The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) (44 page)

His right hand held the cigarette loosely, the
spiral of smoke making its lazy way up to the ceiling, coating it
with its hundredth layer of yellow nicotine. The events that led up
to this moment floated inside his head exactly like the smoke that
hovered near the dingy ceiling.

Karl knew that he was missing a critical piece.
Alfred the bus driver had laid the revelation of the last two years
at his feet once again, the entire investigation coming full
circle.

Julia Caldwell lived. That bus driver had made
the circuit in his route twice while she'd slept the ride away.
Finally he'd let her off at the woman's shelter in Kent,
Freedom
Affirmed.

That's where Truman was headed. He hoisted
himself up to a sitting position, his squat legs dangling off the
end of the lumpy mattress, taking a last long drag. He stabbed the
glowing end of his cigarette out in the glass ashtray that screamed
the motel logo at him from its center. He stood, scratching his
slightly protruding Buddha belly through his thin cotton underwear
tank and shuffled to the shower, stripping his clothes as he went.
He could hear the rhythmic drip from the faucet as he stepped
inside the shower stall and cranked the lever to as hot as he could
stand it. Truman robotically went through the motions of cleaning,
completely distracted by his thoughts.

After completing his three Ss (shower, shit and
shave) he used his handy GPS gadget to find the street names for
this place in Kent, jamming another cigarette in his mouth as he
did and stabbing the auto window feature. The glass slid down and
disappeared as he hung his beefy arm out the window, waiting for
the GPS to triangulate his position.
Huh,
Truman thought,
he was actually quite close to the place.
But as he looked
around him at the traffic, he realized it might take longer because
of it.
What a fucked up road system here
, he thought. It was
like the infrastructure hadn't caught up with the population.

Or, maybe he was just spoiled because he was
from the Last Frontier. Yeah, it was probably that. He flicked his
cig with a practiced movement of thumb and index finger and watched
as it littered the wet pavement, a constant drizzle soaking the
streets, laying gloom everywhere it touched.

Depressing state
, Karl thought, pulling
away from the dump of a hotel.

*

Cyn

Cynthia was deciding what to wear. The weather
was weird here. It was September but hotter than hell. September
held the promise of autumn firmly in Alaska. Here in Washington,
they called it Indian Summer. Whatever that meant. What it meant to
her was high 70s and summer clothes. Today though, there was the
miserable Seattle drizzle to contend with. Screw doing her hair.
Her spiral iron that she'd remembered to jam in her pack wouldn't
hold in this slop, her flat iron would straighten her hair but it
would just frizz later.

The hell with it, messy bun it was. The humidity
was startling, she wasn't used to it yet, it was so damn
damp
.

Cynthia smiled, throwing on American Eagle low
rise jeans, and with a sad little sigh, she put on light wool socks
and Jules' Xtra Tuffs. They were the dumbest boots but when she was
feeling down, nothing perked her up like those fugly boots Jules
had loved.

Gawd, two years ago she would've died before
she'd worn these.

But times had changed, hadn't they? She sucked
back the horrible burning of her eyes, the need to cry pressing in
on her from all sides and stuffed her foot into first one boot,
then the other.

She checked her make-up in the mirror, pursing
her lips then rolling them together to expertly spread the colored
gloss she wore.

And some things never changed.

Cynthia left her cramped room that cost her two
hundred fifty dollars month to month, closing the cheap door behind
herself and not bothering to lock it. There was nothing to steal
anyway. And the horrible wolf things were in Alaska. Cynthia
ignored the creeping little voice in the back of her head that
whispered that where there were some, there may be more.

Cynthia shoved it deep down inside herself and
went to the bus depot across the street.

She was going to get some answers and begin the
long journey of finding Jules. Cynthia was sure she was alive.

She'd seen that thing kill Kev.

She'd seen it swipe half of Jason's neck away.
Cynthia swallowed hard, trying not to let the awful memory swell
and take hold like it so often would.

