The Midnight Hunt

by L. L. Raand

  Jody was a mesmerizing contrast. Elegant, refined, completely contained. She was a cipher, an enigma—only her endlessly deep obsidian eyes hinted at the restrained lethality she kept so tightly leashed. But Becca knew what deadly power lay beneath her poised exterior. She’d seen the predator uncaged.

  Sylvan, with her guards flanking her, stood on one side of the spacious high-ceilinged room, having declined Jody’s offer to sit in the leather sofas and chairs in front of a marble fireplace.

  “Something to drink?” Jody asked, indicating an antique sideboard and an array of liquor in cut-crystal bottles.

  “No,” Sylvan said. “I’m surprised to hear from you, Detective, and not the police commissioner. I have a good relationship with her, and she hasn’t informed me of any inquiries involving Weres.”

  “There isn’t an official investigation—yet,” Jody said. “But I suspect there will be one before long. Someone wants the public to know that humans are being infected with Were fever.”

  Sylvan pivoted to Becca. “I take it that’s where you come in, Ms. Land. Rather unusual to involve the public when all you have is speculation—although that doesn’t seem to matter much to the press these days.”

  Becca lifted her chin. “I have a job to do, Alpha. And I have a responsibility to report the truth, especially if there’s a danger to the public.”

  The auburn-haired female who’d been introduced as Sylvan’s second growled, displaying a flash of fully extended canines. Becca slid her eyes to her and refused to lower her gaze even when the Were snarled a warning.

  “Ms. Land is not the cause of your problems, Alpha,” Jody said smoothly.

  Becca hadn’t seen Jody move, but suddenly Jody was between her and the Weres.

  Sylvan looked from Jody to Becca. “How did you hear about these rumors?”

  “An anonymous source,” Becca said. At Sylvan’s look of disgust, she added, “And no, I’m not being difficult. I really don’t know.”

  “Whoever contacted Ms. Land may have also alerted others,” Jody said. “I came across the rumor from intelligence sources monitoring anti-Praetern groups.”

  “Let me guess—HUFSI,” Sylvan said.

  “What—” Becca said.

  “Humans United For Species Integrity,” Jody explained. “A small but radical offshoot of some of the more civilized groups trying to block legislation on Praetern rights.”

  “You’re kidding,” Becca muttered, mentally making a note to investigate the group. She couldn’t believe that her fellow humans actually thought they had the right to relegate entire species to some kind of second-class status. But then again, her ancestors had been slaves, so she wasn’t sure why she was surprised.

  “Unfortunately, HUFSI is not the only group, just one of the more militant.” Sylvan asked Jody, “What’s your interest in this, Detective? Vampires don’t usually involve themselves in anything that doesn’t directly affect them.”

  “My job is to see there are no further victims.”

  “Your father didn’t seem particularly concerned about the victims.”

  Jody went completely still, the stillness of a predator just before an attack. The Were Alpha’s second took a step forward, putting her even with her Alpha. She parted her lips, displaying her teeth. Jody slowly caught the guard’s gaze and sent a wave of power. The Were’s green eyes clouded and she grumbled uneasily, deep in her chest.

  “Stand down, Vampire,” Sylvan murmured.

  Jody held the Were in thrall a moment longer, then shrugged with graceful insouciance. “My responsibility is to uphold the law. I don’t follow my father’s agenda.”

  “Even when the law doesn’t protect your species?” Sylvan asked quietly.

  “That’s your job, isn’t it, Councilor? To see that the law does.”

  Becca edged forward until Jody was no longer shielding her. “We all know there are plenty of factions who don’t want to see Praeterns recognized—legally, socially, economically, or politically. Maybe that’s a place to start. Who are your enemies, Alpha Mir?”

  Sylvan smiled and looked pointedly at Jody. “More every day.”

  Becca had had enough of watching the wolf Alpha and the Vampire test each other. She expected one or both of them to pee on the carpet at any moment. “Look—none of us want to see another dead girl. That’s why we either find out what exactly is killing them, and fast, or I will have to go public. Now—do we work together or not?”

  Sylvan and Jody stared at her.

