Cunningham, Pat - Legacy [Sequel to Belonging] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Pat Cunningham

  “He died,” Jeremy said. “About thirty years ago, in the same hunt where Wallace had his accident. That’s all I’m going to say. If Wallace wants you to know any more, he’ll tell you himself.”

  “No hurry,” she muttered. She didn’t need any more reasons to suffer sleepless nights.

  Gus entered, balancing a precarious armload of notebooks and file folders. Annie and Wallace trailed him, Annie with a tray of plates, cups, and silverware, Wallace with a coffeepot and a blueberry cheesecake.

  Gus claimed the easy chair across from the couch and dumped his load of papers onto the end table beside it. “Okay, kiddies, gather ’round. It’s story time. Tonight’s thrilling tale of mystery is entitled, ‘Why is this innocent young lady under attack by vampires?’”

  “Maybe because she’s not so innocent?” Wallace suggested in a mutter.

  “Maybe you should keep a civil tongue in your head until all the facts are known.” Annie dished up slices of cheesecake while Wallace poured coffee. “Let’s kick off with Wally offering a blanket apology to everyone in advance. That’ll save us some time.”

  “It’s my job to be suspicious of people.” He filled Colleen’s cup and offered it to her along with a fangless smile. “No offense.”

  She accepted the coffee silently and used it to wash down the acid retort on her tongue. Jeremy hugged her against him and made a face at Wallace. Wallace ignored him.

  Annie cut herself a generous slice and sat in a rocking chair with it. Wallace didn’t bother with either coffee, cheesecake, or seats. He remained standing, the better to pace. When he didn’t pace he was utterly still in that uncanny way of his. Colleen didn’t want to look at him because she found it unnerving. She also found she couldn’t help herself.

  “Our story begins,” Gus said, “about twenty-odd years ago, give or take a few. I suspect it starts even earlier, but we’ll get to that in a minute. I need to gather data and establish bona fides. Colleen, you were raised in a commune, you said? The Woods and the Waters?”

  She nodded. “They weren’t anything outstanding. A bunch of hippies trying to recreate the sixties. A back-to-nature thing.”

  “Somebody seems interested. Wally, I looked into those abductions you mentioned. Theresa Lake we already know about, and Colleen admitted she knew her. I got info on the other two. Carrie Oaks and Kitsune Mori. Both twenty-five, both born in Lamont, California. Then there’s a gap for the first several years before they turn up in foster care. Is your spider sense tingling yet?”

  “Kit?” Colleen sat up. The name was unusual enough to stick in her edited memories. The vision of a bright-eyed Asian girl with a sunny smile popped into her head. “I think you’re right. I think I knew her. We called her Kit, or sometimes Foxy. Her name meant fox in Japanese.”

  “How many kids did you grow up with?” Gus asked. “How many were at the commune?”

  “Not that many. A dozen or more. I don’t really remember. I blocked a lot of it out.”

  “Because of how it ended?”

  Colleen fell silent. She noticed Wallace had gone unnaturally still again, watching her intently. “It’s okay,” Jeremy murmured in her ear. “You talk when you’re ready.”

  “We’ll get back to that one,” Gus decided. He flipped through his papers. “I’ve got a list here of the members, the survivors and, um, the rest. The authorities reported eighteen children, all under the age of twelve. And all—” He consulted the paper again then looked pointedly at Colleen. “Female.”

  “What, no guys?” Wallace said. “What was this, one of those New Agey chick communes? We’re sick of men, so we’re moving to the woods, that kind of thing?”

  “I never thought about that before,” Colleen said. “No. There weren’t any boys. I remember when the Brenners introduced me to Michael, my foster brother. I remember thinking what a weird-looking girl he was. I knew on some level boys had to exist, but I never actually met one until I was almost nine.”

  “If there were no men, where’d the kids come from?” Jeremy wanted to know.

  “Of course there were men,” Colleen said. “We didn’t see much of them. They came after dark, after we were in bed. They didn’t live at the commune with us. At least, I don’t think they did. I guess they must have been at work or somewhere. Somebody was taking care of us. Somebody paid the bills. Nobody’s mom had a real job that I can recall.”

