by Tina Folsom
Plastering his usual smile onto his face, he walked into the room, keeping his torment to himself like always. While his friends knew about his so-called gift, they had no idea about the pain it caused him daily and the things he had to do to keep his head from exploding. He didn’t want their pity.
They all thought he was a sex maniac out to screw every female he could get his hands on, just for the fun of it. In reality, without sex he would have gone on a crazed rampage long ago, killing everyone and everything in his path. Sex equaled survival—for him and those around him.
“Amaury, finally,” Samson greeted him, a pinch of displeasure in his voice. Being well over six feet tall, but with a much slimmer build than Amaury’s broad frame, the same black hair, but piercing hazel eyes, his boss looked every inch the powerful man he was.
“Samson, guys,” he replied and looked into the round. Everybody was there: Ricky, Thomas, Carl, all vampires like himself.
Even Oliver, Samson’s human assistant, a fresh-faced twenty-four year old, was present. And of course, Delilah, Samson’s human wife, his blood-bonded mate.
Amaury gave her a warm smile, which she returned as she swept her long dark hair over her shoulder, her petite body looking even tinier standing next to her man.
He noticed Samson putting his hand on hers, a gesture so instinctive Amaury doubted his friend had even noticed. The love radiating off the couple almost brought him to his knees. He straightened himself.
“What’s the crisis?” he asked instead.
“Thomas, patch in Gabriel,” Samson ordered.
Thomas typed something on the keyboard and stepped back from the screen. As always, Scanguards’ resident IT genius was dressed in his favorite biker outfit: leather, leather, and more leather. “Gabriel, you’re on.”
A second later, Gabriel Giles, head of operations in Scanguards’ New York headquarters, appeared on the computer monitor which was turned for all to see.
His commanding presence filled the screen. His long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and the scar which stretched from his chin to his right ear seemed to pulsate. Nobody had ever dared ask him how he’d obtained it. And Gabriel wasn’t one to volunteer information which was nobody’s business. Amaury only knew that it stemmed from when Gabriel was human, since a vampire’s skin didn’t scar.
“Evening everybody,” Gabriel’s booming voice came through loud and clear. “We’ve just been alerted to a problem. There’s no easy way to say it, so here it goes. A second bodyguard has killed a client and then himself.”
The collective murmurs and gasps of disbelief were quickly subdued, while the emotions continued to simmer under the surface.
“As you all remember, over a month ago, one of Scanguards’ San Francisco bodyguards killed the millionaire he was protecting and then committed suicide. We thought it was an isolated incident. Unfortunately, with this second murder, which concerns another San Francisco employee, we don’t have the luxury of chalking this off as just an individual gone berserk. Somebody’s messing with us.”
Samson nodded. “Gabriel and I spoke earlier tonight. The late evening news will break the story. We have to be ready to do damage control. Tomorrow the papers will be shredding us to bits. Nobody will shrug this off as a coincidence. And we’re pretty sure it isn’t.”
“Some vampires gone into bloodlust?” Thomas asked.
Amaury listened up. Bloodlust—they all feared it, the uncontrollable urge to take more blood than they needed which ultimately led to murder and madness.
Gabriel shook his head. “No. Both bodyguards were humans.”
“Any connection between the two?” Amaury interjected.
“Negative,” Samson answered quickly, “at least nothing we could determine this quickly. Apart from the fact that they were both hired here in San Francisco, they have nothing obvious in common.”
“I knew Edmund Martens. I hired him,” Ricky said. While he fancied himself a California Beach Boy and had adopted many habits of his new country, he couldn’t really be mistaken for anything else but the lad he was: his red hair, freckled face, and decidedly Irish last name, O’Leary, gave him away. “God, Eddie showed such promise. But when he killed that client last month, I thought he’d gone off the deep end and reverted back to his old ways.”
“What ways?” Amaury asked.
