Authors: Jeannie Holmes
Thank you.
The ethereal lovers spun and danced their way through the table and disappeared in the shadows.
Alex blinked, unsure of what she’d witnessed. The flickering lights overhead highlighted the golden hair of the vampire still lying on the table. “Stephen,” she whispered.
Her approach was unsteady. The need to know drove her to place one foot in front of the other.
Gaze firmly fixed on the cross-stake, she reached the table. Her eyes closed. She no longer wanted to see.
“Alex.”
Varik’s call sounded distant to her ears, but it drew her out of her shell. She looked down at the body, and an anguished sob ripped from her throat.
Time restored itself. There was movement all around
her. She heard someone calling her name and ignored it. “It’s not Stephen,” she cried. “It’s not him!”
She sounded her frustration, fear, anguish, and relief in a primal wail. Her legs buckled and folded under her. She collapsed on the floor and sobbed into her blood-streaked hands.
“Alex.” Varik’s soft voice echoed in her ears and in her mind, cut through her stupor, pulled her back into herself.
She looked at him and blinked, uncertain if what she saw was real.
He held a pale, blood-splattered hand out to her. “Come on, baby,” he whispered. “There’s nothing more you can do here. Let the Enforcers do their job.”
Alex saw the blood on her hands, and they began to shake.
A strong arm wrapped around her, lifted her to her feet, and sandalwood and cinnamon enveloped her. Hot tears tracked down her cheeks. She clung to Varik as he led her into the shadows of a faded day.
Stars shone brightly in the clear sky over the scene of Darryl Black’s final stand. A cold northern breeze wound its way through bare oak branches. The trees voiced their displeasure in low groans and high-pitched creaks.
Tasha leaned against the hood of her cruiser, arms folded over her stomach, trying to find some comfort and warmth in the flood of lights around Darryl’s house and the surrounding grounds. But no comfort came as
she watched Darryl’s body being loaded into a hearse for his final trip to the morgue.
None of the Enforcers were talking as they went about their business of collecting evidence. The house had been ruled an official federal crime scene. The vampires had closed ranks around one of their own, and Tasha and her men weren’t needed.
However, despite everything that had happened, the JPD and the Nassau County Sheriff’s Department considered Darryl one of
theirs
, and many who’d known Darryl had gathered outside the FBPI perimeter, watching in silence.
Tasha stiffened as another body was wheeled from the metal shed and loaded into a second hearse. She guessed it was the body of the as-yet-to-be-identified vampire. How could Darryl, someone she’d known and trusted with her life more than once, be capable of such inhuman cruelty?
Paramedics pushing a gurney emerged from the shed. Even from a distance, she recognized the gleaming hairless dome of Harvey Manser as they loaded him into an awaiting ambulance. Its lights and sirens flared to life seconds later. Within moments, she and the others gathered alongside her watched the ambulance speed down the gravel drive, turn onto the narrow unpaved county road, and disappear.
Tasha sighed. Harvey was an arsonist and kidnapper. Darryl had been a murderer. Tubby had poisoned himself while in custody. She obviously didn’t know anyone as well as she thought, not even herself, since she was guilty of tampering with evidence.
Another flurry of activity at the shed pulled her from her musings.
Alex emerged with Varik beside her, supporting her with his right arm. The other was held tightly against his chest and drenched in blood. They climbed into the back of a second ambulance, and the doors closed, sealing them away from prying eyes.
“Lieutenant Lockwood,” Chief Enforcer Damian Alberez addressed her as he strode across the yard.
Tasha stood up straight.
“Come with me.”
She ducked under the barricade and fell into step with the vampire. “Are you going to tell me what happened in there?”
“Enforcer Sabian did her job,” he replied tersely, and kept walking.
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
“Nothing else needs to be said, Lieutenant.” He halted beneath a towering sycamore tree, out of hearing distance for any of the humans sequestered behind the tape and even most of the vampires roaming the grounds.
The ambulance bearing Alex and Varik began to roll down the drive. Its red and white lights cast eerie flickering patterns on the ground. They watched as it made the turn and headed toward Jefferson.
Wind rustled the few dried and curled leaves that still stubbornly clung to the branches above her. “What happens now? Does Alex get reinstated?”