  Annie exchanged a look with Gus, like they knew more than they were letting on. “What about your dad, hon? Do you remember him?”

  “No.” That she was firm on. “Mom never talked about him. I don’t think he was at the commune. Mom never pointed him out.”

  “He didn’t try to get custody of you later on? You never tried to track him down?”

  “How could I? I don’t even know his name. If she didn’t tell me while we were there, she sure wasn’t going to afterwards.”

  Colleen’s gut roiled. They were looking at her, the way strangers always looked at her once they’d heard the story. Somehow, some way, they always heard the story, and they always gave her That Look.

  “She was committed, okay? She wasn’t that stable to start with. Come on. She raised me in a commune in the woods with a horde of other slackers. Is that stable? Is that what a normal mom does with her kid? After those creeps attacked the place, she lost it completely. They put her in the nuthouse in Sacramento. She was in and out of asylums for the rest of her life. I’d go up to visit, and she wouldn’t want to see me. She said her real daughter was dead, and I was some kind of changeling. A monster. One time she came at me with a kitchen knife. You have that in your notes?”

  Her outburst ended on a sob. She hid her face against Jeremy’s shoulder. His comforting arms and soothing murmurs had no effect on her misery. All this time she’d been so successful in blocking it out, and then these sweet-faced, supposedly well-intentioned new friends of hers went and dredged it up. For what? What did any of this have to do with vampires trying to kidnap her?

  Annie’s hands joined Jeremy’s on Colleen’s back and shoulders. She perched her middle-aged spread on the arm of the couch. “I’m sorry, hon. We’re not trying to rake you over the coals here. We’re trying to help. To do that, we have to know everything.”

  “You didn’t need to know that,” Colleen mumbled into Jeremy’s shoulder. “You didn’t have to dig it up.”

  “We didn’t,” Gus said. “It was in Allen’s notes. Most of the survivors ended up in psychiatric wards. We didn’t see your name on the roster, so we needed you to double-check. Stupid me, I forgot you’re adopted. Of course your current name’s not on here.”

  “Where’d you get a list?” Wallace said.

  “I didn’t. Allen had the list. I got everything when he died. His library, his case files, the tabs he kept on other slayers’ cases. Just because he couldn’t take the field himself doesn’t mean he didn’t follow the scores.”

  Colleen lifted her head away from Jeremy enough to ask, “Allen?”

  “Our mentor,” Annie said. “Dr. Allen Neuman. He was a vampire slayer turned psychotherapist. Specifically, our therapist.” She indicated Wallace, her husband, and herself. “He trained us and made us a team.”

  “The Wizard,” Gus added. “He was the real Giles of our group. He even looked a little like the actor, except he had a Midwestern accent. I went through his notes after Wally called, to see if anything like this might’ve happened before.” He tapped his finger on the cover of a thick file folder. “He had quite a bit on the Woods and the Waters, much to our surprise.”

  “Why?” It came out close to a wail. Colleen didn’t care. “Why would anybody care about some stupid commune?”

  Annie patted her arm. “We were hoping you could tell us.”

  “Well, I can’t. I don’t remember anything. I grew up in the woods with a bunch of hippies until the neighbors came along and burned us out. That’s all I know. For God’s sake, I was eight years old.”

  She’d barely sobbe
d out the last word when Wallace appeared before her. She didn’t see him move. She simply blinked, and he was there. He used a tone he probably thought was sympathetic. “We really hate to do this to you, sweetheart, but you’re all we’ve got. Maybe that commune wasn’t as innocent as you remember. Survivalists like to hide out in the woods, too. So do homegrown militias and terrorists. Maybe your dad was David Koresh, and that’s why your mom wouldn’t talk about him. What about those guys? The mystery men who only showed up at night?”

  “Yeah,” Jeremy said. Realization dawned in his voice. “Who else do we know only shows up at night?”

  Colleen had already leaped ahead of him. Her childhood memories churned within her, sharpened by their prodding. Wallace’s superhuman speed brought it all to the fore. The daddies at the commune had moved just like Wallace—silent, graceful, given to sudden bursts that turned them into blurs. They even smelled like him. Their scents had held those same undercurrents of blood.

  In spite of her best efforts the weakened wall collapsed, and everything came together.