“Bad childhood, ran away from his foster family, turned to crime—the usual. Never thought he’d go so far and kill someone. He didn’t seem the violent kind. But then, sometimes it doesn’t take much for somebody to slide deeper. I just thought he’d finally pulled himself out of all this.”
“Maybe he did.” Samson’s concerned look spoke volumes and told them he didn’t believe that the two human bodyguards were at fault.
“Who’s the second guy?” Ricky wanted to know.
“Kent Larkin.”
Ricky’s jaw slackened. “He was just a kid. He can’t have been working for us for longer than six months.”
“A little over five months,” Gabriel confirmed.
“What evidence do we have that Edmund and Kent actually killed their clients?” Amaury needed facts. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions.
“An eyewitness in Edmund’s case and the smoking gun in Kent’s.”
“Do we have anybody on the inside with the police?” Delilah suddenly asked. Everybody’s gaze settled on her. “Well, we’d better make sure we know what they know before it becomes public knowledge.”
Ever since Delilah had blood-bonded with Samson, she had started taking an active interest in the company. As a blood-bonded mate, she was entitled to everything Samson owned, and the fact that she’d started sharing in important decisions didn’t seem to disturb her man in the slightest. After all, she was his equal.
Amaury was surprised at the change he’d seen in his old friend. After two hundred years of solitude, Samson had had no problems adjusting to marriage to a strong woman. Amaury doubted that he himself would adjust as easily as Samson had, not that this question was anything else but academic. Amaury knew he would never bond, because he could never truly love anybody.
“I’ll talk to G,” Samson said, referring to the mayor. “I’ll make sure he’ll keep us in the loop.” He looked back at the screen. “What time are you landing?”
“Everybody’s on their way to the airport now. We’ll touch down about an hour before sunrise.”
“Don’t you think that’s cutting it a little close?” Ricky asked.
“It couldn’t be avoided. I had to mobilize the troops first and get ready myself.”
“You’re coming out here yourself?” Amaury asked in surprise. Gabriel rarely ever left New York for anything. If he was leaving the East Coast for this, he clearly expected these events to turn into a major problem. And if he was risking being out in the open so close to sunrise, Gabriel’s assessment of the situation had to border on catastrophic.
“We can’t trust anybody in the San Francisco branch. I’m bringing three of my best people with me: Quinn, Zane and Yvette. We’ll conduct the investigation our way. Outside of this group, nobody can be trusted. Nobody.”
“Gabriel is right,” Samson confirmed. “If two of our human guards killed their clients, somebody has their hand in this. And until we know who and why, we have to be tight-lipped about it. The employees will want an explanation. Ricky, you’ll call a staff meeting once Gabriel and his people are here. Everybody at Scanguards is under suspicion—humans and vampires alike. Carl, pick them up from the airport.”
Carl, Samson’s devoted butler, driver, and man about the house, nodded instantly, his slightly heavy body as always neatly squeezed into a dark business suit.
“Amaury, you’ll go with Carl,” Samson ordered.
Amaury nodded. He hadn’t seen his friends from New York in ages, and catching up with them would distract him from his pain. Not that he was overly keen on seeing Yvette again. She was probably still pissed at him.
“Thomas,” S
amson continued, “I want you to upload complete background checks for all employees and run them in a matrix against each other. Let’s see what Edmund and Kent had in common, and then let’s run those criteria against the rest of the employees. We need to see who else might be vulnerable to whatever is happening.”
“No problem,” Thomas accepted. “I’ll get right on it. I’ll be working downtown.”
“Oliver, you’re the only one here who can get around during the day. I’ll be relying on you heavily. You’ll be our liaison.”
Before Oliver could respond, Delilah interrupted. “Hold on; I can go out during the day too.”
Even though Delilah was a blood-bonded mate and drank blood from Samson, she remained entirely human, except for one thing: she didn’t age anymore as long as her man was alive.
“Out of the question,” Samson snapped. “You won’t get involved in the investigation.”
“It’s my company too.” She braced her hands at her hips.
