“Wait. Inmates? What inmates?”
“They’ve been buying inmates and using them for experiments.”
I let out a shaky breath. I had never dreamed my two stories might be connected. If I could get the work order from the guard tomorrow, I might be able to track down who’d ordered it. But there was no way in hell I was going to share that with Sean. “They’ve been creating vampires.”
He looked surprised. “Yeah, but not just any vampire. Out-of-control vampires that aren’t right in the head.”
Was Sean right? Derrick had been certain that the government was behind this, but what if Sean was really out to stop them? “So that’s why you were in the alley that night?”
He nodded. “I knew Derrick was on the case too, and I tried to get him to back off. I warned him the group would find him and kill him to keep the information secret. But you know Derrick…”
“I still don’t understand why we’re hiding in this room.”
“My agency doesn’t trust anyone with this information. They think you know what’s going on and they want to lock you up. I can’t let that happen.” He looked into my eyes and I felt my resolve weakening.
“Why not?” I whispered.
“Because I still love you.” His lips lowered to mine, soft and tentative, but when I didn’t resist, the kiss became harder and more urgent. He cupped my face with both hands and pulled back, fear in his eyes. “I can’t let anything happen to you.”
What was I doing? But if Sean could help us in any way, maybe it would be best to see how this played out. At least that’s what I told myself. “I can take care of myself.”
“I know that, Rach, but I can’t help feeling protective of you.”
“Then what do you want me to do?”
“Back off this case. If you stop digging, I think I can convince them to leave you alone.”
I lifted my eyebrows.
“But I know you,” he said with resignation. “You’re incapable of backing off.”
I knew he was playing me like a Stradivarius violin, and it wasn’t hard to figure out that I was much closer to the truth than he liked—because I knew there was more to the story than he was letting on. But he was right. He did know me, and he would have been suspicious if I’d caved too fast.
“I can’t do that. I can’t let those people get away with murdering Derrick.”
“And I promise I’ll do everything in my power to make them pay for what they’ve done.”
I took a step back, breaking free from his hold. Free from his spell, more like it. I sucked in a deep breath to clear my head.
He grabbed my hand. “What can I do to earn your trust?”
“Why don’t we—”
A muffled metallic sound clanged in the backroom.
Sean’s back stiffened. “Dammit. They found us.”
“Who?”
“The terrorists.” He pulled a handgun out of the shoulder holster inside his coat and loaded the chamber. “You still carry a gun?”
“Yeah.”
“Get it out.”
Shit. I’d suspected—no, hoped—the whole terrorist story was a ploy to sway me. I pulled my gun out of my bag and turned off the safety.
“Shoot to kill,” he said quietly, his voice tight. “These boys won’t be playin’.”
My heart slammed against my ribcage. Had I gotten him all wrong? Why was he trying to protect me if he was part of the conspiracy? “What’s the plan?”
“I’m going to distract them and you’re going to run.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m not leaving you here.”
“I didn’t just find you to lose you. Please. Just do as I say. This is my area of expertise, remember?” I started to protest, but he interrupted. “That wasn’t a sexist statement and you know it. I’m a trained soldier. Your martial arts aren’t going to protect you from bullets.”
He had a point.
He grabbed the back of my head and pressed his mouth to mine, his tongue finding my own. He pulled away, leaving us both breathless, and me more confused than ever.
We heard another sound, closer this time.
“They came in through the back door,” he said. “Just like we did. I’m going to distract them and you find a way out the front.” He dug into his coat pocket and pulled out a card. “There’s an address on there. Meet me at this location in two hours. And if Derrick gave you any information, bring it with you.” A hard glint filled his eyes. “Then we’ll go after the bastards. Together.”
“Sean.”
“I know I haven’t given you much reason to, but I’m begging you to trust me. Just this once. We’ll work on the rest later.”
Did I really have a choice in the matter? If he wanted me dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. “Okay.”
“Thank God,” he muttered. “Now, on the count of three, I’m going to run across the hall to the prep area. You run to the front door. Shoot the lock if you have to.”
“Be careful. I want to see you in two hours.” I was surprised how much I meant it.
A ghost of a grin tipped the corners of his mouth. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day.” Then he bolted across the hall, shoving a metal rolling cart into the wall.
Within seconds I heard gunfire as I ran to the front door.
It was locked, which didn’t give me a lot of time to figure out how the hell I was getting out of this mess. A brush of air on the back of my head turned me around. There was a vent right above me...just big enough for me.
I had a feeling things were about to get ugly.
CHAPTER 21
LEA
The young vampire’s name was Louis, and he was a fan of Anne Rice—his mother had named him after the main character in her books. How was I not surprised?
“You see, the vampires in her books were really just tortured souls that...” he rambled as we climbed the steps to Rachel’s apartment. God he was young, in so many ways.
“What made you want to be a vamp?” I asked suddenly, for the first time in a hundred years curious about what would motivate someone to do such a thing. Rarely did I actually talk to any of them, I just killed them and was done with it.
