The Vampire Affair

by Livia Reasoner

  Michael nodded in acceptance of the offer. He was strong enough to handle Max by himself, but it would be easier with Jessie’s assistance.

  She got on Max’s other side, and together they helped him up the steps, across the porch and into the house. Clifford backed through the door after them, the shotgun still held ready in his hands. “I don’t see anybody else,” he reported. “Max must have given any others the slip after that fight.”

  “You bet…I did,” Max said. “Nobody…followed me…out here.”

  Michael said, “Let’s put him on the sofa.”

  They steered Max across the room. As Michael expected, handling him was easier with Jessie’s help. She didn’t hesitate to do her share, and she wasn’t squeamish about handling a wounded man. Michael didn’t doubt her courage and her willingness to do whatever was needed. And from everything he had seen of her so far, she stood a good chance of making a fine warrior in the ancient crusade against the nightmarish creatures his family had been battling for centuries.

  The question was whether he would ever allow her to. She might not like it, but she had awakened feelings of protectiveness and tenderness that he had thought gone forever.

  Deal with that later, he told himself, pushing the thoughts out of his mind. For now they had to see just how badly Max was hurt.

  Clifford drew the curtains tightly closed and turned on the lights as Michael and Jessie carefully lowered Max to the sofa. Jessie lifted his feet and legs onto the heavily upholstered piece of furniture, then stepped back as Michael ripped open Max’s shirt. He had experience treating bullet wounds; all three of them did.

  As Max had indicated, the wound was messy but not too serious. Michael saw that as soon as he wiped away the blood that had flowed from the deep furrow in Max’s side. The sight and smell of that much blood would have aroused a hideous thirst in one of the vampires, he reflected, and he thanked the providence—in the form of that beautiful gypsy woman—who had saved his ancestor from such an unholy fate. If not for her, he wouldn’t be here now, able to carry on the fight against evil.

  The safe house was well-stocked with first-aid supplies. Michael cleaned the wound in Max’s side. The big man passed out at the fiery sting of the disinfectant. Michael taped a thick bandage in place over the wound, then wound the tape around Max’s torso to make sure the bandage stayed in place.

  When he was finished, he stepped back from the sofa. “There, that ought to hold him. He should be fine until we can get him back to the clinic in Dallas.”

  “The one where Ted is?” Jessie asked.

  “That’s right.” He had gotten regular reports from the clinic on Ted’s condition and passed them on to Jessie. The young hotel clerk was improving steadily as his injuries healed.

  “He’s in no shape to take part in tonight’s operation,” Clifford pointed out.

  “I know.”

  “He’s not going to like being left behind, either.”

  Michael smiled. “I know that, too.”

  “It looks like the three of us are all in the same boat, Clifford,” Jessie said, her voice cool.

  Michael gave her a warning look, but she simply returned a bland smile at him. He had to admire her determination. She didn’t give up, and while she might go along with a decision she didn’t like, she wouldn’t be shy about expressing that dislike, either.

  He had to admit that he wouldn’t want her to be any other way. That was part of who she was, and he was drawn to her, fiery spirit and all.

  Along with her heart-stopping beauty, keen mind and overall drop-dead gorgeousness, of course.

  The squawk of the radio from the other room made Michael turn sharply. He stalked through the arched doorway, picked up the microphone and keyed it. “Go for Brandt.”

  “Escobar just arrived at the castle, Michael,” reported one of the agents conducting surveillance on the place. “He was in a blacked-out limo, but one of our men caught a glimpse of him as he got out. Check the sat intel and you might be able to see him.”

