Stakeout (Aurora Sky (14 page)

“Okay.”

“That’s not all.” Dante crouched beside the
dog. “Tommy, what do you say when a hot chick walks by?” Dante
grinned and winked. Tommy howled in response. Dante gave him more
pats, laughing all the while. He straightened up, smiling proudly.
“He’s such a hound dog.”

“Just so long as he doesn’t do any howling at
night,” I said.

“Depends if a hot chick walks by.”

Did that mean I should be offended when I
walked past both Dante and his dog without hearing so much as a
“woof”?

Once I’d gotten my pack out of my car and
chucked it into Dante’s Jeep, we were on our way north.

“I’ve actually never been to Fairbanks,” I
said.

Dante glanced at me as he headed toward the
Chugiak Mountains. “Never been to Fairbanks... how is that
possible?”

“What reason would I have to go?”

“What reason would you have not to?” Dante
countered.

He sped down Tudor, passing business areas
followed by subdivisions. We curved left, following the final
stretch before hitting the Glen Highway.

“I need fuel,” Dante said.

Five seconds later, he cranked the wheel and
took an abrupt turn into a Taco Bell parking lot, roaring up to the
drive -through electronic board. Not the kind of fuel I’d thought
he meant.

“Welcome to Taco Bell. May I take your
order?”

Dante poked his head out of the window.
“Yeah, I’ll have a seven layer burrito, a churro, and a medium
Mountain Dew.”

“Will that be all?”

Dante glanced at me. “Do you eat?”

Rather than answer him, I leaned over the
console and projected my voice out the window. “I’ll take two
double decker tacos, a nacho supreme, and twenty-ounce Mountain Dew
freeze.”

Dante’s face lit up with his grin. “Finally,
a chick who understands the concept of road food.”

When I tried to hand him cash at the first
window Dante waved my hand away.

“Save it. My treat.”

Wow, I’d never had a guy buy me a meal. But
this wasn’t a date. Still, it was a nice gesture. Dante pulled up
to the second window where a girl barely older than me handed over
our drinks. Dante passed over my frozen Mountain Dew, followed by a
paper bag.

“They get it all?” he asked as he pulled out
of the drive-through and put on his blinker.

I dug through the sack real quick. “Burrito,
churro, tacos, nachos. Yep.”

“Mind handing me the churro?”

“No problem.”

The wrapping crinkled as the churro passed
from my hand to Dante’s. The nachos crunched in my mouth when I
chewed. I handed Dante his burrito once he finished dessert. He
drove with his knees, holding the burrito in one hand while
flipping through radio stations with his other until he landed on a
top hits station.

We finished our food quickly. Dante tossed
the end of his burrito over the seat to his dog, who chewed twice
before swallowing the piece whole.

I began sucking down my frosty soda. As we
passed under the bridge that took traffic over to Elmendorf Air
Force Base, Dante saluted in the direction of the gate.

I laughed. I don’t know why. Maybe the
caffeine had gone to my head.

“Ready for your first adventure to Fairbanks,
Minnie?” Dante asked.

“Whatever you say, Bullwinkle.”

Dante chuckled. “Good one. What’s your last
name again?”

“Harper.”

“You’ve got spirit, Harper, and that’s
important in our line of work. We gotta stay sharp at all times
even when we draw unlucky numbers or get the wrong side of the
coin. I’m afraid we’re not gonna see a whole lotta action this
trip.”

Tailing Buck? No kidding.

“Then again this Buck vamp might slip up, and
when he does, we’ll be there to take him down,” Dante said.

I nearly snorted Mountain Dew out my nose.
“Have you ever met any normal vampires, or does Melcher only send
you after the coldhearted killers and village crazies?”

Dante grinned. “Those are my favorite kinds.
Normal vampire... what’s the point?”

My fingers slowly went numb holding onto my
drink. I set it in a cup holder.

Dante had a way of slurping his drink through
the straw that sounded like he’d reached the end of the cup even
though it was still over half full.

I slurped in response, and he slurped louder.
I had to stop when I laughed, forgetting for two glorious seconds
that my life had turned to shit. No, not turned to shit. It had
always been shit, but whereas it had been crazy, bad shit before,
it had become slightly less shitty, and right back to the land of
insanity.

