By Blood Sworn

by Jones, Janice

He glanced at the screen and shook his head, “Hello Con.” As he tapped the speaker function on screen, he poured warm synthetic blood into a glass.

  “Everything ready?” Conner asked.

  “Yes,” Michael replied. “I should get there by early afternoon. What’s wrong?”

  “Why do you think there’s something wrong?”

  Michael took him off speaker. “Because this is the third call today.”

  Conner laughed. Michael shook his head again. “Sorry. I’m just nervous I guess.”

  “I’m the one that should be nervous. She has sort of a short fuse, by all accounts.”

  “Well, I trust you’ve covered you tracks, Michael. If not, you deserve to get burned,” Conner chuckled. “So to speak.”

  “Bianca has agreed to play along,” he assured his father. “If she checks my story, everything will go as planned. Stop worrying so much.”

  “You’re right,” Conner stated. “I’m making a big deal out of nothing. Just don’t underestimate her, Michael.”

  Michael emptied his glass and smiled. “Did you just say I was right?” He laughed deeply and he could hear Conner do the same. “Well, that only took about a hundred years for you to say to me.”

  “Yes, well, it was very painful, so don’t make me repeat myself for another hundred.”

  “Con, please relax. Just let me handle this. It’s just drinks anyway. I don’t think she’s going to reveal anything earthshattering over wine and cheese.”

  Michael could feel a slight change in his father’s demeanor over the phone. But how sure was he about Alex? Could he be convincing enough? Would she pick up on anything that would connect him to his family? Michael shook those thoughts out of his mind. He’d done this too many times to doubt himself over a human.

  “Well, call when you arrive,” he heard Conner announce. “How long will you be there?”

  “Just until they leave for Romania, then I’ll be back home.”

  “Good. I may have something for you when you return. Since Jason’s detail includes some of our best, you may need to follow up on the girl for Adam. Pick whomever you wish to back you.”

  “Sure,” he replied. “But don’t forget that meeting on The Hill next week. I sent you the figures last night.”

  Gale Enterprises was a legitimate bioengineering firm with contracts all over the world. Its current project was to provide state-of-the-art prosthetics for returning military personnel from overseas.

  They were also in negotiations to overhaul the security systems for a multibillion-dollar complex, still in the planning stages, tasked with cyber-crime. This complex would be fully contained. There was also a small drug company that wouldn’t be small much longer. Their stem cell research was leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else. He hadn’t had a chance to go over all the details and specs, but it looked next-level futuristic, and he wanted Gale Enterprises in on the deal.

  “Yes, I planned to have that lull me to sleep later,” Conner chuckled.

  “Funny,” Michael replied as a tiny beep sprang from the receiver. “My car’s here. I’ll call you later tonight.”

  “Have a safe trip,” Conner said.

  Michael pressed the elevator down button, and the doors slid open. With his briefcase swung over one shoulder, he slid the leather duffle into the elevator with his foot. As he descended, he assured his overprotective father once more, “I’ll be fine, old man.”

  “I know,” he replied, and was gone.

  On the ride down, Michael wondered what kind of parent he would have made had his child survived. Conner worried about every move they made, constantly. They were grown men, but he always seemed to worry. Every mission, no matter how simple, Conner reminded them to be careful. As if they didn’t already know that. Maybe he shouldn’t be so hard on his father though. After their mother was assassinated, Conner had turned into the most overprotective vampire father in history.

  He shrugged. “He could be worse,” he said to no one.

  The big steel doors opened on the modern lobby of his building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Generally speaking, business types passed without noticing him. Some gave a quick nod, others gave no acknowledgement of his presence at all. For a vampire to go unnoticed in a lobby filled with humans was a testament to how well he was able to appear as human as the next guy. They fit into this new modern society, just as they’d planned.

