by Tanya Huff
At the end of the song, the music stopped. Before a protest could rise from the dance floor, the DJ leaned into his microphone and said, “And now the voice you’ve all been waiting for!”
A single spotlight illuminated a tiny, blonde woman standing alone on the small stage at the narrow end of club.
Vicki had no interest in even high-end karaoke, so she tucked herself up close to the young man’s body, tilted her face up—barely resisting the urge to lick the salt off the tanned column of his throat—and opened her mouth to suggest they take their dance elsewhere.
And the tiny woman began to sing.
Vicki closed her mouth again.
Soaring melodies and raw emotion held the audience in thrall without the need for words. Looking around the dance floor, Vicki could see smiles and tears and want and near worship. Strong arms wrapped around her from behind. His cheek resting against the side of her head, their bodies in contact from shoulder to floor, Vicki could feel the fine tremors running under her young man’s skin. He rocked his hips gently forward, in time to the music, and she knew the way no one else in the room could, that neither the motion nor his arousal had anything to do with her.
That wasn’t right.
At this stage in the game, that wasn’t possible.
As the last note soared through blood and bone, blue-green eyes met hers for an instant.
Then the spotlight went out.
Before mortal eyes had time to adjust, Vicki had slipped through the door marked staff only and was moving down the corridor behind the stage. Under normal circumstances, she’d have lingered long enough to tell the young man to forget he’d ever seen her, but these were not normal circumstances, and she very much doubted that while he was still in thrall to the song she needed to bother.
Light spilled into the far end of the hall through an open door. As she walked at a mortal pace toward it, her heels announcing her presence against the worn, tile floor, Vicki could hear a single heartbeat and smell…
Sea water?
The dressing room was functional rather than opulent—cinderblock walls, a rack for clothes, a dressing table.
The young woman sitting in the captain’s chair, combing her hair, looked better than she had any right to, given the industrial lighting. Her song had commanded all available attention while she was on stage, but here the silence paid her beauty its due. She sat facing the door, her back to the mirror. Her feet were bare. The hem of her floor-length dress was…
Wet.
There was a drain in the floor, not really surprising in a basement room that had likely gone through a hundred renovations over the years, but the tiles looked dry.
As Vicki closed the door, the young woman looked up and smiled, familiar blue-green eyes crinkling slightly at the corners. “I know you,” she said softly. The comb slid through the long fall of her hair. “Vampire. Nightwalker.”
“I prefer Vicki, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Vicki?”
She frowned, and Vicki had to fight the urge to run her thumb over the delicate arch of her brows. Interesting. Probably a leftover from the dance floor; she’d never been physically interested in women.
On the other hand, as Henry was fond of saying, blood had no gender.
“Victoria.” Her voice slid over the syllables like she was tasting them, making them into a song. Vicki could see the tip of her tongue moving behind the parted barrier of her lips. “No, Vicki suits you better. Direct. To the point.” The comb slid through her hair again. “You may call me Lorelei, if you wish.”
“What are you?”
The question surprised a laugh out of her. “You’re young to the night. The day is not far behind you.”
“I know what I am.” Vicki allowed a little more of the Hunger to show, let it ride the throb of the bass beat from the club up to the surface. Allowed it to imply she was not going to ask again.
“What am I…” Lorelei tilted her head and watched the comb stroke through her hair, the movement slow, almost languid. The comb didn’t appear to be anything special; plain tortoiseshell plastic, wide teeth, and from the wear, she’d obviously had it a long time. “I am vaguely appalled by modern education. I am a stranger on these shores. I am a woman wronged.” When she lifted her head, her eyes were sad, and she met Vicki’s gaze as though she had nothing to fear. “Tell me, has your heart always been true?”
“I don’t…”
“Know what I’m talking about? Yes, you do.”
Vicki couldn’t remember when the other woman had started to sing. Thought maybe she’d been singing throughout their conversation, although that would be…
“I give you the freedom to be yourself, Vampire.”
*
“Looks like someone really hated these guys.”
Moving carefully through the destruction, Detective Sergeant Mike Celluci glanced over at his partner and muttered a terse, “You think?” The head office of Droege Shipping had been literally ripped apart. Desks and filing cabinets had been thrown through walls and windows, doors had been ripped from their hinges, and computers had been smashed. Even the light fixtures had been ripped from the ceiling, and if there was an unbroken piece of glass anywhere on the 26th floor—excluding the external windows—Mike hadn’t seen it.
The management offices along the west wall had received the same attention the central cubicles had. Rank had no privileges.
He nodded toward the steel mount that had held one of the destroyed cameras and then to Detective Dave Graham, his partner. “Dave, see if they got anything.”
“On it.”
The two security guards had been found by the employee’s lunchroom. Before it had been destroyed, the lunchroom had probably been a pleasant enough place—pale brown walls, a fridge, toaster oven, microwave, kettle, and two coffee makers. There’d been—Mike paused to count the pieces—six round tables, each with half a dozen comfortable chairs.
EMTs surrounded the survivor. Male, early twenties, black, six one or two, packing impressive muscle under the ruin of his uniform. Whoever had taken him down wouldn’t have had an easy time of it. He was already up on the gurney, strapped in with an IV working, but his eyes were open so Mike moved to him first, hoping to get some kind of a statement before they moved him out.
