An expressionless, dark-haired, liveried driver emerged from the Jag. Jesse looked him over twice to make sure he wasn’t the vamp in disguise, though her gut told her it wasn’t possible. When he opened the door, a wave of leather smells hit Jesse. Her feet faltered on the curb. An ounce of coffee spilled.
That smell.
Like him.
She felt herself whiten around the edges.
“You didn’t by any chance hit your minibar?” Stan queried.
“Was there a minibar?” she quipped, sliding onto the backseat.
“I wouldn’t know, I’m sure,” Stan said. “Drinking alone is prohibited. Mind if I have one of these muffins?”
“Go for it.”
Jesse rested her head against the beige leather seat, trying not to breathe too deeply, afraid she might start quaking all over again if she did. In what had to be the hundredth time in twenty minutes, she thought back to the neat pile of clothes she’d discovered on the bedroom chair, and wondered if the evening could have been a dream, after all.
She moved her arm. No pain. But she was almost certain she’d been on the balcony with the vampire, a monster who had nearly killed her, then asked for her trust. He had dared to put his mouth on her, and his mouth had tasted like blood.
With a stranglehold on the coffee cup, she let a “Fool!” slip out. Stan looked over, a muffin pressed to his lips.
“I think Elizabeth Jorgensen may have already left the city,” Jesse said.
Stan bit into the muffin, not wanting, Jesse supposed, to comment on her statement by asking how she knew this. Maybe he believed those psychic-powers rumors.
“It stands to reason that whoever took her would get her out of sight fairly quickly,” she continued.
“That’s logical,” Stan agreed, brushing crumbs off his chest. “So, you want me to fly you someplace?”
Yes. To the damn castle. Dracula’s castle.
And then what?
She could not form those words.
“The officials we met last night may have something for us this morning. A place to start, hopefully,” she said, instead.
“This isn’t Los Angeles.” Stan took another bite of muffin, gesturing as he spoke. “It’s a city, only much smaller. Someone will be bound to know something.”
“I meet with the senator at nine.”
“You want me along, or warming up the bird?”
“Bird.”
“You want to tell me where we’ll be going?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“That depends. Does it involve the letters ESP?”
“You have been listening to the rumors?”
“Well …”
“What? Spit it out.”
“I’m thinking you may be acting a bit odd this morning, and that it’s most likely due to the fact that you’re not telling me something,” Stan said, spitting it out quite nicely, Jesse thought.
“I don’t always wake you up by flashing myself half-naked, you mean? That kind of odd?”
Stan nodded. “Precisely.”
“I had a bad dream, that’s all.”
“Did it involve guys in white puffy shirts and black boots, by any chance?” Stan queried.
Jesse took a few seconds to figure out how to reply to that, and gave up. “Unfortunately, it did.”
“That’s funny, boss, because I also had a dream about that very thing.”
Jesse shot forward on the seat, her body alert, her eyes glued to Stan’s ruddy face.
“And I swear to you right now that I am not gay,” Stan went on, popping the rest of the muffin into his mouth. “Nope, not a gay bone in my body.”
Jesse waited for more of an explanation, feeling dreadfully unbalanced.
Stan swallowed. “It’s just that I dreamed that the guy was there, by my bed, looking down at me.” Seeing the concern Jesse knew must have been on her face, he concluded, “So don’t I feel like an ass for mentioning it, or how odd you’re acting?”
Screaming would have done nothing for either of them, but Jesse wanted to scream. The monster had been in Stan’s room, as she’d feared. His visitation hadn’t been a dream. It was no coincidence that both she and Stan had envisioned the vampire in their hotel rooms.
Was this a warning? A monster letting her know he hadn’t been kidding and that he possessed superior strength and cunning? How was she supposed to get around that?
“Okay.” Stan was eyeing her soberly. “I’m starting to think the ESP thing might be contagious. I think I know where we’re going in the chopper. Am I right?”
