The Wild Side: Urban Fantasy with an Erotic Edge (23 page)

He was still under her thrall, and stood smiling absently, waiting to be dismissed.

No time for speculation. She needed to get to Boston.

She sent him on his way, and had a quick look in the parking lot. It was gravel, and there were no tire tracks. She got into her car, and headed south.

Claudia thought about the disruptive power of the vase. Fangborn seemed to be unusually affected by it, but Normals—if Justine’s account of the ruckus it had caused at the museum was any indication—were affected by it, even at a distance. Even when they didn’t know where it was, or that it was even there. Everyone but Dow.

So imagine it in the hand of someone with a political agenda, of any kind. If it was ever analyzed, its secret found and harnessed, it would make a weapon of unspeakable power.

Your enemies would never even think of pushing the button; they’d never have the time. They’d never pick up a weapon. They’d never see you coming.

For a split second, Claudia thought:
What’s so bad about that? Wasn’t all the music and art and literature inspired by and devoted to crazy-making love? What if this is the key to world peace? What if this is the way to let the Fangborn reveal themselves to the Normals? What if we all learn to love our enemies?

Right,
she shook off the thought.
Get a grip. Love them right through the mattress or until you all die of terminal bedsores? Not very likely.

This thing had to be absolutely destroyed.

* * *

She spent the day observing the warehouse on the pier, but saw no way to set up a trap for Justine’s captors without being seen by the legitimate traffic on the wharf. She returned after dark, closer to the appointed hour, and hid her car, but as early as she was, they were earlier. There was only one truck in the parking lot now. The truck was unmarked and unremarkable, but after she broke in, she found it was registered to the largest pharmaceutical company in the Northeast. Of course they’d want the object: if they could crack its secret, they’d rule the world.

She saw they’d left the door to the business office of the warehouse open for her, the way to them clearly lit, but she continued around the building anyway. She fanged up, the job keeping her focused, and she slung the backpack with the vase over her shoulder. She searched until she found a weather-beaten section of wall. Her fingers, now elongated into sharp claws, found the cracks in the brick and mortar and she climbed silently. A window showed there were at least six of them.

She listened, her keen ears picking up snippets of conversation. Apparently, the man who’d brought the vase to Justine had stolen it from the gang, who’d stolen it from a private collector in Switzerland. The original owner, quite mysterious about the object’s origins, had made the mistake of showing it to the head of the pharmaceutical company’s office in Berne, who instantly ordered its theft.

The men below knew what they were after, and its value, even if they didn’t know who was after them.

There was no sign of Justine.

Claudia took a piton from the pouch on her belt and drove it between two bricks. The mortar crumbled, but it sank in and wouldn’t move. She shrugged the backpack off, and, with a silent click, slid a carabiner attached to its handle over the loop of the piton.

The thing was safe enough, for now. Let them figure out how it got halfway up a sheer wall.

She climbed down, Changed back to her skinself, and went in the way they expected her to.

In addition to the six men she saw, there was another, clearly the leader. A tall blond, he was armed. She presumed the others were, too.

First things first. “Where’s Justine?”

The leader was in the center of the room. As she approached, two of the others moved closer to her, never getting between her and his gun. She decided to call the one on the left Bruiser and the one to his right, Stretch.

The others she named Red, Knuckles, Scab, and One-Eye. Unimaginative, but mnemonic.

The leader stepped forward. “Where’s the box?”

“Not until I get my friend back.”

“She’s only safe until I call in. If I don’t call my man in ten minutes, with the box, she’s dead.”

“You’re lying.” And he was; Claudia could tell. His heart rate was up, and she detected the faint odor of anxiety. She realized he, Bruiser, and Stretch were battered and bleeding. From claw marks. Justine had Changed, fought her way out, escaped.

Claudia wondered whether Justine was okay. She could have used her friend’s help.

“I don’t need her.” He lifted the pistol and aimed it at Claudia.

“Shoot me, and you never get the location of the . . . object.”

