“Oh, so you’re one of those.”
He held himself up with one arm and tenderly brushed hair off her cheek. “One of those?”
She lifted her hips to press them against his. “One of those men who always needs to be on top.”
He kissed her lightly on the lips. “You one of those women who always needs to be on top?”
He made her smile. “No…” Then she had to laugh when she thought about it. “Okay, I guess maybe sometimes I am.”
His hips were moving against hers rhythmically, making it hard for her to think about what she was saying.
“But I’m doing okay…at least for now? Me on top.”
She closed her eyes, letting the waves of pleasure wash over her. “Okay for now,” she agreed.
He reached down with his hand and she instinctively parted her legs, lifting upward to meet his first thrust.
Fia didn’t know how long they made love. Ten minutes? An hour? Time became elastic. No past. No future. Just the now. Glen was incredible. Stamina. The right balance of tenderness and pure lust. She had three orgasms and fell asleep in his arms.
It was the first time she had slept with a man through the night in more than a hundred years.
A week later, Fia and Glen wound up at the same pub they had met in the day he came to town. One drink and she was ready to go home and hit the sack with him. But he insisted on dinner and conversation.
“My idea of foreplay,” Glen whispered in her ear as they were shown to a table under the windows.
She gave his jacket a tug.
At the table, he ordered the house pale ale; she ordered her tonic and lime. She had no intentions of letting anything get between her and the orgasms she intended to have tonight. Glen was an amazing lover. Nothing like the man she knew in an investigation. Once between the sheets, his calm, calculating demeanor was gone. He was spontaneous, adventurous, eager to please, all the things she wanted in a lover. And the funny thing was, the sex, the closeness afterwards, was enough for her. She didn’t need his blood. Didn’t really want it.
While they waited for their drinks, he slid his hand across the table, taking hers. He was so cute. It was like a real date, only better because she knew they were going to end up in her bed later and it would be good.
She couldn’t stop smiling. She felt like a dunce. As if she was fourteen again and just awakening to her sexuality. She thought about him when she was in the shower, driving to work, at work. Her obsession had fallen just short of doodling their names in the margins of her notes with a big heart around them. This week had been a real reminder of what Kaleigh and the other teens in Clare Point had to be going through right now.
The waiter brought their drinks, took their order. Glen wanted chicken Monterey, she, a steak, rare. The minute the waiter was gone, he reached for her hand again.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said.
“Do what?” He squeezed her hand.
“This. Dinner. Buying me drinks. Dessert. Holding my hand. I’m already having sex with you. I don’t need to be bribed.”
“So maybe I need it. Maybe I need to be wined and dined before I have sex with you.”
She frowned, not sure how serious he was being.
Still holding her hand, he leaned forward. “You already know about my previous failed attempt to find love and happiness, but I don’t know anything about yours. Good looking, hot six-footer like yourself, you can’t tell me you haven’t been in any relationships.”
She looked away. They were sitting at a window that opened onto the street, but it was already dark out. All she could see were the flares of headlights as cars passed on the busy street.
“You don’t want to hear my sad tale.”
He leaned over the table bringing her hand to his lips. It was so silly. So 1940s-romance-movie. So stinking cute.
“I do want to hear your sad tale. I want to know why you’re so cautious.”
“It’s the way we FBI agents keep from getting our heads blown off,” she quipped.
“I mean, with your heart,” he said quietly.
So he was serious. He really did want something out of her besides sex. She glanced out the window again and shrugged. “I told you before. Ian. Remember? Not that complicated a story. I fell in love. He said he loved me. I believed him.” But as she spoke, the car headlights on the street turned to burning torches and she closed her eyes for just an instant.
