms, believing a vampire’s life was better than none at all. Tears welled in her eyes and slipped down her cheek at the loss of the people she loved.

  Ronan returned, dragging Chris’s body in his wake. “I’d hate for the two of you to die alone.” He dumped Chris next to her and rummaged around on the floor, coming up with a shard of wood, smiling when he saw her tears. “Now, now, Alexandra, there’s no need to cry. The chemical combinati
on I developed ignites in air and burns wherever it lands. The fumes and heat it creates will kill you long before the flames reach you.” He shot a look over his shoulder. “Of course I’ll tell them Chris had discovered your secret plans and must have come here to stop you. You killed him, then got caught in your own fire. Neat and tidy.”

  Ronan misunderstood her tears. She didn’t weep for her own life, but for those whom she’d loved and had been stolen from her. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Alex was too weak to move. In reality, it was her desire to become human that had killed her. Whether she died at the verdict of the tribunal in a few months, at Ronan’s hands now or in six decades, her mortality had been her choice.

  Glass exploded upstairs. “I really have overstayed. You and Chris have kept me here much longer than I intended. I’ll be sure to say goodbye to Colton for you.” Ronan lifted the wooden stake high over his head. She refused to flinch from this final blow to her heart. Without those she loved, there was no greater pain he could inflict upon her. She would not beg Ronan for her life. Alexandra Flanagan intended to die with her dignity intact.

  In disbelief, she watched him shatter the bulb above her. Without a word, Ronan strode out of the room. He slammed the cellar door. The thunderous snick of the lock was the last thing she heard before the fires of hell erupted from the cask room.

  Chapter Nine

  The engine’s lights pulsed through the streets of South Kenton, barreling into the night toward another structure fire. And not just any structure— O’Malley’s Tavern. There was no way this wasn’t somehow connected with the professor, Glenn, and the rogue vampire. Unusually wired, Reese’s knee jumped.

  When the alarm rang a little after 2 a.m., he’d been lying on his bunk trying to work through the puzzle. Pieces were clicking into place, but some key element was missing. Reese believed Alex hadn’t committed the murders, yet his gut screamed whatever she was hiding would be the key to solving everything. Their afternoon of mind-blowing sex had ended with her walking away. There had been something final in the way she’d kissed him, turned her back and gotten into her car. He’d been too pissed at Josh and his outburst to analyze it at the time.

  When he’d arrived at work, Josh had gone out of his way to avoid him. Until they found Hope—and he had to believe they would—Reese was going to be hard pressed convincing Josh of Alex’s innocence.

  The sexy vamp had been working with Glenn and the professor to perfect the blood wine. All the vamps killed, it turned out, were regular clients of the winery. The humans who’d died, save for the professor, had been sucked dry. Glenn was dead. His barn burned. And now the tavern blazed. There was no doubt the fires of the last three nights were related and the missing connection lay in adding up the common denominator.

  Who hated vampires living off blood wine enough to systematically purge them and its creators from the population of South Kenton? The question rolled over and over in Reese’s head.

  The engine pulled into the dirt lot of the tavern, the tanker close behind. Fire had already destroyed the right side of the building. Flames and smoke rolled out of the broken windows, sparks dancing in the freedom of the night. Liquid fire dripped down the side of the building and lay unfed in the dirt lot.

  Reese jumped from the engine, gloves, mask, and helmet donned before he jumped from the truck. One car stood alone in the back corner of the lot, its silhouette screaming out accusations. Alex shouldn’t be here. But here she was, at the scene of yet another fire, her presence another tick mark in her guilty column.

  “Colton, Burkett,” Deputy Chief Sykes called to them, “rescue. Water will be right behind. With a car in the lot we need to see if anyone’s in there. Do a sweep.”

  Reese looked at Josh and could see the man’s anger seething even as he wordlessly grabbed a Halligan and jogged ahead of him toward the building.

  “You’ve got to stay calm, Josh. We don’t know what we’ll find.”

  “You best hope you find her before me, Colton or she won’t live to stand before the tribunal.”

  Reese wanted to talk some sense into the guy, but he pushed through the front door of the tavern, his professional attitude locked firmly in place.

  Flames engulfed the paneled walls to his right and twisted up along the ceiling. Thick smoke rolled just above their heads. The cracked mirror behind the bar swam with the reflection of the fire. Bottles of liquor lining the wall had exploded in the intense heat, spilling their contents down the wall. The building was more involved than it appeared from the outside. There wasn’t much time before flash over would occur and the whole room combusted.

  “I’ll start here,” Josh called into his mic. “You search the back. When I’m done here, we can both head downstairs.”