  On one of the computer keyboards, Michael punched up the feed from the so-called commercial communications satellite belonging to one of the Brandt corporations. Its ultrasensitive cameras were focused on the castlelike resort. Michael zoomed in until the image looked like it was being shot from several hundred feet in the air, rather than a few hundred miles up in geosynchronous orbit. The feed was captured digitally, of course, so he reversed it for a few minutes. His fingers flew on the keyboard as he switched the recording back to forward mode and changed the display from infrared to night vision. The picture had a greenish quality to it, but he could see clearly enough to distinguish the three-car convoy approaching the castle. Escobar’s car would be in the middle, with heavily armed guards front and back. Michael watched as all three vehicles drove through the automatic gates and into the courtyard. Men emerged from the cars and entered the castle, but they were only faint dots from this range and Michael couldn’t zoom in any closer to get a better look.

  He would take the word of his agent that one of the new arrivals was Juan Antonio Escobar, though. The men who worked for the Brandt family’s “security force” were all well trained and highly competent. Most of them were ex-Special Forces. They didn’t make mistakes.

  And the ones watching the resort tonight were not actually members of the Brandt family, so the vampires couldn’t sense that they were out there.

  “Good job,” Michael told the man. “We can assume that Spaulding is already there. Let me know when the others arrive.”

  “Will do, Michael.”

  He went back into the living room and said, “Escobar is there. Rendell and Takahashi can’t be far behind. I’m heading out.”

  Max opened his eyes and tried to sit up. “I’m ready to go,” he said hoarsely. “If somebody could maybe just…gimme a hand getting off this sofa…”

  Clifford stepped over to him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Forget it, Max,” he said. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “The hell I’m—” Max started to say as he struggled to stand, but then his strength deserted him and he sagged back onto the cushions. “Shit! Somebody make the room stop spinnin’ around.”

  “Sorry, Max,” Michael said. “You’ve lost too much blood to go on the mission. Can’t have you passing out right in the middle of a battle.”

  Max’s jaw clamped stubbornly. “That’s not gonna happen,” he insisted. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Anyway, I need somebody to stay here, and you and Clifford are elected,” Michael went on.

  Max looked over at Jessie. “You want me to be a damn babysitter!”

  Jessie’s face flushed angrily, and Michael moved to get between her and Max. “What I want is to make certain that this location remains secure. We may need it before the night is over.”

  “That’s not what you meant, and you know it!”

  “It’s what I’m asking you to do,” Michael said quietly.

  Max glared at him for a long moment, but then grudging acceptance crept over the big man’s face. “All right,” Max said. “But if you need us, you’d damned well better call us.”

  “I will,” Michael promised. “You can count on that.”

  Clifford asked, “You’re going on to the staging area, Michael?”

  “That’s right. I’ll be ready to take off as soon as we confirm that all the overlords are at the target.”

  Clifford extended his right hand. “Good luck. You know our prayers will be with you.”

  Michael clasped his hand, then pulled Clifford into a hug. Max managed to stand up and clap a big paw on Michael’s shoulder as he said goodbye.

  That left Jessie, and bidding farewell to her was the moment that Michael had been dreading the most. The knowledge that he might never see her again gnawed at him. For years now, whenever he had gone into battle with the vampires a fatalistic attitude had gripped him. He would do his best to survive, of course, but if he lost his life while trying to destroy
some of those unholy creatures, at least his death would serve a higher purpose. Despite the lavish lifestyle he had cultivated, with all its trappings of wealth and power and comfort, he truly had nothing to live for except the ongoing struggle against evil.

  Meeting Jessie had begun to change all that. He might have a chance to live in a different world now, a world with something in it besides shadows and terror, blood and death. If he could finally settle the score with Rendell, maybe he could start to dream of love and family for the first time in years.

  But no matter what he felt, he couldn’t turn his back on his duty. People were depending on him tonight. The world was depending on him…and that world included Jessie Morgan.

  “Come on, Max,” Clifford said with his usual intuitiveness. “Let’s go check the monitors.”

  The two men exited the room, leaving Michael and Jessie alone.

  “It’s still not too late to change your mind and let me come along,” she said.

  It was too late, though. It had been too late the first time he had taken a good look into her eyes and felt things stirring inside him that he’d thought he would never experience again.

  She must have seen that on his face, because she came into his arms, pressed her face against his chest and sighed. “Michael,” she whispered. “Don’t let anything happen to you.”

