BloodlustBundle

by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor

  What if Jake couldn’t take Blaise?

  Still nursing my cut arm, I used the other hand to grab the throwing stars from my pocket. I sent them sailing at Blaise. One, two, three. The sharp weapons embedded themselves in the vampire’s neck and head, and droplets of blood rolled down his pale skin, but he barely gave me a glance. As if they were pesky mosquitoes, he ignored the pointy weapons and struck out with clawlike nails that left gashes in the side of Jake’s face.

  The scar—was that how he’d gotten it, I wondered, from fighting another vampire? I went over in my mind the ways to destroy one. No more holy water or crucifixes available, but I had one other weapon of vampire destruction.

  Hands shaking, ignoring the pain throbbing from the cut, I slid the weapon out of the duffel bag.

  Silke nearly fell from the bed as she attempted to stand. She wobbled and clung to the post.

  “Get out of here,” I told her. “Go now, while you can!”

  “Not without you.”

  Silke couldn’t defend herself. She was a liability. Part of me wanted to take her hand and run for it.

  No. I couldn’t. Not while Blaise was still walking.

  I couldn’t abandon Jake.

  This time it was Blaise who went flying. He crashed onto his back and seemed stunned from the force of his landing. Jake was right after him.

  Holding the tool firmly on the ground, the dangerous end pointing away from me, I tugged the cord with a quick, sharp motion. No luck. I tried again, then cursed the thing. Maybe three times would be the charm.

  Suddenly, Blaise flew from the floor and pinned Jake against the wall, and in his hand I saw one of the throwing stars slashing toward Jake’s jugular.

  This time, the motor started up with a racket and a kick that almost knocked me on my butt. I recovered fast and grabbed on with both hands. It took all my strength to lift the damn thing. I had to act before Blaise realized what I was up to. He started to turn and I lunged forward, putting the entire force of my body as I swung the chain saw toward him. His gaze connected with mine one last time, wide-eyed and disbelieving.

  The bar of the chain saw connected with his neck. Blood splattered me as it ripped Blaise’s head off.

  Another evil dead.

  Jake and I linked disbelieving gazes over the headless body that was still standing. Jake was spattered with blood and I guessed I was, too. Then I realized Blaise had gotten him—the throwing star was embedded in his neck.

  I killed the motor and dropped the chain saw. “Jake!” I toppled Blaise’s headless body and stepped on it to get to him.

  Calmly, he pulled the throwing star free of his flesh and staggered against me. I held his weight and tried not to panic when I heard a gurgling sound. I pressed my hand to his flesh hard to stop the bleeding, but my stomach sank and suddenly my heart felt as if a block of ice encased it.

  Then Silke screamed, “Shell, watch it!”

  Hanging on to Jake, keeping my hand pressed hard to the bleeder, I glanced over my shoulder to see what was left of LaTonya staggering toward me. I hadn’t destroyed her after all, and now she was out for revenge.

  There was nothing I could do without letting Jake die.

  Behind her, Silke stretched toward one of the torches but couldn’t quite reach it. With a screech of impatience, she called, “Fire!” and flattened her hand, palm up. “By my hand and heart, cleanse this room of evil!”

  The fire jumped from the torch to skim her hand before continuing on to its target. I gaped as flames engulfed the monster, who went berserk, blindly thrashing into the velvet draperies. The cloth went up like a torch, and I realized the fire would spread quickly.

  “Come on,” I said, half-dragging Jake toward the tunnel without letting go of his neck. I would get Silke to talk later. “We have to get you to a hospital.”

  “I’ll be okay,” he promised weakly. “I heal fast.”

  He had to be okay. “How fast?” I asked, holding my arm out to Silke, who, with a glance back at the spreading fire, got to Jake’s other side.

  Jake didn’t answer.

  Which meant he didn’t know if it would heal fast enough. The three of us limped out of there as rapidly as we could while the room went up in flames behind us. I was thinking ahead, wondering if I could call for paramedics with my cell phone down here.

  Without thinking about it, I stopped and shoved my cut arm at Jake. “Drink!” I rasped, feeling sick at the thought of his doing so.

  Silke gasped and I knew she was freaked.