“Probably,” Jesse admitted, holding the coffee cup tightly.
“The dream about the guy was an omen, or something equally as inconceivable? And strange, since we both had it?”
Jesse nodded. “I’m not sure what that means. I’m flying by the seat of my pants here. But I think, because of these dreams, the guy we saw may be connected to this case.”
“Okay.” Stan sighed, looking not at all happy about this new development, and also as if he had a lot more questions that he was reluctant to ask. “I sort of under stand the concept of hypnosis. But I don’t know how he could have put the whammy on both of us.”
“Maybe I just solidified the idea of him in your head by telling you what I told you about him.”
“That’s likely it.” Stan looked somewhat relieved as he added, “Jesse?”
“Yeah?”
“I’d prefer you didn’t tell Carol.”
Jesse glanced up. “About the dream?”
“About the boxers. Carol buys me little briefs. I’m definitely not a briefs kind of guy.”
Jesse fell back against the seat after briefly meeting her pilot’s eyes. “Mum’s the word,” she agreed, glad that Stan had the smarts not to press her about this. At least not right then.
“Maybe we can work out some sort of deal with the ESP stories, Stan,” she said, her mind racing beyond the conversation, trying to forge ahead. Had the vampire planned on attacking Stan and changed his mind? Had the creature put thoughts into Stan’s head about himself as a reminder for her to beware, and because he thought she might accept his help if a mention came from Stan?
Just as likely, the vampire wasn’t above blackmailing her into accepting his help, by showing off his nebulous talents.
He was, perhaps, warning her to back off, and leave his “kind” alone. He might be trying to frighten the daylights out of her as payback for interrupting a good sprint to his ghoulish castle.
In time, is what he had whispered to her on the balcony, if the event had actually taken place. He would make his purpose known to her in time.
Well, she couldn’t afford to wait for those answers. She was thinking about a meadow, tall white turrets and the monster’s hand on her wrist, when she should have been laying out a plan for retrieving Elizabeth Jorgensen.
She kept seeing two blue eyes, with the fires of an inferno dancing behind them. Looking into his eyes had been stupid. Dracula now loomed large in her mind when a girl had been missing for a few days. Elizabeth Jorgensen might possibly be the bait this monster dangled in front of Jesse to get her to come to him, for whatever nefarious reasons.
Maybe the creature knew about Elizabeth because he’d taken her. It wasn’t a big leap to see how he might be involved.
“Bait acknowledged,” she muttered into her coffee cup. “Game on.”
His castle would be the first place she’d look for the girl, along with an explanation for her own lost hours. Odds were that the golden monster would be waiting for her there and that she was playing into his hands. Still, she had to take the risk.
Why, though, her logical brain kept asking, would he want her out of the city, when he could have bitten her on the balcony, or in her hotel room, with no one the wiser?
Stan murmured something as he brushed more crumbs off his sleeve and offered her the brown bag. Jesse shook her head, tuned in to her own thoughts, thinking that she felt like crap al
ready, and the day was just beginning.
Chapter 7
The advantages of being an old vampire were few. Being able to tolerate the light filtering through the tinted windows next to him came in handy at the moment, Lance decided. Not having to return to safe ground every twelve hours was another nod in his favor.
He couldn’t imagine having to repose in dirt, under ground, or inside a coffin like the lesser beings he sometimes thought of as the spin-offs. And he had intuition enough to realize that the sensations beating at him as he watched Jesse exit the hotel were more than mere hunger.
He was able to follow Jesse this morning because his Guardian status elevated him so far above Jesse’s monsters as to be another race altogether. Yet in her eyes, he remained a freak.
Because of his blood in her veins, he had a connection to her that meant he could easily find her, keep an eye on her, as he’d tried to tell her last night. This was an aspect of guardianship he had not anticipated, but one that currently suited him. The perks of a blood bond between them made the disadvantages of being what he was almost worthwhile at the moment.
