by Tina Folsom
“Take the damn bottle, Yvette, and shut up! We all know how cranky you get when you haven’t fed, so do us all a favor and drink.” Zane gave her an exasperated look as he shoved the flask into her hand.
Inwardly Amaury had to grin. She could be an absolute pain when she was hungry. At least he didn’t have to be the one she would be annoyed with for the next few hours. Zane had just taken over that favorite spot.
Yvette grunted something incomprehensible and put the flask to her mouth. Amaury smelled the blood and felt his own stomach constrict. He normally fed only once a night, but the search for his mystery woman had drained his energy more than usual, and he hadn’t had time to feed a second time before he and Carl had left for the airport.
Amaury felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket and pulled it out. He wandered into the hallway and, after checking the caller ID, answered the phone, keeping his voice low.
“Samson, you heard?”
“Yes, Oliver called me. He’s on his way. What’s going on?” Samson’s voice sounded concerned.
“Somebody tampered with the car. I’ll arrange for it to be towed to one of our mechanics to check it out, but from what Carl’s saying, it pretty much looks like somebody didn’t want us to arrive at our destination. Quinn thinks it was explosives.”
“Damn! A mole?”
Samson’s guess didn’t come out of left field. After they had been betrayed by Thomas’s lover Milo only months earlier, nobody was above suspicion. Milo’s betrayal had resulted in life-threatening injuries to Samson, and only the quick thinking and selflessness of Delilah had saved his life.
“We can’t eliminate the possibility. I’ll look into it.”
“You don’t think that one of our New York crew did this?” Samson asked. “How did Quinn know it was an explosive?”
Amaury didn’t want to put a black mark against any of them, but anybody could be a traitor. “I noticed him sniff. Could have smelled the residue, especially if he’s familiar with plastic. Is he?”
“He did a stint with a bomb-disposal unit a few years back if I remember correctly,” Samson confirmed. “How about the others? Anything suspicious?”
“They were in just as much danger as Carl and I, unless one of them had an alternative plan. Zane sure was eager to break into any house to beat sunrise. Thank God, it wasn’t necessary. I had my lockbox key.”
Samson chuckled. “I can always count on you to multitask. So, what’s the house like?”
“Definitely worth a look. I think you and Delilah should check it out. Only, it’s a little suburban. Is Delilah up for that?”
Samson let out another soft laugh. “If it was up to Delilah, we’d be staying in our current house even if we had five kids, which frankly, could happen. But we’ll need the space, so this will be one decision I’ll be making.”
Amaury let his grin spread over his entire face. “Sure, if you say so.” Like his friend had any chance once Delilah made up her mind about something.
“Not funny, Amaury.”
Of course it was funny. Ever since Samson had bonded with Delilah, he had softened when it came to anything to do with her. In business he was still the tough guy he’d always been, but his wife was definitely his soft spot.
“I’ll check in with you later.”
He disconnected the call and walked back toward the den when he heard the engine of an approaching vehicle. Quickly, he went into the living room and slid back the curtain to peer out the window. A ray of sunshine grazed his hand.
“Ouch!” he hissed and jumped back, letting the curtain fall shut again. The smell of singed body hair filled the air. He glanced at his burnt hand. It shouldn’t have happened. He was getting sloppy.
Somebody had to go and open the garage door from the inside, so Oliver could drive the van in. Throwing a look back at the den, Amaury shrugged. If he wanted something done, he’d better do it himself.
He opened the door to the garage and hit the electronic garage door opener just to the left of the door. Expecting the garage door to lift automatically, he instantly stepped back into the hallway and closed the door behind him.
Nothing happened. Amaury waited several seconds, but the expected sound of the garage door lifting didn’t come. Impatiently, he went back into the garage and pressed the button again. Nothing.
Then he noticed the sign next to the switch.
Fellow Agents,
Please do not use garage door opener. Garage door is jammed and has been bolted. Repair is scheduled for Thursday.