  “Roger that.” Reese left his buddy to check out the kitchen. “Call out! Anyone here?” he yelled as he pushed through the door. Flames hadn’t yet reached this corner of the tavern. Only smoke and heat warbled along the ceiling. Reese scanned the room, but saw nothing. A low moan came from the far side of the island, near the stove and he ran around the prep island to find a body face down in front of the stove.

  Reese dropped the axe and rolled the man over. The wood protruding from Ronan’s chest held him suspended in death. The kid had probably been following up on leads Reese had told him would best be left to him and Josh. Stupid shit. Obviously the rogue vampire, whoever the hell he was, had caught him unaware.

  Without hesitation, he pulled the stake from Ronan’s chest. Reese pushed off his face mask and helmet while he waited for the wound to close. Ronan’s eyelids fluttered and he coughed. Air rushed into his lungs. “Ronan, it’s Reese. You’re going to be fine.”

  The fog of death receded from Ronan’s eyes and he focused on Reese. “She’s here. Watch out, Reese. She’s dangerous.” Ronan’s fingers dug into the sleeves of Reese’s bunker coat as the guy tried to pull himself to a sitting position.

  “Stay put. Rest. We have a minute.” Reese tried to calm the vampire. “Who? Who’s here?”

  Ronan’s gaze flew wildly about the room and he coughed up blood while his body continued to heal. “Alex,” he finally managed to choke out.

  The final nail slammed into the woman’s coffin. Reese didn’t want to believe the woman he’d held in his arms could be the heinous villain who’d slaughtered so many, but he could no longer ignore the facts. Josh had been right. His feelings for the woman had stood between him and the obvious truth. “Alexandra Flanagan?”

  “Hope … she was right … I … I wanted to confront her.” A coughing fit seized Ronan.

  Reese rolled Ronan on his side. Coming back after death was a bitch. As annoying and reckless as he found Ronan, even an asshole didn’t deserve this pain.

  “She … she killed Chris,” Ronan continued when he caught his breath. “I caught her in the cellar. Christ, she took off his head.” Ronan gripped Reese’s bunker coat. “I tried to stop her. But she’s too strong. Too powerful.” Ronan took a great gulp of air, his lungs filling more easily. “She tried to kill me. Like all the others. She’s the one. The rogue that’s been burning the vamps—”

  “If she’s down there, we’ll get her.” Reese could barely push the words over his dry lips.

  “Don’t you fucking let her get away, Colton. Hope figured it out and now we have proof.”

  Reese supported him while Ronan struggled to sit up.

  “For chrissake, Colton, open your eyes! Put it all together like I did. One …” Ronan shoved a fist in Reese’s face and lifted his index finger. “She’s been working on the blood wine with the professor. Two …” he thrust another finger in the air, “all the vampires killed and burned were her clients.” He spit the last word out with venom. “Three. Obviously, she couldn’t finish this without killing Glenn and burning down the winery. Damn it all, Colton!” Ronan slapped his hand down hard on the linoleum. Reese got the feeling he would rather have slammed it into his face. “You’ve o
bviously been fucking her, but you shouldn’t let it get in the way of doing your job!”

  Reese’s hand shot out and fisted in Ronan’s shirt. He yanked the man’s face an inch from his nose. To hell with Ronan’s pain. “My private life away from RISEN is none of your fucking business, Nason.” He shoved him away, gathered his gear and stood. He couldn’t bring himself to admit Ronan had a point. Hadn’t Josh said the same thing? Was his heart blinding him to the facts laid out in front of him? “We’ll get the job done. If Alex is the one, the tribunal will see to her trial.”

  Ronan struggled to his feet. “The woman needs to die! You need to finish this.”

  The effort brought on another coughing spasm, but Reese only stared incredulously at the arrogant vamp. There was no way in hell Reese could mete out that kind of justice without a tribunal hearing—especially against Alex. Focusing his energy, Reese clenched his teeth against the angry vampire rising within. Ronan had pushed a little too hard. “I will get the job done.” He replaced his face mask and helmet and turned back toward the bar. “Chances are she’s long gone by now.”

  “No. I’m sure she’s down in the cellar.” Ronan’s declaration came out hard and clipped.

  Reese turned back to him. “Why would you think that?”

  “She spouted things about Glenn and the professor and distilling the blood wine … something about tainting true vampire blood … and breaking the code. How the hell would I know? She stabbed me! But I’m telling you, she’s down there.” His shaking finger pointed toward the cellar door. “You have to go down there.”

  Something wasn’t adding up. The vampire before him had morphed from weak victim to impassioned juror at lightning speed. And though it was possible Ronan could have come to the same conclusions as Josh, the vamp had wrapped Alex and the crimes into a tidy package a little too quickly for Reese’s taste.

  The room next to them rumbled as the fire roared in victory. Instinct had Reese throwing Ronan to the floor and laying over him protectively.