Ian had asked her to marry him. She had told him the truth about what she was, but he had said it didn’t matter. She had been meeting him in the forest, always careful not to allow him to know which tiny village she came from, where the others lived. But that night. The night the vampire slayers came on horseback, bearing their torches, Fia had been waiting for him. They were running away to get married. He had promised to come for her, to take her away, to marry her and to live with her until he grew old and died. He said he didn’t care that she was only nineteen at the time, that she would always have to hunt, that blood was what sustained her. He told her that he didn’t care that she could not bear children. All he cared about, he said, was loving her.
It had been a trap all along. From the first day he had met her in the meadow, he had intended to use her to seek out the sept. She realized it the moment she heard the pounding hoofbeats, saw the first torches, smelled the first peat roofs set ablaze. He had seen her hunting in that forest, seen her take blood, known that she was a vampire, and then he used his good looks and charm to win her over.
That night he had said he was coming for her to take her away, to marry her, but he had come to murder her. He was a vampire slayer, and with him he had brought a dozen men on horseback wielding swords to behead her loved ones. To behead her.
The only reason Fia had not died that night was because Mahon had forced her into that root cellar and locked her inside. The men and women of the Kahill sept had fought fiercely, eventually driving off the slayers, but not before they had beheaded more than a dozen. Before dawn the next day, the sept had left their village and the bodies of their loved ones behind, and gone into hiding. It had been the beginning of the end for them in Ireland and it had all been Fia’s fault. All her fault because she had fallen in love. Because she had trusted a man she should not have trusted.
“Fee?”
She heard her name being called as if from far in the distance. Ian’s voice?
No. Not Ian’s.
Fia’s gaze came back into focus and she turned toward Glen, her eyes embarrassingly wet. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
“I didn’t mean to pry.” He watched her intently. “I just want to know you better.”
“Fia!” Joseph sauntered up to the table.
It was like a bad dream. He was a bad penny.
Glen let go of her hand, stood like a gentleman and offered his.
Joseph pumped it. He was wearing a gray flannel suit with a lavender tie and matching silk handkerchief in his pocket. The suit probably cost three times what Glen’s did, but standing next to each other, Fia was surprised to find that Glen far outclassed Joseph. There was just something about Joseph that no amount of money or education could…make clean.
“Dr. Joseph Pineiro,” Joseph introduced himself.
“Glen Duncan.”
“Ah…Fia’s new partner.” Joseph nodded, smiled, all-knowing.
Glen glanced at Fia as he sat down, seeming to sense her discomfort.
“So you two are dating.” It was more a statement than a question.
Fia didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how Joseph knew anything about Glen, but he was making her more uncomfortable by the minute. Had he been snooping around her apartment building? Work? He had ways of finding out things. Always had. He had a knack for charming information out of just about anyone.
“We dated, you know.” Joseph gestured to Fia, then himself. He was still smiling, but his voice had taken a dangerous edge.
“Did you?” Glen glanced at her across the table, then back at Jos
eph.
“She broke my heart.” He clasped his hands, bringing them to his chest. “Captured my soul. Literally, eh, Fia?”
She tensed, but met his gaze. She wasn’t afraid of Joseph. She was more powerful than he was and she had the whole sept to back her up. Surely he knew better than to threaten her. Surely he knew that if he pushed her, she’d make her confession to the sept and allow them to do what they saw fit with him.
“I think you should go, Joseph,” she said under her breath.
“Go? Why would I go? Your new boyfriend and I are just getting acquainted. We have a lot to talk about.” Joseph slipped his surgeon’s hands into his pants pockets. “I’m sure Special Agent Duncan is interested in hearing about your likes and dislikes. Your little fetishes, Fee?” He chuckled.
Glen half-rose from his chair, suddenly looking threatening, his hands tightened at his sides, his face hard.
Great, Fia thought. I’m going to have a bar fight on my hands in a second.
“I think you better go.” Glen didn’t raise his voice, but it was steely.
The man had more balls than she realized.
“Go? Why should I go when—”
Glen took one step toward him and Joseph backed up. Backed down. He’d always been a coward. Always preferred to prey on the weak. On the sick. On the bound and gagged.
