“Or it’s very, very thirsty.”
A hazy idea coalesced in a swirl of memory, there and gone before I grasped it. “I need to call home.”
He straightened, his brow furrowing. “Is everything all right?”
“I want to ask Dad a few questions, that’s all. My blood requirements are negligible compared to what a true vamp requires. Since there are no coveys on the islands, it would be quicker to pester him than locate another vamp on the payroll to ask.”
Jones indicated a table and chairs several yards away. “I’ll give you some privacy.”
Unsaid was he wasn’t leaving me alone out here with a killer on the loose.
I dialed home, and Dad answered on the first ring. “Lena?”
“Hey, Dad. I have a few questions to ask you. About feeding.”
“Are you having trouble?” The warmth in his voice dropped like a stone, and he zoomed into full papa-bear mode. Having a half-vamp kid involved a lot of trial and error, and Dad worried over my diet to the point of sending me bagged blood via courier with shot glasses hand-marked for my weekly allowance. That was after I turned away the men he paid to offer me their veins. Those had come with stopwatches to time my feedings. I figured it was the vampire equivalent of making plane noises while shoving a spoon in my mouth. “Are you still in Nevis? I can catch a flight if you—?”
“Daddy,” I said firmly. Well, as firmly as a grown woman falling back on childhood mannerisms got. “It’s for a case. I’m fine. I’m eating well. I’m drinking well. I’ve even gained back five pounds.”
Only fifteen more to go until I reached my pre-Edelweiss weight.
“Oh.” He brightened. “That is good news. I’m happy to help however you need. What’s on your mind?”
“How much blood does a full-blooded vamp require?” I left the timeframe open for his interpretation.
“The average human body contains around ten pints of blood. A vampire on a regular feeding schedule can make do with one pint taken every five to seven days.”
That was about what I expected him to say. “How bad off would a vamp have to get to drain a human?”
The line went quiet for a moment, and then Dad exhaled. “Some of the older vampires sleep for decades at a time. When they rise, they’re ravenous and not quite sane. They can drain three to five humans before getting too blood drunk to keep gorging. Generally, when they wake, they remain in a stupor for up to a year before slowly regaining awareness and requiring another feeding.”
“That’s regulated now, right?” Since vamp law didn’t apply to me or any other dhampir, our mixed heritage forcing us outside their hierarchy, I wasn’t up to date on the edicts of their ruling body. “There would be records of any ancients hitting the snooze button?”
He paused. “Yes.”
“I sense a but coming.”
“But,” he continued, “ancients who slumbered prior to implementation are not part of the public record.”
I did the math in my head. “That would mean any vamps not included in the census would be close to a century old. Can vamps sleep that long?”
“It’s possible. The older the vampire, the longer their rests when they retire from the world. What is the purpose of these questions? Do you believe you’ve stumbled across an ancient?”
I bit the inside of my cheek. Tell him yes, and he would contact the vamps to handle the problem in-house. Tell him no, and I might be lying to him and complicating the case. I chose the middle road. “Locals think it’s a chupacabra.”
“I thought those were native to Latin America.” He sounded intrigued. “You do meet the most interesting people.”
A harsh breath burst from my lungs. Yeah. I did. And some of them tried to kill me. A few of them almost succeeded.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I only meant to tease.”
“I know.” I monitored my breathing, got everything back on track. “And before you ask, I’m fine. I’m dealing. It just hits me sometimes.”
“Understandable.”
“The techs are leaving,” Jones said from far too close. “We ought to get some sleep too. There’s a meeting in the morning, and we’re expected to be there. You in particular, since you were the first on scene.”
“Who’s that?” A growl entered Dad’s voice.
My gaze flicked to Jones. “He’s my partner.”
“What does he mean we ought to get some sleep?”
“Dad.” Heat rushed into my cheeks. “It’s not like that.”
Jones leveled a stare on me that called me on my bull.
