“That will do you no good, Ramson, so please just get on with your story,” Sam said, still in a friendly, conversational voice.
“Maybe . . . maybe I will have that drink you mentioned,” he stuttered, confused about the strength of the minds of these two relative newcomers to the Vampyre race. “A scotch and soda if you don’t mind.”
Matt used his mind to signal the waitress to bring another drink for their guest, causing her to think he’d somehow shouted the instructions to her.
“It’s on the way,” Matt said, indicating Ramson should continue his story.
“Well, it’s like you said. There’s this group of renegade Vampyres,” Ramson began, “that want to fundamentally change the dynamic between us and the Normals that has existed for hundreds of years.” He went on to outline Theo Thantos’s plan to take over the Normal word by changing important persons into Vampyres in this and other nations.
“That’s crazy,” Sam said. “Such a plan would never work.”
Ramson shrugged. “I agree, but the problem is if the delicate balance between our two races is upset, there is no telling how much damage this zealot and his friends might cause. It could eventually mean the beginning of another pogrom against us like there was in the Middle Ages which might even lead to the extinction of one or the other of the races.”
“Why didn’t you send this message to Elijah over his e-mail network?” Matt asked. “He told us you had his e-mail address and were helping him get the word out about the vaccine.”
“This is too damned important to be broadcast over the Internet,” Ramson said. He glanced around, as if someone might be watching or listening to them. “Beside, Thantos has some very influential and important friends on his side already. There is no telling how much they know, or what they can find out.”
“So,” Matt said, already knowing the answer, “why aren’t you organizing some opposition to this takeover?”
The droplets of sweat on Ramson’s head reappeared and began to run down his face now. He wagged his head, slinging sweat to and fro. “I . . . I can’t. In the first place, he has spies everywhere. If I approach the wrong person, I wouldn’t last the night. Hell, a couple of people who made the mistake of criticizing his plan publicly have disappeared completely and others have been warned they’re next if they don’t keep their mouths shut.”
“So, you’re leaving it up to Elijah and us to stop this madness?” Matt sneered.
“If you can, and if it’s not already too late,” Ramson said, downing the drink the waitress placed before him in one long swallow. “Now, you’ve been warned. What you do with the information is up to you. I wash my hands of the entire matter.”
“So said Pontius Pilate,” Matt said, causing Ramson to frown and look back over his shoulder as he walked rapidly away to disappear in the crowd around the dance floor, wondering how the waitress knew to bring him a drink, and even more, how she knew what drink mix to bring.
“So much for a fun evening out,” Sam said, getting to her feet. “Let’s go give Elijah a call on his cell phone and then we can go hunting someplace else.”
Matt threw two twenty-dollar bills down on the table and took her arm and they walked out to the parking lot.
After he put her in the passenger side, he walked around and was about to open the driver’s side door when the two men who’d been at their table moved up to flank him.
“First, we’re gonna take your money, honky, then we’s gonna take your woman,” one of the men said as he pulled a .38 caliber pistol from his pocket.
Matt smiled and leaned down to look in his window. “Should we take both of them, or will one do?”
Sam yawned. “Oh, I’ve kind’a lost my appetite, dear. I think one will be more than sufficient.”
The two men looked at each other, frowns on their face. The white man was supposed to be frightened to death, and that snooty white bitch with him should have been shitting her panties. Instead, he was acting like it was him in control and not them, and she didn’t look the least bit concerned.
The man who’d made the threat backed up a step, thinking something was seriously wrong with this situation.
Matt straightened up and stared at the man with the gun, focusing his mind on him. The man frowned, then looked terrified as his gun hand slowly moved to point the gun it was holding at his friend.
He winced and tears formed in his eyes when he squeezed the trigger and put a slug in his best friend’s chest. Before the man’s dead body hit the ground, Matt had opened the back door to the rental car, made the man drop the gun next to the corpse, and then ordered him to climb in the backseat.
As the man meekly moved into the backseat, his eyes half-closed as if he were sleepwalking or stoned on some particularly potent drug, Matt got into the front seat and smiled at Sam.
“Let’s go someplace a little more private for our meal. I don’t feel like dealing with any more interruptions tonight.”
“Sure thing, sweetheart,” Sam said, smiling at the man in the backseat. “Whatever you want.”
As they drove off, an astonished Ramson Holroyd watched from the shadows of the building, his mind racing. Something seriously strange was happening here. He’d never seen anyone as powerful as these two, and yet they acted like their extraordinary powers were no big deal—they hadn’t even tried to impress him by demonstrating their powers.
He stared at the dead man in the parking lot and stroked his jaw, trying to determine where his interests lay. Should he try and curry favor with Thantos by calling him up and telling him about this new development among Pike’s friends, or should he keep his mouth shut and wait and see who came out on top in the upcoming war.
This decision was easy. He knew if he betrayed Pike and ever got within a hundred feet of those two he’d met tonight, they would know instantly of his betrayal and would kill him without the slightest hesitation.
No, better to sit back and wait and see what happened. He’d managed to keep his head for a long, long time now. No need to risk it with nothing to gain for it.