“Well, you two kids have a nice evening. I’ve already taken care of your bill with the hostess.” Joseph walked away. “Be talking with you, Fee.”
Glen waited until Joseph was gone before he sat down across from Fia again.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, reaching for her drink. “Another ex. He’s a real ass.”
“He is that.” She reached for her bag on the chair beside her. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m just going to the ladies’ room. I’ll be right back. Swear it.”
Trembling with anger, Fia walked down the hall to the bathroom. Inside a stall, she fished her cell phone from her bag and punched in Joseph’s number. She didn’t even give him a chance to speak when he picked up.
“I’ll go to one appointment with Dr. Kettleman with you. Then you leave Philadelphia of your own free will, or I make a call to my brothers. You know my brothers, Joseph. They won’t wait for a decision from the sept to determine whether or not you’re a danger. You know what they’ll do. You don’t want me to make that call.”
She hung up. Peed. Washed her hands. Put a little lip gloss on her lips and went back into the dining room to finish her date. To go on with her life.
Shannon glanced over her shoulder as she walked up the dark driveway. Something or someone was giving her the creeps. She eyed the shadows in search of a tiger or a lion, thinking maybe Arlan was playing one of his practical jokes on her. Nothing stirred. Not the browning grass on the lawn or the crisp leaves that were beginning to fall from the trees.
She walked a little faster. She rented an apartment over Mr. and Mrs. Hill’s garage at the end of the driveway. It wasn’t that late, just after eleven maybe, but the street was empty. The streetlamps were on, but seemed to glow dimly in the hazy darkness. It had begun to rain when she was in the forest, hunting. Not a heavy rain, but the kind that slowly soaked through your clothes to the skin.
She knew the council had advised against hunting alone, but she had been doing it for so long that the idea of taking blood with someone else watching seemed repulsive. Maybe she just hadn’t been doing it long enough, yet. But she hadn’t stayed long because something had made her uncomfortable in the dark woods, even though she’d been hunting there for hundreds of years. There was something evil out there. Something that frightened her.
The discomfort had followed Shannon all the way home. But she was only steps from her door, and there was nothing there. No killer lurking behind Mrs. Hill’s rhododendron bushes.
Shannon took the flight of creaky wooden stairs, thankful for the light that glowed at the top. Once inside, she’d lock her door, something people rarely did in Clare Point. She’d be fine.
The door hinges creaked as she opened it. Needed some WD-40. Inside, she flipped on the light switch. Light flooded the living room, kitchen, dining-room area. There were no killers lurking here, either. She twisted the lock on the door and turned around to face the open room. She still felt weird. On edge. She knew she was alone, but somehow the dark bedroom and bathroom down the short hall suddenly seemed scary places.
She shivered as she kicked off her shoes on the throw rug at the doorway. Her clothes were wet and she was cold. She should jump in the shower and get into some dry clothes. But that would mean going down the hall, into the dark.
Pretty funny for a vampire to be afraid of the dark.
On impulse, Shannon pulled her cell phone out of her jeans pocket and searched for Fia’s number. Shannon had been meaning to get back to her. It had been nice of Fia to call her just to say hi after last weekend. The phone rang on the other end. Four rings and then Fia’s voice. A recording.
Shannon glanced toward the dark hallway. “Hey. It’s Shannon. Just called to say hi.” She pushed a chair in under her dining table. “Martinis at my place next time. I’m thinking chocolate. Hope you’re busy with the hot FBI guy. Talk to you later.”
Hanging up, she eyed the dark end of the house.
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” she muttered. “What would Fia Kahill do?”
March right back there. Prove to herself she was alone and safe, of course. Fia had been her hero for as long as she’d known her.
Shannon marched.
Chapter 19
Fia stood over Shannon’s body. Shannon’s cell phone was a smoldering cinder in her pocket. This morning, while waiting for Glen to finish in the shower, before going out for Saturday morning breakfast, she’d checked her voice mail and discovered that Shannon had left a message at eleven twenty-five the previous night. Just about the time Fia and Glen had been on round two. The call from Sedowski at the office came in at nine-forty, as Fia and Glen were walking into a diner.