  “I won’t,” he vowed.

  But men had been making that promise to women on the eve of battle for millennia, and the ability to keep it was out of their control. Fate, destiny, call it what you will, Michael thought, it was up to a higher power to decide whether he and Jessie would be reunited or torn apart forever. He could rage against that all he wanted to, but it would do no good.

  He had vampires to kill.

  Chapter 12

  J essie wanted to hang on to him forever. She didn’t want him to go. And if he had to go, she wanted to go with him.

  But she didn’t see any way to make that happen. She doubted she could sneak out of here, and even if she did, she wouldn’t know where to go. Clifford had spoken of a staging area from which the attack on the castle would be launched, but Jessie had no idea where it was.

  Besides, even though she wanted to be tough and courageous, the idea of going out there in the darkness made her skin crawl. She was safe from the vampires here, but if she left the farmhouse, who knew what might happen to her?

  And she couldn’t just think of herself now. She had to think of the possible life inside her, as well. After tonight, that might be all she had left to her of Michael Brandt.

  No! She shoved the thought out of her head as she tightened her embrace around his lean, muscular figure. She lifted her face to his and kissed him, a long, hungry, passionate kiss. Her body strained against his as she got as close as possible to him. This moment they shared would have to last them until he returned safely to her. That was all she would allow herself to think.

  When he broke the kiss, she steeled herself inside and told him, “Good luck.”

  “I’ll need it,” he said with a faint smile.

  “I feel I ought to give you something to carry with you…some token, like the women of my ancestors gave to the warriors before they went into battle.” Her Cherokee heritage had never played that important a role in her life, but it felt especially strong in her tonight.

  “You’ve already given me something to carry with me,” Michael said.

  “What?” Jessie asked, genuinely puzzled.

  “Hope,” Michael said.

  Warmth burst inside her, not the fiery heat of passion but a more comforting glow. She hugged him again, then stepped back to let him go.

  Michael left, driving off in a Jeep that had been stored in the barn behind the farmhouse. Clifford explained that it was full of weapons, both the kinds that were effective against humans and the more esoteric ones that were employed against vampires.

  “What now?” Jessie asked.

  Clifford shrugged. “We wait. We can monitor the situation from here with our radio. It’s tuned in to the frequencies that Michael and the others will be using.”

  “The vampires can’t listen in on it, too?” The idea that creatures she regarded as supernatural could use down-to-earth technology had begun to register with her.

  “We have those frequencies shielded and scrambled,” Clifford explained. “They might be able to penetrate the shields and break the encryption, given enough time, but the radios shift frequencies automatically so that there’s not enough time to even triangulate the signal, let alone decipher it.”

  Jessie laughed without feeling much real humor. “I said this was like a military operation, but you guys are more like the CIA than you are the army. High-tech spooks fighting bloodsuckers.”

  Max glared and said, “Yeah, well, there’s nothing high-tech about putting a stake through the heart of one of those bastards. It’s a lot more satisfying than mon-keying with electronic gizmos, too.”

  Jessie wondered if she would ever get to find out if what he said was true.

  The next hour dragged by. At Clifford’s insistence, Max stretched out on the sofa again to rest while the older man monitored the radio and the security system around the farmhouse. Jessie stayed in the room with Clifford, pumping him insistently for details of what was going on.

  Clifford explained that Michael and the rest of the Brandt forces would take off from the staging area in four helicopters.

  “Black helicopters, like when the bad guys come to take over?” Jessie couldn’t resist asking with a smile.

  Clifford smiled back at her. “As a matter of fact, yes. Don’t go thinking about any one-world-government conspiracies, though. We’re as far from that as you can imagine. In fact, the vampires control a lot more of what goes on in the world, politically and economically speaking, than the Brandts could ever hope to.”

  Jessie’s eyes widened. “You mean there are politicians who work for the vampires? That would explain a lot of things!”