  Her fist crammed into her mouth as if all by itself. “Oh God,” she moaned around it. “The daddies. The men. They were vampires. They were all vampires.”

  Chapter 10

  Once again, Colleen found herself the center of attention, just like when she was a child. The only difference this time was these people were alive. Most of them, at least. Jeremy held tight to her as if he would never let her go. Annie had crowded onto the couch next to them with her maternal arms around them both. Gus stood by the armrest with his hand on Colleen’s shoulder. Wallace stood apart. Colleen felt him watching her, his mind shut off from hers, his face unreadable.

  “Are you sure?” Gus asked gently. “You were just a little girl, and it was a long time ago. We’ve all got vampires on the brain right now. We don’t want to promote any false memories here.”

  “It’s not false memories or suggestion. I blocked it out, but I remember now. The men only came at night. Their voices made my skin crawl. Their touch was so cold. They moved—” She looked up at Wallace. “They moved like you.”

  And like Jeremy, she realized. He possessed that same inhuman grace but at human speed, a vampire in slow motion. No wonder she’d been attracted to him, to both of them. They embodied the image of the men she’d grown up with and what her child self had imprinted on. Men who weren’t human, or even truly alive.

  Whatever showed on her face caused Wallace to move away and begin pacing again. Gus returned to his easy chair and his stack of files, leaving Colleen to Annie and Jeremy’s desperate attempts at comfort.

  “You knew this already, didn’t you?” Colleen accused Wallace.

  “He didn’t,” Gus said, “but I had a good idea. Not seeing your name on the roster is what threw me off. You know who those folks were who burned out your commune?”

  “I always figured it was some kind of law enforcement agency. They thought we were a cult or survivalists and that we had weapons or something.”

  Gus shook his head. “It wasn’t any government strike force or police action. It was slayers. They went to kill the vampires and rescue the women, but things got out of hand.”

  “Slayers?” All of a sudden, Annie’s arms around her didn’t feel so maternal any more.

  Annie must have felt her stiffen, because she hastened to reassure her. “We weren’t part of it, hon. Gus and I were out of the biz by then.”

  “We heard about it, though,” Gus said. “Allen was still alive back then, and he kept us all up-to-date. Mostly we followed slayer activity because of Wally there. You weren’t in that mob scene, were you?”

  “You kidding me? It happened after I got too close to my work. They wouldn’t have been too thrilled to have me along. I probably heard about it but didn’t pay much attention. LA was my turf in those days.”

  “Same thing here, sort of,” Jeremy said. “I knew I’d heard the name Woods and Waters somewhere before. It was at home. Vampires like to trade horror stories about slayer attacks. It’s like telling ghost stories around a campfire. I know they talked about it, even years after it happened, but I didn’t really listen.” He drew Colleen closer against him. “I wish now I had. I wish I could have warned you about all this somehow.”

  “You didn’t know.” Vampires. How could anyone, child or adult, prepare themselves for that? She squirmed even tighter against him. Annie gave her back a final pat, got up, and returned to her rocking chair.

  “We weren’t really a commune, were we?” Colleen said. Her eyes pleaded with Jeremy for any answer other than the truth. “The vampires were holding us prisoner.”

  “It looks that way,” he said. “From your description, I don’t think your mom and the others were actual servants. It sounds more like a blood bank.”

  “What’s—” she started, then stopped herself. The term was pretty self-explanatory.

  Wallace took it upon himself to elaborate anyway. “Just what it sounds like. The vampires keep a herd of humans so they always have a meal on hand. Beats having to hunt all the time.” He stopped pacing and stared at her hard. “Any of them ever bite you?”

  “I don’t remember.” Her hand crept to her throat. She recalled the men fussing over her. Never pain of any kind or the touch of teeth. “No. I don’t think they did.”

  “Too little,” Wallace snarled. His eyes flashed crimson. “They don’t bite kids. Not enough blood to make it worth it.”

  “A blood bank explains the girls-only rule,” Gus added. “As long as vamps can dodge stakes and sunlight, they can live forever. We poor humans are more finite. Girls grow up to be women, and women reproduce.”

  “Like cattle.” Colleen shuddered. “They bred our moms for blood. To who? There weren’t any men there. Living men, I mean.”

