Urban Fantasy Collection - Vampires (10 page)

How he could've shaped him.

Was
it too late? Possibility raged through his mind with hurricane force.

“Yo, Peeping Tom, you awake?” Dante's voice now came from behind.

Ronin swiveled around. Still only a foot away, Dante studied him, dark eyes missing little.

“Sorry,” Ronin said, shaking his head. “I've been working the Cross-Country Killer case. And I've wanted to talk to you since the body was discovered in the pizza parlor's courtyard and now—”

“How'd you find me here?” Dante said, voice flat.

“Pure coincidence,” Ronin said. “I went to the club, but it was closed. I decided to check out Harrah's for fun and I happened to see you.” Ronin spread his arms out in a half shrug, palms open. “What the fuck, you know? I decided to follow.”

Dante's hands remained knotted at his sides, his gaze wary. “You wasted your time,
M'sieu
Peeping Tom,” he said. He glanced away for a moment, but before he did, Ronin saw something flash in his eyes—hurt, grief, maybe both.

“I know we're not off to the best start,” Ronin said. “And I completely understand you not wanting to talk to me…now. But in a day or two, you may feel differently. I really want to see this son of a bitch nailed.”

“We're not off to
any
start,” Dante said. “And I'm not gonna talk to you in a day or two or five or ever.” He backed up, half turned, his gaze still on Ronin.
“Foute ton quant d'ici.”

“You running me out of town?” Ronin asked, eyebrow arched, voice hard.

Dante laughed. “Fuck, no! Go where you want. You can even go to Hell. But stay away from me.”

Ronin took several long-legged strides after him, then stopped. “Need a ride home?” he called. “No strings attached, I promise.”

Dante turned completely and walked up the sidewalk. He didn't answer. When he reached the corner, he stopped, then about-faced.

“Hey, what mag you writing for?”

“Freelance. But I'll probably let
Rolling Stone
have first shot at the story.”

Dante laughed again, then rounded the corner.

Ronin waited for a few moments, listening to the city's pulse, the traffic noise, the streetcar clacking along the rails, chattering tourists—all bound to an earth-deep rhythm that lured musicians from around the world.

Dante was gone.

The entire encounter had gone south with breathtaking speed.

Ronin glanced down the alley. The first Saints fan still lay sprawled on the concrete, his body heat dissipating into the night. Andy, however—Andy was pulling himself by his finger-nails down the alley.

Closing his eyes, Ronin remembered the smell of Dante's blood, felt him hot and restless; saw again his mocking smile and smoldering dark eyes.

Ronin opened his eyes and strode down the alley. He seized the mortal by the scruff of his neck and lifted him up. Sank his fangs into the wounds left by Dante's sharp teeth. Andy sobbed and kicked weakly. Ronin drank what remained of him down, savoring every hot spurt, every last drop.

With a squeeze of his hand, Ronin crushed what remained of Andy's throat. He dropped the lifeless body and stretched as new blood coursed through his veins. He pulled from his hip pocket the T-shirt he'd bought from the street vendor and dropped it onto the cooling corpse. It draped across the mortal's face.

Let the good times roll.

E
SAT UP STRAIGHT
when the yellow cab pulled to a stop at the plantation house's gates. A black-clad, hooded figure slid out of the backseat, shut the door, and walked to the gates with a lithe, graceful motion E found arousing. Dante. And minus Tom-Tom. The cab drove away, taillights glowing red in the night.

E grinned. Things must not have gone according to plan for ol' Tommy, then. E was pretty sure Ronin had said he'd come back
with
Dante, their friendship off to a solid beginning. E's grin widened.

Gosh. Guess not.

Dante slipped through the partially opened gates and disappeared into the night-drenched yard. The only light illuminating the overgrown grounds was the pale yellow light spilling from several windows.

Touching the rim of his shades, E toggled from night-view to infrared. Bluish-silver light outlined Dante as he pushed open the front door and stepped inside the house.

E flipped the shades back to night-view. He drummed his fingers against the Jeep's steering wheel. Why was it that he saw bluish-silver light around only Dante? The other bloodsuckers usually showed up yellow/orange or vibrant red, depending on how long since they'd fed. Ronin showed up gold and E had a feeling that had more to do with Tom-Tom's age than anything else.

But Dante…that boy gleamed like the winter moon on snow—sparkling blue-silver edged with purple. Kinda funny, considering how damned
hot
he looked.

Even for a bloodsucker.

Pulling the keys from the ignition, E hopped out of the Jeep. Gravel crunched beneath his Nikes. Pocketing the keys, he leaned against the Jeep for a moment, scanning the quiet yard across the road.

Vampires. Whatta
fucking
revelation. When Ronin had showed up at his kill site in New York, E had stabbed him to death. But the bastard hadn't dropped. Blood had spread across his fancy shirt in a deep red stain, then…

The bastard grins.

Something loosens inside E at the sight of those curving white fangs, something that curdles in his belly and freezes his thoughts. He catches a whiff of something rank, like maybe he'd stepped in dogshit somewhere along the line. But the heavy warmth in his drawers reveals the truth: E has crapped his pants. And then he's attacking the grinning black bastard with his shivs again—

And finds himself sprawled on the floor, his shivs no longer in his hands, but in the vampire's, whirling between his long fingers like sharpened shards of moonlight.

Yep. A revelation. Once E had calmed down and cleaned himself of his own stink, he and the vampire had a
very
long talk.

E shoved away from the Jeep and ambled toward the road.
Vampires walk among us. Hell, they always have and, according to Tommy-boy, they always will. And they'll keep feeding on us until the end of time. Amen.