  I wouldn’t let him die. I shoved my arm at him harder.

  Jake’s eyes glowed again as he looked at me and I could see he was tempted.

  Then he shook his head. “No. That’s not who I am.”

  I would have argued, but the fire rumbled as if threatening to follow us. “Let’s get out now!”

  We’d made the turn when the fire must have penetrated a gas line somewhere. The explosion that followed shook the tunnel floor beneath our feet, and I knew I was hearing the ceiling and walls crashing down.

  “What was that?” I heard a familiar voice call from somewhere ahead.

  Walker.

  “Sounded like an explosion. But who the hell knows. I don’t even know where I’m at.”

  Norelli.

  Backup had finally arrived.

  Chapter 19

  By the time we got up to the street, everyone had turned out for the party. Uniforms. Detectives. SWAT team. Mom must have gotten my message.

  “An ambulance!” I said, trying to drag Jake toward one that just arrived on the scene.

  “I told you I would be okay,” he said, taking my hand from the wound that was no longer bleeding.

  Why wasn’t I shocked? And the slashes across his face weren’t looking so bad, either.

  “Still, you could use help,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Too much explaining. I’ll be okay.”

  We’d found Norelli and Walker and they were dragging Hung Chung, who was babbling, answering voices in his head, into a police car.

  As a uniformed officer pushed Chung’s head down to get him into the squad car, Norelli muttered to me, “You’re a dangerous woman to cross, Caldwell.”

  “Just remember that,” I said.

  “Silke…Shelley…”

  “Mom!” Silke cried.

  I turned to see Mom get out of her vehicle and come toward us. Her expression relieved, she held her arms out to us both. I glanced over my shoulder at Jake as I stepped toward her. Then I was enfolded in an emotion-filled embrace.

  “We’re okay, Mom,” I assured her, hugging her back. “We’re okay.”

  “Shelley is a real hero,” Silke said. “And Jake.”

  “We might not have made it out if not for Jake,” I stated, hoping Mom would factor that against the issue that Jake DeAtley didn’t really exist.

  I didn’t care what his name was; I was simply happy that he was alive. I was equally happy that he’d heeded my call to watch my back, and I wouldn’t mind his sticking around to continue to do so.

  As a medical tech cleaned up my arm and bandaged the cut, I quickly told Mom and Norelli and Walker the edited version of what had gone down. No mention of vampires or of stabbing one with a crucifix or of decapitating the master. I figured by the time they dug out the remains, the M.E. wouldn’t be able to tell what was what. And the chain saw would be in a million pieces. If forensics could put it together and should ask me why it was there, I would shrug my shoulders and say that Blaise Allcock was a whack job and could have been planning on hacking apart the girls he’d murdered.

  Under the circumstances, I might have to tell any number of lies and I would do so in good conscience.

  But what about Jake?

  “What am I going to do about you?” I asked him quietly when we had a moment alone. “If you disappear now, that would raise suspicions, and an overly zealous Norelli might make it official to bring you in for questioning. But if you stay…we know Jak
e DeAtley isn’t your real name. What are you going to tell them?”

  “The truth. It’s Jake Kinsella, and I didn’t want the man responsible for my mother’s death figuring out who I was before I figured out who he was. Don’t worry, I’m going to stick as close to the truth as I can.”

  “What if Norelli asks you details about how your mother died?”

  “She burned to death. It was labeled suicide but I knew better. Don’t worry, my story will check out.”

  No sooner had he said it than Norelli appeared. “Time to play Question and Answer.”

  I took a deep breath and nodded.

  We left the scene to the firemen and headed for the Area 4 office where Jake and Silke and I would all be interviewed separately. I knew Silke could psychically eavesdrop and Jake…well, with his vamp-type hearing, he could probably hear me a block away. I was certain they would take their cues to verify my story.

  I rode to the area office in Mom’s official vehicle. “So what are we going to find when we get down there?” she asked.

  “A lot of debris, I suppose.”

  “Bodies?”

  “What’s left of them. Allcock, LaTonya, Thora.”

  “I hope there’s something to recover for Mrs. Sanford’s sake.”

