Authors: D B Reynolds
She was talking on the phone to someone and he realized she was calling a cab. He considered picking her up bodily and throwing her back in his car. Hell, he could erase this whole fucking nightmare from her mind and she'd never remember a thing. But he wouldn't do that. Not again. And not to Sarah.
He watched her storm across the parking lot, heading for the street where, presumably, the cab would meet her. Maybe it was better this way. He'd wanted an excuse to walk away from her. To make her walk away from him. To get her as far away as possible from vampires in general and him in particular. This wasn't what he'd had in mind, but it would do. It would do nicely. And they'd both be better off in the long run.
He strode back to his car without another word, sitting there until he saw the cab arrive, until Sarah was inside and safe. And then he drove into the night alone.
Raj pulled up to the warehouse and twisted off the ignition key. He sat there for a while listening to the ping of the cooling engine, the occasional whine of a big truck on the nearby Genesee Road. The airport was silent. The last passenger flight came in from Chicago around midnight. After that, the terminals pretty much shut down until morning and the first cargo flights at six.
He had the connection he'd been looking for. Jennifer, sweet Jennifer, had given it to him. It was the blood houses. Trish Cowens had never made sense to him. Why would any vampire stalk a victim on the streets, when he could find plenty of women at the blood houses who were willing to spend an hour or a weekend if that's what he wanted? But it wasn't Trish Cowens the vampire had been after. It was Jennifer Stewart, who looked so much like her roommate and who'd worn a leather jacket the night she'd gone to visit a blood house. The same jacket Trish was wearing the night she was taken.
But what was the connection between the kidnapped women and Estelle Edwards's vampire research project? Would she need human subjects to test her research? And what about Krystof? Even if he was behind this scheme, he certainly hadn't been the one who'd danced with Jennifer Stewart at the blood house or, for that matter, the one who'd taken Trish Cowens off the street. And he kept coming back to the fact that it was Krystof who'd brought him to Buffalo to figure out what was happening.
Raj swore and shoved open the door. Too many damn questions and not enough answers. He strode over to the warehouse, expecting it to be empty. But when he stepped inside, he found Em heading for one of the big SUVs, the only one left in the warehouse bay.
"Raj,” she said, veering toward him. “I didn't expect you here."
"Do we have any human assets in town, beyond these guards?"
She blinked, obviously taken aback by his cold demeanor, but he wasn't in a friendly mood.
"None I would trust, my lord, but I can have someone here by daybreak."
"Do it. I need more daylight guards for this place and a twenty-four hour watch on Sarah."
Emelie paused in the act of punching buttons on her cell phone. “You think she's—"
"I don't have time to baby-sit her, but I need to know what her involvement is. She's been lying to me all along and I need to know why. Did Simon find anything more on her?"
"Nothing relevant, my lord, but he's still digging. There is one oddity—"
Raj looked at her sharply. “What's that?"
"She doesn't seem to exist before maybe ten years ago. A little less."
"What does that mean?"
She shrugged. “There's no birth certificate, no high school graduation, no driver's license that we can find before then. Of course, it's possible she was home schooled and really didn't drive a car until she broke away from her parental units, but it makes Simon's Spidey sense tingle. He's looking deeper."
Raj frowned. “Let me know as soon as you find something. Where is everyone?"
"Throughout the city, as you ordered, my lord. We've been rotating the blood houses between us, and I can tell you this much. There's no one in charge here. None of the local vamps raised an eyebrow when I showed up, and I don't exactly blend."
Raj nodded. Most vampires were men, although it was more by happenstance than planning. Contrary to what popular fiction would have one believe, there weren't that many vampires in the world. Only master vampires had the power to make and hold a child, and the most common reason for a master to make children was to defend his territory. There was a strong cultural bias among all but the youngest vampires that put women in the to-be-protected category, while males were seen as defenders. And then there was the need for blood—if a vampire had a female lover, even for a short time, he wanted her to remain human so he could continue to feed from her. All of which resulted in more male vampires than female, which in turn meant that Emelie definitely should have been noticed.
