The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2013 Susannah Sandlin
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781612183596
ISBN-10: 161218359X
Dedication
To Dianne, who saved Penton from the CIA, and so much more.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Jackson’s back slammed into the wall with enough force to crack the plaster, sending a cloud of dust, splintered lathing, and blood-covered plaster chips pluming outward.
“A whole town can’t just disappear. Tell me where they went.” Matthias Ludlam hefted one of the ugly primitive paintings he’d pulled off the wall of his new headquarters in the Penton Clinic office and cracked it over the back of an upholstered chair with a crash of splintered wood frame and torn canvas.
He wielded a jagged spear of framing and punched it into Jackson’s chest, just hard enough to use its point to make his point.
“You will talk to me, Mr. Jackson. You obviously left the Penton scathe and your memories were scrubbed, but guess what? Memories can be retrieved.” He lowered the makeshift stake and poised it over the man’s groin. “Here’s my next target.”
“Please. I don’t remember anything, I swear.” Jackson, a short and slender black-haired vampire, looked like a teenager and couldn’t have been turned more than a decade. Matthias recognized the vacant expression and the man’s dilated pupils and knew his memory had been scrubbed thoroughly. But even altered memories could be retrieved sometimes if the pressure were great enough.
Matthias knew how to exert pressure.
After months of targeting them in different ways, he finally had trapped the Penton rebels exactly as he’d planned—Aidan Murphy, the Slayer Mirren Kincaid, and their whole band of humans and vampires, including his ingrate of a son, William. Three days ago, he’d received backing from the Vampire Tribunal to shut down the entire town. Better still, permission to kill Murphy for illegally turning a human doctor into a vampire—a crime in these days when vampires were on the brink of starvation and civil war. And permission to kill Mirren Kincaid for murdering that pain-in-the-ass Tribunal member Lorenzo Caias.
Then that goddamned squaw Kincaid had taken as a mate used her telekinetic powers to throw the whole town into chaos and they’d escaped. All those people—he’d estimated a hundred vampires and humans combined—had just vanished from a little town in the middle of nowhere. It was impossible.
He shifted the stake a few inches to the left and jammed it into Jackson’s thigh, proving the stupid fool could still cry like a human. Murphy had bonded a bunch of weaklings who’d rather cower in the protective cover of a herd, hiding behind Murphy and Kincaid, than stand on their own. “Where did they go?”
Jackson’s legs collapsed, forcing Matthias to back out of the way or get blood on his tailored suit.
“Omega.” Tears, mucus, and blood mixed on Jackson’s face. “They’re in Omega.”
Another half hour of persuasion yielded nothing more, and Matthias finally turned the man over to Shelton Porterfield. Former manager of Matthias’s Virginia estate, Shelton was now his second-in-command in what he’d come to think of as Project Penton.
The Vampire Tribunal wanted Penton shut down, but Matthias needed Aidan Murphy, Mirren Kincaid, and their mates dead. They knew enough to ruin him if they could ever get enough ears on the Tribunal to listen. Luckily for him, the Tribunal was threatened by Murphy’s power and not prone to giving him a sympathetic audience. They also didn’t like getting their hands dirty, which meant they’d leave Matthias alone to handle things however he wanted.
He looked down at Jackson. “Might as well kill him. He can’t remember more, or he’d have coughed it up by now. And he’s too pathetic to be of any use to us as a fighter, even if I enthrall him.”
Shelton flicked a glance over the prostrate man and ran the tip of his spongy tongue across his lips. His thinning white-blond hair made his blue eyes look almost electric. “Pretty, though. Care if I have a little fun with him first?”
Jackson whimpered, already healing enough to understand Shelton’s intentions, and Matthias looked at Shelton in disgust, brushing the remaining dots of plaster dust off his jacket and smoothing down his hair. “Do whatever you want—just get him out of here.”
He watched Shelton hustle the man out the door. His lieutenant liked to play with his prey, especially the ones who barely looked old enough to be legal, and Matthias almost felt sorry for the hapless David Jackson. Almost.
Omega. What the hell did that mean? Obviously, it had to be some kind of last-ditch escape plan for everyone to have disappeared so quickly. And only a master vampire could alter the memories of another vampire—even a weak one like Jackson—which meant Murphy or Kincaid had wiped the memories of everyone not going with them into Omega. If they went into Omega, it sounded more like a physical place than a plan.
Before Murphy had done his Houdini act with most of the bonded humans and his key lieutenants, including William, Matthias had laid waste to the town with a few dozen mercenaries lured by money and the hope of unlimited feeding. The more time that passed after the vaccine to prevent a human pandemic had turned the blood of vaccinated humans poisonous to vampires, the more desperate his kind became. There was no shortage of bodies willing to help break up Murphy’s town of vampires and bonded, unvaccinated humans.
