Retribution asc-5

by Jeanne C. Stein

  It’s not yet eleven o’clock in the morning. Not surprisingly, there are only two cars parked in front of Culebra’s bar when I pull up. Most of the action takes place after dark. The cars are a big Cadillac SUV and a silver Porsche Boxster. I park behind the Cadillac and send out a mental probe.

  I detect three vampires and one human.

  The human must be Sandra. She’s a werewolf, but werewolves in human form do not give off a supernatural psychic signature. Two of the vampires are bemoaning the fact that they came all the way from L.A. and are starving and there’s no one here to eat. The third vampire is emitting no telepathic signal at all.

  I push through the double swinging doors.

  The two vamps griping about the lack of service are sitting at a table in the middle of the room. They each have a beer in front of them.

  They are young, dressed in open-neck polos and jeans. Both are male, both have carefully coiffed hair and both have an L.A. chic look about them. Probably belong to the Boxster. They look up expectantly when I walk in, then wilt in disappointment when they realize I will not be on the menu.

  Newly made, I’d guess, judging from the clumsy way they try to shield their thoughts from me.

  The third vampire is at the bar. His back is to me but I sense his reaction when he recognizes me. Because he does recognize me.

  Immediately. His back becomes rigid. His thoughts draw in on themselves like a noose tightening around a neck.

  He doesn’t turn around.

  Williams.

  For an instant, I’m tempted to turn around and get the hell out of here. He’s the last person I want to see.

  Sandra, however, is a different story. She’s the reason I’m here. If I can ignore Williams’ phone calls, I can ignore him in person, too.

  Sandra is arranging glasses against the back of the bar. When she hears the door, she turns and without looking up, says, “Take any table—”

  She raises her eyes and the words die in her throat. She still has a glass in her hand. It remains suspended in air for the second it takes her to replace a look of irritation with one of resignation. She sighs and places the glass on the bar. While the words she speaks are, “Hello, Anna,” her attitude says, “Fuck.”

  She looks good. She’s tall and slim and has eyes that aren’t quite green and aren’t quite blue, but flash of both. Her dark hair has grown since I last saw her, it skims her shoulders. Her skin is sun-kissed and glowing. She looks healthy. She looks alive.

  What she doesn’t look is happy to see me.

  “Hello, Sandra.”

  I step up to the bar and place both my hands flat on its surface. I know why she’s reacting the way she is. Culebra made that clear. It’s the reason I came.

  For the moment, though, the more urgent problem is the vamp to my left. His negativity flares, burning into my subconscious, demanding response.

  So much for ignoring him. Without turning, I say, “Hello, Williams.”

  The negativity is momentarily suppressed by a flicker of satisfaction. He was waiting for me.

  He was waiting for me.

  Son of a bitch. Did Culebra set this up?

  Sandra’s expression, though, hasn’t wavered. Her reaction seemed real enough.

  So what the fuck is going on?

  Next moment, all my questions are washed away in the flood of nonverbal communication Williams sends my way.

  If you’d answer my calls, your friends wouldn’t have to resort to trickery.

  I do answer my friends’ calls. I didn’t—I don’t want to talk to you.

  My gut churns in frustration and anger. Williams has played enough dirty tricks on me to bring out the animal instinct for self -

  preservation. The beast rises close to the surface.

  Williams is in my head, probing for any hint of a threat. He quickly relays his own intention to keep this meeting a civil one, and politely inquires whether I can do the same.

  The vibes we’re throwing off must be explosive because the two vamps at the table get up and beat it out of the bar.

  The roar of the Porsche engine is still rattling the windows along Main Street when Sandra ends our head game. She isn’t privy to what’s going on between us, but her own animal instinct for preservation senses the hostility. She slams a glass on the bar with enough force to shatter it.

  “Great,” she says. “They left without paying for their beer. Which one of you big, bad vampires is going to pick up their tab?”

  CHAPTER 6

  WILLIAMS REACHES FOR HIS WALLET, SLAPS A twenty on the bar.

  He turns on the bar stool and looks me over. “You look well,” he says.

  Small talk? And out loud? I know he’s doing it for Sandra’s benefit, to diffuse the tension, but the time for bullshit between us is long past. He’s here. If he insists on talking, we will. But what I have to say to him is better said in private.

  We have unfinished business.

  He eyes flick to Sandra. “Do you mind if we go in back?”

  I see the uneasiness in her eyes. I can’t read a werewolf’s mind and vice versa, but I imagine she’s wondering what she’ll tell Culebra if we trash the place.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “We’ll play nice.”

  If we don’t, and Culebra did set this up, anything that happens is his responsibility.

  Sandra looks from me to Williams and back again and finally jerks her thumb in the direction of the back. Her expression says she ’d rather risk us destroying the place than be alone with me.

  A worm of irritation crawls over my skin. First Culebra with his mysterious vacation bullshit, and now Sandra and her revisionist history.

  “When I’m done, we’ll talk,” I tell her.

  She doesn’t answer.

  Williams pays no attention to the friction between Sandra and me. His thoughts reflect bored indifference. He figures I ’ve alienated yet another acquaintance as I have him. He shakes his head in our direction and hoists himself from the barstool.