Amaury pulled out his cell and dialed Oliver’s number.
“I’m outside, Amaury. Can you let me in?” Oliver’s voice answered immediately.
“That’s a problem. The garage door is broken.”
“Oh, boy!”
Yes, oh, boy.
He and his fellow vampires wouldn’t be able to board the van in the safety of the garage, away from the burning rays of the sun. This day sucked—major.
His colleagues liked the news even less than he did when he explained the situation to them.
“You can’t be serious,” Yvette grumbled, pulling herself straight in her corner of the couch. “I’m not going outside while it’s daylight. Pick me up at night. I’m staying here.” She crossed her arms over her ample chest and pouted her lips.
“I’d like to see you try,” Zane provoked her. “Already now you’re thirsty. How long do you think you can hold out without blood? Or are you planning on sucking on one of us?”
“Fuck you!” Yvette hissed.
Amaury growled. He was sick of the bickering. No matter what anybody said, he and his colleagues wouldn’t be able to remain in the house for long.
“Staying here is not an option. There’s a broker’s Open House starting at nine thirty. The listing agent is going to be here by nine o’clock. We can’t stay,” Amaury informed them.
“We can wipe his memory when he gets here and do the same with any of the buyers who’re coming. They’ll never remember we were here,” Yvette suggested.
Amaury let out a mirthless laugh. “I guess you don’t go to a lot of Open Houses, Yvette, otherwise you’d know that the first thing the broker will do is open the curtains and let the light in. You don’t show a house in the dark.”
Yvette’s mouth turned into a thin line. He knew how she hated to be outsmarted.
“Amaury is right. We can’t stay,” Gabriel’s calm voice responded. “It’s just a short dash. Yes, we’ll have some burns, but we’ll survive. When did you all turn into wimps?”
“Can’t we fix the garage door?” Yvette asked.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m not an electrician,” Quinn remarked without malice.
“We’ll stick with Amaury’s plan, and that’s that.” Gabriel put his foot down.
At least one person was on Amaury’s side. He knew his plan wasn’t great, but the alternative was worse. Even if they prevented the broker from opening the curtains by using mind control on him, somebody else might slip through the cracks. Staying here was too risky.
Amaury turned to Oliver. “Back up the van as close to the front door as you can, then open the back doors.”
“There are rose bushes blocking the entryway,” he advised.
“I don’t care. Drive over them.” He could send somebody later to take care of the damage and have everything rectified before the listing agent arrived. “Call my cell when you’re ready.”
Oliver turned to leave.
“I could slap you for getting us into this situation. I should have known you’d screw up.” Yvette jumped up from the couch and trained a sour look on Amaury.
“Oh, go ahead. Take a swing if it makes you feel better. As if I give a shit.”
He shrugged his shoulders as he listened to the front door opening and then closing again. He knew Yvette all too well. She was all talk and no action. Soon she’d run out of steam and deflate again. It wasn’t worth wasting his breath on it.
The kick to
his stomach had Amaury revise his opinion of her. He doubled over. She’d obviously perfected her karate moves and decided to hand out the beating he’d been due for years.
“Bitch!” He didn’t have enough breath for a wittier response while his body dealt with the unexpected assault.
“Yvette, that’s enough,” Gabriel reprimanded. “We all know what this is about.”
Amaury pulled himself straight. His stomach muscles readjusted. Her kick had nothing to do with the present and everything to do with the past.
He made a mental note never to fuck a colleague again, no matter how desperate he got. It was definitely better to stick to nameless, faceless women whose memories he could erase and who he would never see again.
“Guess we’re even then,” he said and nodded to her.
“We’ll see,” she hedged.
The woman sure could hold a grudge. Same damn long memory as an elephant.
“I’ll go first,” Quinn volunteered cheerfully as if to diffuse the tension. A few seconds later, Amaury’s cell phone rang. Oliver was in place.