"Jozef told me my first night in the city that Krystof was making children left and right,” Raj said. “The local blood house managers are probably so used to new faces they don't bother to question anyone."
"Or maybe they're overwhelmed,” Emelie said. “The houses I've been to are far too crowded. The ventilation systems aren't working properly, and the humans are drunk on vampire pheromones."
Raj nodded, not surprised by this. “The blood houses are the key, Em. I think Trish Cowens was a mistake. Someone meant to grab her roommate and got Trish instead.” He frowned. “And Sarah says she saw Krystof talking to Estelle Edwards at a university reception."
Em's face reflected her shock. “That's pretty damning, boss."
He nodded. “It looks like it, but damnit, Em, it just doesn't fit. Krystof wouldn't have brought me here if he was the one. He
knows
I'll figure this out. I'm missing something. I just don't know what it is.” He drew a troubled breath. “It doesn't matter,” he said finally. “If it's Krystof, I'll deal with him sooner than planned, that's all. And he can't be the one taking the women from the houses, because the house managers would damn well remember if Krystof had visited. I was out in Corfu the other night and no one said a word to me about Krystof. So even if he's in on it, he's not acting alone."
"Whoever they are,” Em said. “They've got to be getting a little frantic by now with all the press this is getting. We need to find those women before the bad guys start getting rid of the evidence, assuming they haven't already."
Raj shook his head in disgust. “Make your calls, Em. Get some more of our human assets here. And then you and I are going to visit the East Amherst blood house. Jennifer Stewart, Trish's roommate, went there twice. I want to see what it looks like."
The house was pretty much as he remembered it. Built in the early seventies, it was a wood and glass tract house—two stories, with an incongruous A-frame that would have looked ridiculous except for the identical homes all around. A sort of mini-Swiss chalet bedroom community in upstate New York.
The inside was just as firmly stuck in the seventies as the exterior. A short entryway led to a sunken living room with walls that alternated wood paneling and gold-veined mirror. No doubt the carpet had originally been some sort of shag, but that was long gone, replaced by something sturdier, something that wouldn't show blood stains. The interior was dark and smoky, music pulsing with a heavy backbeat that caused the cheap floor to vibrate beneath his feet. And Em was right. The air was foggy with pheromones and human sweat.
Raj stood in the doorway and waited for someone to challenge him, or to at least acknowledge he belonged there. But no one did. He glanced at Em and started toward the back of the house, ending up in a kitchen which had been gutted to make room for two big subzero refrigerators standing side by side. Raj strode over to the units and pulled one open.
Rows of bagged blood were stacked inside. Either the house manager had a deal with the local blood bank or he was draining more from the human donors than anyone knew. He closed the heavy door. He still had not been challenged by anyone. “Upstairs,” he told Emelie.
She nodded and led the way back down the hall, taking a U-turn upward around a flimsy iron banister. The stairway was crowded, but once they got upstairs, the hall was more or less clear as activities were taken behind closed doors. The usual sounds were emanating through those doors—women, men and vampires, in the throes of sexual passion and release. Not a few of the outbursts were punctuated with cries of pain; some vampires didn't even try to be gentle.
Raj felt his own fangs pushing for release. He hadn't fed from the vein since the woman in the bar his first night in the city, and while bagged blood contained all the nutrients he needed, it held none of the visceral satisfaction he craved almost as much. Between the bad ventilation system and the crowds of willing humans, it was like asking a starving man to walk through a McDonald's without tasting so much as a French fry. The door to the master suite opened behind him and he spun around, fangs fully distended. A vampire stood there, his arm around the waist of a young man who would surely have collapsed if not for the vampire's assistance.
"Raj!” the vampire said. “I heard you were in town. What's up, big guy?"
"Lose the human, Kent,” Raj growled.
"Sure thing,” Kent said agreeably. “You go on back inside, darling,” he said to his companion. “You're looking a bit peaked.” He turned the human around in his grasp and gave him a gentle shove toward the big bed in the background. The young man barely made it, falling face down when his knees hit the mattress.
