Wolf Ties (A Rue Darrow Novel Book 2)

Wolf Ties

A Rue Darrow Novel

Copyright © March 2015, Audrey Claire

Book cover created by Yocla Designs

No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without express written permission from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story line are created from the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.

OTHER WORKS AVAILABLE:

A Libby Grace Mystery

How to Be a Ghost

How to Blackmail a Ghost

How to Kill a Ghost

Rue Darrow Series

Shift of Time

Wolf Ties

www.authoraudreyclaire.com

An important note from the author:

Dear Readers,

Please note you do not have to read previous novels to follow Rue Darrow’s adventures. However, I wanted you to be aware that Rue used to be named Libby Grace. You can learn about Libby’s adventures in the Libby Grace Mystery series available now.

Also, if you have read the Makayla Rose Mystery series, you will find a surprise guest from that series in this book.

Thank you, and happy reading,

Audrey

Chapter One

Tonight I found myself in the last place I wanted to be, or rather the second to last. The worst would be in a cemetery, six feet under—dead or undead. Either was not appealing. However, tonight I walked into a hospital, and the reason I didn’t want to be there was simple. Hospitals for vampires are beds of endless temptations. Imagine my advanced sense of hearing as I strode along the halls, heartbeats on every side. Some of the patients’ hearts were slow, some too fast. Either way, a beating heart for a vampire means blood. The pulse is an invitation to dine and one I felt hard-pressed to resist.

Of course, knowing what I would find on my quest, I had enjoyed the hunt earlier. That didn’t stop me from longing to indulge a little more. If I had my choice, I would avoid the hospital altogether, but I couldn’t avoid the visit. I had a job to do.

To catch you up quickly, I work part time as a tracker. That’s aside from my regular bartending job at the Rusty Ankle, a bar owned by an evil nonhuman who also happened to be my landlord. Most of my tracking is done for humans. Handling issues for humans helped me hone my skills as a vampire, to grow stronger sooner so I can protect myself in New Orleans, a city teeming with many creatures of the dark, from what I had experienced so far. The other, probably more important reason I helped humans was that my sire had commanded me to help them and to protect them.

My sire was a whole other story, and if you want detailed information on him, I will direct you to previous journals. I refuse to say more other than to say my sire is my boyfriend and fellow vampire who abandoned me in New Orleans. Right then, as I searched the hospital floors, I was considering for the millionth time to update Ian McClain’s status to
ex-
boyfriend.

Now, back to the reason I walked the den of temptation. I needed to find a certain human, one Ralph Turner, whose wife had thought he was cheating on her, and she wanted me to learn the truth. I didn’t like these particular jobs because, well what woman would? They make us feel vulnerable about our own relationships and put thoughts into our heads that shouldn’t be there.

Usually, I can learn the truth the minute I visit the woman’s home and discover the scent of a woman in her bed that’s not her own. I’ve had a few jobs that ended that way, and not one of the women thanked me afterward. Go figure. The response was always, “Here’s your money. Now you’re uninvited from my home!”

How rude. I have to say I was surprised at the number of humans who knew of vampire existence. The handful I had dealt with were former donors to vampires or friends to other creatures, like werewolves.

I picked up Ralph Turner’s scent in room 209 and slipped into the room to check things out. The good news was, he probably wasn’t cheating at the hospital—well, unless this was his way of getting close to one of the nurses. I doubted insurance would cover such a reason.

Ralph lay beneath a single sheet and tossed and turned in the bed. He moaned and thrashed so much, I wondered if he was having a bad dream. My attention slid to the mound above where I assumed his private parts were, and I cringed. The tent seemed to be a little high even for a well-endowed man.

“Who are you? You’re not my nurse.”

I focused on his face and found him sweating and staring at me with wide, glassy eyes. Pain, I realized. He was in a lot of pain. “I almost don’t want to ask, Ralph, but why are you here?”

He blinked. “How do you know me? Never mind. Get the nurse. I want more medicine. It hurts.”

I leaned closer to him and sniffed. His blood didn’t smell as delicious as blood usually did to me. Another cringe. Ralph’s was full of medicine, and my guess was it wouldn’t taste good. In fact, that might be the case with most of the patients here. I’d keep it in mind if I grew weak, but I didn’t plan to stay long either way.

