He didn’t bother answering. “We’re wasting time. Let’s go.”
“What if I don’t want to go with you?” She realized she was in shock, but even knowing that, she couldn’t shake the inertia holding her in its grip.
“Did I say you had a choice?”
He led her to the door, and she didn’t fight him. Even through the shattered reality messing with her mind right now, she recognized the futility of trying to escape.
“I need to call the police.” She glanced back at Felicity. Her friend was dead. Soon the horror of what had happened would crash over her, and she’d drown in her what-ifs and should-haves. But not now. Now her mind was still wrapped in a cotton wool world.
“No police.” He barely touched the door and it swung open. “Tony would’ve had instructions to call in as soon as you were dead. He hasn’t called, so Garrity will know that something went wrong. Right now all of his people will be on their way. We don’t want to be here when they arrive.” He pulled her into the elevator and hit the top button.
“But the police . . .”
He hissed at her. “By the time the police get here, the bodies will be gone. Where’s your purse?”
“How can they get rid of the bodies so fast?” She winced. When had Felicity become just a body?
Cassie was starting to think again. She needed her cell phone and her car keys. Once out of the elevator, she ran down the hall with him right behind her. She grabbed her jacket and purse before following him out the back door. Night had fallen while people died in the funeral home’s basement. She was selfish enough to be thankful she hadn’t been one of them.
“They have . . . resources. Where did you park your car?”
“Out front.” She hadn’t wanted her car sitting in the funeral home’s parking lot. Stupid. As if death would stick to her tires if she parked it there.
They were almost to the street when he suddenly grew still—not moving, not even breathing. Cassie looked away. His complete stillness creeped her out. She scanned the street. Quiet. A mixture of homes and businesses. For the first time, she really thought about running.
“Don’t. I’d catch you. Besides, we don’t have time for that crap. I can feel them. Any minute now they’ll turn the corner and see us.” He’d emerged from his suspended animation thing and herded her toward the street.
How had he known . . . ? No, she’d think about that later.
When they reached her car, he took her keys from her and slid into the driver’s seat. She didn’t argue. Her mind was starting to function, and depending on his answers to her questions, she might decide to bail at a stoplight along the way. Then she remembered. He could kill without touching his victim.
“Won’t need to kill you. All the doors are locked. Relax and enjoy the ride.” He pulled away from the curb and merged into Philly traffic.
Cassie sucked in her breath. Okay, she couldn’t ignore it this time. Her fear had receded a little, but now it came flooding back. “You were in my mind.” Breathe, breathe. “Look at me.”
He glanced at her and smiled. The smile didn’t reach his eyes.
Blue eyes. Straight, even teeth. She folded her hands in her lap to stop their shaking. Had she hallucinated the black eyes and fangs? Had seeing Felicity’s corpse pushed her over the edge? She closed her eyes for a moment, and once again saw his body lying in that glass coffin with the headstone beside it. She opened her eyes.
“Is your name Ethan?”
“Yes.” He didn’t elaborate.
“Where’re we going?”
“To check on some friends.”
Ask him. The sensation of the world she thought she knew flipping upside down made her want to throw up. Ask him. Cassie had never thought she was a coward except for her horror of dead bodies. But at least there was a good reason for that particular phobia. The fear she’d felt in that room, though, proved she’d never make anyone’s top ten fearless women list. To make up for her total shutdown back there, she had to ask him.
“What are you?” Please, please don’t say it.
“I’m vampire.” He never took his eyes from traffic. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
“There are no such things as—”
“There are. I’m one. Get over it. We don’t have time for you to have hysterics.” His voice was cold, devoid of any sympathy, any understanding.
“Bastard.” She didn’t know how he’d react to name-calling, but for just this moment she didn’t care. Surprised, she realized that some of her fear had faded. No matter what he was, or said he was, he hadn’t killed her yet. Maybe a person could only sustain mind-numbing terror for so long.
“Technically, no. If you’re making a judgment of my character, though, then you’ve nailed it. Give me your phone.”
Cassie pulled her cell phone from her purse and handed it to him, then watched as he tapped in a number while weaving in and out of traffic.
“That’s dangerous.”
He took his attention from the road to stare at her. “I can’t die.”
“I can.” Did anyone really have eyes that blue? Pale skin, blue eyes, dark hair. She’d guess at an Irish ancestry. But then what did she know about vampires? They all had pale skin, didn’t they?
Vampire. She flinched as she thought the word. Even after everything she’d seen, she wasn’t doing a great job of wrapping her mind around the realness of him.
She waited quietly as he tried to make his call, then another and another. No one answered. He didn’t leave any messages. And he didn’t return her phone.
“Something’s wrong.” He sped up.
“You think?” She was substituting snark for courage.
A short time later, he parked on a street lined with row houses. Cassie didn’t have a clue what part of the city this was. She’d moved to Philly a month ago to search for a job. The city was still strange to her, and getting stranger every minute.
They got out and he led her down a side street before turning into an alley that ran behind the houses. “We’ll be going in the back way.”
Cassie didn’t care which entrance they used. She was still fixated on the vampire thing. “If you’re a vampire, couldn’t you just dematerialize and pop up wherever you wanted? Avoid traffic?” Avoid women who won’t shut up? She closed her mouth.
