Last Vampire Standing (24 page)

He jerked her arms back and slapped silver-laced handcuffs on her almost faster than I could see. I expected her to scream when the silver touched her skin. She didn’t. She hissed and spat, and cursed us all while Saber gave her the executioner version of the Miranda warning, but she didn’t seem to react to the touch of silver.

A knot formed deep in my gut.

“Saber, hold on a minute.”

He glanced over as I knelt beside him. “What?”

I peered at Laurel’s wrists twisting in the handcuffs. They were reddening, but because of her struggle or the silver?

“The cuffs should be burning her.”

“They are burning, bitch,” Laurel gritted out, “but I will not show weakness before my nest.”

A chair scraped on the wood floor behind us. Jackson called out, and Saber whirled with his semiautomatic in hand. I spun, too, crouched and ready to suck energy again, but Ray held out his hands.

“Please, I mean no harm.”

No one eased off. Not Jackson, not his contingent of cops, not Saber.

“If I may speak?” Ray said, arms spread.

I gave him a curt nod.

“You know that I am an attorney, but I also have some modest knowledge of medicine. I created a salve for Laurel’s silver burns that also contains anesthetic properties.”

“You mean it numbs her skin?” I glanced at Saber. Had Ray made the salve Saber had given me?

“Yes, Princess. The salve creates a barrier to pain, which may be why she is tolerating the handcuffs, but the silver is seeping into her system.”

“If that’s all you have to say,” Jackson growled.

Ray cut him off. “It is not. Saber, could you perhaps allow Laurel to stand?”

Saber grabbed the back of her sleeveless leather vest and hauled her to her feet. I stood, too, moving so I could keep an eye on Ike’s former bodyguards, Zena and Tower. If anyone objected to taking Laurel out of here, they were my top choices. Laurel stood proud, chin up, black eyes holding scorn. “Ray, you will see to my release, of course.”

Ray slowly shook his head. “I think it is best that you go peacefully, Laurel. You see, Ike willed his worldly possessions and properties to me. I am now in command.”

I wasn’t the only one to suck in a shocked breath. Laurel’s eyes narrowed, and her mocha skin flushed as if she were burning with the fever of bloodlust.

Which, in that moment, I guess she was.

“I will go free,” Laurel snarled. “Then we will see who holds this nest.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Saber said, keeping a tight hand on her jacket. “Jackson, I take it there’s a vamp cell available in lockup?”

Jackson lowered his weapon with only a slight tremble in his hand. “There is. I’ve got special transport waiting, too. I’ll radio them to pull up out front, but you’ll have to come down to book her in.”

Saber nodded and began marching Laurel toward the front door, grasping the back of her jacket in his left hand, his semiautomatic pointed at her back in the other. Jackson covered Saber, but there was no need. The more steps Laurel took away from them, the more the vamps at the table relaxed.

A cop near the door held it open. Through the opening, I saw the cop car pull up to the curb. Saber propelled Laurel over the threshold to the sidewalk and toward the cruiser, everything under control.

Until two steps later.

A
whoosh
of movement too fast to track, a back breeze through the door, and Laurel and Saber were gone.

022

The club echoed with my feral cry, terror for Saber crushing every coherent thought save one. If Laurel had hurt him, I would kill her.

I found myself outside, but she was gone. Vanished. Saber sprawled on the sidewalk against the building, pale and still. I moved in a fog of fear, fell to my knees at his side. I ran my hands over his face, down the buttons of his shirt, across his chest. An inhale, an exhale. Thank the deities, he lived, but how badly was he hurt? When I picked up his left hand, he moaned.

“Saber, how bad is it?”

A very brown hand covered mine and held me still.

“It will be best,” Ray said, “if you do not pull on his wrist. I am fairly certain it is broken.”

“Oh, Saber, I’m sorry,” I whispered, tearing up as I sensed Jackson standing over us. Ray cradled Saber’s lower arm and laid it on his chest, then probed his head and collarbone with gentle fingers. Saber’s eyes snapped open. He gazed blankly at me, then at Ray.

