No time.
Calliope met his gaze steadily. She’d swept her curly black hair into a high ponytail. Her porcelain skin was bare of any makeup and he saw the dark smudges beneath her lavender eyes. Despite her reluctance, she’d fed regularly since her turning and she looked only a few years older than the twenty-three she’d been that night.
“We must stop Barrett,” she said in that flat, harsh tone.
McCallister strode forward, edging between Valdór and Leopold to stare down at the tabletop. “What did you find?”
He picked up a photograph and grimaced. It was a laboratory of some sort with six gurneys. Each was filled with some type of human or creature, strapped down and connected to various hoses and machines.
“His experimentations have gotten worse,” she said. “He’s moved from animals to humans as you can see. But take a look at the last table on the right.”
McCallister scanned the photo, squinted, and pulled it closer. The air left him as fast as a punctured balloon. “That’s a vampire.”
“Yes. That’s Derek Craft. Turned in the mid 1950s. One of the first vampires of the modern age to exhibit new abilities.”
“Like what?” Leopold asked.
Calliope crossed her arms and shivered. “Mr. Craft has the ability to regenerate body parts.”
Sullivan whistled. “Handy.”
Valdór snorted. “Always with the jokes, Sullivan.” He turned to Calliope. “Have you seen this ability yourself?”
Her throat worked. “Yes.” The word sounded ripped from the depths of her soul. “Father cut off Mr. Craft’s right thumb. He re-grew it within a matter of minutes.”
“Mother of God,” Valdór muttered, crossing himself rapidly.
McCallister’s jaw clenched. He settled a hand on his friend’s big shoulder. “Why doesn’t Craft mist out? Every vampire has that ability, even your father.”
Calliope’s shoulders slumped inward. “I believe Barrett has created some sort of device that prevents his escape.” She skirted the table and slowly pulled the photo from his hands. Squinting, she lifted the page closer then tapped a long, oval fingertip near Craft’s head. “There.” The image trembled in her hands.
McCallister studied the area she’d indicated then sucked in a deep breath as a hailstorm of strong, unpleasant memories assailed him. An old, rusted collar cut across Craft’s neck.
McCallister’s own throat clenched in pain and air suddenly became a precious commodity. He struggled to inhale, struggled to expel the fetid stench of the past, struggled to remain composed and focused. He stared at the photo again, mentally dissected every inch of the collar and the skin it covered. When he reached the tendons of Craft’s neck, he saw the deviation he was looking for. A small needle jutted from the iron bar and embedded itself into the vampire’s neck. Hanging below, a small tube funneled a neon green liquid.
“Do you know what he’s being injected with?”
Calliope shook her head. “I couldn’t get that close. I only had a few moments to root around. Barrett was out meeting someone but left his guard dogs in charge.” Her eyes went as hard as diamonds and glittered with rage. “I incapacitated them but only temporarily. They won’t remember a thing but I had ten minutes tops in his lab.”
She whirled and paced to the front of the room again. She rooted through the stack of papers and pulled out another bunch, waving them in the air. “For years my father’s only goal has been to rid himself of the illness still plaguing him. Becoming a vampire arrested the disease but it still resides in him. He often lamented this was why he had few of the powers the rest of us possess. It has eaten away at him every day of his miserable existence.”
This was the first time she’d ever spoken of her father in such open terms. Unwanted sympathy wrenched McCallister’s heart. He could still hear his old friend’s desperate pleas for help ringing in his ears. The hollow of despair in Paxton’s voice as he begged for his life. Even now, over a hundred years later, McCallister ached from that day but he knew he would not change his decision.
“Something has changed?” Brooks asked.
Calliope nodded. “Yes. Father happened across an obscure text supposedly written by one of the Experimentors.”
Valdór surged upward so fast, his chair toppled over. “An Experimentor? One of those bastards who did this to us?” The air chilled rapidly and ice crystals formed on his ever-present blue cape.
McCallister’s fingers started to burn with the pain of ice and he blew on them. His breath emerged as a cloudy haze. Calliope shivered and stepped back.