“Not one of my powers. But I can move so fast humans think that I’ve vanished. Can’t move that quickly right now, though. Energy’s low. I was in that damn coffin for days. And killing Len drained whatever I had left. I need to feed.” He glanced at her. “Want to volunteer?”
She widened her eyes. He was joking, right? “Umm, no.”
He looked away and picked up his pace. He was walking so fast now that she almost had to run to keep up.
“Too bad.” He didn’t sound as though he was joking.
She could see him studying a man who was outside emptying his trash. Don’t even think about it. She wouldn’t survive watching him chug down a human energy drink. Cassie rushed into speech. “Where’re we going?”
“To my house. Three of my friends are staying there with me.” His eyes narrowed. “None of them answered when I tried to call.”
Please, no more life-or-death moments today. Sudden weariness washed over her. Her adrenaline supply must be running low. “Won’t Garrity check there first?”
“He didn’t capture me there, so he might not know about it.” His smile was a mere baring of teeth. “And if he does, he’ll think I’m too smart to go home. He vastly overestimates my intelligence.”
“But what if he has people watching the place?”
“I’ll kill them.”
His answer would’ve horrified Cassie this morning. Now? It made perfect sense.
He finally slowed down and moved into the shadows. Silently, he pointed at a brick row house with a green rocker on the back porch. She covered her mouth to keep from giggling at the image of a vampire rocking on his porch. Or maybe the urge to giggle was the
first stage of hysteria.
Sliding along fences and gliding around trash cans—he slid and glided, she shuffled and tripped—they drew close to the house. Then he raised his hand to stop her. He grew still again, and she held her breath. She wanted the house to be empty so they could leave for somewhere safe.
“There’s one person in there.” He sounded grim.
She didn’t question how he knew. “Anyone you know?”
“Yes.” With no other explanation, he guided her to the back door. He did his magic door-opening thing again and slipped into a darkened kitchen. He beckoned her inside.
Cassie was beyond thought, beyond feeling, beyond everything. Right now he was the only real thing in her life. So she followed him.
He moved quietly into what must be the living room. She couldn’t hear his footsteps. Behind him, she was an elephant tramping through a field of bubble wrap, announcing her presence with every step she took.
For the first time, she noticed the smell. It was coppery and too familiar.
He stopped so suddenly that she almost slammed into his back.
“Hello, Ethan.” The male voice came from whoever was sitting in an overstuffed chair she could see silhouetted in the darkness.
“Dan. What’re you doing here?”
Ethan’s voice might sound neutral, but she sensed tension, and something else.
“Trying to figure out who the hell to call.” The man’s, or maybe vampire’s, voice sounded terrified. “I couldn’t reach you on your cell. Then I came here. I used the key you gave me. No one was here, but . . .” His voice trailed off.
Cassie moved up beside Ethan. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark and there was a tiny bit of light filtering in through the slats of the blinds. She could now see that the room was trashed—furniture overturned and pictures knocked from the wall. There were dark stains on the walls and carpet. “Is that . . . ?” Blood.
The other man said it for her. “There’s freaking blood everywhere. Fresh blood. What’s going on, Ethan?”
That explained the coppery scent. The rising panic in his voice mirrored her own emotions. She wished someone would turn on a light so she could see both of them. Then she thought of Roland Garrity hunting them and decided the darkness was just fine.
“I’ll explain later. Do you have your car?”
Cassie didn’t have to be particularly sensitive to feel Ethan’s rage. It didn’t seem aimed at the man in the chair. She thought that Roland Garrity should be very afraid.
“No. There was nowhere to park, so June just dropped me off. I told her I didn’t know how long I was staying, and I’d call her when I was ready to leave.”
Cassie had kept silent as long as she could. “Who is this, Ethan?” Using his name sort of moved him a little out of the mythic-monster column into the almost-human one.
Ethan turned to look at her. In the darkness, his face became a stranger’s again, all sharp planes and dangerous shadows. She’d been wrong. He wasn’t even close to the human column.
“This is Dan. My brother.”
Chapter Three
Why the hell had he brought her with him, and what was he supposed to do with her? Ethan wasn’t impulsive, so his unexplained need to keep her out of Roland Garrity’s hands didn’t make any kind of sense. He should’ve just sent her on her way with a warning not to go home.
Whatever his reason, he had to park her in a safe place soon because he could feel his Second One beginning to rise. And if she thought he was terrifying now, did he have a surprise for her in a few hours.
“He’s your brother?”
Her expression said everything her words hadn’t—monsters didn’t have mothers, fathers, brothers. Definitely should’ve ditched her.
“You have a problem with that?”
“No, I was just wondering—”
“You can wonder later. I’ll grab a few clothes and then we have to get out of here.” I was just wondering how many throats you’ve torn out, how often the bloodlust drives you to murder, if you have a conscience, a soul. Not as many as you’d think, never, sometimes, and probably not. He’d keep his answers to himself, though.