Dr. Caldwell had taken Shannon’s liver temp when he arrived at the scene. He put the time of death between 11 P.M. and midnight. Nothing Shannon had said in her phone message indicated there was anything wrong. She doubted it would have made a difference if she had taken the call, but Fia felt guilty just the same.
She stared at Shannon’s body, then at her head, obviously posed by the killer. Sour bile rose in Fia’s throat.
The murderer had decapitated Shannon just inside the bedroom door. Blood patterns, spray and pools, made that obvious. She was probably taken by surprise as there was no sign of struggle.
Her body had then been dragged to the bed, her breasts viciously cut off. The breasts were gone, but this time the head was left behind and displayed. As per the MO, there had been an attempt to burn the body, or at least a symbolic attempt. Shannon’s bed linens had been set on fire, only the killer hadn’t stuck around long enough to see his deed to completion. The bedspread, treated with some fire-retardant chemical, had prevented the mattress from going up in flames and the fire had eventually put itself out. The fire had done very little damage to Shannon’s body, though it had burned off her clothes, leaving her naked in the bed.
The sick bastard.
Fia didn’t think she had ever witnessed such a vicious crime scene in all her years with the FBI. Not even mob killings were this bad. What kind of hatred did a man have to have inside him to kill, to maim this way? It didn’t matter that Fia knew Shannon’s heart had ceased beating before her breasts had been sliced off. No one, alive or dead, human or vampire, should have been disrespected in such a way.
Her hand on her pocket, cradling the cell phone that would be her last communication ever with Shannon, Fia allowed her gaze to drift to the head propped upright against two flowered pillows. Shannon’s beautiful blond hair, slightly singed, flowed over the pillows. Her blue eyes were half closed, her skin waxen. But what drew Fia’s a
ttention was her mouth. Shannon still had cherry lip gloss on her pouty lips; Fia could smell it. The sweet scent almost made her gag.
Sweet Mary, Mother of God, Fia thought. How could the lip gloss survive this carnage? Then a shadow inside Shannon’s mouth drew her attention. “Gloves,” she hollered, sticking her hand out behind her.
When she’d arrived at the scene, she’d insisted everyone get out of Shannon’s small, purple-and-green bedroom, which appeared to be more a teenager’s room than an adult woman’s. Fia wanted to see Shannon alone. Be with her alone.
A pair of purple gloves appeared in her hand. Fia never saw which EMT handed them to her. She continued to stare at Shannon’s pursed lips. “You have a tongue depressor?”
Behind her, she heard someone digging in a metal box, moving items wrapped in crackly plastic. A wooden tongue depressor appeared in her outstretched hand.
“You got something in there?” Glen asked from the hallway. He had been interviewing one of Uncle Sean’s cops, the first person on the scene after Mrs. Hill had called it in. Mrs. Hill had gotten worried when Shannon hadn’t brought Mr. Hill his morning paper from the driveway. Mrs. Hill said the door was unlocked, as always, and when Shannon hadn’t answered her phone or a knock at the door, she had known something was wrong and had come in.
“Special Agent Kahill?” Glen asked from the doorway in his best FBI voice.
“Just a sec,” she said. She approached the bed, trying to ignore the smell of singed hair and flesh that mixed with the sweet scent of the lip gloss. She ignored Shannon’s half-lidded, empty gaze.
Something was in her mouth.
Touching the top of Shannon’s head just gently enough to prevent moving it, Fia pushed the tongue depressor into her mouth and poked at the object. It popped out and would have hit the bed had Fia not released the top of Shannon’s head and caught it.
“Fee, what is it?” Glen’s voice had gone from tough-guy special agent’s to concerned boyfriend’s.
She was barely able to choke the word out as she stared at her gloved hand. “Garlic.”
Eternal Page 20
