“When you awaken, you will be hungry. You are now vampire.”
“Don’t want to be a vampire. Want to go home.”
“You’ll never be able to return to your home. That life is over for you. I was lucky. I lived during a very primitive time in a culture that accepted who I’d become. I was made a living god.”
“Who made you?” Targ asked as his eyelids dropped.
“Camazotz, the world’s original vampire, the blood drinking demon of Xibalba. If he still exists, and he must, because I am still alive, he must be the oldest most powerful being on earth.”
Unable to remain conscious or absorb any more distressing information, Targ fell into a deep sleep.
Chapter 10
“I can feel the panther moving inside me,” Rickie said to his brother. “It cries for release. I want to run free through the jungle again.”
“We have a job to do, mi hijo. When it is done, we will go back to Guatemala and race through the mountain forests on the slopes of Acatenango and kill another peccary together.”
Rickie grinned. They stood in front of the Hotel 1000 on First Street, downtown Seattle. The sky was gunmetal blue and it was pouring. Rickie pulled up the collar of his leather Brazilian duster and hunched his shoulders as a Charger drove up. A tall black man with a shaved head and green eyes stepped out. Shivers flowed up and down Rickie’s spine. He smelled the shifter. He grabbed Tuco’s arm and squeezed.
“I know,” Tuco whispered. “He’s a shifter.”
“Do you think he’s a were-panther or some other kind of shifter?”
Tuco shrugged. “How could I know, brother? I’ve only been one a short time myself. I never knew they existed.”
Rickie laughed and shivered. “It’s opened so many doors in my mind. Shifters, vampires, what else could exist? I feel like I was blind and now I can see.”
Tuco nodded.
Jax stared at them out of suspicious eyes, lids half-mast, with a big frown. He opened the passenger door and tilted his head to examine them. “Valdavar brothers, yeah? What are you?”
Rickie grabbed his hand and pulled him into an embrace. “My brother,” he said in a soft voice. “We are all shifters. Are you a were-panther? I smell it on you.”
Jax shrugged out of Rickie’s embrace. “I was told there are no more were-panthers. My father said I must breed more shifters to replace those lost. You don’t exist.”
“We shouldn’t speak of this on the street,” Tuco said.
Jax shook his head as if to clear it of cobwebs. “I don’t get it. Where’d you come from?”
They all climbed into the black car and Jax gunned the engine, taking off in a roar of spinning wheels. Tuco sat in the back and Rickie in the passenger seat. Tuco touched Jax’s arm. “We only learned of our ability on the night of the last full moon when we shifted for the first time.” He shot a speaking glance in Rickie’s direction. There was no need for him to vocalize the thought. He wanted Rickie to stay quiet about the Sangue Cacadore. That was their secret alone.
“Are there other forms of supernatural creatures besides the weres?” Rickie asked.
Jax’s eyes narrowed and his lips thinned. “Oh, yes, more than you can imagine. There’s a whole other world to discover. Some of the creatures, like elves and fairies, are friendly, and then there are the vampires. They are the most evil creatures on the planet. They live forever and they kill humans for food. I’ve seen hundreds of them. I fought them and I’ve seen them kill. I now believe the killer we seek here in Seattle is vampire. I scented him in the alley where we found the last body. And I believe he took my partner for an offering to his perverted ideals.”
Shivering, Rickie reached for his twin’s thoughts. Since they’d shifted together, the psychic connection between them was much stronger. Tuco was appalled by Jax’s statement. He would be. He was a university professor, taught to believe in what he could see with his own eyes. The idea there was an entire world of creatures about which he had no knowledge would hit him very hard.
Tuco sank deeper into the backseat and pulled his collar high around his head. His eyes were blank, focused inward on his thoughts. Rickie sent him a wave of love. Tuco glanced at him from half-open eyes and the corners of his mouth twitched in a momentary smile.
Rickie turned to look out the window at the buildings of Seattle and the dreary drip of cold rain. This place was about as far as you could get from the jungles of Guatemala. As dark as it was, it seemed logical vampires would live here. He was awash in the scent of the shifter next to him. His brother was a part of him so he’d never experienced the odor of a strange shifter. Jax reeked of panther. And there was something else Rickie sensed. Jax was gay. Rickie’s gay-dar had sussed him out immediately. Rickie had been gay all his life. He was unbelievably sensitive to those with similar proclivities. It was as simple as a hand gesture and an expression that passed swiftly and was gone. But Rickie knew. This huge macho cop was like him.