“That’s not for me to decide. For now she’ll continue
to be on paid suspension, pending the outcome of an official investigation.”
Tasha snorted and shook her head. “So, she kills a human, wreaks havoc through the entire town, attacks fellow Enforcers, and gets away with it?”
“I didn’t say she would get away with anything, Lieutenant. Her fate is yet to be determined.”
“In the meantime, she walks away from all this, totally unaffected.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. Taking a life isn’t easy. It can have unforeseen consequences.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s something you’d know about, huh?”
He shrugged.
Tasha felt restless. She needed to get away from this place, away from the vamps and their bureaucracy.
“Lieutenant,” he called to her as she brushed past him.
She waited.
“I understand you knew Black, worked with him, but Stephen Sabian is still missing.” He faced her. “As liaison officer, you have an obligation to assist the Bureau in our efforts to find him.”
Tasha opened her mouth to reply, and a curious thing happened. She laughed. “Oh,
now
you want our help?” Her laughter turned harsh. “With all due respect, Chief Enforcer, you and all the rest of you fucking vamps can get bent. You want to find Stephen Sabian? Find him yourselves.”
She stormed away, ignoring his repeated calls for her to come back. “Let’s go, boys,” she said loudly as she
neared the barricade. “We’ve got our own people to protect. Let the feds have their fun.”
Officers drifted to their cars and trucks. She slipped into the cool interior of her car. She’d had enough of vampires for one day, maybe even for her entire life. She maneuvered through the orderly mass exodus and onto the narrow gravel road.
The night seemed more ominous as she drove back to Jefferson. In her mind, gunmen and vampires lurked behind every tree. A rock kicked up by a passing car struck her windshield with the sound of a gunshot. Her pulse jumped.
She was close to town but didn’t want to face the harsh lights of the hospital, waiting for word on Harvey’s condition. The source of the threats she’d received was still a mystery. She had no idea who was behind them, but knowing that she was the one ultimately responsible for Harvey being in the hospital was more than she could bear.
She pulled into a dimly lit parking lot on the outskirts of town. Her hands shook, and she stared at the cracked windshield. She had to get ahold of herself.
A flickering sign in a window across the parking lot beckoned. Bars had never interested her, and she’d always considered herself a teetotaler, preferring tea to coffee and soda to alcohol, after seeing the effects alcohol had had on her mother. But times had changed.
She
had changed.
She killed the engine and stepped into the night. Jamming her hands into her jacket pockets, she picked her way through the crowded lot.
Tasha paused at the door, uncertain. Someone roared in laughter inside. The sound was pleasant, warm and entirely human. That’s what she needed. She needed to be with her own kind, with other humans. She held her breath and opened the door.
Smoke and the smell of beer assaulted her. Music pumped from the jukebox next to the chicken wire–encased stage across the room from the entrance. Two pool tables were crowded into a small room to the right of the stage. Outdated license plates and faded advertising signs decorated the bead board–paneled walls. Heads turned to check out the newcomer, and a few nodded greetings.
Tasha wove through the tables and took a seat at the bar, keeping her eyes downcast, not making eye contact with anyone. She wanted to be with other humans, but conversation seemed like a chore.
“Looks like you’ve had a rough night, honey,” the woman behind the bar said, setting a paper napkin and a bowl of popcorn in front of Tasha. “What can I getcha?”
She looked at the rows of glistening bottles lining the wall. Her mind blanked, and she simply stared. “I don’t know,” she muttered.
The bartender arched a thin black eyebrow that had been drawn way too high on her forehead. “Hmf. I got just the thing for ya, honey.”
Tasha watched the woman blend liquids from several bottles and add a dash of cranberry juice in an ice-filled glass before straining it into a shot glass.
She set the dark red final product down with a smile. “Slam that back, honey. It’ll take the edge off.”
Tasha picked up the glass and eyed it. Taking a deep breath, she brought it to her lips and drank it down in a single gulp. The cold liquid burned her tongue and throat. Coughing, she struggled to draw another breath while the woman cackled with high-pitched laughter.
“Good, ain’t it?”