“Okay, so maybe it will be like that, but it’s not right now. Love you. Gotta go. Bye!”
“Your dad didn’t seem thrilled with the idea of you dating,” Jones observed.
“I’m his baby. Of course, he doesn’t want me to date.”
The clouds shrouding the moon caught his attention. “So, it’s not because you told him what I am.”
“My folks are in a mixed marriage. I’m a half-blood. Do you really think they care if you are too?”
“Some parents do.”
Protocol be damned, I covered his hand with mine. “I’ll let you in on a little secret.” I leaned close. “I’m a grown woman. I make my own choices. If my dad threatened to greet the sun over me dating a half elf, I would send him packing with a bag of marshmallows.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” He rolled his thumb over my knuckles.
“Okay, so I would chain him to a chair in the basement, hose him with SPF 100 in case he escaped, and then call Mom. The point is, I can date whoever I want, and the rest of the world can deal.”
“I think I’m going to like being yours,” he murmured.
Heat swirled through my chest, and my pulse skipped. “You’re not mine.”
“But I will be.”
The way he said it sounded like a promise.
Chapter 7
I didn’t sleep much that night. Too much information pinging around in my head. The victims. The witness. Jones. And the conversation with Dad. The last part pulled what had troubled me from the start into focus, and I said so at the meeting in front of the rest of the task force the next morning.
“I think we’re looking for an ancient.” The weight of so many eyes on me dried the saliva from my tongue. Standing there put me on display. This way no one had to sneak peeks at the crazy transfer. Leading the meeting gave them an excuse to stare to their heart’s content. Jones shot me two thumbs-up from the back of the room where no one would notice, and I soldiered on. “The punctures are too precise, and a scent lingers on two of the bodies. We should have the results of the saliva tests this afternoon. That will confirm we’re dealing with one killer.”
The marshal who had driven Ms. Vasquez home the night before raised her hand. “That’s a lot of blood. Could one vampire hold so much? That must be…” she made a mental calculation, “…thirty pints.”
Most folks didn’t know the math. That she did made me wonder what she was, though I wasn’t so rude as to ask. “I called a consultant last night.” They didn’t need to know it was my dad. “He confirmed the only time a vamp consumes blood in that quantity is after they’ve awakened from a deep sleep.”
The outpost director perked at that, no doubt gleeful to have some other branch to blame the deaths on. “We’ll have to get the vampire council involved if that’s the case.”
“We can’t sit on our hands and wait on them to clean up this mess,” Jones protested. “We’ll have to keep making sweeps. Maybe last night will spook him, and he’ll hole up until they get here.”
“Vamps maintain a strict hunting territory,” I added. “That our perp has ventured outside his zone is worrisome, but I have a theory about that.”
“Last night you thought it was possible he followed us,” Jones said, oblivious to the stares his statement generated. I hadn’t been ready for the others to know there was—or might be—an us. “Are you saying you think he followed you?”
A smart man was Dimples. He had picked up on the link as I had known he would. “As I said, vamps maintain a tight perimeter, but the one thing guaranteed to send a vamp seeking outside his holdings is having another vampire invade his territory. He might have tracked us and killed on what he assumed was my land to prove a point.”
“Don’t the vamps keep records of this kind of thing?” another marshal asked.
“They do.” I was grateful to have done the legwork last night so I had answers this morning. “But if this had been a monitored sleep, the vampire wouldn’t be on the loose now. Assuming that’s what we’re dealing with, he would have been woken at a predetermined time and been fed and cared for until he was at full strength. The process takes around a year.”
“Are you saying this vamp is a rogue?” Director Smith sat up straighter. Labeling him as a rogue, basically any vamp who posed a threat of discovery to the supernatural community based on their erratic behavior, put the vamp squarely in our territory.