  Michael breezed through the automatic doors and was hit in the face by a biting north wind. Heavy and real, his leather jacket kept the stinging blast from his body quite well. Not that this weather really bothered them much, but the amount of blood he took earlier might not be enough to keep him looking human if he stayed outside for much longer. The colder he became, the paler his skin would get. If it got too pale, people would notice.

  Snow tumbled down the sidewalk at his feet as the chauffer, bundled up like a sled driver, took his bag after he opened the back door of the town car for him.

  “We should make the airport in plenty of time, sir,” the driver’s voice muffled as he climbed in behind the wheel. “Should I turn up the heat?”

  “No,” Michael replied as he shook off his jacket. He was getting hot. “It’s fine unless you need it.”

  He heard a slight chuckle as his driver pulled his checkered scarf loose and laid it on the seat next to him. “No, sir,” he laughed as he spoke to Michael through the rearview when they stopped at the red light. “My wife’s got me pretty well bundled!”

  Michael laughed too. Must be nice to have someone waiting at home for you to return, he mused. A woman who cared about you when you were away and welcomed you home when you returned to her. His bed partners didn’t care much past what trendy night spot he’d be taking them to for the evening. Or if he owned the penthouse.

  There were a few that were actually down to earth, but with his coming and going, they didn’t last long. They asked too many questions that he couldn’t answer. Jealousy was usually the culprit in the end. His reputation as a man who couldn’t be tied down was a challenge to most human women. Vampire women too, come to think of it.

  Vampires knew the score though. As a member of a powerful family, Michael was expected to put that first. Business was paramount, not romance. They all knew what it meant to be with Michael or one of his brothers. It meant no questions and no commitments.

  Social events, the ones he had to attend anyway, were the prime showcase for the vampire elite. His father threw the best and most popular Dark Ball every year. No one wanted to be left out but some would be. So if a woman happened to be dating a Gale man around that time, it was because she wanted to be his plus one.

  A thought struck him. What if Jason invited Alex this year? Wouldn’t that be crazy funny! “No way,” he whispered under his breath.

  “Sir?” the driver interrupted his vocalizing.

  “Nothing,” Michael replied. “Just talking to myself, sorry.”

  “No problem.”

  Michael threw that idea out immediately. Jason didn’t have the guts to invite her to the ball. Especially now that his engagement had been announced. It was already the talk of vampire society. Now that Jason had a seat in the Lower Chamber, the Council would monitor his every move. Michael suddenly felt sorry for Jason. His life was about to change, and sometimes that was not a good thing.

  His phone buzzed on the seat. He placed it to his ear without thinking to check the ID. When he heard that voice, he wished he had.

  “Busy?” she asked with a bit of humor in her voice.

  “If I were,” he replied with a dry sigh, “would it matter?”

  “Not really,” she replied in the same manner then giggled. “I hear you’re off to Vegas again. Should I be worried?”

  Michael checked the urge to hang up. Evangeline Margot, daughter of the leader of the largest vampire house in France, was once
his girlfriend. She, on the other hand, pretended she didn’t know the definition of ex-girlfriend.

  “I’m working, Evie,” he always called her Evie. “What do you want?”

  “You’re always working, Mike,” she never called him Mike because he hated it coming from her. “That’s the reason we broke up.”

  It was Michael’s turn to laugh. “The reason I broke up with you was because you had a very loose interpretation of our relationship. You took my absence to mean you could fill the void with any warm body that would have you.”

  Michael had a long list of other reasons he broke it off, but that was at the top. The last time he returned from a mission, she had taken up with a Saudi Prince. He wasn’t sure which family, but it didn’t really matter. All of his friends had warned him about her, like good friends should, but he didn’t want to believe it. Evangeline was convincing. When she said that she loved you, she really did—at that moment. But she lived from moment to moment, so she said that a lot.

  “I was just having fun,” she whined. “And you were no fun anymore. What happened?”

  He rolled his eyes as he felt his temperature begin to rise again and it wasn’t from the manufactured heat of the car. “I got bored with competing for your attention. Or maybe I’m just growing up.”