“You smell like half your blood’s morphine.”

“It’s not,” he whined. “I need more.”

“Are you sure it’s not in your mind?” I should interject here that I was having more and more trouble as time went on understanding human emotion. Mine were slipping away, but it no longer concerned me because I could love. I still loved my son Jake very deeply. I still loved Ian despite wanting to hit him with a bolt of sunlight now and then. There were also my new friends. I cared for them. None of this made perfect sense to me, but as long as I did love and could love, guilt didn’t assail me because of my lack of emotional response to Ralph’s predicament. “I’ll get the nurse, Ralph, but I need to know why you’re here.”

Once again, my gaze slid to his privates, and I gritted my teeth. Ralph blushed, and his fingers turned white as he clutched the sheets higher to his chin. I wasn’t compelling him in any way with glamouring, but he still confessed.

“My wife sent you, didn’t she? I should have known I couldn’t hide it.”

“Hide, what?” Did I even want to know?

He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “I got fixed, but I didn’t tell her.”

“Fixed?” Now I understood the padding down there. “Wouldn’t that be outpatient surgery?”

“Complications,” he moaned. “An infection. Probably my punishment for not telling her. She wants more kids, and I don’t. I found out she’s gone off the pill without telling me.”

“Sounds like fair play.”

He nodded and then whined again. “Don’t tell her, please. Just say you didn’t find me.”

“And ruin my reputation?” I straightened and folded my arms over my chest. “You need to be honest with her. She thinks you’re off cheating with another woman.”

“That’s better than this.”

“For who? You?” I shook my head. “Well, I have my answer. Good night.”

“Wait!”

I stopped in the act of moving toward the door and looked back at him.

He licked his lips. “I’ll pay you double what she’s paying you if you get me some morphine.”

I blinked at him. “What?”

“You’re a vampire, aren’t you?”

I said nothing.

“I know you are. She used to have friends that were vampires, gave them blood. All that stopped when we had kids. They didn’t like it, and they stopped paying. Your kind only ever does anything if you get something out of it.”

“Really? Thank you for letting me know.”

Ralph appeared not to have heard my sarcasm. “I’ll give you double what my wife is paying you. You can do your magic thing on the nurses and get them to give me morphine. I swear, my junk hurts.”

“Your…junk.” Amusement washed over me. “I don’t have magic.”

“You know what I mean, the eye thing.” He wiggled his fingers before his eyes and then winced at the movement. “Bewitch her.”

“Now you’re calling me a witch.” I paced the small room. “What I want to know is why I always tend to draw the drug addicts, the thieves, the dregs of society. Is it the darkness in me that brings them?”

As I contemplated my magnetism, I wasn’t really asking Ralph, just speaking aloud. Ralph appeared to understand and didn’t interfere. I sensed anticipation from his corner of the room and knew I would dash his hopes.

“No, Ralph, I’m not going to steal medicine for you, and I will tell your wife what I found out so I can get paid the money I agreed on. Look at that, an honest vampire. Good night!”

I peeked into the hall, saw no humans, and left Ralph’s room. Before I could turn in the direction I had come, a familiar scent reached me, and I headed to the left. Another issue with being in the hospital was that it was a hotbed of activity. I don’t mean the human kind, but the nonhuman and the spiritual kind. Anyone knows people die in hospitals all the time, so it stands to reason there would be ghosts.

Each time I encountered a ghost in the halls, they fled in the opposite direction or disappeared through the ceiling and floor. Some cowered in corners, pleading with me for mercy. This would be odd behavior to me if I hadn’t had experiences in my past where I was one of them. Back then, I learned vampires knew of a spell that would banish a ghost to a pit which they could never return from. I assumed it was one of despair and not a ghostly vacation. What none of these ghosts knew was that I hadn’t been taught this chant, and even if I did know it, I had no reason to banish them.

All I knew was vampires considered ghosts to be enemies. Why? Because as Ian put it, ghosts feed off humans as well as vampires. Ghosts absorb human energy and vampires their blood. You would think there should be no rivalry, but that wasn’t the case.

Unfortunately, the poor ghosts didn’t have only me to contend with. Another frequent visitor to hospitals was a being I would never care to tangle with. I’m sure you can guess who it is. Death visits the hospital on a frequent schedule to collect souls. Any ghost lying about would probably get swept away with whoever Death came to escort to the afterlife.