“Your partner was taken?” Tuco asked from the back. “When?”
“Last night from a bar in Capitol Hill, the same bar as victim eight. I smelled the vampire in the bar and the alley. They smell like rotting meat covered by dying flowers.”
Rickie nodded. That was the same smell he’d scented on the cloak in his father’s trunk. Excitement flowed through him. There were vampires. They had true purpose. Their father’s cause was real. “What can you tell me about the killer?”
As Jax told him what they knew, Rickie formed a picture in his mind of the killer. It was something he did naturally. He was a profiler. He understood the minds of killers. He’d never questioned why he could do this. It was as simple as breathing. “Your killer has a well-defined purpose. Everything he does is carefully planned and mapped out in steps. He is driven and nothing will stop him except death. After Tuco examines the bodies, we might have a better idea of what his purpose is. The symbols and the mutilations are all part of a ritual. He has rules inside this ritual he will not deviate from. You said the man in the bar thought his name was Balloon?”
“That’s what he heard.”
Tuco leaned forward. “He might have heard wrong. Balam is the Mayan word for jaguar.”
Rickie pursed his lips. “Could be right. Sounds right.”
“I’ll call Martin and tell him what you said. But I doubt if the name will make a difference.”
Jax took them straight to the King County coroner’s office. Inside, a small Japanese man Jax introduced as Ken Ishimoto, started opening drawers and pulling back sheets. Tuco leaned over to examine the chest of the first victim. He was young, maybe early twenties. He had wavy blond hair and was tall and muscled like he worked out seven days a week. His abs rippled with carved muscles. The glyphs on his chest were clear. Tuco took a pad of paper out of his briefcase and sketched all three.
“Number one here,” he pointed with his pen. “This one is a crucial glyph, Hun Came, the first lord of the underworld. His name means one death. He’s king in Xibalba. And this last symbol is the glyph for Xibalba, the underworld. Hun Came was killed along with his partner Vucub Caquix by the famous hero twins, Xbalanque and Hunahpu in revenge of their father’s death at the hands of Hun Came and his buddy.”
“Hero twins?” Jax asked. “Like you guys, right?” And he laughed.
Tuco did not smile. “The hero twins are the greatest gods in Mayan history. Their story is legend. They’re supposed to be the ancestors of all Mayan rulers.”
They moved to the second victim. This one still had his enormous penis stuffed into his mouth. Tuco pointed. “Ritual humiliation.”
Rickie leaned over to look. “It might be a statement about the victim’s sexual orientation. They’re all gay, right?” He asked Jax.
Jax nodded. “At least we think so. There is a lot more leg work to be done to identify each victim and get a history. This one’s name is Torrence McCafferty. He lived with two guys on Seventeenth Avenue. They IDed the body and said he was gay.”
Tuco bent close to look at the carved symbols in Torrence’s chest. “Number two, Xiquiripat, Flying Scab, and then the symbol for Xibalba. There’s something else carved beneath this last glyph. Looks like naj tunich.”
“What’s that?” Jax asked. “I didn’t see that.”
“It’s quite small but definitely naj tunich.”
“So, what does that mean?”
Tuco stood up and rubbed his eyes. Jax thought the twins looked nothing like each other. Rickie was gay, no doubt there, and Tuco was, well Tuco was intense. They were both tall, had thick, dark-brown hair and the green eyes of the Sangue Cacadore.
“It literally means stone house. That can mean cave. But there are also a set of caves in Guatemala, deep caves, much of which are unexplored, called Naj Tunich. Mayan artifacts have been found there. Caves were thought to be the entrances to the underworld by all Mayans. Caves terrified them.”