He didn’t give her a chance to comment as he strode to his bedroom, crammed some clothes and shoes into a bag, and then handed the bag to his brother. Quickly, he herded everyone out the back door, through the tiny yard, and into the alley. If Garrity had someone keeping an eye on the place, they must be out front because he didn’t sense watchers nearby.
Then he paused. His place had looked as though a bomb had gone off inside it. There must’ve been lots of noise. The row houses were connected. Mrs. Kimsky didn’t get around much anymore. She would’ve been home. And what about George and Janice on his other side? They only went out on Friday nights. This was Wednesday. If any of them had heard a fight in his house, they would’ve called the police. They hadn’t.
Keep going. Being vampire means checking your emotions at the door. Yeah, that was why Cassie was standing in this alley with him. Because he was so good at not feeling anything. No use fighting it, he was going to check on his neighbors.
“I have to do something before we leave. Stay close and don’t make any noise.” He speared Cassie with a glare intended to keep her quiet for a few minutes.
Dan didn’t say anything. He knew what his brother was, and he understood the need for caution.
Ethan went through the back gate and across the small yard. Mrs. Kimsky’s door was unlocked. Not a good sign. “Step in and shut the door. Stay here and let me do the checking.”
He didn’t have far to go. What was left of his neighbor lay on the living room floor. In pieces. Blood was soaking into the carpet. The TV was still on.
“Oh, my God!” Horror filled Cassie’s hoarse whisper behind him.
He glanced back. “I told you to let me . . .”
Cassie stared at the body, her eyes wide, unblinking. There was so much fear. She shook with it. Bracing herself against the doorjamb, she covered her mouth with her hand. To hold back a scream or to keep from throwing up? Maybe both.
Ethan could hear Dan puking into the kitchen sink. “Next time listen to me.” He sounded hard. Good. He wanted them to believe he was a cold-blooded son of a bitch. Because he was—he closed his eyes for a moment—most of the time. “Open the door and get some air. Both of you. I have to find something.” He didn’t look to see if they followed his directions.
Trying to make sure he didn’t step in any blood, he went into the bathroom. He pulled a large bath towel out of the linen closet and began his hunt. A few minutes later he joined the other two at the door with a spitting, hissing bundle of pissed off cat safely wrapped in the towel. He watched Cassie’s eyes widen when she saw the bloody claw marks on his hands and arms.
He scowled at her. “What?”
She didn’t get a chance to say anything because Dan spoke. “You’re taking the old lady’s cat with you?”
Ethan didn’t have time for explanations. “Out. I have to check the people on the other side of my place.”
Everyone was silent as they walked to the second house. Ethan knew what he’d find. The hunters must’ve left the door open because he could smell blood and death long before they climbed the steps.
Dan stopped on the porch. He put the bag of clothes down. “This is as far as I’m going.”
Ethan didn’t blame him.
“Here. Hold the cat.” He shoved the animal at his brother before stepping into the house.
Cassie walked in behind him.
He paused in the kitchen. “This will be just as bad. Wait with Dan.”
“No. I need to see it.” She met his gaze. “I’ve been afraid of the dead all my life. But my best friend is one of those dead now. This is more important than my fear. I have to see what they did so I’ll never forget, so I’ll know exactly what I’m destroying when I take these animals down.”
Ethan raised one brow. Wow, where had that come from? Beneath all her fear, something f
ierce lived. He looked away. He didn’t want to find her interesting in any way. “You couldn’t even imagine what things did this.”
Cassie looked puzzled. “Roland Garrity’s people, right?” Then she shook her head. “No. I can’t believe humans would do that to an old woman.”
You’d be surprised what humans would do. He walked toward the dining room. “They didn’t do the actual killing, but they held the remote.” She wouldn’t understand. He hoped she’d never have to.
They found George and Janice on the stairs. They must’ve tried to flee to the second floor. It hadn’t worked. Body parts littered the steps and blood dripped over the side onto the floor below.
Cassie didn’t last this time. She ran for the downstairs bathroom and slammed the door behind her. He waited until her retching stopped. When she finally opened the door and joined him, she was pale but steady. He said nothing, only returned to the back door. He waited until she was outside before closing it carefully behind him.
But even closed, he could still smell the blood. The Second One screamed, clawing at his soul, demanding that he feed, kill. He clamped down on his hunger. But it wasn’t the hunger for blood that would grip him soon. He hoped Cassie was gone by then.
Dan took one look at the stark horror in Cassie’s eyes and didn’t ask any questions.
Ethan talked to his brother on the way to Cassie’s car. “You’re still living at June’s place?”
Dan nodded. “Things haven’t been too great between us lately, though. I’m thinking about moving back to my own condo.”
“Don’t. At least not until things are safer.” The ones who’d found him might not know about his brother, or where he lived. But Ethan didn’t want to take a chance. Dan would be safer staying with his girlfriend for now.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Frustration roughened Dan’s voice.
“Yes.” They’d reached the car. “Once I figure it out myself.”
Ethan slid into the driver’s side and headed back out into traffic. He’d made sure that Cassie was beside him. She’d be easier to control in the front seat. At least she hadn’t blurted anything about what had happened at the funeral home. In fact, she hadn’t said anything for too long. Probably in shock from the last few hours.
Predatory Page 12