He shifted his coat far enough to expose his badge. “Can you tell me what happened?”
The injured man’s eyes opened a little wider, far enough for Mike to see his pupils were dilated. He rolled his head over, exposing what looked like bite marks on the side of his throat, and sighed. “So easy to fall into the darkness.” Long fingers clutched at Mike’s wrist. “You know?”
“Duncan Riley. Twenty-four. And you’re not going to get anything coherent out of him.” The EMT waited as Mike gently extricated himself from Duncan Riley’s grip. “He’s been babbling off and on about the seductive darkness since we got here.”
He seemed to be off at the moment, staring at the ceiling, smiling at nothing. “Seductive?” Mike asked.
The EMT sighed. “That’s what he says.” She stepped away as one of her team checked the straps. “And the evidence points to it being literally seductive, if you catch my meaning.”
Mike blinked. “He was…”
“He definitely had sex with a woman at some time after his uniform was ripped off him.” She shrugged. “Professional opinion from eyeballing the equipment.”
Mentally, Duncan Riley was obviously not 100%. “Physical condition?”
“All things considered, not too bad. His blood pressure’s way down, and given the way he reacts to touch, I’m guessing there’s going to be some bruising coming up along both arms.” Her tone was frankly appreciative of those arms.
“And the injury?”
“The injury? On his throat? No, it looks bad, but there’s no bleeding so it’s got to be a couple of days old. Looks like he got into a fight with a big dog or something doesn’t it?”
It didn’t actually. Mi
ke had seen dog bites, and this… wasn’t.
Mike had also seen enough to know there were other things it could be.
He watched as they rolled him away.
“So easy to fall into the darkness. You know?”
Yeah. He did.
The other guard—Chris Adams, male, white, mid-forties—was dead.
“Not a mark on him.” The coroner stood and dusted off his knees as his people moved in with the body bag. “At least not one that’d kill him. If I had to make an educated guess, I’d say heart attack. He just wasn’t up to what he walked in on.”
Had he walked in on Riley and the darkness?
“Why didn’t he push the panic button?” Mike wondered aloud. “Call in the police?”
Dave snorted, moving into place at Mike’s side. “Who calls the police because their partner’s getting some?”
“Point,” Mike admitted.
“Not that one woman did all this,” Dave continued. “And whoever did do it, they took out the security cameras first. They all show the same thing, a blur then nothing.” Dave pointed toward the camera nearest the door. “That one first. Then that one. Then this one here. This kind of total destruction looks like crazy people did it, but no, they were thinking.”
“A blur?”
“Yeah. Like…” Dave grinned. “Like the Flash. Like evil Flash on a rampage.”
“You need to cut back on your caffeine.”
“You got a better idea?”
Mike glanced around at the ruin of Droege Shipping, then down at the body bag and sighed. “No.”
Over the last few years, he’d become a very good liar.
*
One moment she was dead to the world, the next Vicki was awake. She drew in a deep breath redolent with sex and blood and remembered.
The freedom of not holding back.
Of strength and speed and letting the Hunter run…
The sound of blood surging below the surface. The taste of salt licked from firm flesh. The feel of terror turning to desire.
She remembered seeing the security guard come through the door…
He hadn’t seen her yet, she wore the darkness like a cloak and she moved too fast for him to find, easily eluding the searching flashlight beam. Stepping out into the room, he tripped over a piece of the wreckage and swore, his voice a low rumble that rubbed against her like crushed velvet. As he reached for his radio, Vicki slid between him and escape, lightly running her fingers over the muscles of his broad back.
She ducked, his swinging fist passing over her head, and when they were face to face, she smiled, caught his gaze with hers, and had the darkness hold it.
His heartbeat quickened. His pulse throbbed at wrist and throat and temple and at the meeting of his thighs. She didn’t want terror, although terror had a flavor uniquely its own and it would take little effort to push his response toward it. She wanted the less primal, more personal response to her presence. She wanted to finish what she’d started in the club.
His name would make it faster to evoke a specific response but she didn’t want to know.
She wanted the heat and anonymity she’d left behind.
He was taller than the first young man. Built. With beautiful dark skin and eyes. And the seams of his cheap uniform parted so easily.
She pressed her face against the warm planes of his chest and breathed deeply. Taunting herself with his scent. Keeping the Hunger reigned in until she got everything else she wanted. When she looked up, he wrapped a hand around her cheek, his skin warm against hers. She caught his gaze again, her eyes silvered, and she let her desire draw up his.
“Say yes.”
He swallowed. She touched his throat, following the movement, then licked the sweat from the tips of her fingers. He exhaled, shakily, his breath smelling of mint and coffee.
“Say yes.”
“Yes.”
She slipped a hand behind his head as she took him to the floor, careful of her strength, careful not to damage him. His belt buckle jammed, so she ripped the leather apart and threw it hard enough to sink it into the drywall.