  My indignation ratchets up another notch, but I follow him to the back.

  Williams picks the first room. It’s a feeding room so there’s a bed and a couple of chairs. He glances around, then shuts the door behind us.

  Warren Williams is an old-soul vamp, and the ex-police chief of San Diego. When I first met him, he was a friend of Avery ’s, and eventually that led to him becoming an enemy of mine. Time and circumstances altered our relationship from adversary to mentor to meddler. I dislike him intensely. He manipulated the situation that led to my family moving out of the country. I allowed it because I feared what I am might put them in danger, but I haven’t forgiven the manipulation.

  This is the first time Williams and I have come face -to-face since I learned that he was behind my parent’s inheritance—a winery in France. Avery’s winery in France.

  Williams is watching me, on high alert. He may be bigger than I am and older by about two hundred years, but he ’s tasted my wrath before and isn’t letting his guard down.

  “You shouldn’t have interfered with my family,” I say.

  His expression remains cautious, his thoughts cloaked.

  “You had no right.”

  A tight smile. “That’s a matter of opinion.”

  “Whose? Yours? You continue to operate under the delusion that you know what’s best for me. For me. It didn’t work before, it’s not working now. It’s never going to work.”

  Williams’ cool gray eyes don’t flicker or look away. “That’s only because you continue to operate under the delusion that you can take care of yourself without—”

  Whatever he intended to say, he bites it off. “You are changing, Anna. You must feel it. Your power is increasing; your appetites will, too. It’s inevitable.”

  “Once again,” I reply, bitterness rising like bile, “you underestimate me. I’m doing just fine on my own. I come here when I need to. I have someone in my life. We’re developing a real relationship.”

 
; “Lance? He’s a model, for Christ’s sake,” Williams blurts, cutting me off. “He’s not strong enough or bright enough to hold your attention past the fifteen minutes it takes to make you come. A big cock—”

  The punch catches him square on the mouth. It spins him back and around and he trips on the corner of the bed. He wasn ’t expecting the attack but a vampire’s reflexes are quick. He recovers his balance, whirls toward me and lunges.

  My reflexes are just as quick. I sidestep and he slams into the wall, knocking one of the chairs aside. The plaster crumbles where his fist makes contact.

  There’s a yelp from outside. “What are you two doing?” Sandra yells.

  Neither of us answers. Williams is angry, his mind a tornado of conflicting emotions he ’s unable to conceal. He wants to kill me, but he can’t. He needs my help and it’s eating a hole in his gut. But there’s a promise and a warning jumbled in there, too. A promise that when I’m no longer needed, we’ll do this dance again.

  It’s that promise that calms him. His hands are still balled into fists, but his shoulders lose some of their rigidity. He knows I ’m aware of his thoughts and he waits for my reaction.

  I have none. The feel of my fist connecting with his jaw gave me tremendous satisfaction. I ’m not afraid of Williams, I’m not afraid to finish this anytime he wants.

  I return his stare. What are you doing here?

  I have come to warn you.

  He says it like he’s doing me a favor. After what happened a few minutes ago, it makes me laugh.

  This is serious, Anna.

  It always is. You weren’t surprised when I walked in. You and Culebra set this up?

  Williams is massaging his right hand—the one that hit the wall—with his left. I doubt he’s aware he’s doing it, but it gives me a great deal of pleasure to know he’s hurt. When he picks up on that, he drops his hands to his sides.

  I asked you if Culebra brought you here?

  He kicks one of the chairs away from the wall and drops into it. Culebra doesn’t bring me anywhere. I asked him to arrange a meeting with you. I told him it was important. I told him you wouldn’t return my calls. Yesterday he called me and said to be here this morning. That you’d show up to see Sandra.

  Son of a bitch. But why such an elaborate charade? Why not just tell me to meet him here?

  Williams’ smile is derisive, mocking, as he reads my reaction. He knows you, Anna. You’d walk in, take one look at me and walk back out. I don’t know what’s going on between you and Sandra, but obviously he used that to get you here. What did he say?

  Don’t come? And what did you do? You came anyway. Right on schedule. Right after he asked you to stay away. Jesus, Anna, you are so fucking predictable.

  Predictable? If I were so predictable, I’d give in to the anger scorching through the tissue of my control and have Williams’ head through the wall. Culebra tricked me. He sent me here to see Williams and made sure he was elsewhere when I found out so I couldn’t take it out on him. Did he really leave town? Or is he hiding out somewhere, waiting for me to go back to San Diego?

  I don’t know whether to feel angry or hurt. Instead, I suck in a breath and let it out slowly before saying, “What is so fucking important?

  Oh yeah. I forgot. You came with a warning. Deliver it and get out.”

  A flash of dark rage sparks the depths of his eyes. For an instant, I read that he doesn’t want to tell me—that he would love to let me become the next victim.

  Victim? Of what?

  His anger still seethes, fighting to surface. He looks down and away, swallowing back his emotions, regaining control. When he looks at me again, his eyes are flat, hard, expressionless.

  He says, “Someone is killing vampires.”

  CHAPTER 7

  THIS IS THE BIG NEWS? I BARELY CONTAIN THE snicker.