“What the hell?” he ground out, struggling to sit.

Ray restrained him with a touch.

“Saber, be still, please.” I said. “You were body slammed into the wall.”

“It’s just my wrist, and a bump on the head,” he said irritably. “Damn it, Laurel got away, didn’t she?”

“More like she was whisked away.” I patted his thigh, more to comfort me than him. “You couldn’t have stopped it.”

“A hit like that,” Jackson said from behind me, “you’re lucky you didn’t break your back.”

“Be better than the paperwork I’ll have to fill out for losing a prisoner.”

Ray snorted. “He will live.”

I gave him a grateful smile. “I need to get him to the ER.”

“I’ve called for another ambulance,” Jackson said.

But Saber insisted on standing, and Ray carefully hoisted Saber to his feet. I tucked myself into his good side, or what I thought was the one less injured. Since he groaned and shuffled sideways a step, I figured his ribs had suffered from meeting the cinder block wall. Did he have internal injuries? Damn, where was that EVAC unit?

Saber gripped my shoulder, then looked at Ray and Jackson. “Any clue who snatched Laurel?”

The cop and the vamp shook their heads.

“Cesca?”

“Other than it had to be a vampire, just one. You smell like an orange.”

“I do?” He let go of me to lift his shirt by the buttons and sniff. “Shit. Who the hell is this?”

Saber insisted that Jackson try to get evidence from his shirt. When Ray helped remove the shirt, I’d bitten my lip to keep from crying over the bruises and scrapes on Saber’s back and arms.

Jackson had patted my shoulder in comfort—huge points to him for touching me. As soon as the EMTs had loaded Saber into the ambulance, I’d taken off at a dead run for Saber’s SUV to meet him at the hospital. Pandora sat on the hood of Saber’s car.

I will stay on the scent while you see to your man.

“The orange scent?” I asked, clicking the unlock button.

Yes, and I will alert Triton to the trouble.

“Well, bring reinforcements, will you? We’ll be at Saber’s place.”

She hopped to the pavement.
Keep wearing the charm. I will find you.

Three hours later, Saber’s arm was in a cast from his hand to the middle of his forearm, the cast in a blue and white sling. We’d filled Saber’s prescription at a twenty-four-hour Wal greens. Next stop, his condo, where I’d help him clean up, give him a pain pill, and tuck him into bed.

“Nice place,” I said when he told me to turn into the driveway of a building near the Intracoastal. A very nice building. Five stories, balconies on every floor, built in the 1970s or ’80s.

“I bought the place a long time ago. Cheap,” he muttered as he hit the button of a remote control device. The security gate slid open, and my tight-lipped-with-pain darling guided me to an under-the-building parking place, pointing out the location of the elevator we passed. With his pain meds in hand, I helped him into the elevator.

“Hit five,” he said.

“Oooh, the penthouse floor,” I said lightly. “I bet it has a great view.”

Saber just grunted, and I held his good hand until I unlocked the door to his condo. He had a corner unit, and dawn was just creeping through huge plate glass windows on the west and north walls of the living room. I only glanced at the view as I supported Saber down a hall, and I eased him onto his king-size bed.

“Lie still a minute. I’ll be right back.”

Light from another huge window in the bedroom lit my way to the bathroom. I groped for the light switch and flipped it on. Wow, no wonder Saber wanted Neil’s house. The decor was so similar, Maggie might’ve been at work here. I grabbed a fresh tan washcloth from a brushed nickel towel rack, wet the cloth with warm water from one of the two sinks, and wheeled back to the bedroom.

“Here,” I said as I sat next to him on the bed, “let me clean you up before I strip you.”

“Now that sounds like a plan.” He waggled his brows at me, but halfheartedly.

“Rein in your libido, lover. You need to take a pain pill and sleep.”

“No, I need to find out who killed Ike, who grabbed Laurel, and what the hell might happen next.”