As soon as Murphy and Kincaid were dead, the whole structure of Penton would crumble. Matthias would be a hero for doing the Vampire Tribunal’s dirty work. And his foolish son William would be back under his control.
Omega.
One little word, but it might be enough to fire up Matthias’s secret weapon. He’d been keeping this treasure to himself until he figured out what to do with it.
He stuck his head outside the clinic office, making sure Shelton and his evening’s entertainment had left the building. Then he crossed the office to the back corner and shoved aside an area rug. At first glance, it looked like the same oak parquet pattern as the rest of the floor. Not on sec
ond glance, however.
His people had set off one of their explosives on the west side of the clinic. The east wing, where the office lay, was still usable but had been jolted enough to show off the cracks in the floor where an intricate wooden lock lay hidden. Matthias recognized William’s work, and an uncomfortable mixture of pride and anger filled his chest. His son was smart in his own way—and stupid in others. The boy had learned to make these kinds of puzzles at one of a million summer school sessions he’d taken to make up for failing his studies during the school year.
William was soft. It was unthinkable that he’d spurned the life of immortality and power and wealth Matthias had offered him, despite his mental limitations, and had thrown in his lot for an easy, uncomplicated life with that Irish peasant Aidan Murphy. Yet it had happened. And if he didn’t retrieve him soon, Matthias knew he’d never get his son back. If William hadn’t already been too brainwashed by Murphy and his peace-loving scathe members to be salvageable.
He still hoped to get the boy out of this situation alive, without the Tribunal accusing William of treason and himself of favoritism. His son would have to be punished, and severely, for supporting the rebels. And punished again for leaving Matthias’s household.
At the end of it, Matthias would take William home.
At the end of it, once William had been broken enough to accept his role, they’d be able to take over the Tribunal.
At the end of it, Matthias would be untouchable.
Using the makeshift stake covered in the blood of the unfortunate David Jackson, Matthias wedged the pointed end under the crack at the edge of the floor panel and hefted it up. It opened into a narrow vertical tunnel with a ladder attached to the wall, leading downward into a basement. Matthias descended slowly, testing his weight on every rung as he’d done on each prior trip into the bowels of underground Penton. In his suit coat pocket, he’d stuffed a folded sheaf of papers.
Murphy had come up with a clever living system, Matthias had to admit. Below the clinic was the building’s original basement, an empty shell that Matthias was surprised hadn’t been put to use. At the far end, under another elaborate locked hatch, was yet another stairwell into a deep subbasement. However the people of Penton had gotten out, it had likely been in some kind of underground passage, since they’d already proven adept at building them. He just had to find out where they had escaped to.
In the subbasement, the concrete and rebar gave way to a carpeted hallway lined with lavishly furnished suites. The far end had collapsed in the explosion, so Matthias had no idea how many suites lay beyond the six on this side. It had been a brilliant setup, with lighttight guest suites. Although a couple of them locked from the outside to keep “visitors” in, he’d found the keys in the clinic desk drawer, and these plush, lockable rooms made the perfect place to stash his secret weapon.
He slid the key into the lock and swung the heavy wooden door inward. The room was dimly lit with a couple of fluorescent lanterns, but he could see the woman well enough. Her riot of strawberry blonde curls partially covered a drawn, pale face. And if looks really could kill, her silvery-green eyes would have shoved a stake right up his ass.
Matthias smiled. In his previous visits, she’d been too racked by the pain of her transition and physical healing to talk, but he’d brought one of his two humans down to feed her for a few minutes at a time, and now she was hungry but lucid.
Exactly the way he intended to keep her.
He’d expected the woman to scream or beg as soon as she recognized him—and she did recognize him, whether or not she knew his name. It would be hard to forget the man who’d been responsible for ending her human life.
“I’m Matthias Ludlam.” He closed the door behind him and walked into the suite, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. Silver-laced rope bound her ankles and secured her arms to the bedposts at an angle that would make it impossible for her to get comfortable. Not that a newly hatched vampire ever got truly comfortable—or posed much of a threat. “I’m head of the Vampire Tribunal Justice Council.”
“I know who you are, you bastard. What do you want with me?” Her transition hadn’t wiped out that horrendous Southern drawl, unfortunately, and she still had that wholesome country-girl look.
“Let’s start by telling me your name.”
She paused. “Lucy Sinclair.”
Matthias laughed. “I met Lucy Sinclair a number of years ago, and she’s dead. We found what was left of her in the ruins of the Penton municipal building. Besides, she was vampire, and until three days ago, you were quite human. Let’s try again, girl—it will go more easily if you cooperate. Your name?”
She clenched her jaw, but spat out two words: “Melissa Calvert.”