“So,” Dante said, drumming his palms on the
steering wheel. “I know Fairbanks. You know Buck. Together we can
have this thing wrapped up in twenty-four hours, don’t you
think?”

“I think it will take more than a day to
observe him.”

“This guy ever bite you?”

“No.”

“Hmm.”

“What?” I asked.

Dante stopped tapping his wheel and turned
his head to me. “Nothing. Any other names on the Fairbanks watch
list?”

“I don’t have a watch list for
Fairbanks.”

“So Melcher only has you keeping tabs on
Anchorage’s undead?”

I stuffed the empty nacho tray into the paper
sack and stretched back into my seat. “Are you fishing for
info?”

“Just making conversation. We’ve got a long
drive ahead of us.”

“Maybe I’d rather listen to music.”

Dante turned the music off and shot me a
devious grin.

“Maybe I’d rather listen to my own thoughts,”
I said.

Dante turned the music back on. “Why not do
all three at once? Good teamwork involves communication. I’m not
going all the way up to Fairbanks without taking out at least one
bad guy, and if you don’t know of any maybe this Buck character
will lead us to some.”

I shook my head.

“Not up for it?” Dante asked.

I stuck out my chin. “I’m up for anything
Melcher instructs me to do.”

“Perfect! Melcher wants us to rid the world
of the demonic plague. That includes Buck.”

I pressed my fists into my thighs. “We can’t
go around killing all vampires. That would be like genocide. A lot
of them are nice.”

Dante snorted. “A nice vampire. That’ll be
the day.”

“How many vampires have you met?” I
demanded.

Dante began driving with his knees again so
he could count on his fingers. “Let’s see. There was my first
initiation kill. Bullet to the head.” He looked sideways at me and
grinned. “My first training kill. Knife. My first mission kill.
That one also got the knife. My second mission kill. Had to run
that one over when he tried to flee. My first interrogation... wait
that one was human. My first mission to the backcountry.” Dante
leaned toward me. “Harpoon.”

He shrugged when he caught me staring at him.
“That’s the way you do things in the village.”

“I asked how many vampires you’d
met
, not killed!”

Dante’s face wrinkled in confusion. “It’s the
same thing.”

“Never mind.”

“It must be difficult getting close to your
targets without being allowed to kill them,” Dante said. “I
couldn’t be an informant.”

“I like being an informant,” I retorted.

Dante grinned. “Do you like being
bitten?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” I glared at Dante before
turning away. Someone ought to watch the road since he clearly
wasn’t.

“Cause I mean, no judgments if you do. I like
being bitten.”

I choke-snorted. “You would.” I couldn’t help
glancing at Dante. Yep, he was smiling.

“I like knowing my blood is the last thing
they taste before they die under my blade.”

My lips curled back. “That’s sick.”

“Yet beautiful at the same time. These
creatures go sucking the life out of innocents and then one day
they meet me. The curse is broken. Poetic justice.”

“I’m with you on the ones who deserve it,” I
said. “But vampires are like humans. Some kill, some don’t.”

“But they all drink blood,” Dante said as
though proving a point.

“They don’t have to kill to drink blood.”

“But they have to bite.”

“They don’t even have to bite.”

“Then what’s the point?” Dante took in my
expression and began laughing. “You look so serious right now. I’m
just toying with you, Minnie Mouse.”

“Sure you are,” I grumbled under my
breath.

After a minute of silence, Dante asked, “You
and Aurora are friends, right?”

“Yeah.”

“She ever talk about me?”

Was he serious?

“No.”

Dante’s grin widened. “Can’t break the bonds
of secrecy. I get it.”

This time, Dante missed my eye role. He’d
refocused on the road.

Boy was he barking up the wrong tree. He’d
kill Fane in a heartbeat if he knew Aurora had dated a vampire.
Moments earlier, he’d admitted to killing vampires for the sole
sake of being undead. Fane would be a consolation prize.

My loyalties should have been with Dante, but
they landed much closer to Fane.

Dante seemed unreliable, unpredictable, and
way too full of himself. Not to mention he had a dog.