Leopold rose and laid a hand on the big man’s shoulder. “Easy, Valdór. They are gone now. No more. Sit, old friend. Please.”
The chill deepened, the lights dimmed and Sullivan gasped. “Jesus, it’s cold. Don’t you pay your damn electric bill, Brooks?”
Brooks, looking as collected and in control as always, merely shrugged. “Mr. Valdór, if you please?”
Finally the bulbs grew brighter, warmth returned to the room and Valdór sank back into his seat. “My apologies, sir. I let my emotions get the better of me.” Tiny drops of melting ice dropped from his body. He cradled his head in his hands.
Leopold patted the big man’s back before taking his own chair again. He nodded to Calliope. “Go on, Callie.”
She managed a wide-eyed smile.
McCallister understood her shock. Valdór was one of those rare unknowns. A vampire whose powers were uncharted, unexplored, and seemingly unstoppable. After all, the man had spent three hundred years frozen in a block of ice before being found by Leopold. When he’d been thawed, for lack of a better word, he’d had no memory of his past life save he’d once been alive and his name. Over the years they’d discovered he was a creation of one of the Experimentors, subjected to primitive horrors and attempts at creating vampires. When the Experimentor discovered he could not control Valdór, he encased him in ice to destroy him.
Calliope cleared her throat. “This Experimentor was apparently very old when he wrote the book. The inscription dates it fifty years after the Beginnings and dawning of our age.” Her eyes touched on Valdór. “It details all the experiments, including failed ones going back hundreds of years and those after.”
McCallister swung his gaze to Brooks. He didn’t look shocked. “You knew about this?”
He nodded. “I told you it was disturbing. Listen.”
“Father was particularly interested in one section that discussed efforts to combine the traits recognized in different vampires into one being. Those experiments were unsuccessful but I believe it sparked something in him.”
“Calliope.” Sullivan drummed his fingers on the table. “It’s no secret you hate your father, with good reason.” His lips compressed and anger flashed hotly in his eyes. “We share your feelings. Knowing this, I must ask how you came to have this knowledge? How do you know what he has been reading and what he has been trying?”
Her smile was as brittle as hundred year old paper. “Father has never stopped trying to regain my favor, Sullivan. He knows where I live. He sends me rambling letters of his trials and triumphs as well as his failures. According to him, he’s successfully increased his strength, durability, and speed. He’s working on other talents now, including the regeneration shown by Mr. Craft. When I received the last missive three weeks ago, I became concerned and decided to infiltrate his lab. I believe he is the source of the Vampire Dust you are investigating, McCallister. The notes and vials I found are fairly conclusive. He also had a few corpses in the lab bent exactly as we’ve seen with the Dust victims.” She took a deep breath. “There’s more, I’m afraid.” Her beautiful purple gaze bore into McCallister.
Tension filled him. “Tell us.”
“He believes there are some humans whose DNA is slightly irregular. Their telomeres, the sort of lead part to their DNA strand, doesn’t degrade as fast or often as normal humans. This telomere acts as a buffer for the strand, correcting any errors in replica
tion or damage to the actual strand itself, which helps create a longer life span. He has been studying those people who live past one hundred for nearly a decade and believes it is a mutation of their body composition. Only a few humans possess this type of telomere, less than one in ten million if his calculations are correct. He believes this human element holds the key to true immortality and health for him. He intends to find and harvest the DNA from these people. In his last missive, he told me he has discovered how to identify them.” Her eyes met his again. “McCallister, Sheridan Aames possesses this gene.”
† † †
“This better not be a freaking wild goose chase, Brian,” Sheridan muttered to herself as she pulled Tess into a public parking lot on the outskirts of Boston. The strip of nightclubs, restaurants, and eclectic shops was brightly lit and filled with people, even in the middle of the afternoon.
She clambered from the car, checked her purse for the digital voice recorder, then hot-footed it across the street and down to The Dizzy Devil. Through the throngs of people, she caught sight of Brian pacing near the front door. Sunshine glinted off the gel in his auburn hair making it look like he had icicles nestled in his dark locks.