“Most vamps sleep for a decade or so, long enough for the world to be new but for their mortal acquaintances to still be alive. If our vamp is an ancient and he went to sleep without someone to wake him, or that person died before he could complete his task, then the vamp rose on his own. It’s possible he’s slept away a century, which means he has no point of contact. No one to care for him. He’s insane. Bloodlust has clouded his judgment, and the advances in technology must terrify him.” Murder was murder, but I had to add, “He hasn’t torn out any throats or otherwise tormented his victims that we can tell. All signs indicate he’s used a lure when feeding. Some part of him might be reachable.”
From the expressions pinned on faces throughout the room, I gathered we had all come to the same realization. The vamp council would pardon an ancient who rose alone, left to fend for himself. As long as he was captured before humans got wise to his killing spree.
Director Smith rubbed his forehead. “I’m calling the vamps. They can send their team. We’ll continue sweeps from dusk until dawn and try to minimize the casualties until backup arrives.” He grunted. “This is all we need. This would have been easier if the killer really had been that goat-sucking thing.”
The meeting broke up after that, and we were told to return to our rooms or homes to rest up for the night shift. Jones and I had ridden together, so we returned to our hotel and parted company in the hallway. I’m not sure how he spent his day, but I burned through mine hunched over my laptop, trying to chart the vamp’s territory and digging for any lore or missing vamps listed in the conclave database that might explain this one’s identity or origins.
Around four in the afternoon, I was wiped and crawled in bed to catch some shut-eye. I noticed the light on my phone flashing, groaned when I realized I hadn’t unmuted it after the meeting, and checked my messages. I had one. From Dad.
“I asked a friend about your predicament, and he’s got an idea of who you might be dealing with. Call me before engaging.”
Two hours until dark. So much for sleep.
Chapter 8
After a restless few hours of failed attempts at sleep, the sun went down, and I dialed up Dad. He answered with a groan that told me I must have woken him. He was usually an up-at-dusk kind of guy, so his muzziness put me on alert.
“Everything okay?” I led with instead of hello.
“Stayed up drinking with the friend I mentioned. Feels like someone struck my head with a hammer.”
Dad was old school. Vein only. Bagged blood need not apply. Usually Mom sustained him, but when her job took her out of town, he visited DeLuca’s, a blood bar. Same for when he entertained fangy friends. Basically, vamps picked donors off the menu and sipped their meal—wrist only—at a table in a mockery of the human dining experience.
That right there was enough for me to swear off vamps and their derivatives. I couldn’t deal with my significant other getting toothy with another woman. Or man.
“No.” He snorted at the very idea. “We spend a few hours at DeLuca’s, sampling one of his newest concoctions.”
The only way to get a vamp drunk was for them to dine on inebriated humans. Though I suppose there was just as much variety in how you got them tipsy as in any of the other myriad ways Presley DeLuca kept her clients happy.
“Uh-huh.” I bet that had thrilled Mom. I made a mental note to call her and plead Dad’s case since he had been helping me out with research. “So, what did this old drinking buddy of yours have to say?”
“He mentioned an ancient from the region who went missing a hundred and fifty years ago, give or take a decade. According to lore, a plague wiped out his household, and they took the knowledge of his resting site to their graves.”
Interest piqued, I fumbled for the cheap notepad the hotel provided. “Does he have a name?”
“Captain Fenton Rawlins.” Sounding pleased with his grasp of modern lingo, he added, “You can Google him.”
“I’ll do that,” I promised, ending the call with a tried-and-true hangover recipe.
A quick Internet search provided me with the basics on Captain Rawlins. He had been a rather infamous pirate, born right here on St. Kitts. That set an electric tingle under my skin. This was it. It had to be. Many of the old vamps returned home to sleep. A pity, I had always thought, considering how much it must have changed from the time of their birth, and how much more it would be altered again by the time they rose. Still, I suppose there was comfort in that, even when modern times stripped away the familiar.
With that done, I dialed up Jones. “Hey, I’ve got a bead on our guy. Let me read you what I’ve got, and you tell me if you think it’s plausible.”