  Her shriek of laughter irritated him. “Hardly! I heard about that little wager between you and Varga in Rome. You totaled his racecar for a few grand and that diplomat’s silly little daughter. That’s real mature.”

  He had to laugh. That bet was stupid. Cost him a million and a half of his own money, but he had impressed the daughter, and she was lots of fun, as he recalled.

  “Why are you calling me?” he sighed.

  “Well,” he heard her take a big breath as she was prone to do when she was excited about some harebrained idea. He was bracing himself for a gem. “A bunch of us are going down to Mexico this weekend . . .”

  He cut her off with a quick, “No.”

  “You haven’t even heard what I want yet,” she whined. He could see her stamp her feet like the spoiled brat she was.

  “I don’t care. The answer is still the same.”

  “God! Don’t be such a prick,” she huffed then realized her mistake. “I mean, please Michael. I’ll make it up to you when you join us.”

  The last time Evangeline and her cronies used the house on Playa Zicatela, they almost burned it to the ground in a drunken haze. It took over a year to remodel and he had missed the best surfing there in years as punishment from Conner.

  “Well, that does sound awful tempting,” Michael dropped the timbre of his voice and Evangeline giggled, “but, no.”

  The line clicked and he laughed so hard the muscles in his stomach ached by the time he reached the airport.

  Sunlight. How beautiful it was here. Clear blue skies were complemented by a nice, sweetly-chilly breeze. Texas is alright so far, Kit thought as the car weaved in and out of traffic, and she relaxed against the seat.

  She’d heard the joke millions of times—“if you don’t like Texas weather, just wait a minute; it’ll change.” But the driver kept saying how great the weather had been over the last few weeks. November was shaping up to be one of the better months, he had said.

  “Although it’s only the first week,” he chuckled. “So that could change in an hour.” He howled with laughter and slapped the wheel as he continued to make good time to downtown Fort Worth.

  As the car slowed, Kit opened her eyes. They’d hit some traffic. She sat up straight as he eased into the lane that led to her hotel. “We’re just a couple blocks away,” he said as he craned his neck to get a better view up ahead. Kit never understood that. Unless he had some kind of superpower, he wasn’t going to see anything more than a couple cars ahead of him in all that mess.

  The digitized numbers on her smartphone indicated she had plenty of time, but she felt uneasy again. She mapped the walk from their current location and decided she had the extra ten minutes to walk it.

  “I’ll walk the rest of the way,” she said then tapped the driver and handed him a pretty good tip. The car slowed to a stop at the corner and he told her it was straight ahead—just four blocks. Outside the car, she swung her overnight bag over a slim shoulder and began to walk with confidence down the busy sidewalk.

  Some of the shops she passed already had Christmas decorations up in their windows. Jaunty tunes floated around the sidewalk as people window-shopped on their trek to work. All of a sudden, a warm, sweet smell reached her nose. The combination of pastry and coffee wrapped around her and pulled her close. The dainty little shop one block from her hotel was inviting and so quaint, she couldn’t pass it up.

  “Maybe just a little ‘pick-me-up’ for the walk,” she giggled to herself as she passed through the threshold and took a deep breath.

  Sugary goodness was crammed in every corner. All the shelves were draped in festive colors. When she reached the counter, the round, little elven woman smiled and called her “honey.” Kit pointed to the golden-brown bun under the glass as her stomach rumbled in approval.

  The elven woman slid the treat, cellophane and all, into the pink bag with a small bottle of water and thanked her for coming in. Back on the sidewalk, Kit found she had a bounce in her step. Probably from the million grams of sugar in the bun she was devouring, but who cared?