She smothered a grin and whacked him on the arm. He yelped and whirled around. “Sheridan. You came.”
He seemed dumbfounded. And a little skittish.
She cocked her head. “Well, yeah. You said you had a confirmed buyer of Dust who wasn’t dead or crazy. Can I still talk to them?”
He wiped a shaking palm over his lips. “Uh, yeah. Of course.” His brown gaze darted around the flow of people before he straightened and waved toward the building. “Let’s go.”
He pulled open the door and waited for her to step inside. The outside noise of the crowd immediately ceased. It took several moments for her eyes to adjust to the darkened shadows of the dim interior. Some sort of black sound-dampening fabric covered the walls and was dotted with bits of paint in odd symbols. A low wall with a cut-out window looked onto a standard, wooden dance floor. Tables, chairs, and plush bench seats lined three sides of the floor while a fully stocked bar framed out the far side.
The place was empty.
“Are we even supposed to be in here?” she whispered.
“Yeah, let’s cut across the floor.” Brian placed a hand on her back and lightly pushed.
She stumbled forward and threw a glare over her shoulder. “Hands off, Perkins. I can walk on my own two feet.”
“Sorry,” he said. A sheen of perspiration dotted his upper lip again.
She wondered if he was hot, nervous, or hopped up on something. He didn’t seem the druggie type, though. The guy ate clean and exercised as often as most people blinked.
Their feet echoed loudly in the silence of the club. Sheridan looked around, wondering where the music came from. Movement from her left made her look up. Above the bar was a wide open, mirrored space that held a plethora of speakers and black boom boxes. A shadow melted back into the darkness.
Sheridan shivered.
“I think we should leave,” she said.
“No, my contact is just upstairs.”
That’s what I’m afraid of.
But, like the idiot she was, Sheridan followed him up the stairs. The allure of finally getting solid evidence for her story was much too great for her common sense to overcome.
At the top of the narrow steps, a red door stood partially ajar. Brian reached over her shoulder and pushed it open.
“Hello? It’s Brian Perkins. I brought Sheridan like you asked.”
Sheridan froze at the doorway and looked back at him. “They asked for me?”
“Please, come in.”
The low, sultry voice slid over Sheridan’s skin like sumptuous silk. She shivered but found herself compelled to move forward.
She stepped into the sound room aware of Brian moving quickly behind her. The door shut with an almost ominous snick. A low whistle started in her ears and she instinctively lifted the mental tower shield she’d constructed even as she turned to leave.
Brian blocked her way.
The noise stopped.
“I mean you no harm, Miss Aames.”
Again the voice wrapped through her, turned her around. She stared, captivated by the beautiful woman in front of her. Long, dark hair. Beautifully white skin and a body designed to make men drool themselves silly.
But her eyes were flat and cold. Completely lifeless.
Sheridan couldn’t suppress a shudder.
“Who are you?” she asked.
The woman glided forward, stopping a few feet away. “My name is not important. My information is. You are involved with Logan McCallister?”
Another blast of noise receded as soon as the shield re-formed. Sheridan was rather proud of how fast she was learning to raise that thing.
“You’re a vampire.”
Behind her, Brian cursed.
The woman inclined her head. “Guilty. Please answer the question.”
“Why should I? Are you one of his exes?” Sheridan crossed her arms and shifted to the right. If she needed to bolt from the room, she wanted to make sure she could get past Brian. She decided his ass was grass as soon they got out of there, too. If we get out of here.
“Because the answer could save your life, Miss Aames.”
Well, that was straight to the point. She debated for all of five seconds before shrugging. Besides, it wasn’t like she could lie. She had no desire to re-enact the pain of earlier that morning when she’d told McCallister their brief, hot tryst was finito. “Yes.”
“Good, that will make this easier.” The woman lifted a long, elegant hand and casually swept back her hair. “I am Desdemona.” She paused, tilted her head, and offered the smile of a woman who knew the information she’d just imparted was sure to shock and surprise.