  “Someone has been killing vampires since the dawn of recorded history. Tell me something I don’t know.”

  My sarcasm is not well received. Williams has the look of a spoiled kid ready to take his ball and go home. At the same time, I pick up on the vibe that he’s not being over-dramatic in his concern.

  “Okay, okay. Tell me. What is this about?”

  Williams’ thoughts darken. Vampire corpses are showing up drained of blood. There have been six in the last week alone.

  It’s not easy to kill a vampire.

  The Revengers? I ask. They’re a group of human vampire slayers.

  He shakes his head. No. The Revengers don’t leave corpses. They don’t want to attract attention to themselves any more than we do. This is something else—something different. These corpses are left in plain sight, for the human community to find.

  By the human community, I know Williams is referring to the police. I also know Williams was recently forced to resign as chief of police—a position he held for many years until a case I was involved in turned public opinion against him.

  It wasn’t my fault and it wasn’t his.

  He follows my train of thought. It diffuses some of his anger and when he comments, it ’s surprisingly without bitterness. “It was time I resigned. The position was too high profile. It’s not the first time I’ve found myself in this situation. It won’t be the last.”

  Vampires, like humans, are creatures of habit. Williams has been in law enforcement of one kind or another for two hundred years. He’ll undoubtedly follow that same path when it comes time for him to move on from San Diego.

  “You know how the police are handling it?” I ask.

  Old habits are hard to break. He goes into cop mode to answer.

  “So far, the vamps have all been young females newly turned. Exsanguination is the cause of death. A small wound at the jugular made by a weapon of indeterminate origin. The bodies have been found in different jurisdic tions throughout the county. The only reason we know they are vampires at all is because our contact in the coroner’s office recognizes what the total absence of food in a digestive tract means.”

  He doesn’t expound on any of these things, but I understand. Especially that the vamps are all newly turned. If a vamp is destroyed by stake or fire, he leaves nothing behind but ash. If he is killed any other way, by draining, for instance, his body reverts to its human age and an autopsy would reveal nothing but intact human organs. They no longer function, which would not be obvious, but neither do they shrivel or disappear. A newly turned vampire would appear normal.

  “I haven’t seen anything in the newspapers about bodies turning up.”

  “Not yet,” Williams replies. “The police are playing it quiet. So far, the victims all seem to have been young people who have fallen off the radar. No missing reports filed, no families have come forward to claim the bodies. Whoever is doing it is choosing his victims carefully.

  That will change the first time he fucks up and a victim turns up who has been reported missing.”

  Williams stands up. “I’ve done what I came here to do,” he says. The civility is gone from his tone. “I thought you should know what’s been happening. You may be in danger. You are slightly older than the others, but you fit the profile. You are newly turned and you have a penchant for pissing people off.”

  “You’re telling me to watch my back?”

  “I know your partner is out of town and your family is gone. I’d like to think you’ll live long enough to get over your childish refusal to integrate into your real community. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. Frankly, I don’t care one way or the other.” But there are others who do. The thought is squelched the instant it forms in his head.

  He watches to see if I caught it. I did. Same tune, different song. He puts his hand on the doorknob and twists. “You know where to find me.”

  He walks out and I’m right on his heels. I’ll think about what he’s told me later. Right now, it’s one pain in the butt down, one to go.

  Time to find out what put the bug up Sandra’s ass.

  There’s a human behind the bar—a
guy I’ve seen here before. One of Culebra’s gofers.

  “Where’s Sandra?”

  He shrugs. “Errands. She told me to tell you not to wait. She didn’t know when she’d be back.”

  Terrific.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE ONE BRIGHT SPOT IN A SHITTY DAY IS THAT Lance is at the cottage when I get home.

  He senses my mood the minute I walk in the door.

  “So what’s up? Trouble with Culebra?”

  He’s sitting on the couch, a magazine open on his lap. He’s dressed in a pair of jeans, no shirt, no shoes, and must have just come out of the shower because he smells of my soap and shampoo. Only Lance could make the citrus of my favorite Chanel fragrance, Chance, smell masculine and sexy.

  I sit down next to him. “You smell good.”

  He drapes an arm over my shoulder. “And you smell like cigarette smoke and stale beer. You’ve been in a bar?”

  Two in fact. An image of that girl in TJ and her dead eyes makes me squeeze my own shut in exasperation.

  He reads my reaction and the reason behind it. “Must have been hard, seeing that girl. I’m surprised Culebra would have chosen a spot like that to meet you. Why not Beso de la Muerte?”

  I let him pick the story out of my head. “He set you up?” he asks in surprise. “With a story about Sandra?” Lance and I had just met when Sandra arrived in town the first time. He’s heard the whole story. He’s one of the reasons I made it through that period without going crazy.

  “What did she say?”

  “Never got the chance to talk to her. Williams took over.”

  I replay the episode for him through the lens of my aggravation. He listens with quiet concentration until I get to the part about Lance not being bright enough or strong enough to hold my interest.

  “That guy is a jerk,” he says. Then he starts to laugh. “Did you really clock him?”

  I pantomime a right hook to the jaw.