Kent watched, shaking his head fondly. “A sweet boy, but a cheap date.” He pulled the door closed and turned back to Raj with nothing but business on his face.
"Let's talk,” he said. He tugged a set of keys from the pocket of skintight jeans and opened a door right next to the master suite. It was a small office of sorts, with an industrial-looking metal desk and two chairs. There was no window, and from the configuration, Raj figured this space had been chopped off the master next door.
Kent propped himself on the desk, his back against the outside wall, and indicated the two chairs, eying Em curiously before he said, “I'm surprised to see you, Raj. Pleasantly, but surprised, nonetheless. So what's up?"
Raj didn't sit. He stood just inside the door, aware of Emelie at his back and the houseful of vampires all around him. Kent was a friend, or had been once, but Raj wouldn't go so far as to say he trusted him. Raj didn't trust anyone who had remained within Krystof's grasp. He studied Kent and saw a fine sheen of sweat betraying the nerves behind his relaxed facade, saw his hand gripping the keys so tightly blood had begun to leak between his fingers. Raj met his eyes and held them until Kent dropped his gaze with a low groan. He slid to the floor and onto his knees.
"Master,” he forced out from between lips pressed tight with pain.
Raj left him there a few minutes longer, while Emelie stood stock-still next to him, probably fighting her own urge to drop to her knees.
"Get up, Kent,” he said finally, and swung into the larger of the two chairs, pushing it back against one wall.
Kent breathed a sigh of relief and, after glancing at Raj, climbed shakily to his feet to slump weakly against the wall over the desk.
"How can I serve you, my lord?” Kent asked in a much subdued voice.
"I'm not your lord, Kent."
The other vampire dared a quick look at Raj's face and away. He shrugged. “Krystof doesn't bother with anything outside the boundaries of Delaware Park anymore. You're the only master I've seen in two years."
Raj concealed his dismay. “No one checks on the houses?"
"Jozef, sometimes. He comes around every few months, but he was here last month, so I don't expect him for awhile yet."
Raj was quiet, thinking. “Has anyone asked you about missing women?"
"Women?"
"Three women, Kent. Three separate disappearances, but each had visited one of the blood houses, including this one. A fourth—” He considered how much he wanted to say. “A fourth woman has a different connection to the vampire community, but she's also disappeared. No one told you?"
"No. This is the first I've heard of it."
Raj shook his head. Kent was telling the truth, which meant Krystof hadn't even taken the basic precaution of warning his house managers. He pulled out the picture of Jennifer Stewart and Trish Cowens he'd snagged from the bulletin board in their dorm room and ripped it in half so that only Jennifer remained. “You recognize this girl?"
Kent studied the picture carefully, but shook his head. “I'm sorry, my lord, she could be one of a hundred, a thousand, women around here. They come and go and, you know me, I don't pay that much attention to the ladies."
"What's with all the bagged blood downstairs, Kent? Where's it coming from?"
The other vampire seemed to freeze for a moment and Raj growled softly, “Kent."
"Orders,” he gasped, and Raj could tell he was fighting the compulsion of some other master. He would have fallen to the floor again, but Raj was already on his feet and caught him before he could hit the ground.
"Whose orders, Kent?” he asked intently.
Kent shook his head, as if trying to clear it, then threw back his head and screamed. Raj reacted instantly, grasping the other vampire with both hands and surrounding the two of them in a sphere of pure power. Kent collapsed against him and Raj sorted through his mind, undoing the tangle of commands and counter-commands some clumsy master before him had left behind.
Whoever had done this had the strength to take over another vampire's will, but not the finesse or experience to do it without damage. He cursed the ignorance that could easily have left Kent permanently damaged and tasted the essence of the other. It was familiar, but . . . who? Someone he knew? Or just someone whose power he had crossed paths with before? Raj withdrew gently and lifted Kent in his arms. Emelie was standing ready, and she responded to a jerk of Raj's head by opening the door and stepping into the hall to look both ways.