  “What?” Becca said testily. “Was I supposed to raise my hand to ask for permission to speak?”

  That mercurial smile flickered over Jody’s mouth and Becca felt a rush of heat.

  “It’s a matter of police business,” Jody said.

  “It’s Were business,” Sylvan snapped.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Becca said, planting her hands on her hips.

  “Can’t you—make a temporary alliance or something?”

  Sylvan raised a brow. Jody frowned.

  “I have no reason to trust you,” Sylvan said to Jody.

  “And I have no reason to share information with you.”

  “Then we have a stalemate,” Sylvan said and turned to leave.

  “You know,” Becca interjected, “I can get my story without either of you. I’ll just go back to the ER and interview Drake McKennan again. Then I’ll decide if we go public.”

  The wolf Alpha slowly pivoted and fixed Becca with a flat, hard stare. The Weres with her moved into a V formation behind her. Becca shivered as if a cold wind had blown over her skin.

  “Careful, wolf,” Jody murmured.

  “Drake has nothing to do with this.” Sylvan’s voice dropped to a guttural rumble.

  “All right, then,” Becca said, pleased that her voice did not quiver. “Then you be my source. You can’t tell me you aren’t looking into these deaths.”

  “You are either very brave or very foolish,” Sylvan said.

  “She’s both,” Jody said.

  “We don’t believe the humans were infected by Weres,” Sylvan said, still watching Becca. “We don’t know who these human females are or where they came from. We don’t know how to explain what happened to them. But we will find out.”

  Jody lightly grasped Becca’s elbow and moved her back, putting distance between her and Sylvan. “The medical examiner thinks the girls were being held somewhere—a hospital—before they arrived at the emergency room.”

  “A hospital?” Sylvan said softly. “Or a laboratory?”

  “Oh my God,” Becca said. “You think someone was experimenting on them?”

  “I don’t know,” Sylvan said. “I can only tell you that humans are not generally susceptible to Were fever. Whatever they have, it isn’t that.”

  “How many are we talking about?” Jody said.

  “Four suspected.”

  “Give me the victims’ names and I’ll run background checks,” Jody said. “If we don’t have a lead on the perpetrators, then we’ll study the victims. The victimology may tell us what happened to them.”

  “Our medic will call you with the names,” Sylvan said carefully. “Then we should talk again.”

  “Yes,” Jody said, “and you can tell me what your scientists have discovered.”

  “So we have an alliance?” Becca asked.

  Sylvan stared at Jody. “Agreed, Vampire?”

  Jody held Sylvan’s gaze for a long moment, then, with a slight incline of her head, said, “Agreed, Wolf.”

  “We’ll be in touch.” Sylvan turned to leave and Lara fell in on one side, Niki on the other.

  Jody led the way into the hall and across the foyer. “I’ll call you once I’ve run the searches.”

  Jody pulled open the wide stained-glass door and a windowpane shattered, raining multicolored shards onto the marble floor. Niki shouted. Becca was suddenly thrown down and pinned by a heavy weight. Someone slammed the door closed. Barely able to breathe, Becca managed to turn h
er head. A bright red sheet of blood cascaded across the polished marble foyer toward her face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Becca!” Jody crouched by Becca’s side, urgently running her hands over Becca’s body. “Becca! Are you hurt?”

  “No, no I don’t think so.” Becca sat up and her heart lurched.

  Jody’s face was blood streaked and the front of her white shirt splattered with crimson. “God, Jody. You’re bleeding!”

  Jody shook her head grimly. “No, I’m not.”

  “What was it? What happened?”

  “Gunfire,” Jody said.

  “Who—” Becca trailed off as the horrible scene came into focus.

  A few feet away, the wolf Alpha knelt in a spreading scarlet pool, one of the black-uniformed Weres cradled in her arms. The Were guards had formed a physical barricade between Sylvan and the damaged front door. Blood bubbled from a hole in the Alpha’s shoulder and soaked her shirt, but she didn’t seem to notice it. Her eyes, fierce gold daggers in a face gone feral, were fixed on the female in her arms.

  ———

  Drake was awakened from her post-procedure doze by a sharp pain in her chest. She jerked upright in the recliner. “Something’s wrong.”