Louis grimaced and tapped his right thigh. “I had cancer. It was in my bones really deep, and they were about to take my leg to the hip. Then they found it in the other leg, and both my arms, too. They said that it was a long shot, but they could take everything off and maybe I’d live. Maybe.”
I frowned, wanting to believe I wouldn’t have taken an out if faced with those odds. “And?”
He laughed, but it was a nervous sound. “You need more of a reason than facing the rest of your life—short as it may be—with no limbs? I don’t believe Ms. Rice was right, you know. I don’t think we’re tortured souls unless we want to be.”
Now that was way too fucking deep for a kid of nineteen. I had to force myself to smile at him. “Well, I guess you might be right.”
“Why did you turn?”
His question caught me off guard, and I answered without thinking. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Louis sucked in a sharp breath and stopped on the landing in front of me, Rachel’s door behind him. “That’s against the rules. You should complain to the council.”
Rules? Since when did vampires have rules? And what was this council he was talking about? I shook my head. “Happened a long time ago. Don’t worry about it.”
I stepped past him and tapped on the door. Three rapid-fire knocks followed a slap of my palm against the wood.
Calvin opened the door. “What the hell took you so long? I’ve been back here for—”
“Calvin, we have a guest.” I stepped sideways so he could see Louis. Louis gave him a big grin, his fangs hanging long in his mouth. The young pup hadn’t even figured out how to properly hide them.
Calvin froze, his eyes flicking between Louis and me several times. “I see. Is he...staying long?”
“Long enough to meet
Rachel and have dinner.”
Louis laughed and pushed past me. “Is she here? You said she was beautiful, but I have a hard time believing she’s prettier than you.” He looked over his shoulder and winked at me.
“No,” Calvin said, “she isn’t back yet.”
I stood in the doorway, doing a quick calculation in my head. She was overdue by at least half an hour. Maybe in another situation that wouldn’t be so bad. But with the assholes we were dealing with...I knew I couldn’t chance it.
I grabbed one of the coats hanging on the back of the door and breathed in her scent, settling it into my brain. Earthy like a heavy incense, with more than a hint of gun oil. Very unique.
I pointed at the young vampire. “Louis, you stay here with Calvin. Don’t eat him, he’s mine.”
Louis held his hands up. “I can wait for Rachel. I don’t like old dude blood anyways. They taste like hemorrhoid cream.”
Calvin spluttered. “Listen, you little shit—”
I shut the door and ran down the stairs. Calvin could take care of himself around a newbie like Louis, I wasn’t worried. But Rachel was a whole other can of worms.
Her scent was still fairly fresh and I followed it, running as fast as I could along the streets. She’d stopped in an alleyway first in the Upper East Side, her scent lingering as if she’d stayed for at least a few minutes. I swept the alley, looking for what might have caught her attention. The faint ghost of ash caught my eye and I crouched over it, breathing it in.
Vampire.
So...this was one of the murder sites she’d talked about. I paused, thinking about the ash. The same as the vamp I’d hunted in Montreal when he’d swallowed that pill. There was a different smell to it than when I staked them. An undercurrent of antiseptic.
But what would make the vamp here down a suicide pill?
There was only one obvious answer and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Another Cazador. A hunter like me.
The implications were huge, but at the moment, I had to find Rachel. I’d deal with the possibility of someone like me later.
I jogged along her trail, tracing her next to a coffee shop. The night had fully fallen and my eyes adjusted accordingly. The coffee shop was hopping with hipsters, many of them with silly moustaches that so resembled the men of my bygone era.
“Stupid then, stupid now,” I muttered under my breath. Rachel had met a man at this coffee shop. Someone I didn’t recognize, but I was betting he was a contact of hers, someone who provide her with information.
Maybe a lead. But if so, why hadn’t she come back to wait for me?
Because she’s more like you than you want to admit, my inner voice said. Damn, I hoped it was wrong because if she was that much like me, I had no doubt she was in trouble.
I picked up my speed, running fast enough that people did a double take as I passed them, unsure of what they’d seen. Rachel’s scent trail took me to two more alleyways, both with the residual odor of death and vampires. More murder scenes then. Damn, she was determined.
From there, she headed back into Harlem to a bar called the One Toed Monkey. I pulled my cowl up, tucking my hair underneath it, and stepped inside.
Quiet for a Friday night, that was my first thought; the sign said ‘Closed’, which I ignored. My second thought was that there was blood everywhere.
It had been cleaned, but if the smell was any indication, it hadn’t been cleaned well. My nostrils flared and my fangs descended. I strode up to the bar. The man behind the bar had a brand-new shiner and his lip was split, but he still managed to give me a smile.
Until I smiled back.
His face paled, making the shiner stand out. “Shit.”
“Where is she?” I leaned forward. “I can smell that she was here. I don’t like all the blood that’s been spilled; it’s making me antsy as hell. So I suggest you speak quickly so I leave and don’t act on my...urges.” I ran my tongue over my lips and fangs.