“I can shoot you a little.” He aimed at her knee. “Just a little. It doesn’t have to be much—”

He was so sure of himself. He was a talker.

She thought,
Good.

By the time his finger tightened on the trigger, Claudia had Changed halfway. The surprise of seeing her skin and hair turn violet, her fingers elongate into claws, and her face shift into something serpentine with two rows of sharp teeth, slowed the rest of them. She struck out at Bruiser, who was closest to her, landing a good uppercut on his chin. She pivoted and kicked Stretch, and when he bent over, she sunk her fangs into him.

She’d only meant to give him a jab of poison, a quick injection of venom that would keep him down and out of the fight.

It should have gone: Dart at the leader, two quick punches. Disable him, lose the gun. Guns leave trails that can be followed by the normal police. Punches and kicks and quick-healing vampire bites don’t.

Spit poison at Red when he closed in, then twist, slamming him, blinded, into Knuckles, who would come from behind. Then two steps to kick Scab in the breadbasket, blocking One-Eye’s punch before kneeing him in the head.

Interrogate the leader, using her chemical arsenal to get him to spill his guts.

That’s how it should have gone. Claudia was good at this. And if she happened to exercise a little more self-control in her personal life to prevent the unjust employment of her powers, if she seemed to her Family and friends to be uptight, rigid, prudish, a little conservative, well, this was the part of the job where she loosened up.

But fatigue and worry caused her to misjudge.

What happened, alas, was this: As she bit into Stretch, her lips brushed his neck. The electric shock of his skin, the tiny hairs on the back of his neck standing straight up, the blood rushing over her tongue, made her gasp. She bit harder still, her tongue flicking, and the man collapsed, moaning. He tried to turn around to embrace her, but the friction of his body against hers had such an effect on Claudia that she released a flood of airborne chemicals, which knocked him to the ground, limp, spent.

That had the effect of rebounding on her, intensified by the power of the vase. Even a hundred feet away, it called to her, possessed her, drove her. She’d been exposed to it for so long, it no longer needed close proximity to work.

Oh, shit.

She tried to stop, but it was too late. She managed to block Red’s punch, shoving him away. She kicked straight out in front, aiming for Knuckles’s sternum, but her speed was off and while most of the kick connected, Knuckles stumbled forward, still holding onto her leg. She managed to stay standing, but he was now at her feet, one arm locked around her leg, his other hand sliding over her thigh, as he kissed her knee, utterly besotted.

The closer the others crowded, the worse it got. Their anger and aggression were channeled into sexual excitement. The more they got turned on, the more Claudia’s empathy picked up on it. And then threw it back at them, amplified by the pernicious effect of the vase.

Red approached again, his pistol in his outstretched hand. He wept openly, adoringly, his other hand down the front of his pants.

Outraged at this breach of her control, Claudia slammed the pistol into his face. He went down with blood on his teeth, a smile on his lips, a stain on his jeans.

Scab said, “Oh, man. That bitch can fight.”

One-Eye nodded, and reached over to caress Scab’s face. They locked in a tight embrace, each struggling to take the clothes off the other while not breaking their kiss.

By this time, Claudia was blinded by her own desire/emotions/conflicts/lust. The more she tried to resist, the more tangled up things got. She knew she was supposed to stop the men, but now that they weren’t actually attacking her, and were, in fact, pretty much willing to do whatever she wanted, she couldn’t find it in herself to send them into unconsciousness.

Worse, all those desires, all those bodies, all that energy, all packed in together, were starting to feel very good to her.

She found herself giving in, and tried to resist. The heady combination of control and resistance only colored and heightened the experience for her.

What do you do when your strength is the very thing that is undoing you? Laying you bare, shedding your will—

For Christ’s sake, Claudia! Focus!

Trying desperately not to watch One-Eye and Scab, Claudia felt herself pulled under by the waves of desire threatening to overwhelm her. She saw the leader was confused, but somehow, like Mr. Dow, unaffected. He screamed at his men, but getting no response, turned, heading for the door.

He’d get away, and Claudia couldn’t let him escape with his knowledge of the object. With the tangle of men at her feet, she could barely move. She didn’t really want to move . . .