But Jules had been untouched. Did that mean
they'd spared her? Hell, they'd spared Cynthia. She wasn't sure why
and it suddenly struck her as odd. Why didn't they just kill her
too? They could have taken her off somewhere and done her in. Why
warn her? She felt like the answer to those questions were just out
of reach, tantalizing her without closure.

The stinky bus rolled up and she recognized the
driver right away.

What was his name?
Cynthia wondered,
biting her lip. Oh yeah!
Alfred
, she remembered with a
smile, thinking that he'd been the first kind person she'd met
here. Well... then there was Alan.

She got on the bus and knew something was wrong
when he gave her a curious glance, then she could see the light
bulb snap on in his face. He gave a slow blink and said almost
absently, “I said the wrong girl.”

“What?” Cynthia asked, confused. People shifted
behind her impatiently and she moved to the side, their coins
clattering in the change holder beside Alfred.

“The cop from Haller, Honner....” he scratched
his head, making his pewter hair stand up straight.

Cynthia stared at the errant strand, her stomach
dropping in an uncomfortable lurch. “Homer,” she whispered.

He snapped his fingers in joy. “That's it!” he
said, pleased.

“Can ya get a move on?” one of the passengers
asked, clearly irritated.

Alfred flicked his eyes in his wide mirror that
showed the bus' passengers and said, “Keep your pants on, we're
going,” he said popping the clutch and Cynthia grabbed the bar that
ran along the ceiling to steady herself. The bus swung away from
the curb with a stagger, the cloud of fumes pouring out of the
back.

“What did he want?” she asked loudly, over the
noise of the bus.

“Showed me a photo of your graduation....”

Cynthia's heart leapt in her chest. “What
photo?”

Had to be Truman
, Cynthia thought. Gawd,
he was like a damn bloodhound.

Alfred shifted gears and the bus made the smooth
transition to third gear. He flicked his eyes to hers and said,
“You and that other girl. The one with the eyes.”

Julia
, Cynthia knew, excitement thudding
inside her chest with a staccato beat.

He gave her a second or two of steady eyes then
answered the hope that sung in her heart like a melody. His next
comment made it a song.

“Yeah, I identified your friend, not you,” he
said sheepishly, feeling foolish he'd forgotten her face. His
expression lit up and he added, “But he seemed real excited that
I'd seen your friend.”

Well hell yeah,
Cynthia agreed mentally.
She was beyond excited herself; she was ecstatic.

She sunk down in the seat right behind him and
thought.

When Alfred pulled up at the depot in the
valley, Cynthia saw the women's shelter just two blocks away. It
looked so different during the day, not so terrible, ominous. Of
course, it made a difference that terror wasn't riding on her back
like an ill-behaved monkey.

She stepped out of the bus and turned to look up
at Alfred.

“You in trouble again, missy?”

She shook her head, giving him the second
genuine smile she'd had since she moved here. “Nah, not anymore. In
fact,” her smile widened, becoming a grin, “I think everything's
going to be okay now.”

Then a cloud passed over her consciousness.
“What did he want, do you think?”

Alfred shrugged. “Don't know,” he said, staring
through his grimy windshield, his face in profile. “Couldn't be
good, though, eh?”

She nodded slowly. “No, it couldn't be.”

“Let's go, driver!” a passenger squealed like a
pig in a pen behind him and Cynthia scowled in their direction,
wanting badly to give them a manicured middle finger. She
restrained herself with an effort.

“Better go,” Alfred said, jerking his chin in
the general direction of the dissenter.

Cynthia nodded then said as she walked away,
“Thanks, Alfred.”

He grinned, his crooked teeth making his homely
face endearing to her. “You betcha, for what?” he asked, his hand
on the knob for the door closure.

“Hope,” she said simply and walked away before
he could respond.

*

Freedom Affirmed

“Listen, I'm not the bad guy here, Ms. Collins,”
Karl Truman said, peeved. The old bat. Didn't she realize they were
after the same objective? He wanted to find the Caldwell girl.
Hell, he wanted to find the Adams girl. His nose told him he was on
the right trail but he was getting stonewalled by this old
broad.