***
An hour later, Amaury was back in his top-floor apartment in the Tenderloin, tending to his second- and third-degree burns. The dark in his place soothed him. His electronic blinds had closed automatically seconds before sunrise. They were programmed to lift again shortly after sunset.
The neighborhood was sleazy, but it suited him. At least here, the chance of constantly being surrounded by people in love was remote. Anger, despair, and hunger were the predominant emotions circulating in the neighborhood.
His physical wounds would heal while he slept during the day, but he needed blood to help the process. Unlike many of his friends, he’d never taken to bottled blood and therefore had no ready supply in his home.
But there were tenants in the building. Most of them would be out during the day, but there was one who was almost always at home.
Amaury dragged himself through the dim and windowless stairwell, commanding his aching legs to make it down one flight of stairs. He rang the doorbell and waited. It seemed to take forever until he heard the shuffling of footsteps on the other side. A chain was released a moment later, then the door swung open fully.
The old lady looked like she’d just woken up. She tightened the belt of her bathrobe around her waist.
“Good morning, Mrs. Reid,” Amaury greeted her.
“Oh, Amaury, did you just come back from night shift?” Only now she seemed to take a good look at him and flinched instantly. “Oh, dear, another accident at the factory?”
He’d made up a cover story many years ago, telling her he worked as a night supervisor at a foundry on the East Bay. It would explain why he slept all day and would occasionally come home with injuries.
He nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
“You look terrible. Have you seen a doctor?” The old dear was all concerned and sweet.
Amaury hated himself for what he had to do, but he had no choice. He needed blood to heal.
He would make it up to her later. He could lower her rent and even cook her one of his best French dishes. She would like that.
Amaury employed mind control and let himself into her apartment. As soon as he closed the door behind him, he sank his fangs into her neck. Only when her rich blood coated his throat did he realize the extent of his need to feed. Desperate to still his thirst and regain his strength, he took big gulps from her vein.
Six
Nina blamed her informant. He’d clearly sold her out. Why else would she be standing in an alley, staring into the ugly faces of two vampire dudes flashing their fangs at her and bent on kicking her ass? She’d unknowingly walked into a trap.
Well, at least one mystery was solved: not all vampires were handsome. In fact, the taller of the two was butt ugly. His nose was tilted too far upwards, showing his nostrils the way a pig’s snout would look. She certainly wouldn’t have any scruples turning him into dust—that was, if she got a chance. At the moment, that chance looked pretty remote.
Instead of meeting with some low-level criminal who had information on the vampires, her contact, that shitty little weasel, had purposefully let her run into a hastily set trap. If she got out of this alive, she would beat the shit out of that rotten lowlife, even if it was the last thing she did.
Nina didn’t need to glance behind her to know she was at a dead end, literally and figuratively. She stood in one of the many little alleys in the Tenderloin. There was a constant stench of urine, vomit, and alcohol in the neighborhood. The sidewalks were always littered with trash.
Gripping a stake in each hand, she gritted her teeth. Nina was no stranger to fighting. She was extremely agile and was proficient in kickboxing—down-and-dirty style, the way it was fought on the streets, not in the dojos of the fancy gyms. She’d kicked more ass than Jean-Claude Van Damme in any of his B-movies. But this fight wouldn’t be equal. One of the bloodsuckers she could probably defeat, but two at the same time was a challenge she wasn’t keen on facing.
Her palms were sweaty, her heartbeat erratic, but she had no choice. She had to fight. A glance toward the only exit of the alley told her that while there were plenty of cars passing by on the main road, nobody was stopping. The cavalry wasn’t coming.
She knew she had to be smart about it, use brain instead of brawn.
“Aren’t you two pretty ones?” Nina mocked. She wouldn’t show them how scared she was.
The shorter vampire let a snarl rip from his throat. “Hm, looks like delicious dinner.”
Dinner?
Not if she could help it. “More like an amuse-bouche. There’s hardly enough for one of you, let alone two.” Maybe she could get them to fight among each other. “Look, there really isn’t much of me at all.”