  “What is it?” Sophia quickly rose from the desk where she’d been running a computer search and hurried to Drake’s side. “Are you having pain?”

  “No.” Drake grimaced. “Yes. I don’t know.”

  Sophia drew the sheet aside and examined the small incisions in Drake’s lower abdomen where her mother had inserted the instruments to do the biopsies. “These are nearly healed. There’s no evidence of bleeding. Where’s the pain?”

  “Not there—my upper abdomen. And my chest.” Drake gritted her teeth as another stabbing pain shot through her chest. She checked the monitor on a stand next to her chair. Her EKG was steady, her pulse and blood pressure normal. “Everything looks normal. It’s not me. It’s not me.”

  “Then what—”

  Drake groaned with another wave of twisting pain, this one spearing down her right side. Her claws tore through the ends of her fingertips. Her canines burst out, flooding her mouth with hot blood.

  She bolted to her feet. “Sylvan. Something’s happened.”

  ———

  “Lara,” Sylvan said gently, “I have to get the bullets out. The bleeding won’t stop until I do.”

  Blood streamed from the corner of Lara’s mouth and gushed from a crater in the center of her chest. Her whiskey eyes held Sylvan’s, calm and unafraid. She nodded, her voice barely a whisper. “Yes, Alpha.”

  Sylvan’s chest burned with every breath, but the pain was nothing compared to her rage. Lara had jumped in front of her, had taken most of the bullets meant for her. Now her wolf, her centuri, was hurt, suffering, and she would not let her die. Her arm shifted and her claws, three inches long and razor sharp, glinted. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here.”

  “I know.”

  Lara screamed when Sylvan plunged her claws into the wound, her eyes rolling back, her body contorting into a rigid arch. A crimson river rushed out around Sylvan’s limb, adding to the midnight lake around them. Sylvan jerked out a silver bullet and flung it aside, then drove her hand back into the wound three more times.

  “They hit the heart,” Sylvan growled, gripping the shredded organ to stem the flow. “There’s too much damage. She’ll bleed to death before she can heal.”

  Jody dropped down beside Sylvan. “My blood can keep her alive until she heals.”

  “She is nearly empty.”

  “Then we have to hurry. Decide, Wolf.”

  Sylvan met Jody’s eyes. “Will she turn?”

  “I don’t know. Possibly.”

  “Do it.”

  Jody tore off her jacket and shirt, then sliced open the large artery in the bend of her right elbow. Blood spurted out in a scarlet fountain.

  Jody slid her hand behind Lara’s neck and turned Lara’s face into the bend of her arm. Holding her, she crooned, “Drink, Lara. Drink.”

  Lara shuddered, her throat working convulsively as she swallowed.

  ———

  Becca bit her lip, wondering how everyone else could be so calm—so deadly calm. Perhaps death held a different place in the natural order for these predators, who seemed so human, but were not.

  The foyer looked and smelled like a charnel house. The priceless linen wallpaper was covered with great swaths of red, as if someone had flung a paintbrush dipped in blood at them. The marble floor was awash in Lara’s and the Alpha’s blood.

  Becca didn’t remember moving over to Jody, didn’t remember touching her, but now she knelt in a congealing pool a few inches from Jody with her hand on Jody’s back. Jody’s eyes were closed and her body trembled under Becca’s fingers. Her midnight hair lay in damp tendrils on her neck. Her flawless skin had gone from purest white to ashen. And still Lara drank. The only sounds were Lara’s desperate swallows and Jody’s rapid breathing.

  “Is she healing?” Becca asked at last.

  “Yes, slowly,” Sylvan said, her forearm still deep in Lara’s chest.

  “Her heart is trying to beat. Just a little more.”

  Jody moaned, more agony than pleasure. Becca slid her arm around Jody’s shoulders and murmured in her ear, “Are you all right?”

  Wordlessly, Jody nodded.

  Seconds passed. A minute. Another.

  “She’s almost there.” Sylvan withdrew her hand and pressed her palm over the wound in Lara’s chest. Lara curled around Jody’s arm, her mouth working feverishly on Jody’s flesh.