I read off my notes and a few choice passages from Wiki corroborated by other sources.
“It fits.” He yawned, making me feel guilty for rousing my second guy in as many phone calls. “An ancient rising would explain the spree and why we’ve only found traces of one killer at the scenes.” Keys tapped in the background. “Saliva tests came back. We’ve got a match on victim one and three.”
I blew out a slow breath. “So how do we stop this guy from taking victim number four?”
“You said he got pissed when you entered his territory, right?” He sounded more alert. “Why don’t we do another sweep of the sites? Maybe you could take a nibble while you’re there. Wouldn’t that be the vamp equivalent of marking your territory?”
“I don’t have a donor here.” I lowered my voice, part embarrassment and part, well, no. It was all embarrassment. “I pour dinner from a plastic bag into a mug and stick it in the microwave.”
“But you can feed?”
The gentle question made my gut twist. “Yes.”
“Then we’ll try my plan and see where it lands us.”
Did he mean in hot water? “Um, feeding is kind of a personal experience.”
“Which is why I’m willing to shower now to give you a clean place to grab a bite to eat.”
Scalding heat flooded my face, and all the air got sucked from the room as my fangs descended, sharp and eager. “Gotta go,” I lisped around them. “Thee you thoon.”
This was such a bad idea.
So why was my stomach growling?
Chapter 9
Jones and I rendezvoused in the hall. Me frazzled, hungry and mortified. Him clean, freshly shaved and showered, and smiling. Dimples displayed to full effect.
“Have you ever…?” I couldn’t find the words to finish the thought.
“No.” He ducked his head. “You’ll be my first.”
With great effort, I kept my fangs, which stood at attention around Jones, from lengthening. “It’s probably going to hurt. I’m not great with the—” I snapped my teeth together. “I buy bagged. It’s easier.”
“I trust you not to hurt me unnecessarily.” His warm hand landed on my shoulder. “The rest… It’s worth it if we catch this guy.”
Nodding agreement, I bolted out of the hotel, grateful for the cool night air as it h
it my face. Jones had pulled on his cop mask, and we didn’t talk on the way to the first kill site. He walked me into the woods, to the location still marked by crime-scene tape knotted around tree trunks, and stood there, expectant.
“I’m not sure…” I didn’t want to hurt him, and worse, I didn’t want my fangs to fail me. How awkward would that be? It’s not like they made little blue pills for vamps.
“Try it.” He unbuttoned his shirt and shoved it partway down one arm, giving me full access to his bare throat and the smooth curve of his shoulder. “If it doesn’t feel right, stop. No harm, no foul. I’m not going to force you, and I’m here of my own free will.”
Screwing up my courage, I crossed to him and curved a palm around one side of his neck, the heat of his skin sending my gut into fits. He bent down, granting me easier access, and I inhaled the column of his throat. Yep. There they were. Fangs punched through my gums so fast they nicked my bottom lip.
Jones’s hand found my hip, squeezed, and I let instinct take over. I raked my teeth down the length of his carotid, found the sweet spot that smelled strongest of him, and bit down with a gentleness that astonished me, given the rumble in my stomach.
Swaying toward me, Jones held on tight to steady himself, moaning into the bite. I took a sip, barely a mouthful, and withdrew. Breathing fast, Jones rested his forehead against mine. Pheromones spiked the air, and I inhaled them, pleased that I had given him pleasure. The numbing solution in our fangs caused euphoria in our victims, but only when I was, ahem, fully engaged.
“That was…” He swallowed hard. “I could do that again.”
Laughing softly, I meant to rest my cheek against his since his blood smeared my lips, but he turned his head at the last second, and our mouths collided. His kiss tasted of mint and copper, and it left my toes curled in my boots. A needy sound clawed up the back of my throat, and he responded with an urgent growl.
Thrown to the Wolves (Gemini Series) Page 6