When he bucked up under her, his rhythm gone, his fingers dimpling the flesh of her hips, she let the Hunger go. Curved her body over him, hands gripping his arms, and sank her teeth into his throat. Hot blood gushed into her mouth as he slammed up into her one final time. She drank without caring, drank her fill, drank until…
“What the hell is going on here?”
It was the Hunter who twisted in place to face him, lips drawn back off bloody teeth.
The second guard gasped, staggered, and fell, right hand clutching his left arm.
Vicki felt her hands curl into fists. “Son of a fucking bitch.”
Rage sizzled under her skin. Rage at the singer who’d used her. Rage at herself for being used. The wooden end of the packing crate splintered against the cinderblock wall as she shoved it aside. Vicki had never been the icy cold anger type. Her anger burned, and she only barely managed to keep it under control as she slid through the false wall and into Mike’s crawlspace.
Sunset came late enough this time of the year that he was home. Above her. In the kitchen.
She used his heartbeat—slow and steady, more familiar to her than her own—to find calm. Enough calm, at least, to allow her to get a handle on her emotions. By the time she’d showered in the basement bathroom and shrugged into the robe hanging on the back of the door, she’d managed to use the same techniques that hid the Hunter to bury the events of the night before. Bury them deeply enough that even Detective Sergeant Mike Celluci wouldn’t be able to find them.
Mike worked violent crimes; if this wasn’t his case, he’d have heard about it.
He’d know where the evidence pointed and at what.
Not who.
And Vicki intended to keep it that way.
He could know what vampires were capable of, he just couldn’t believe it of her.
Her clothing was in the master bedroom closet with his—because that’s what normal couples did and they fought to keep the line as close to normal as possible—but she could avoid the kitchen on her way through and delay facing him until she was dressed and ready.
To lie.
Hide the rage at being used. Hide the other emotions roiling about below that.
Show time.
“Any chance there’s another vampire in town?”
Vicki stopped and stared across the kitchen at Mike, who watched her over the edge of his laptop, his expression 100% police neutral. The question was a little more direct than she’d been expecting but infinitely preferable to what were you doing between midnight and four AM. “Say what?”
“The offices of Droege Shipping were destroyed last night…”
“Destroyed as in blown up?”
He turned the computer around.
Vicki moved closer, frowned down at the pictures, and remembered strength and speed unchecked. “Messy. Explosives aren’t out of the question. Anyone hurt?” The logical question to ask. Cop question.
“One security guard dead. One…” Mike reached around and changed the screen. “…used.”
She remembered the heat of his flesh under her mouth. Remembered the cry he’d given, caught somewhere between pain and pleasure. She hadn’t been careful. If not for the coagulant in her saliva, he’d have bled out when she pulled away.
“Vicki?”
She forced her lips down off her teeth and made sure she had her anger under control before she looked up. “I can see why you asked.”
“And?”
“I’ll look into it.”
He had a small scar on his inner thigh where she’d gotten a bit enthusiastic and a puckered ridge across one shoulder where she’d shot him, accidentally, in another life. He met her gaze, not fearlessly because Mike Celluci was no fool, but in the full and certain knowledge that he was in no personal danger. “A man died, Vicki, I’ll be looking into it too. You share what you find.”
; Oh, she knew what she was going to find, and she knew where to find it.
Mike sighed as the edge of the table cracked under her grip. He lifted his arm then let it fall back, clearly reconsidering reaching out for her. “Vicki?”
“When I know something…” He wouldn’t believe a smile so she didn’t try one. “…you’ll know something.”
*
Mike sat at the kitchen table listening to Vicki’s car pull out of the driveway, his hands curled into fists. She’d always been a terrible liar. She was better now than she used to be, but then her condition gave her plenty of opportunity to practice.
Sometimes she forgot that while he couldn’t hear blood moving under the delicate skin of her wrist, he wasn’t deaf. He’d heard the crash when she opened the packing case. Heard the way she moved as she showered and dressed. She’d been furious from the moment the sunset had wakened her. Furious and trying to hide it from him.
Why?
She’d have told him if she’d known there was another vampire hunting in her territory.
What else could have gotten her so angry?
Vicki could have…was capable of…
He forced his hands flat on the kitchen table.
…was physically capable of doing the damage, all the damage, Droege Shipping and its employees had suffered last night.
*
Millennium Ten opened at nine. At eight forty, Vicki ripped the lock off the back door, snarled, “Forget you saw me,” at the young man stacking cases of empties at the bottom of the stairs in the back hall, and made her way down the corridor to Lorelei’s dressing room. She could hear a familiar heartbeat, smell the sea, and had reached nearly full speed when she charged through the open door.
Only to be stopped by a single note that hung in the air like an invisible wall.
“Why so angry, Nightwalker? Didn’t you enjoy yourself?” Lorelei sat in the chair, combing her hair. Same position she’d been sitting in the night before. Same comb. Same languid movements. The cuffs of her jeans were wet, the denim dark against the pale skin of her feet.
Vicki threw herself against the barrier. The sea-water smell was stronger up against it. “A man died!”
“And you’re surprised?” Her brows rose. “Oh, don’t tell me; you’re one of those good vampires. Tortured. Tormented. Misunderstood. Sparkly. You’d have given that young man in the club last night a choice.”