A weak cop was a dead cop, he knew. If Jesse wasn’t in law enforcement, she had a similar profession. Beyond that, she was filled with a longing for revenge that would see her set up as a hunter, though it was obvious she knew little about the creatures she sought. He didn’t need to examine this particular assignment of hers, and what could happen to her if she pursued it. He could see the outcome easily enough.
Wrong job this time, little one.
Then again, why should he care?
Here he was, in the city, acting like Jesse’s jealous lover by waiting to see what she might do next; knowing as surely as he was beginning to know her that Jesse would be scenting the direction of the abducted girl as she sat in the car. The honing of her senses was a gift he had provided her with, though he’d offered it so that Jesse would at the very least see her monsters coming. The problem with such a gift was that it had also brought him closer to her.
He hadn’t planned for this unusual side effect.
Had he?
He felt her thinking, heard her breathing, knew how frightened she was. The pull she created in him had become stronger than his vow of self-imposed exile, and serious enough to make him step outside the car, in a crowd, if he had to.
Today he would approach Jesse and try to make her see reason. She might view things more clearly in the daylight. He needed to convince her to leave before the others found her. Jesse was intelligent and, hopefully, logical. She’d have to realize she needed his help without his tipping her fear right over the edge of the abyss. But he had to be careful. Jesse Stewart carried around a blight on her soul, much like a chip on a shoulder, only deeper and much more unsettling.
Perhaps rightly so.
Staring at her car, feeling her presence inside it, Lance easily discerned her turmoil. With empathy, his own hands fisted. Would she realize her senses were on overload this morning, and that something inside her was different? Did she feel him there, watching?
If her car turned left, he thought, he’d feel somewhat relieved. A left turn would take her to the people waiting for her at the government offices. He’d try to speak to her there, in some hallway or another. If she turned right, she’d be trespassing in the city’s danger zone. She might find her wretched vampires a dime a dozen there, and he’d be forced to point out her vulnerabilities yet again.
His guardianship had indeed, it seemed, stretched in scope. Not only was he watching the vampires, but the humans as well. A willful hybrid female loose in this city would make his task all the more difficult right out of the gate.
All vampires knew of him instinctively, of course. Up against him, they would perceive his position of power, his superior strength and will, even if they were ignorant of his history. Knowledge of him ran in their veins, no matter how diluted their blood had become, although this didn’t mean a contemporary gang of them wouldn’t try to take him on if the stakes were high enough. Stakes like cornering a hybrid female who smelled like food.
There weren’t many female vampires, since they were far outnumbered by lusting males of the species with little or no self-control. Females were in high demand. The vampires in this city would be after Jesse in a heartbeat. As no doubt they had been after the Jorgensen girl.
It might already be too late for Elizabeth Jorgensen. But he was Jesse’s only hope. If there had been others like him here, things may have been different.
There had been others, once upon a time, Lance reminisced. He’d had friends until they had dispersed around the world in search of their own destinies. Perhaps they were also, for all intents and purposes, as monklike as himself. Celibate, lonely, monotonously continuous, disgusted by the way things had turned out and secretly desirous of company.
Were those things the reason he had become interested in this female, blood bond or not? Someone he had touched, twice. Gotten close to. Not entirely human.
Last night he’d wanted so much more from her than a sparring partner. Last night he had wanted everything. All of her. He had wanted to be a man, proving to her that he could act like one. If Jesse hadn’t ever hosted his blood, that scenario may have had a chance. Then again, if he wasn’t what he was, he’d never have known her at all.
It was a dangerous attraction. He was all too aware of that fact. He could manipulate the blood bond if he chose to. He could force her to his side. If he asked it of her, she would tilt back her head and offer her scarred neck to him.
Though he had never drunk from a mortal, with Jesse, the temptation hovered like a continuous rush. A long-dormant thirst lay twisted throughout his being.