What do you do when you can’t go with strength? Go with weakness.

She focused on the power of the vase, and increased her attack tenfold. She absorbed the emotions of the men, and used that against them, too. Claudia gave in to her baser instincts, and let fly with every bit of glamour, chemical and pheromone, hint or suggestion in her vampire’s arsenal. She might have invented a few new ones.

In the midst of it all, Claudia felt an extraordinary power coursing through her. She was a thousand places at once, an avenging angel in the depths of Hell, corrupting demons to the cause of good.

She pointed at the leader. In a powerful, echoing voice, not her own, she said: “That man could use a hug!”

Immediately, Red, Bruiser, and Knuckles tackled their leader, knocking him to the ground. Scab and One-Eye were crying, and Stretch had a blank look of joy. They cuddled their leader so effectively that he couldn’t move. They snuggled him into submission.

The leader struggled under the onslaught of affection. “What the fuck—? What’s wrong with you? She’s a witch! Don’t listen to her—”

Some little part of Claudia knew that she had to make this stop somehow. The more energy she absorbed, the more powerful she became, and the harder it was to wrest back her self-control. Either she would consume the whole world, as she drew others into her web, or eventually, she would die of sexual exhaustion and starvation.

She felt a buzzing against her hip. It broke her concentration on maintaining her spell, just the merest bit.

That’s good
, she thought.
My phone. It’s a good distraction. I need a distraction. I need that. I need it . . . I need it to move down, and a little to the right. . . .

The phone stopped vibrating and her disappointment was so great, it snapped her concentration. She fanged down, and suddenly, the flow of wonderful vibes was cut off. It didn’t matter. Some of the men were unconscious, a few were weeping, and the rest just collapsed in a limp, damp, sated hamster pile on the floor.

Claudia staggered over to the wall, and shuddered. Her concentration was better now, and she found the leader, who was still squirming beneath his men. Somehow, like the innkeeper, he was unaffected by the presence of the object. He would be, however, affected by the chemicals she produced.

Better not to take any chances, she decided. Don’t want to get that whole thing started again.

Before she could talk herself into getting close enough to glamour or bite him, she kicked him in the head. That shut him up and sent the three other men on him into orgasmic fits.

She went outside, and sagging against the wall, took out her phone. There was a message.

It was from Fergus. His lovely, growling brogue almost set Claudia off again.

“My flight was late, but I’m at Logan now. Call me, if it’s not too late for me to see you.” She pressed speed dial, and got him. “I’m at the waterfront. I need you.” She gave the address and hung up.

She was still confident there was enough residual power in her voice to have Fergus come running.

* * *

By the time Fergus arrived, out of breath, Claudia had disarmed the men, and handcuffed them, using zip ties from her belt pouch. In a daisy chain along the wall, most of them were too stunned to say a word. All of them were still trying to figure out what had happened.

Claudia was on the phone. After a few more words, she hung up. Before Fergus could ask, Claudia began in a rush: “That was Justine. She’s okay. They managed to get her into the back of their van by creating a roadblock, but after she came to, she Changed. They were on their way here when she came to, and busted out the back of the van. She made it off the highway to the Middlesex Fells, where she can heal undetected. We’ll meet her back in Salem.”

“Good,” he said, puzzled. “But what do you need me for? You’ve got it under control, far as I can see.”

Claudia took a deep breath. “I have to interrogate them, find out who else knows about this thing they were after. Then I have to wipe their memories. If you see me . . . getting too deep, too involved, you need to stop me. Any way you can. If I can’t wipe all of them, we’ll have to kill them, and I’d rather we were able to hand them over to the police.”

“Claudia, what—?”

“And then, once we can call the cops—I’ll have them tell them that they were beat up by a rival antiquities gang—we’ll split up. Meet me at the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square exactly one hour later.”

“Um . . . okay?”

She sighed. “I’ll explain it all later. I swear, Fergus.”

He looked at her, and nodded. “Man, you sure do know how to tease a guy.”