“I don’t deny that. But you won’t put yourself in danger, not in your condition.”
“Condition?” Amaury heard himself ask and instantly sensed the answer to his question.
Everybody else in the room gave the couple a questioning look.
Samson grinned proudly. “I guess the cat is out of the bag.” He pulled Delilah into his arms. “Delilah is making me the luckiest guy on this earth. We’re going to have a baby.”
The man was a lucky bastard. Amaury shook his head. “Congratulations.”
As their friends threw in their best wishes and congratulated them on their happy event, Amaury watched Samson hold his wife tightly while whispering into her ear. He didn’t need to hear what he’d said, because the emotions emitted by the two hit him like a brick falling from a skyscraper.
The pressure in his temples increased. If he didn’t get out of their presence soon, his head would explode.
Love was the most devastating emotion screwing with Amaury’s head. He was by no means jealous of Samson, because he had no interest in his lovely mate, but he simply couldn’t stomach their company for too long. Whenever other people’s love bombarded his mind, the pain he felt was virtually unbearable. Being cursed never to feel love in his own heart again, his mind couldn’t handle this emotion and only reacted with pain and rejection.
Unfortunately, the meeting wasn’t over yet. He’d already arrived late. Leaving early would be out of the question. After all, he was an officer of the company and had an interest in it. This crisis had to be dealt with.
Amaury gripped the massive antique desk behind him for balance and tried to distract himself from the thunder pounding in his head. Letting his mouth curve into another fake half-smile to disguise his inner turmoil, he addressed Gabriel via the monitor, “Have any of the other branches reported problems?”
“I’m sending reinforcements to Houston, Seattle, Chicago, and Atlanta. We don’t know yet whether this is going to be confined to San Francisco or not. But we can’t be too careful. The faster we find out who or what’s behind this, the better for all involved. This mustn’t spread. We’ll be ruined if it does.”
Samson gave a grim smile, Delilah still tucked into his side. “You’re right. The company can’t survive this kind of publicity. And if the police or the press dig too deep, we’re in trouble. None of us can afford to be exposed for what we are. So, at the slightest breech of security by any human, wipe their memories. It’s crucial. No exceptions.”
“And we can’t have any more people dying,” Delilah added.
“Until this is over, we should all minimize our contacts with humans.”
Samson didn’t have to look his way, but Amaury knew the jab was aimed at him. Easy for his friend to say—he had his human wife by his side day and night.
He got the message, and it was loud and clear. Amaury was to stay away from human women. And what did this leave him with? Having sex with those female vampires who hadn’t kicked him out of their beds yet?
It wasn’t that he didn’t deliver when it came to sex, but many of the vamp ladies had started making emotional demands. Why they had all suddenly turned into needy, clingy creatures, he had no idea. For sure, mainstreaming was to blame. As if emulating humans was the goal.
He sure wasn’t going to turn into one of those blithering idiots, going all gooey eyed over some woman, not even if he was capable of loving, which, of course, he wasn’t.
Three
Nina pulled the hood of her dark sweatshirt closer around her head. For the hundredth time this night she tucked an errant dark-blonde curl back behind her ear. If she let her hair grow longer, she would be able to pull the unruly locks back into a ponytail. But long hair was impractical, especially in a fight.
In any case, she wasn’t girly. At five foot eight, she certainly wasn’t petite, a fact she was grateful for, particularly since she was up against some big bad guys.
The fog had dissipated hours earlier, making this a gorgeous, starry, yet moonless night. Almost peaceful in its stillness, it guarded the sleeping city.
Nina continued watching the beautiful Victorian house from her hiding place across the street. Over an hour ago, she’d seen several of them enter, and none had come out yet.
Them. She knew what they were. A month earlier, she’d gone through her brother’s possessions and pieced together what at first she’d thought was impossible. She’d immediately dismissed her findings as ludicrous. But the more she went back, the more she dug, the clearer everything had become.