Managing to avoid the powerful being, I found the room where my human stalker Georgia was and strode in.

“Rue,” she squealed. No sleep for her. I shouldn’t have been surprised. “You came to see me. I’m so glad.”

Georgia bounced with excitement, and I moved closer to the bed. There weren’t any drugs in her system. “I didn’t come to see you, Georgia because I didn’t know you were here. Besides, it must be after visiting hours by now.”

Her smile never dimmed. She tapped the side of here neck. “As long as you’re here…”

“You’re in the hospital, Georgia. Why would you invite me to drink your blood?”

She waved both hands at me in a shooing motion. “It’s nothing, just a little gas.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Gas doesn’t get you hospitalized.”

“Maybe irregular heartbeat too,” she conceded. “I’m not getting any younger.”

“I’m sorry, Georgia.” And I was. She drove me insane, but she had been there for me a few times. I almost called her a friend, but resisted as much as I could.

Georgia leaned forward in her bed and threw back the covers. Pale white legs peaked out beneath her hospital gown. Neon pink polish splashed over her toenails, matching the new dye job on her head. This was Georgia. “You know, you could make me a vampire, Rue. Can you glamour yourself in a mirror?”

I rolled my eyes. This was why I refused to acknowledge Georgia as a friend. Not long ago, she had latched onto me in the hope that I would glamour her. Why? Because apparently glamouring a human felt as good as a high, and Georgia Villar was a junkie. Now you see why I question the types of people I draw.

The door opened, and I started. I had heard nothing, smelled nothing to alert me that a nurse approached. While I had grown in the short time I had been a vampire, I hadn’t yet mastered the ability to cloak my presence so humans couldn’t detect me. All the same, making my way to the second floor in the middle of the night had been fairly easy.

Georgia and I both glanced toward the entrance, her having heard the door open. I knew in an instant she didn’t see the man standing there because she would have screamed down the walls. That is, if she recognized what he represented.

In confusion, I faced the tall figure who was at least six feet. He dressed in all black from head to foot, and his hair was the color of midnight. Still, it wasn’t his clothing or coloring that made him imposing. Rather it was the aura around him of darkness and death. This was in fact him—one of the beings called Death. I had learned recently there wasn’t just one person named Death, but a number of them. They were all Death. Their features were as different as any human’s or nonhuman’s, but they didn’t have a name of their own. Apparently, they didn’t need one.

Death was powerful, driven, and followed the orders of someone higher than him. I had no idea if this person was the man upstairs or the one leading the demons. All I knew was darkness surrounded him. One would think darkness equaled evil or bad, but I couldn’t be sure. Did Death lead souls to heaven and hell? I hadn’t had the occasion to question him, and if you stood before him, you wouldn’t be all that chatty either. Except to maybe plead for your life.

“It can’t be her time,” I protested. “Look at her. She’s healthy and strong.”

Death’s gaze never left mine, and he said nothing. I shivered despite myself.

“Who are you talking to, Rue?” Georgia asked. She grabbed my hand, and I let her hold it. “I feel a slight chill. Is someone there?”

I decided not to tell her. “I’ve seen you before, years ago,” I told him. “You’re the same one. Oh, but you probably don’t recognize me.”

This time irritation appeared in his gaze. “Vampire. I have orders not to touch the cursed.”

“I know I’m cursed, thank you very much. What about Georgia? There must be a mistake.”

“I don’t make mistakes.”

“You’re hum—uh, whatever you are. Every being makes mistakes.” I stood between him and Georgia. “She’s only fifty or so.”

“I’m forty-eight,” Georgia volunteered, unhelpfully. “Who’s there, Rue? Tell me. I’m so curious. Is it another vampire?”

Her voice rose in her excitement, and then she coughed. I spun in time to see something like white smoke streaming from her lips and extending toward death. I cried out and leaped for Georgia, covering her mouth with my hand. “Stop!”

Georgia paled, and she flopped against the pillows, going silent. I flew to Death to grab his arm. While the drain on Georgia ceased, the visions that came over me in making contact with him made me shriek again, and I leaped backward. I stared at him in shock, and he gazed at me, unperturbed. The horrors he must have seen over the span of his existence would have sent me insane if I touched him much longer, no doubt about it.