“Let’s see if we can confirm that.” Matthias extracted his sheaf of papers and unfolded them. He scanned the list of names printed in two columns on one of the last sheets and began laughing again. He’d been assembling this partial list of Penton residents for over a year from various sources, trying to find a way inside Murphy’s organization. It had finally paid off.
“You’re Aidan Murphy’s familiar?” A flush of pleasure sped up his heart rate. This was perfect. “No wonder he had such a reaction when we twisted that pretty little neck of yours. My instincts to quickly have you drained and turned were exactly the right move.” Murphy had looked ready to explode when he’d seen the woman killed a few feet from where he stood, and only the intervention of one of his lieutenants had held him back from getting his own neck snapped.
The irony that he’d committed the same crime for which he planned to kill Aidan Murphy wasn’t lost on him. But the Tribunal had told him to take Murphy down by any means necessary. And turning Melissa Calvert vampire was just another means.
“If you think I’ll give you information on Aidan, forget it.” She struggled against the ropes. “All you accomplished was creating another pair of fangs to feed.”
“Perhaps. But you’ll have to give me some useful information before you’re allowed to feed again. You’ll be amazed at how long you can last without feeding, and how painful it is.” A lot of his kind were learning that hard lesson, and it would only grow worse as more time passed. All the more reason to break up a place like Penton, where the vampire citizens were bonding humans so they couldn’t be shared outside the scathe.
“Now that I know who you are, I imagine you could say a lot I’d be interested in hearing. When you get hungry enough, your devotion to your precious Aidan Murphy will pale beside your desire to survive.” Matthias stood and walked the length of the suite, hands in his pockets. Aidan Murphy’s human familiar. This was better than he could have hoped for. Matthias didn’t keep single fams—it was more intimacy than he was willing to grant a human. This one was important to Murphy. He’d seen agony in the man’s face when he thought he’d seen her die.
Familiars, or fams, were loyal, however, and she hadn’t been turned long enough to lose that loyalty. There was no point in trying to get her to tell him anything directly about Murphy, even under enthrallment, not until she was truly desperate.
Matthias looked at her thoughtfully. Would Murphy be able to tell she was alive because of her bonds to him? If so, all the better—it would bring him out of hiding faster. He’d want to play the hero.
Matthias had spotted another person named Calvert on the Penton list. It wasn’t that common a name, so chances were good that Mark Calvert was related to this one somehow, which might give him leverage without resorting to torture. Torturing a newly made vampire was rarely effective. They had an annoying tendency to die.
He perched on the edge of the bed again and laid a hand on her ankle. She flinched. “Don’t you want to help Mark? Don’t you wonder what happened to him?”
Melissa stilled and clamped her lips shut, but Matthias saw the streak of fear cross her face. Good.
“Is Mark your brother?” His name was next to that of Krystal Harris, the woman who Murphy had turned vampire agains
t Tribunal law and who was also his mate, so this Mark Calvert was strictly a feeder and not a lover. Mated vampires didn’t stray. “Ah, husband, perhaps.” Even better. How cozy for Murphy and his mate to have a human couple as their feeders. Almost like a foursome.
Melissa said nothing, but she dropped her gaze, which told him what he needed. They hadn’t captured Mark Calvert, but his wife couldn’t know that for sure.
Matthias sat on the edge of the bed again. “Mark wasn’t as stubborn as you’re being. He’s cooperating, and that’s how I know about Omega. Mark’s already told me they went into Omega.”
Her eyes widened. “Mark would never tell you where…” She pressed her lips together again.
But she’d given herself away. She knew plenty, and Aidan Murphy’s sentimental willingness to share information with his human familiar made her more valuable than Matthias ever could have hoped.
Yes, Melissa Calvert had much to tell him.
Beginning with how a whole town of humans and vampires had suddenly disappeared, and where they’d gone.
“You must be planning something big. Hope it’s gonna be fun.”
The building supply checkout clerk was dark haired, pretty, and pink cheeked. Not to mention a flirt.
Will Ludlam studied the woman’s name tag. “I always find a way to make work fun, Cindy.”
He lifted his gaze to her face, gave her a smile that showed off his dimples, and felt her heart rate jump a few notches in response. Oh yeah, he still had the touch. Too bad the scent from that same heartbeat told him she’d been vaccinated for the pandemic virus that had turned human blood poisonous to vampires three years ago.
Then, he’d have waited around until her shift ended and taken her somewhere private for a good feed. She’d have finished the night with a love bruise on her neck and a regrettably vague memory of the best orgasm of her life.
Those were the good old days. Now, in the bad new days, he paid for his supplies and pushed his oversized cart into the dark edge of the megastore parking lot. Not that there would be members of his father’s Tribunal hit squad hanging around the Home Depot in Opelika, Alabama, but one couldn’t be too cautious, especially if one lived thirty miles away in Penton.
Omega (The Penton Vampire Legacy) Page 1