E loped across the dark road. He edged up carefully to the black iron gate, then ghosted through, sidling along the stone wall to the back of the house. He stepped carefully, avoiding any fallen leaves, gravel paths, or old gnarled roots. His heart raced a little, excited. He
loved
night-crawling. He paused beside a twisted old oak, sliding his hand along the rough bark.

Ronin had explained to him just how special he truly was—something E had known all along, that he had a special purpose; he hadn't been born just to mill among the sheep. He'd been born to
cull
them.

Hunching, E scurried across the untended yard to the nearest light-filled window, then squatted alongside it.

Tommy-boy had also told him that he'd been
programmed
; programmed, charted, graphed, and predicted, then turned loose.

E's jaw clenched.
Predicted? Programmed? Fuck, no!
Tommy-boy had then offered him the opportunity to return to the one who'd been stupid enough to think
she
controlled him. The opportunity to stand before her, shivs in hand.

The opportunity to say,
I'm home. Did you fucking foresee
that?

Stretching up, E turned his head and looked in the window. Glowing blue light from a thin monitor shimmered upon the face of a figure reclining in a black leather chair, goggled eyes aimed at the ceiling. Information flashed across the monitor with mind-numbing speed. Metal-capped fingers flicked and danced through the air. Data blurred across the monitor. The figure's waist-length dreads nearly brushed the floor, twisting like tentacles with his motion. A thin cable extended from the computer to the base of his skull, the jack hidden beneath his dreads.

Holy shit! Dante not only had a web-runner, he had a
vampire
web-runner. With his reflexes and—according to Tom-Tom, but E still wasn't convinced—superior brain power, this bloodsucker could rule the fucking world. Or burn out computers at an astonishing rate. E voted for the latter.

The blonde vamp from the club slipped in through the partially opened door and crouched beside the web-runner's chair. Her mini-skirt hugged her ass and black tights stretched along her legs. She touched the web-runner's arm and spoke, her words indistinct, although E could hear enough to know she spoke in French or Cajun or some goddamned thing. The only thing he heard clearly was the web-runner's name: Trey.

Trey continued to ignore the blonde, his fingers flickering through the air. Exasperation highlighted the blonde's face.

E pulled away from the window, then dropped down to the grass on his belly. Pretty stupid of ol' Trey to ignore such a hot chick. With her lovely, pale face and slender curves, she was a shiny in a world of dull. He collected shinies. Gina was shiny. Or had been. E pressed his hot face into the night-dewed grass, his heart pounding against his ribs so hard he half expected worms to vibrate up out of the soil.

With the scent of wild mint and wet grass in his nostrils, E bellied through the grass toward the next patch of yellow light, hoping to catch a glimpse of the single human in a houseful of bloodsuckers—his lovely Heather, the brightest of the sheep.

Tucking up against the house again, his back against the wood, E stretched up and peeked in the window. And lo, there
she
was, sitting at a kitchen table, hands wrapped around a coffee mug, gaze lost in the coffee's depths. Her red hair coiled past her shoulders. Her skin seemed almost luminous in the dim light, her lips flushed with deep color. Her violet sweater clung to her curves and her fitted black slacks revealed her trim, athletic figure.

E touched a finger to the window for a split second, then pulled it away. Was she thinking of him? Did he haunt her dreams? Did he lurk faceless in the ragged edges of nightmare, shivs gleaming? Did he make her pulse race?

Did she, like E, hope the chase would never end?

The kitchen door swung open and Dante stepped into the kitchen. Heather lifted her head and looked at him. He paused for a moment, meeting her gaze. She said something, her voice a low murmur. He answered, his voice also low and indistinct, then opened a cupboard and pulled down a black mug. As he poured coffee into it, Heather leaned forward against the table, speaking to him in an urgent but level voice.

Dante set the coffeepot back on its hot plate, then stood still, his head cocked as though listening.

E couldn't make out everything Heather said, but he did catch the words “danger,” “stalked,” and “serial killer.” Proof that she was, indeed, thinking of him; a fact that would normally slather a sloppy grin across his face.

But not this time. E ducked down from the window, plastering himself against the house. His heart banged away in a frantic, disjointed rhythm. An image seared itself into his mind, an image that scorched and blackened his self-control:

Heather looks up, her gaze sliding the length of the fucking bloodsucker's lean, hard body, lingering for a long moment on his pale face. A smile curves her lips. She seems lit from within, vibrant, alive—then she composes her face, dims the light, and becomes Ms. FBI again.

Heather had fucking fallen for a goddamned bloodsucker.

E's muscles tightened. His knuckles rapped against his thighs. He stared into the night. A shadow suddenly divided the puddle of light on the grass, and E held his breath.

He just
knew
Dante stood at the window. Knew that he'd sensed something raging outside, right under his fucking nose.

The shadow vanished.

E sprang to his feet and ran. Thighs pumping. Breath burning. Adrenaline flooding. Heart hammering. The stone wall jittered closer with every step across the dew-slick grass.

Then a tree stepped into his path and E slammed into it. Pain grated his consciousness like cheese. The world whirled. His vision grayed. His legs, suddenly boneless, dumped him onto the ground. Nausea clutched his belly.

A deep voice rumbled, “He knew you'd spotted him.” Ah. The big guy. Also the unexpected tree.

“I
felt
him,” said a low voice—Dante. “I didn't see him.”

From further away, Heather's voice, sharp and clear and protective. “Get away from him,” she called. “He might be armed.”

“Peeping Tom's assistant,” Dante murmured. “So
this
is how he spends his evenings off. Figures.”