  “Guys in bars. That’d be my guess,” Wallace said. “The bats would’ve had the women under control. Send a chick into town whenever she was ripe, with orders to be fruitful and multiply. Kick-start the next generation.”

  “What if she had a boy?” That popped out before Colleen realized that answer, too, was obvious. Wallace’s crimson eyes flared up, and he snarled at her so viciously, she cowered against Jeremy. Jeremy shifted his body slightly, as if to shield her from his lover’s rage.

  “Wallace, c’mon,” he said. “This is all new to her.” His voice deepened in warning. “Let it go.”

  “Oh-kay,” Gus said to Wallace’s rigid back. “The only names we’ve got are female. Hence, the living occupants. Colleen, hon, any idea how many vampires there were? I’ll take a guesstimate. Whatever you can give me.”

  “Does it matter? They burned the place down.” That awful memory had persisted through decades of denial, though she’d managed to blot out the terror and the screams. “Maybe it was a prison, but I didn’t know that then. They didn’t have to burn it. They could have just used their stakes or whatever.”

  “Fire’s extra insurance,” Jeremy said with a curious hitch in his voice. “It’s one of the few things that can kill a vampire. They would have burned the buildings just to be thorough. Make sure they caught the whole flock. It’s how they are.” That last came out clipped and angry. He started slightly, shocked at himself, and shot apologetic looks at Annie, Gus, and Wallace. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Gus said mildly. “In this case, though, it looks like they caught more than their targets. At least five of the women and three of the children died. I’m sorry, Colleen. It wasn’t intentional, like that’s any consolation.”

  Colleen eyed the notes in his hand. “It didn’t even work, did it? They didn’t get all of the vampires. Some of them escaped, and now they’re after the kids. Me and those other girls. That’s what’s happening, isn’t it?”

  “That’s what we figure,” Annie said gently. “I’m really sorry, sweetie.” Jeremy gave her a squeeze.

  “Okay,” Gus said. “We know it’s vampires. We know they’re after you and your playmates. We’ll assume
they’re trying to recreate their blood bank, so they’ll want to keep the girls alive. They’ll have to hole up somewhere. Where would they take them?”

  “Back to the commune?” Jeremy suggested.

  “Not likely,” Wallace said. “Bats won’t go back to a place a slayer’s hit. Even if it was twenty years ago, they’ll stay clear.” Annie and Gus nodded agreement. “It’ll have to be a remote location, with room for a flock along with the captives.”

  He paced while he talked. Colleen found she couldn’t stop watching him. When she glanced at Jeremy, she discovered he was also following Wallace’s jungle-cat stalk from one side of the room to the other. He reminded her of a sunflower, his face forever turned toward the brightest star in his sky.

  “How many possible victims are we talking here?” Wallace said.

  “At least fifteen of the girls survived.” Gus held up a sheaf of paper marked with meticulous printing. “Good thing we’ve got a list. And a participant.”

  Jeremy bristled. “You’re not using Colleen as bait.”

  “Yes, they are,” Colleen said. “If that’s what it takes. I won’t live looking over my shoulder or fighting off voices in my head. I want this done.”

  Wallace showed off his fangs. “Atta girl. Let’s see the list.”

  They all left their seats to cluster around Gus and the sheet of paper he held. Colleen surprised herself with how many she recognized. Her heart clenched at the stark-black Xs beside eight of them. Deceased. Tsubomi Mori’s name carried an X. Kitsune’s mom. Colleen pressed her hip against Jeremy’s. He pressed back.

  “What about the moms?” she asked. “Will the vampires go after them, too?”

  “I’m guessing no,” Gus said. “If any of those women are still around, they’d be in their forties or fifties by now. Near the end of their breeding cycles.”

  Colleen’s mouth tightened. She didn’t say anything.

  “Here,” Wallace said at her shoulder. “Colleen Forrester. That you?”

  “It used to be,” she murmured. She tapped the name above it—Abby Forrester—with a shaking finger. “You might as well mark an X next to Mom’s. She died three years ago.” In a state institution, raving about monsters that came in the night and a child who wasn’t her daughter. Colleen squeezed her eyes shut against the sting of tears.