She wrinkled her nose, completely unintimidated.
Not that Truman was going for that. But at six foot three and an
even three hundred pounds, he was a big guy and accustomed to
leaning on folks and they caved. This scrawny bird wasn't one of
those.

Atypical. Stubborn. A Pain In His Fat Ass.

He huffed, she scowled. “Okay, let's start
over,” Truman said, rasping a hand over his stubble. He put the
photo under her nose again and she studied it. Finally she looked
up and said, “Even if I did recognize these girls, I wouldn't
confirm or deny anything. You need a subpoena. Even with your
police credentials, it would have to be a federal mandate. And my
understanding is you hail from Alaska, correct?” she asked her
rhetorical question like firing a gun.

Shit
,
let's major in the minors
,
Truman thought.

Her expression softened and she added, “Let's
say, in theory,” she paused and he nodded like
go on
.

Hell, he'd take any bread crumb she'd fling his
way if it would get him closer to finding the girls,
or young
women
, his mind corrected. They were twenty now. Her eyes
pierced him through her grandma glasses which perched on the end of
her pointy beak of a nose. “Let's say that there was a girl like
that one,” her eyes flicked to Julia Caldwell's image, “who
disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Ones which could not be
explained. Ones which required extensive remodeling.”

Truman's heart stuttered in his chest. What the
hell? His whole being came on point.
She had been here.

Julia Caldwell had been here.

“Show me this... room.”

“It's off the record,” she said as a statement.
“As theory.”

He nodded, following her.

She led the way up the winding staircase, the
steps creaking under his weight and when she reached the door he
saw that the building had been an old turn-of-the-century dorm of
some kind. Many doors were five panel solid fir with crystal knobs
and old-fashioned housings leaning precariously from their
attachments.

She went to the room whose knob appeared like
it'd been replaced.

There was a modern knob retrofitted to the old
fashioned box lock. “This has never worked since our phantom guest
left.”

She swung the door inward and Truman stepped
into the room. He paused, giving his senses time to catch up. He
always worked like this. Truman thought of it like getting the
flavor of the room. The crime scene. Because that was what this
was. Something had happened here. Something violent. His eyes
strayed to the window where three whole panes lay intact inside
their sashes, the fourth broken, a cut piece of plywood installed
where the glass had been.

He heard Shirley Collins sigh behind him as she
waved a hand toward the window. “It's the final repair. Not many
folks cut glass to fit this age of window anymore.”

Yeah
, Truman thought. There weren't many
buildings of this age where he came from.

After another moment, Truman walked over to the
windowsill and looked at the wood there. It was punky with age,
soft. He squinted at it. There, just on the interior edge, were
scratches.

Like something had used it as a perch for a
moment. Something with... claws.

His eyes snapped to hers. Then they
instinctively fell on the glass, and the unkempt yard beyond, the
whole of it rolling like an endless green sea toward the forest's
edge.

And there, just at the border, a lone figure
slipped into the woods.

Truman would have dismissed the person
immediately.

But the boots gave her away.

Nobody wore those in these parts.

She was Alaskan. He'd stake his life on it.

As fast as somebody his size could get down the
steps and out of the building, he ran. His body was now an ungainly
bundle of raw size. But Truman had been an athlete in his youth.
His body remembered those demands.

They came to the forefront now, his body
graceful in its pursuit of the ghostlike figure he chased after at
a jog, his gun belt smacking and rubbing his side
uncomfortably.

It didn't matter, Shirley Collins' yell as he
jogged to the edge of the forest went unheeded.

She'd been protecting the girl all along;
distracting him with the room while his quarry got away.

Well, she wasn't going to get away this
time.

He ran harder, the embrace of the branches as he
sailed into the gloom of trees rough against his clothing, tearing
at him like ghostly fingers.

Sharp and insistent.

*

an hour earlier