His attention jerked back to the street, drawn by movement. He sat forward. As Jesse’s car drew away from the curb, her heartbeat thudded beneath her pert, pink-tipped breasts, trapped by frilly white lace. He perceived this as though her life’s pulse had indeed become his own. As if her spark had reignited his own flicker of life. The awareness, the closeness, the intimacy of being so close to a flash of life kept his attention riveted on her car.
Then he tightened his grip on the steering wheel, nearly breaking the wheel in two. “Damn her hide,” he whispered as her car made a sharp right turn.
Chills drizzled down Jesse’s back as she stared out at the passing buildings, attempting to get her thoughts back into some sort of reasonable order. The chills just wouldn’t let up. She felt cold from the inside out, and somehow, as she jostled her thoughts toward Stan’s side of the car, her attention kept being pulled past him to the window.
A white van cruised by. Relieved to note that the driver of the van wore a hat and a uniform of some kind, she let out a sigh. The driver had red hair and wore glasses. Not her concern.
So, where was he, then? Her new nemesis. In some dark basement, recouping his strength? If tucked away, why then did she sense his presence? His nearness ran across her nerve endings, doubling the chill factor, presenting as anxiety run amok. She actually felt his gaze, even though she couldn’t see him, knowing he was close by.
None of this made sense, really. Maybe it was just her imagination running overtime.
The sky was a dark, dull gray. Jesse turned her focus to the people on the sidewalks. Compared to Californians, Slavs seemed muted personalities in their black, navy and charcoal layers. Although the clothes were chic enough, the drabness of the city carried over on the busy walkways, making her long for the colorful glare of L.A. The hot pink of sunburned skin. The bright hues of sun and sand and ocean.
She craved a warmth she barely found these days.
Exhaling a stuttered, surprised breath, Jesse glanced past Stan again, her attention virtually yanked that way.
She saw it. A dark shadow slipping between the buildings.
Her pulse exploded, as if that shadow had been some kind of incendiary device. She knew exactly what it was, and what it meant.
“Pull over!” she snapped so curtly that Stan j
umped on the seat. “Here!” she directed, and the driver did what he was told without question.
“I’ll be a minute,” she said, addressing Stan’s inquiring gaze. “I have to make a personal call. Need privacy. Wait here for me, Stan, please.”
Out of the car before the driver could step out to open the door, Jesse hopped to the curb. Hugging her coat tightly to her, and with her boot heels clacking loudly on the concrete, she approached the place where she’d seen the shadow and whispered in horror the word “alley.”
Terror gripped her. There were so many reasons not to go into this alley. Too many to count. The atmosphere in there virtually rippled with the monster’s presence. The air seemed to buckle. Cracks between the buildings in old cities provided plenty of dark spaces for night-loving creatures to infiltrate, and one such creature had melted into this one.
A tingle ran through Jesse’s body. She went to full alert, with the outer layer of her skin covered in ice crystals. This wasn’t her golden nemesis, she knew from the vibe. A cousin, maybe.
A murky space like this would suit a monster nicely. Near to a busy street, this would be a perfect spot for a filthy bloodsucking fiend to pick off a meal. Maybe even a senator’s daughter.
And my family.
The tingling in her limbs became an insistent buzz she likened to pressing on a booby-trapped doorbell. A vampire had gone into this alley and she had to follow, though terrible, unspeakable things happened in places like this one.
Hell, she wasn’t even sure if she could actually go in there. Already, the familiar vertigo was taking her for a spin.
Inhaling the fetid air, Jesse looked hard at the open ing, trying to decide what frightened her the most, the monster or its hiding place. Damn, though, if she wasn’t angry this morning, and anger was calling the shots. One tall piece of velvet-voiced, arrogant vampire scum had already gotten the better of her. She refused to upgrade that number to two. Not today. The tall vamp had told her they had Elizabeth Jorgensen, and one of them had scuttled into this hole.
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