  I didn’t, but I didn’t say so. “I think it’ll be enough that I can tell her LaTonya can rest in peace at last.”

  That was my story and I was sticking to it.

  Anytime an officer is involved in a homicide, a review board decides whether or not the officer’s actions were justifiable. I went into the meeting fighting trepidation. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I hadn’t killed anyone. Blaise Allcock had murdered those girls. And Blaise Allcock had been undead himself.

  Who in their right mind would buy into a tale of a vampire running amok?

  Until tonight, I hadn’t. And even now, I wanted to deny it, to find another explanation, one that appealed to reason.

  I must have told a convincing tale to the board, which included an Assistant Deputy Superintendent, an Assistant State’s Attorney, and someone from the Office of Professional Standards, because they believed me. Even so, it was a long process that lasted until dawn.

  As per department policy, I would get three days administrative duty and another visit with a department-approved shrink.

  I was confident that I could handle it this time.

  Mom and Silke were waiting for me when I came out into the hall, exhausted but feeling better about myself than I had in a long time. I knew who I was now. A good detective who didn’t belong at the academy teaching a gym class. A sister who was starting to appreciate her special connection with her twin. A daughter who was no longer going to be hostile to the mother who, when all was said and done, loved both of her daughters and stood by them.

  I was going to stop being angry.

  I was going to learn how to accept being wrong. Well, occasionally.

  I said, “You didn’t have to wait for me.”

  “We wanted to,” Silke said. “Everything okay?”

  “It seems so.”

  “I’m proud of you, Shelley.” Mom looked at me and made like she wanted to smooth down my hair or something. “You did everything right.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that, but I accepted Mom’s compliment graciously and gave her a hug that she returned.

  Silke said, “We thought we could all go out to breakfast.”

  “Sorry, I can’t. I still have a report to write up.”

  “I understand, Detective,” Mom, the commander, said. “Another time, then.”

  “It’s a date.”

  “I need to speak to Silke for a minute. Alone.”

  Mom nodded and told my twin, “I’ll wait for you outside.”

  Once Mom was out of earshot, I asked, “The fire…how did you do that?”

  “Do what?” Silke asked innocently.

  So that’s how we were going to play it for now. Okay. I could wait.

  Writing up the report was my pleasure, even though my accounting of what had happened was riddled with half truths. In the end, I got LaTonya Sanford’s murder book and closed her case with a veil of sadness cloaking me.

  At least she had her justice, and that gave me a huge amount of satisfaction. And I was confident I wouldn’t have those nightly talks with her anymore.

  By the time I was ready to leave, Norelli was back at his desk. “Is this the way you dress for work now, Caldwell?”

  I looked down at my clothes, filthy and ripped, and figured the rest of me looked worse. “I’m working undercover, pretending to be a down-and-out-CPD-detective.”

  Norelli barked a laugh as I walked out of the office, exhausted. I could think of nothing more appealing than showering and sleeping.

  Until I heard a deep voice say, “Need a ride home?”

  Turning, I smiled. “Jake.” He was still here. “Whose home?”

  “You name it.”

  “I guess it had better be my place. If I miss giving the cats breakfast, they won’t speak to me all day.”

  “Cats speak to you?” he asked, sounding disbelieving. As we headed for the doors, Jake looked around as if what we were saying was highly confidential. “Careful, someone might think you’re…you know…strange.”

  Laughing, I realized we were about to leave the building and it was broad daylight. I stopped short. “Um, can you…?”

  Jake put on a pair of sunglasses. “I can do anything you can do.” He opened the door for me. “I told you, I’m not a vampire. Does it really matter to you that I’m…well, different?”

  Different could be good, I decided. If I hadn’t been, I never would have found Silke in time.

  I shrugged. “You know, I’m a little odd, too. I’d say we make quite a pair.”

  Jake grinned at me and together we walked into the sun.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-1461-7

  Copyright © 2008 Harlequin Books S.A.

  The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:

  Embracing Darkness

  Copyright © 2005 Margaret L. Carter

  The Huntress

  Copyright © 2005 Chris Marie Green

  Urban Legend

  Copyright © 2004 Erica Orloff

  Hot Case

  Copyright © 2004 Patricia Rosemoor

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  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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