She stretched her arms out to the sides to show off her slender body, while covertly adjusting her stance to fighting mode.
“It’ll be plenty,” Butt Ugly assured her and flashed his fangs.
“Now, I hope you brushed your teeth this evening. There’s nothing worse than a vampire with bad breath,” she chided. Was it smart to provoke him? Frankly, anything to gain time so she could work out a strategy was fine with her. Even if it meant making them mad.
“Sassy, I give you that. I’m sure your blood will taste quite spicy. What do you think, Johan?” One side of his mouth tilted upwards and turned into a smug snarl.
His companion grinned. “I think we should do her first.” He moved his pelvis in a way which left little to her imagination.
Great! Now they wanted to do her.
Why did men always have to think about sex when they couldn’t control a woman any other way?
“Typical man! Can’t defeat a woman with his intellect, so he’s got to whip out his dick. That’s really manly, wow.” She flicked her middle finger at them.
Johan took a step closer, but Butt Ugly stopped him. “The boss said to get rid of her and stop her from snooping around any longer, so that’s all we’re gonna do.” He paused and angled his head as if assessing her for the first time. “Well, no use wasting a good snack.” He smacked his lips together in an unmistakable gesture.
Nina didn’t like the sound of it. No wonder her informant had sold her out. Somebody was after her. And she had an idea of who had sent those goons. Amaury had obviously realized after their encounter last night that she knew he was a vampire and was now taking action.
If she hadn’t completely lost it during his kiss, maybe her hand wouldn’t have twitched and accidentally dropped the stake. He’d most likely heard it fall to the ground and found it. It didn’t take much to put two and two together. She couldn’t dwell on it. Her half-baked plan of distracting him with a kiss had backfired, and now she was going to pay for it. Dearly.
If she was going down, at least she would try to take one of them with her. Apart from her life, she had nothing else to lose.
“I failed you, Eddie,” she whispered to herself. A second later she lifte
d her head and locked her jaw. One deep breath to fill her lungs with oxygen, and she was ready for her last fight.
Nina launched into a sprint, gained momentum and jumped, kicking her foot into Johan’s chest Bruce Lee style. The vampire was taken by surprise and stumbled backwards. Without taking a breather, she landed firmly on both feet and instantly turned back, facing the second vampire.
Butt Ugly sneered. His right hook connected with her shoulder, before she had even seen it coming. Her body whipped back as the pain radiated downwards. For a moment, black dots clouded her vision. Her lungs fought for breath, fighting against the burn charging through her cells.
Damn, the bastard was fast!
A sound behind her warned her that Johan was on his feet again. Guessing what was coming, she took a roll to the side before his claws could grab her. It didn’t save her for long. Butt Ugly reared his head and jumped toward her.
Nina lunged onto the garbage skip and escaped his reach by jumping off on the other side.
“Go around it,” Butt Ugly ordered his companion.
Now they both came toward her, one from the right, one from the left. Remembering her gymnastics training, she did a cartwheel and sauntered over the bins a second time. Her shoe caught on the bin and she slipped, landing hard on her side.
Searing pain ripped through her. Her ribs felt badly bruised. She would be lucky if they weren’t broken. But she had no time to check. Her attackers were already upon her. A claw dug into her shoulder and pulled her up, lifting her off the ground.
“Now we’ve got you,” Johan said, triumph coloring his voice.
“You bastards!” she screamed at the top of her lungs and kicked her legs at him, still suspended in the air. With her right arm she tried to grasp for any part of his body where she could do damage, but only now did she realize that she’d lost one of her stakes with her evasive maneuvers. Her left hand still held the second stake, but Johan had immobilized her with his painful grip to her shoulder.
She kicked again, earning herself a swipe of his claws across her chest. A burning sensation hit her. The bastard had sliced through her shirt and skin. She could feel the blood seep from the gash on her breast. It stung like hell.