Chapter 24
Special Agent Michelle Meyers of the Secret Service knocked on the door to Russell Cain’s office at precisely five-thirty in the afternoon. The appointment she’d made was for five-thirty and Cain was a stickler for punctuality. When he sees what I’ve got to show him, he’s going to wish I were late, she thought, grinning at the door.
Michelle had told Cain, who was the special agent in charge of all of the Washington, D.C., agents, that she needed to see him on a matter of national security and that the meeting had to be kept just between the two of them. Cain had reluctantly arranged to meet her in his office after everyone else had gone for the day.
“Come,” he said at her knock.
She walked in and smiled, reaching behind her to lock the door to his office. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Sir.”
He frowned when he heard the metallic snick of the door lock being set. “I don’t like this, Agent Meyers. It goes against protocol for us to be meeting alone like this.” He opened his middle desk drawer and pulled out a small tape recorder. He pushed the record button and sat it in the middle of his desk. “So, to protect both of us, I’m going to record this meeting.”
Michelle’s smile never wavered as she continued across the office until she was standing right against the front of his desk. “Are you afraid I might sexually harass you, Sir?” she asked, a mocking tone in her voice.
“No,” Cain snapped, “but in this day and age, I don’t want any questions of propriety raised.”
She inclined her head at the recorder, already spinning on his desk. “I don’t think you want to do that, Sir,” she said, her lips still curled in a smile.
“Oh,” he asked irritably, “why not?”
Without another word, Michelle leapt across the desk, her hands already turning into claws as they wrapped around Cain’s neck. The impact of her body against his drove his chair back until it hit the win
dowsill and flipped over backward, sending them tumbling.
“Goddamn!” he had time to utter as his right hand went for the 9 mm Glock semiautomatic he had in his shoulder holster and his back thudded against the back of his chair as it slammed down on the floor.
Michelle’s teeth fastened on his neck just as he managed to free the pistol and stick it against her stomach. The sound of the shots was muffled against her clothes as he fired twice.
Her body bucked and jumped under the impact, but her grip never wavered, nor did she stop drinking until his eyes glazed over and rolled back in his head and he fainted.
Once he was unconscious, she rolled off him and cursed as she ripped her clothes off and examined the damage to her abdomen. “Shit!” she said, groaning and doubling over into a fetal position with the fiery pain of the bullet wounds. Though she knew they wouldn’t kill her, it was going to take some time for her to recover, possibly as much as twenty-four to thirty-six hours.
Not wanting to waste the blood flowing from her wounds, she stuck her fingers in it and then pried Cain’s mouth open and rubbed them against his lips. After a moment, with her mind telling him what he had to do, he began to suckle her bloody fingers like a newborn baby, whimpering in his sleep.
Minutes later, with the hormones in her blood racing through his bloodstream, he awoke. After a moment regaining full consciousness, he blinked several times, a wild, hungry look in his eyes. He let his gaze roam over her naked, wounded body lying on his carpet, and she could see the effect she was having on him.
His mouth dropped open and his eyes became hooded while they glittered with lust.
She held out her arms to him and his eyes glazed over and his expression softened, as if he didn’t quite know where he was or what was happening to him. After a moment, he gave a slight quiver and moved into her arms. She moaned with satisfaction and pulled his head down onto her abdomen and let him suck the blood from the bullet wounds he’d caused.
As her body began to heal and knit the wounds and the bleeding slowed, Cain sat up and stripped his clothes off until he too was naked. Still with a somewhat befuddled expression, like a sleepwalker in the middle of a dream, he climbed between Michelle’s legs and entered her with a quick thrust as her fangs fastened on his neck once again and she began to suckle.
Later, as he lay curled up with his hands between his knees like a little boy sleeping, sweating with the fever that was already coursing through his body, Michelle sat at his desk and made a phone call. She had her discarded blouse wadded up and pressed against the almost healed bullet wounds to ease the pain her every movement caused.
When Christina answered, Michelle explained that she needed a cleanup crew at Cain’s office as well as some clothes for both of them since theirs were soaked with blood.
Christina asked if there were any other problems the crew would have to deal with, any collateral damage that would have to be covered up.
Michelle felt of her abdomen, which was still tender and sore and throbbing, though the bullet holes had completely knit together and there were only two slightly pink, puckered scars remaining.
“No,” she said tiredly. “Not really.”
* * *
Elijah Pike walked down the dark street toward the Portland harbor, stumbling a bit as he whistled off-tune, appearing to be very drunk indeed.
Ed and Kim were just behind him, arm in arm with Ed singing something about putting the lime in the coconut and drinking it all up while Kim giggled like an idiot. She had her blouse half-unbuttoned and her breasts were hanging half out of her bra in plain sight.
Suddenly four men stepped out of an alleyway just ahead of them. Their leader, a man with a full beard, grinned, revealing a mouth that was missing several teeth. “Well, boys, lookit what we got here,” he said in a voice roughened by too many whiskeys and too many cheap cigarettes over the years.