She’d found notes in Eddie’s datebook, drawings of weapons and weird symbols. And in the margins of a book about the paranormal he’d made more notes. Then under his mattress she’d found a list with names. Next to each name he’d put either Human or Vampire.
The moment Nina had read the word she’d thought he’d gone crazy. And for a short while she’d believed that he was guilty of what he’d been accused of. Mental illness would explain it. But there had never been a sign of instability in him. Eddie wasn’t crazy—no way would she believe that.
So she’d dug deeper and followed those he’d classified as vampires on his list. Most worked for Scanguards.
Nina sniffed and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. Her dark clothes made her frame melt into the doorway behind her. Nobody would be able to notice her even if they looked into her direction.
Several weeks of following those she suspected of being vampires had turned into a crash course in stealth. Until now, she’d stayed far enough away from them to be out of danger. Tonight, she would have to get close.
The sound of a door opening pulled Nina out of her thoughts. A quick glance at the person exiting the large Victorian home confirmed it was one of the vampires, the biggest of them, Amaury.
She’d followed him several times, figured out where he lived and tried to find his weak point. She wasn’t particularly keen on him being the first she would have to take down, but maybe this was how it should be. Get rid of the biggest, baddest vampire first; the rest would be easy pickings by comparison.
Nina watched him stagger down the front steps, almost as if he was drunk. On the sidewalk he stopped and braced himself against the gate to his right. The light from the streetlamp illuminated his face. Instead of the broad smile he so often sported in the company of others, his face was distorted, deep grooves around his mouth and eyes creating a mask of pain.
Pain? She frowned. From everything she knew about vampires, she was almost certain they didn’t feel much pain, if any at all. Yet Amaury looked as if he was in the throws of a migraine, the heels of his hands pressed tightly against his temples.
With bated breath she watched his chest rise and fall as he inhaled and exhaled deeply. There was something so human, so vulnerable about him, it made her own chest tighten in sympathy. She instantly shook the thought from her mind. A few seconds passed before he finally straightened up, his face normal again.
Nina remained at a safe distance behind him as sh
e followed, the damp pavement absorbing the sound of her soft-soled shoes. From the direction he took, she realized he was heading home. Why he lived in the Tenderloin, one of the shabbiest neighborhoods of San Francisco, when he could surely afford a much better place, was a mystery to her. His clothes, while casual, looked expensive. And once she’d seen him in his car, a Porsche.
As she trailed him down the hill, slowly entering the less savory parts of the city where so many of the homeless and drug addicts congregated, she had already decided on a place to take him down. Patiently, she bided her time, each step bringing her closer to the spot which would give her a definite advantage.
Nina stepped around yet another homeless man passed out on the sidewalk. The scent of alcohol and urine assaulted her senses. Suddenly, the drunk twitched and grunted, startling her. Adrenaline pumped through her veins. She glanced down at the man, ready to defend herself if necessary, but he was out cold. When she looked back up, Amaury had just turned a corner. She only caught sight of a flap of his long coattail.
Immediately, she quickened her stride. She couldn’t afford to lose him when she was so close to her goal. Two blocks further was the location she’d scouted out days ago.
The old obsolete stairway she’d discovered led over the roof of an abandoned one-story building. At the diagonal corner of it, it provided a clear viewpoint above a narrow alley—an alley Amaury liked to take. He would pass by it, and she would be able to jump onto him from above, stabbing him at the same time.
Nina slipped her hand into her pocket and touched the stake. The wood felt smooth in her hand as she caressed it like a lover, fitting it to her palm.
Amaury LeSang, you’ll be one dead vampire in a minute.
Such a big man, yet such a small object would bring about his death. It was almost poetic. For all their strength and power, vampires were surprisingly vulnerable to something as simple as a piece of wood. There was justice in this world after all. She would call on this justice tonight.
She rounded the corner he’d turned only seconds earlier. The narrow street was dark and—empty. Nina skidded to a halt. Had he noticed her after all and started running once he’d been out of her direct line of sight?