  Jody sagged and Becca barely caught her before she collapsed completely. “We have to stop this. It’s too much—Jody can’t give any more.”

  “No,” Jody whispered, her head lolling on Becca’s shoulder, her arm still outstretched. “I’m all right.”

  “You’re not,” Becca cried. “You’re so weak. I can feel it.” She shot Sylvan an imploring glance. “Please. This is killing her!”

  Jody laughed weakly, her lips ice cold against Becca’s neck.

  “You’re not afraid of the dead, remember.”

  “Vampire,” Sylvan snapped, “are you blood-bonded?”

  Jody was silent. Sylvan cursed and bent over her feeding centuri.

  “Lara.” Sylvan gently cupped Lara’s chin and drew her face away from Jody’s arm. “You have to stop.”

  Lara didn’t struggle, but almost instantly stopped breathing and went limp.

  “Alpha!” Niki cried. “Let her drink. We can’t let her—”

  “Wait.” Sylvan gripped Lara’s shoulders and called Lara’s wolf.

  Deep inside, her own wolf rose. Her wounds flared and burned, but her wolf was strong. She let her power flow to Lara, calling to the part of Lara that was hers and would always be hers.

  Lara’s body jerked and her eyes shot open, blank and unseeing.

  She sucked in a breath as if she were drowning. Then she shimmered and shifted. The sleek brown wolf immediately collapsed, but her chest rose and fell and her heart beat. Sylvan sighed, weak and nearly drained.

  Her centuri would live.

  “Jody! God, Jody!” Becca clutched Jody tightly. “She’s unconscious. What’s happening?”

  Sylvan passed Lara to Andrew. “Get her to the Rover.”

  “Yes, Alpha.” Andrew gently lifted the wolf and held her against his chest.

  “Max—go with him. Secure the street. Make sure the shooter is gone.”

  “Yes, Alpha,” Max barked out, shielding both Andrew and Lara as he led the way.

  “Jody’s not breathing.” Becca choked, panic squeezing her throat closed. “She’s dying.”

  “She’ll rise,” Niki said. “She’s a Vampire.”

  “No, not without a blood bond,” Sylvan said. “If she dies now, she won’t animate. She needs blood now before she dies. She needs to feed.”

  “I’ll do it,” Becca said quickly. “Tell me—”

  “
You’re not strong enough,” Sylvan said. “Give her to me.

  Hurry.”

  “Alpha,” Niki exclaimed, “what are you doing? You’re wounded. You can’t—”

  “I won’t let her die,” Sylvan snarled. “She saved my wolf.”

  “Then I’ll feed her!” Niki shouldered her way between Sylvan and Jody. Kneeling, she tore off her shirt, grasped Jody’s limp body, and pulled Jody into her lap. She opened her jugular with a quick slice of her claw and pressed Jody’s mouth to the wound. With surprising gentleness, she whispered, “Feed, Vampire. Don’t die.”

  Jody shuddered, her lids fluttering. The lure of potent Were blood drew her back from the edge of a gaping abyss. With a snarl, she lifted her head, her eyes on fire, and sank her incisors into Niki’s neck.

  Niki jerked at the shock, her eyes shifting to hunter green before her lids slowly closed. Moaning softly, she swayed, her grip on Jody’s shoulders loosening.

  “Let me help.” Becca slid behind Niki and supported the enthralled Were against her chest. Niki’s head dropped onto Becca’s shoulder as Jody drank in deep pulls from her neck. Becca felt Niki tremble, heard her whimpering with pleasure. Jody’s eyes opened and locked on Becca’s, and Becca couldn’t look away. The force of Jody’s hunger held her captive, and Becca wanted nothing more than to satisfy her.

  Suddenly the black of Jody’s irises flamed the color of the blood painting the room, and Niki arched violently. Jody snarled and bit deeper.

  Niki roared and her hips jerked convulsively. Becca embraced the writhing Were, stunned and horrified to find herself aroused in the midst of carnage.

  Sylvan twisted her hand in Jody’s hair and pulled her away from Niki’s neck. “Careful, Vampire. Don’t drain her.”

  Mindless with bloodlust, Jody snarled and thrashed in Sylvan’s hold.