“And what oranges have to do with our mystery vampire.” I dabbed away dirt smudges the ER hadn’t cleaned. “Pandora is tracking the scent. Right now, we can’t do more.”

“I can. I can search the VPA records and try to make more sense of this.”

“Those records list some personal info on vamps, don’t they? Habits, companions, and whatnot?”

Since I was patting the washcloth on a cut near his lip, he merely nodded.

“Then I’ll get on your computer. Root around in the records, and see what I can find.”

He caught my hand. “The records aren’t in an area of the site you can access.”

“Well, um, actually, they are.”

“You memorized my codes?”

Since he was giving me his “Lucy, you got some ’splainin’ to do” glare—the look that made him seem very Latino and all the hotter—I just shrugged.

He sighed. “Do it, then, and leave the printouts on my desk. I’ll get on them tomorrow.”

“Nuh-uh. You’re going to rest tomorrow. Doctor’s orders.”

“We’ll see.” He squeezed my hand. “Did you see Donita in the ER?”

“No. She must’ve been taken to another hospital. That or she’d already been released.”

“Doubtful, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll catch up with her later.”

“Do you think she’s in danger?”

“From Laurel?”

“Or the nest.”

“Again, doubtful. But we need to question her and the vampires—thoroughly this time.”

“We will. Can I ask a question before I get your pill?”

“You want to know if those are blackout drapes? Yes, they are. I got them because of my odd hours, but you’ll be fine sleeping in here next to me. In my bed, for a change.”

I grinned. “Good to know, since I didn’t bring my super sunblock, but I have a different question.”

“Fire away.”

“What do you know about Ray?”

“He was Ike’s friend and attorney, and he joined the nest in April or May. Why?”

“Other than I’m still trying to wrap my head around Ike having a friend, never mind an attorney, why did he help you tonight?”

“To make points? Show he’ll be a kinder, gentler head of the nest?”

“Maybe, but I have this feeling it’s more than that.”

“Did you read him?”

“Not him, just his manner. He’s very different from the other vamps.”

Saber’s gaze narrowed. “How?”

“They seem, well, aimless, I guess is the word. They don’t have much personality zing. Except for Suzy. And maybe Charles and Miranda.”

Saber shrugged. “Many vamps are simply satisfied to have the protection of a nest.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it.” I bit my lip. “You are going to let me be there when you question them, right?”

“You don’t have to work?”

“If I’m on the schedule, I’ll take time off.”

“You don’t have to do that,” he said, shrugging out of the sling. “The vamps aren’t a threat to me.”

“Maybe not, but I might be able to read something from them that will speed up the investigation.”

“It’s worth a shot.”

His eyelids drooped, and I kissed him lightly on the mouth. “While I’m here nursing you, I can start staging your condo for a fast sale.”

I gave him his pill, got him stripped to his boxers, and tucked him in. From a chair on the other side of the bed, I kept watch until his breathing evened.

I was still hopped up on adrenaline, too restless to concentrate on the computer, so I burned worry energy by touring the Spartan but updated condo. Cherrywood floors stretched through every room save the tiled bathrooms, and the overall style was modern. A couch and two chairs in the living room took advantage of the view. A coffee table, a side table, and two lamps rounded out the furnishings.

The living room opened to a kitchen dominated by sleek black appliances and the same light brown countertop that Saber had in the bathrooms. A long bar separated the kitchen from the dining room, and there was room for a dining set, but Saber didn’t have one.

I found the second, smaller bedroom that Saber used for his office, where tall bookshelves lined one wall. A desk on the opposite wall held Saber’s laptop, a printer, and some loose papers.

The condo’s paint job seemed fresh, and everything was neat and relatively new, so the staging list I jotted on a pad from Saber’s desk was short. A dining set, some art, and a few more accessories, and the condo would be ready to show. Unless Saber’s Realtor wanted something else done. I’d check with Saber before I went shopping. I peeked in on Saber and smiled to find him lightly snoring. With a swift kiss on his forehead, I moved to the next order of business. Researching the VPA records.