Tears gathered at the corners of Tasha’s eyes, and she wiped them away. The burning in her throat spread out to encompass the rest of her, calming her frazzled nerves. She nodded. “What was that?”
“My specialty. I call it a Vamp Fang ’cause it’s cold as hell and it’ll bite your ass if you drink too many.”
“Appropriate.”
The woman grinned. “Want another?”
The damn vamps had been biting her ass for a long time—what was once more? At least this way, she had a chance of not remembering it in the morning. Sighing, she passed the glass back to the woman.
Alex paced the full length of the emergency room’s waiting area, turned, and retraced her steps. She could feel her mother’s eyes on her as she moved. She reached the opposite wall and turned to start the circuit again.
“What’s taking so long?” she demanded as she passed by her mother for the hundredth time. The plate-glass wall and door that separated the waiting room from the nurses’ and receptionist’s shared desk allowed her a full view of the rest of the emergency room.
“I’m sure the doctors are working as quickly as they can.”
Varik had been carted off to have his arm looked after. The bullet intended for her had struck his arm just below the shoulder. A few inches higher and it would have been a head shot.
The waiting-room door opened, and she spun around, ready to pepper the doctor with questions and demands, but stopped when a woman with short black hair entered. “Janet.”
“I heard you found another body,” Janet Klein, full-time bartender and part-time donor for Crimson Swan, said in a shaky voice. “And an Enforcer had been wounded. I figured you’d be here, and I wanted—I
needed
to know if—” Her brave façade broke, and she dropped into a chair, weeping.
Alex exchanged a confused glance with her mother.
Janet sniffled loudly and angrily brushed at her reddened cheeks. “I’m sorry. It’s just I keep thinking that Stephen wouldn’t have been attacked if he hadn’t taken me home that night. When I heard that—” Her voice broke. “When I—”
The truth of Janet’s appearance hit Alex. This woman, the human before her, was in love with Stephen. Janet freely displayed the emotions she herself had been keeping tightly reined in. She knelt in front of her. “It wasn’t Stephen we found,” she said softly.
Janet sighed in relief and then burst into another round of tears. “Then he’s still out there, and it’s all my fault!”
Alex cupped Janet’s hands in her own. “No, it’s not.
It’s not anyone’s fault. It simply is what it is. But we’re going to find him. Do you understand me?”
Janet nodded.
“We’re going to bring him home,” Alex said, with more force.
Her mother sat in the chair beside Janet and took over for Alex, talking to the distraught woman in a soothing voice.
Alex stood and moved to the back of the waiting room, drawn by the bitter scent of coffee. Her hands shook as she poured the thick brown liquid into a small insulated cup and added sugar and cream. She stirred the coffee and thought of Varik.
He’d come for her tonight, blindly charged into an unknown and dangerous situation. She could’ve lost him at the very moment when she was once again becoming accustomed to his presence.
The memory of Darryl’s and Claire’s ghosts dancing as they faded from view swam before her. They’d both been overjoyed to be reunited for eternity.
She’d been given a second chance with Varik, and she’d squandered it. She’d been petty, defensive, and stubborn. Her selfishness had nearly killed him.
A warm hand on her shoulder massaged the tension in her muscles, and she inhaled deeply. Sandalwood and cinnamon. Varik. She spun to face him.
Heavy bandages covered his left arm, and it was held in place with a sling, but he was smiling. “I’ll be fine in a week or so,” he answered her unspoken question.
She stepped into his one-armed embrace and fought to keep her tears from falling. She listened to the steady
rhythm of his heartbeat, the perfect match to her own. “It’s my fault,” she murmured against his chest.
“What do you mean?” he asked softly.
“If I’d caught Claire Black’s killers, none of this would’ve happened.”
Varik squeezed her to him. “You did the best you could.”
“But it wasn’t good enough, and now look at how many people have died or been hurt because of it.”
The waiting room’s door opened. A muscular vampire Alex recognized as the security guard Stephen had hired for Crimson Swan entered, and Alex’s heart dropped into her shoes.
Janet stood and gave him a quick hug. “It wasn’t him, Josh,” she said. “It wasn’t Stephen.”
“What’s wrong?” Varik asked softly, when Alex pulled away from him.