Elijah stumbled into the man and reared his head back, gasping at the rancid smell that wafted off the man. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” Elijah mumbled as he stepped out into the street to go around the man.
Ed stopped his singing and just stood there, wobbling a bit as he put his arm protectively around Kim’s shoulders. “What . . . what do you want?” he asked, slurring his words and trying to appear frightened.
The apparent leader of the group laughed harshly and moved over to stand directly in front of Kim, his hungry eyes moving up and down her body.
“Hey, Bobby,” one of the men in the rear called, laughing, “He wants to know what we want.”
Bobby laughed again, his horrible breath making Kim’s eyes water. He reached over and shoved Ed to the side and grabbed Kim by the shoulder with one hand while he tried to stick his other hand down the front of her dress. “I’m going to fuck your woman, mister,” he said, glancing at Ed as he squeezed Kim’s breast roughly, “and then we’re going to put your asses on a ship that’s sailing for Indochina at midnight.”
The man who’d called out took a length of pipe from under his coat and raised his hand to smash Elijah in the head.
As he brought his hand down, Elijah straightened up and grabbed the man’s wrist. He grinned as he squeezed until the sound of bones breaking echoed down the deserted street.
The other two men pulled out long-bladed knives as their companion screamed in pain and dropped to his knees, tears of pain coursing down his cheeks.
Elijah let himself begin to change as he backhanded the first one hard enough to send him flying backward against the wall of the warehouse they were standing in front of.
The second man, upon seeing the monster emerging before him, screamed like a girl as a urine stain blossomed on the front of his trousers. He dropped his knife and turned to run, only to find Ed, grinning around large, scarlet-tinged fangs, standing in front of him.
“Now, what was it you were going to do to us?” Ed growled, reaching out and grabbing the man by his neck and lifting him up until his feet dangled in midair. The strong smell of ammonia coming from the man made Ed wrinkle his nose in disgust.
Bobby glanced back over his shoulder at the sound of his friend screaming and tried to pull his hand out of Kim’s dress. She clamped her claw on his wrist and growled through lengthening fangs, “Oh, my. Is the foreplay over so soon?”
He looked back at her changing face and his bowels let loose in terror; he moaned as he shit himself.
Kim wrinkled her nose and twisted his wrist until it snapped like a twig. “Damn,” she said, turning to drag him into the alley. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”
Ed, who was right behind her and still holding his man in the air, chuckled, “Maybe we should dunk ’em in the harbor before we eat them. Might make them smell better at least.”
“I don’t intend to linger over this meal, darling,” she replied. “This is just a quick snack to take the edge off until we can find someone more suitable to spend some quality time with.”
Elijah entered the alley behind Ed and Kim, dragging his two men by the scruff of their necks. “I asked this one where they lived and he said they were bunking in this warehouse. Why don’t we take them inside so we won’t be disturbed?”
Ed nodded and moved up the alley until he came to a door with a single dim lightbulb over the entrance. He tried the door, found it locked, and stepped back and kicked the door open.
“Maybe there’ll be a shower in there and we can rinse ’em off first.”
Inside, they found several cots lined up against the wall, a small bathroom that smelled almost as bad as the man Kim was dragging, and a couple of seaman’s trunks next to the cots.
Kim eyed one of the cots and arched an eyebrow. “I don’t think I want to lay on that. I’d probably get cooties.”
“Then I guess we’ll just have to eat standing up,” Ed said, “kind’a like at a buffet.” He bent his man’s head back and lowered his face to his neck. The man’s scream of terror ended in a gurgle as Ed ripped his throat open and began to drink his blood.
She reached down and buried her claw in his genitals, and when he threw his head back to scream, she opened her mouth wide and sliced open his carotid artery, letting the spurting blood run down her throat until he died.
Ed was just finishing his man off when a sudden thought interrupted his meal. These guys must get paid pretty well for shanghaiing sailors, he mused. He quickly finished drinking and dropped the man’s lifeless body onto the floor. He glanced in the corner and saw that the only remaining ambusher was still unconscious and so he moved over to the row of seaman’s trunks next to the cots.
Their locks were no impediment to his strength and he quickly hooked a claw under the edges of the locks and snapped them open. When he looked in the trunks, he found all of them filled to the brim with grimy, crumpled hundred dollar bills.
Grinning he tipped one of the trunks over so Kim and Elijah could see what was inside. “Look guys,” he said, “more capital for our vaccine business.”
Elijah dropped his man and walked over to Ed. “Damn,” he said, eyeing the loot, “these assholes must do a thriving business.”
Kim cocked her head to the side and scrunched her eyes, as if listening to a far-off sound. “Hey, I think there’s someone in the warehouse.”
Elijah and Ed both concentrated and then nodded. “You’re right, Kim,” Elijah said, moving to a door in the wall that was hidden behind some boxes.
They followed him through the door, crouching with claws extended in case of trouble.
Their eyes widened at the sight before them. In the middle of the warehouse was a cage made up of iron bars. It was over twenty feet wide and twenty feet long. It was filled to the brim with men dressed in ragged clothes; most showed evidence of bruising and rough treatment in the recent past.
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