  Clifford went on, “Once they reach the castle, one of the helicopters will provide a diversion while the others land in the courtyard with most of our men. Then it’s just a matter of going through the place and cleaning it out.”

  “Killing all the vampires and the humans who work for them, you mean.”

  Sadness lurked in Clifford’s eyes as he nodded. “I’m afraid that’s right. All the vampires will be destroyed, if possible. Our policy is to take the humans prisoner if we can, but usually they fight so fiercely that it’s not possible.”

  A shudder went through Jessie. “Why would they fight so hard for a bunch of—of monsters?”

  “Because they want to someday have the same sort of power that their masters do, I suppose. Maybe some of them are just loyal to whoever pays them. I don’t know.”

  “And you don’t care,” Jessie said.

  “I care…but I never lost any sleep over the fate of hired killers who knew good and well who—or rather, what—they were working for.”

  Jessie supposed she could understand that. Something was nagging at the back of her mind, though.

  “You said all the vampires will be destroyed?”

  “That’s the goal, yes.”

  “You don’t ever try to cure any of them? Michael said your ancestor, the one who was turned into a vampire, was cured. How do you know you can’t turn them back to the way they once were?”

  “It’s been tried in the past,” Clifford said, “but not with good results.” He sighed. “In fact, people have died trying to help vampires. The secret of curing them, the secret that gypsy woman possessed, was lost hundreds of years ago, Jessie. Besides, if you had killed scores of men, women and children like most of these vampires have, would you want to get your humanity and your soul back and be tortured by the knowledge of all the death and suffering you caused?”

  Thinking about that made her shudder again. “No, I suppose not. I guess in a way, you’re doing them a kindness.”

  “We’re fighting the
m the only way we know how. That’s all I can say.”

  What Clifford had told her made sense, but something still troubled Jessie anyway. She couldn’t pin down exactly what it was…something from her childhood, maybe, some half-remembered story that Nana Rose had told her during a more peaceful time. Whatever it was, it nagged at Jessie’s brain.

  To pass the time, Jessie began practicing some of the martial arts moves Michael had taught her. That kept her still-sore muscles from tightening up, too. Clifford watched her and gave her a few pointers, then said, “Michael was right. You really are good.”

  The thought that he had praised her to his friends made her heart leap. “He said that?”

  Clifford nodded. “He did. He said that for someone who didn’t have any Brandt blood, you were as skillful as anyone he had ever encountered.”

  “And yet he wouldn’t let me go along tonight because he was afraid I’d screw something up.”

  “He wouldn’t let you go along because he was afraid you’d get hurt,” Clifford corrected her. “There’s a big difference. Anyway, no offense, Jessie, but what you have is still raw talent. It needs a lot of seasoning and practice before you’ll be ready to face off against any vampires.”

  “I did okay with that guy on the roof with the machine gun,” Jessie reminded him. “What about that?”

  Clifford shrugged. “Fighting a human is still a far cry from fighting a vampire. But be patient. With any luck, you’ll get there.”

  “Patience has never been my strong suit.”

  “And I never would have guessed that,” Clifford said drily.

  She laughed and punched him lightly on the shoulder. At that moment, the radio crackled and Jessie heard Michael’s voice. Even slightly distorted by the transmission and the speaker, she recognized it instantly and leaned forward to hear what he was saying.

  “Clifford, I’m at the staging area, and reports have just come in that Takahashi has arrived at the castle. Still no sign of Rendell. He’s the only one we’re waiting for now.”

  Jefferson Rendell, Jessie recalled, had all but destroyed Michael’s life by turning Charlotte Whittier into a vampire right in front of him. Michael’s voice always held a little extra edge when he talked about Rendell. Caught up in her conflicting emotions where Michael was concerned, Jessie hadn’t really reflected on the fact that facing Rendell again had a special meaning for him. She was sure he must want vengeance on the English vampire for what had happened to Charlotte, but at the same time, seeing Rendell again, even in the heat of battle, would bring back all those terrible memories.