It took every ounce of willpower Sheridan possessed, and then some, not to react. She pasted a frown on her face. “Sorry. Who?”
Violent annoyance flashed in the vampire’s eyes. “Desdemona. Surely he’s told you of me?”
“Nope,” she said cheerfully. This lie was easier. While she wanted to claw the woman’s eyes out because she’d hurt McCallister, Sheridan decided tweaking her would have to suffice for the moment.
A muscle pulsed in the woman’s jaw and her lips pulled back revealing fangs more lethal than Sheridan had yet seen. A look of disgust turned Desdemona’s pretty, patrician features ugly. “You lie. I am with him always. He is mine.”
Anger surged in Sheridan. “Last time I looked, he was sleeping in my bed.”
Great, I’m in a pissing match with a vicious bitch vampire. Smart move, Sheridan.
Desdemona rose in the air, her black head brushing the equally dark ceiling. She glared down at Sheridan, eyes flashing and fingers curled into sharp red-tipped talons.
Then, as suddenly as the anger flared, it subsided and she floated back to the floor. “My apologies, Miss Aames.”
The words actually sounded sincere but Sheridan wasn’t buying it.
“Suffice it to say I turned McCallister many years ago and I still feel a sense of...ownership. When he fled, I was devastated but I understood.”
Big fricking deal. You want champagne and a ticker tape parade for that?
Desdemona tipped her head again and her eyes narrowed slightly before she sighed softly. “How well do you know him, Miss Aames?”
“Well enough,” Sheridan replied. “I trust him.”
Which is more than I can say about you.
Sheridan shifted back a few more inches. Brian stepped closer. She shot him a glare. He shrugged.
“Please don’t blame Mr. Perkins for his deception. He had no choice. His is under my command.” She wiggled her fingers at him.
Sheridan stared at him with new eyes, her gaze zeroing in on his neck. She couldn’t see the telltale dots marking him as a Consort but maybe that was due to the perma-tan he wore.
“Sorry, Sheridan,” he mutte
red.
“Apology not accepted.”
Sheridan looked at Desdemona again. The woman was unnaturally beautiful but her eyes held all the warmth and life of a dead squid. But something in them seemed haunted as if she struggled with a weighty issue. “Why am I here?” She made a production of looking at her watch. “I have to be back in the office within the hour or Steve, our boss, will be on the horn to McCallister and every other cop in this city. He knows exactly where I am.” She tossed another poisoned glare at Brian. “And who I’m with.”
Brian shifted and slunk backward, moving to the far side of the door. He slumped against a giant speaker and stared down at the tip of his too-damn-pointy-for-a-man dress shoes.
Desdemona pulled two chairs out from the stainless steel desk that held a plethora of turntables, CD holders, and headphones. The computer equipment on the desk was valuable enough to feed a small third world nation for a year at least.
“Sit down, Miss Aames. We have a lot to discuss and, as you’ve pointed out, we don’t have much time.”
Tea and crumpets coming next?
Sheridan hooked the proffered chair with her foot and pulled it away from the vampire. She shoved it against the DJ set-up in front of the wide-open space looking down onto the dance floor and carefully sat. Both Desdemona and Brian were in her sights. Made her feel better. Less likely she was going to get jumped.
She hoped.
“Comfortable?” Desdemona asked with just a hint of sarcasm.
“Hell, no. But I’m sitting and I’m listening, though God only knows why. Spill what you’ve got on your mind and let me the hell out of here.”
Desdemona’s full, red lips lifted though no humor touched her dead eyes. “Heaven, hell, and arrogance all in one sentence. I can see why McCallister likes you, Miss Aames.” She tipped her head and the velvet curtain of her black hair tumbled artfully around her shoulders.
She looked so damned seductive that Sheridan was having trouble concentrating. She blinked and dug her fingernails into her thighs to distract herself. The tiny dart of discomfort worked well enough. “Go on.”
A small tic developed at the corner of Desdemona’s right eye.
Bound By His Blood Page 17