I hadn’t thought he could get any paler, but I was wrong. “A guy took her. Army dude grabbed her and ran. Then a bunch of his friends came in and smashed my place up.” He held his hands up to either side of his head.
I leapt up onto the bar in a crouch so we were almost nose-to-nose. “Where’d all the blood come from, then?”
With a shaking hand he pointed at an empty white pail on the bar. “They poured a bucket on the floor.”
The only reason they’d do that was to chum the waters to draw in what they were fishing for. Why did I get the feeling I was the one they were trying to hook?
I inched closer. “You recognize me. What I am. What do you know about vampires?”
He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. “Derrick told me about the project. He was hoping to confirm all the rumors. All I know is that it’s in an underground bunker somewhere in the city. I swear that’s all I know.”
I reached out and patted him on the cheek, feeling the truth of his words. “Good boy.”
Sliding off the bar, I started toward the back door, picking up a trace on Rachel again. Army dude had grabbed her, and his friends had busted the place up.
Out the back door I went, then across the street and into another alley. Rachel was with Sean, the man who’d ransacked her place. I smelled him now, the same scent that had permeated his business card and her apartment. Damn, what was he up to? Was it possible they were friends? No, it couldn’t be. Friends didn’t tear apart each other’s places. Even I knew that.
The front and back doors of the bakery were both smashed in, but Rachel hadn’t left and the smell of gun oil and rank man sweat was thick in the air. I crept in through a side window, keeping to the shadows as I searched for her.
The creak of a floorboard ahead of me stopped me in my tracks. I lowered myself to my belly and waited. Listening.
There it was, the soft exhale of a breath and the distant beating of several hearts. As I lay there, the glint of a gun winked at me from a side door in the shop. I watched the shop, eyes flicking from place to place as I counted the slightly darker shadows indicating feet blocking the miniscule light. There were at least six men waiting for me.
A trap with Rachel as the bait.
They had to have been watching her apartment; they had to have seen me with her. The blood in the bar was only a failsafe to draw me in if I did indeed follow her. This was their chance to catch the elusive Cazador by taking out her new associate.
Very fucking clever, Sean.
Slithering forward on my belly, I kept searching for Rachel, following her trail into the main room. They’d blocked her from escaping forcing her to go to ground.
I rolled onto my back and looked straight up into the vent above me.
Rachel stared down.
“On three,” I whispered. She nodded.
“One.” I tensed my body, ready to grab her and run out the front door.
“Two,” she mouthed at me as she lifted the vent’s grate to the side.
“Three.”
She dropped out of the vent at the same time as I sprang to my feet. I grabbed her wrist and leapt forward, pulling her through the air with me and out the broken front bay window.
Shouts erupted behind us, and shots shattered the night air.
I bolted into the alley, taking her with me. “What the hell were you doing with Sean?”
“How did you know?”
“I can smell him all over the fucking place,” I snarled, running as fast as I could while dragging her behind me.
The sound of a howl drifted into the night air, followed close behind by four answering howls, one right after the other. I skidded to a stop as a creature that should not have existed stepped into the alley to block our escape.
It had four legs, a head, and a tail. But the rest of it bore no resemblance to man’s best friend. Its loose, mottled, furless skin looked like a costume three sizes too big. The head was far too human for my liking, except for the fact that its jaw seemed to be able
to unhinge.
“What the fuck is that?” Rachel breathed out. She lifted her gun and squeezed off a shot before I could tell her it probably wouldn’t do any good.
Perfect aim, she hit the thing square in the chest.
It didn’t even flinch.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re a vampire. What do you mean, you don’t know?” Rachel yelped as we turned to run the other way.
“When it comes to monsters, this is not on the list of natural species.”
We slid to a stop as another of the demon dogs stepped into view, blocking the other end of the alleyway. Closer than the first, this time could see the oh-so-human eyes blinking up at us.
For the first time, I considered that we might be in over our heads.
Spotting a fire escape ladder, I pushed Rachel toward it. “Climb.”
“We’ll be trapped on the roofs.”
“No, we won’t,” I said, right behind her. By the time we were halfway up, the two creatures had gathered at the base of the ladder.
Where were the army dudes?
Something whizzed by my head and slammed into the brick wall, sending mortar and dust into the air.
“They’ve got silencers,” Rachel gasped as she pulled herself up the last few rungs.
I pushed off and leapt the rest of the way, landing beside her. “So they do. Your Sean has asshole friends.”
“Those aren’t his friends. Those are the bad guys. I can’t believe Sean would be a part of this,” Rachel said, with more than a little defensiveness in her voice. But I could see in her eyes, even she didn’t believe her own words.
I looked over the edge. “Mierda.” Shit, this was getting worse and worse. The two creatures were climbing the fucking wall like spiders.
Rachel took a quick look and then stumbled back. “This has got to be a nightmare. This can’t possibly be happening.”
I eyed up the buildings next to us. “Do you trust me?”
“I don’t think I have a choice, do I?”
I shook my head as her blue eyes met mine. “No, not if you want to survive.”
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