  When she felt the tingle in the back of her throat, she stuffed the pretty pink sack into the open pocket of the overnight bag slung over her shoulder. The cap of the water bottle let out a puff of air as she opened it and took a quick sip. The tingle became a warm sting as she took a bigger gulp of water. It lessened just a bit as she spotted Alex a few feet ahead of her on the sidewalk and picked up her pace. Kit cleared her throat, coughed to stop the feeling of her windpipe closing off and she tried to swallow a little bit of water. Then she stopped, dropping the bag from her shoulder as she struggled for air. The man walking next to her grabbed her arm as she began to fall.

  When the man next to Kit laid her gently on the concrete, Alex pushed her way through the crowd. On her knees, Alex made mental notes of what she saw: sweat on Kit’s brow and upper lip, her lips turning blue as the air became trapped in her lungs by the closing of her windpipe. The man leaned over Kit, checked her mouth, and was about to give her mouth to mouth.

  “Don’t,” Alex barked as she pulled him back and began to pump on Kit’s chest. “She’s not choking. It’s poison.” Counting off the compressions, she just wanted to keep her heart pumping until real help came.

  “How do you know?” he said frantically as he dialed 911.

  Alex nodded at her lips as she continued to try and save Kit. She was gone—her one and only lead. Alex heard the last few beats of her heart as she stopped compressions and placed her ear to her chest to be sure. That’s when she saw the card in Kit’s partially closed fist. She pulled it loose in the commotion of EMTs pushing through the crowd. She would have gone for the phone, but the uniform had already picked it up and trapped it inside his latex glove.

  “Ma’am,” he said to her. “Do you know this lady?”

  “Not really, no,” Alex replied as she and the bystander stood at the same time. “I . . . we were meeting for lunch.”

  “Why?” he said.

  “Business meeting,” Alex replied as she balled the card up and slipped it inside her pocket. “She’s a model.”

  “Well, we’ll need you to come down to the station,” he replied as he waved to a portly guy in a bad suit, “give your statement.”

  When bad-suit stepped up, he had a paper cup in his hand. Alex assumed it was coffee. But, by the looks of him, it could have been bourbon or something equally as inappropriate for a plainclothes homicide cop to drink at lunch.

  “Whatcha got, Crane?” he growled.

  “Ms.?” Crane turned back to Alex with a raised eyebrow.
r />   “Stone,” she replied extending her hand to the detective.

  “Ms. Stone was meeting the vic for lunch,” he said as they shook hands.

  His grip was warm from holding the coffee. At about five foot nine, ten maybe, the detective looked like he was counting the days until retirement and driving his wife nuts full time.

  He carried about ten to fifteen pounds of extra weight around his middle, and there were hints of gray at his brow. His brown eyes probably had a shine at some point. His handsome brown skin showed signs of dryness around his eyes and the beginnings of creases around his full lips.

  “Detective Hart,” he smiled. Then he released her hand and squinted. “Do I know you?”

  “I doubt it,” Alex replied.

  “You just look familiar,” he rubbed the stubble on his chin, emptied the cup and tossed it in the tall metal trash can next to them. “You’re famous? Actress, right?” His crooked grin and chain-smoker’s chuckle flushed his round face a reddish color.

  “No.”

  Hart let his eyes travel down her body then back up like he was looking at a road map. He shook his head then grinned. “You sure we haven’t met before? I never forget a face.”

  “I’m sure,” Alex grinned back.

  The sound of the gurney being rolled down the rough sidewalk turned his attention to the scene again. As the EMTs zipped the body bag, a gust of wind pushed through the crowd. Alex felt the shiver roll down her spine as the metal bed on wheels was lowered with a loud bang then back up again. It disappeared down the sidewalk as Hart gently nudged her forward in the same direction.

  “We need to go down to the station,” he said close to her ear. “It’s not far. We can walk it, if you want.”

  “Sure,” was all she said. There was no way to talk her way out of this one. They had the phone. She had already admitted she knew her. They would have every number Kit had called in a few hours. The only thing to do was to play along.

  Hart kept them at an easy pace. He assured Alex this wouldn’t take long and she didn’t need a lawyer. Not to answer a few questions, right?