He also turned out to be gabbier than a girl.
Six hours was a long time to be trapped with someone who wouldn’t
shut up. I already had Dante’s kill tally, but he went back and
filled me in on all the details. He had a million questions about
my undercover work. And as we approached Mount McKinley, he wanted
to know what kind of accident had led me to Melcher and my current
role as an undercover informant.

“None of your business,” I said.

Dante leaned over the steering wheel as
though he was resting against a seatback. “Oh, come on. I told you
my story.”

Yeah, an exciting ski adventure that involved
a helicopter to the top of a mountain, a snowboard, and a nosedive
over a cliff. Nowhere near as personal as slitting my wrists. Maybe
I ought to make up my own wild story.

“It’s... embarrassing,” I said slowly.

Dante’s cheeks lifted with his grin. “Now I
really have to know.”

“Okay,” I said, stretching in my seat. “I was
out with this guy—let’s call him Jeff—driving up and down Minnesota
on a Friday night, racing a car here and there, but mostly
cruising. Anyway, after a while I got bored, so I reached over and
unzipped his pants.”

I flashed Dante an angelic smile when he
cranked his head a hundred and eighty degrees in my direction.

“And then?” he prodded.

“And then what do you think? I sucked his
dick.” I sat up straighter in the chair, smiling smugly after
catching Dante’s devious grin.

“Bad girl,” Dante said. “What happened
next?”

“He ran into a light pole. Bam!”

Dante shook his head. “Men always have been
hopeless when it comes to multitasking. Did Jeff survive?”

“Jeff was fine.”

“But not you.”

“I barely made it.”

“The agents stepped in?”

I nodded. “Melcher saved me.”

Dante wrapped his fingers around the steering
wheel and pulled himself forward. For a moment it looked like he
was doing pushups. “Wouldn’t have been a bad way for Jeff to go,
but not really fair to you.”

“I made out okay in the end.”

“Damn straight,” Dante said, smacking the
steering wheel. “Now you’re one of the elite. Sorry, the
transfusion didn’t work out, though. But, hey, at least you have an
opportunity to feed information to the hunters. You are still an
instrumental part of this organization.”

“I know.” I didn’t need Dante to tell me my
role in the policing and extermination of murderous vampires was
important.

“So, you and Aurora have the car thing in
common?”

“What?”

Dante tilted his head.

Oh, right. The story I just made up. “Yeah, I
guess so.”

“But you’re not afraid of cars,” Dante
said.

I smiled. “I’m not afraid of cock,
either.”

It took several seconds for that to register
then suddenly Dante was laughing so hard I was afraid for a moment
he might run us off the road. Good thing there weren’t any light
poles in the stretch of wilderness between Anchorage and
Fairbanks.

Dante’s entire body shook. “Oh, that’s good,”
he said when he had enough air to speak. “Aurora should spend more
time around you.”

Aurora. Aurora. Aurora. Yeah, I loved my girl
and would put my own life on the line any day of the week to
protect hers, but the way guys fawned over her—even followed and
got themselves killed for her—you’d think she had beer-flavored
nipples. And that was the other thing. She probably couldn’t say
the word “nipples” or “cock” without turning three shades of red.
Guess guys liked the whole unspoiled innocence thing.

Even after having sex with a douche bag jock
at Denali High, Aurora acted like a virgin. That girl needed to get
laid, like really laid. If Dante thought he’d be the one to do the
honors, he had another thing coming. It didn’t take a genius to see
she wasn’t swooning over Dante’s obvious attempts to hook up.

Aurora had been bitten by the vampire bug. It
was like sex in a messed up way—made a girl feel connected and
close to the guy who’d fucked her, or in this case, sucked. It
united us to an entire race of creatures who broke through our skin
and consumed a small part of us.

I understood it all too well.

After that, men—human men—paled in
comparison. We’d been marked for life. I wondered if female vamps
would appeal to Dante the way male vamps appealed to me and
Aurora.

I could introduce Dante to Maxine, but then
he’d kill her so never mind.

“So you’ve never met a female vamp?” I asked
Dante.

“Nope. Have you?”

“Of course.”

“What are they like?”

“Some of them are divas, but I’ve never met
one who’s dangerous.”