Chapter 11
Targ’s eyes fluttered open. He was cold and alone in a stone coffin. His maker, Chan Balam, was gone. After stretching and feeling all the parts of his body, he pushed the heavy stone lid away as though it were a feather, flicking it onto the floor with a crash. He climbed out, sensing the presence of the sun setting behind the Pacific Ocean to the west. Would he always know where the sun was now that he was a monster? Targ hawked and spit. Not only a vampire but gay as well. He’d engaged in sex with a man and enjoyed it. For a moment, he couldn’t think which was worse, being a vampire or being gay. Either way, he was a monster.
He was naked, but that didn’t bother him. He had no cell phone or wallet. That was much worse than no clothes. The elevator took him to the main floor of the big house where he searched for his belongings. He came up empty, finally shrugging into a black shirt that was tight across his chest and arms, and slacks. Balam’s shoes wouldn’t fit him and his were nowhere to be found, so he went barefooted.
He wanted to get away, run as far as he could, but the craving was on him, the need. He knew somewhere in this house there was a human, a living breathing man with red blood pounding through his veins and he needed it—wanted it. He gulped, forcing down the hunger. The need that filled him was like an open wound in his soul. He needed to feed.
Instead of hunting down his victim or his maker, Targ found the front door and left. Pia would be so worried and he was worried about her; he’d been gone all night.
It was raining. He stepped into the rain and let it wash over him until he was soaked. The clean water made him feel better, as though it washed away both the stigma of homosexuality and being a vampire.
Balam’s house was on Lake Union. Targ headed for Capitol Hill. He’d find a phone and call Jax. He closed his eyes. Would Jax know what he was? His partner had senses Targ had never understood. Jax knew things he shouldn’t, sensed things. With his new perspective, Targ wondered if there wasn’t something supernatural about Jax.
He ran under I-5, found Broadway and started looking for a phone. He went into the Blind Owl, the bar Balam had taken him from, and asked the bartender to let him use the phone. The bartender smelled strange. His body odor was wrong. When Targ really examined him, he realized the man did drugs. His new body had its uses.
The bartender let him use the phone. He slid behind the bar and into the backroom. It hung on the wall. He dialed his house and no one answered. Where was Pia? He dialed Jax’s cell phone. His partner answered after one ring. “Sequeros.”
Targ swallowed and didn’t say anything. He was momentarily overcome.
“Hello, I know someone’s there. I can hear you breathing.”
“It’s me, Jax, Targ.”
“Where the fuck are you? I figured you were carved up by now. Did the killer take you?”
“Yeah. He didn’t kill me, he did something much worse.” Tears seeped out of Targ’s eyes. When he wiped them on the back of his hand, he was stunned to see blood. Vampires cried blood. Now that was weird and creepy.
“Where are you? I’ll come get you right now.”
“I’m in the Blind Owl. Where’s Pia?”
“She’s at Martha’s helping her out. I thought she’d be safe there.”
Targ felt a lump in his throat and fought for control. He couldn’t be crying blood in public. “Thanks, man.”
“No problem. I’m on my way.”
Targ went out into the bar and sat in a dark corner. The scent of blood all around him had him in a fog of hunger and need. He had to close his eyes and sit as still as he could to keep from grabbing the closest bar patron and burying his fangs in them. His fangs were out and would not disappear. He held his hand in front of his mouth to hide them.
When Jax walked in, Targ went to meet him. There were two men with him; the twins from Guatemala. He smelled them, Jax and the two twins. They reeked of something supernatural, something he was instinctively wary of.
Jax knew. He stopped two feet from Targ and held his hand out behind him to stop the twins. “What did he do to you? Oh, no, man, he turned you. Fuck me, you’re a frigging bloodsucker.”
One of Jax’s companions suddenly grew fangs, fur and claws. He lunged at Targ, growling as his clothes tore into shreds and he morphed into a panther. Jax grabbed the panther around his neck. “Stop,” he said in a voice so low Targ had to strain to hear. “You have just met your first vampire. You can’t be shifting in front of people like this.”
The growling stopped, but the huge black creature struggled to free itself from Jax’s grasp. The other man came to his aid. He cast Targ one long smoldering look and grabbed the panther. “Brother, listen to Jax. Shift back.”
The panther howled, broke free and raced into the street. The other man placed his hands on Targ’s shoulders. “I am sorry for my brother. He lost control.”
The man’s soft green eyes held Targ frozen. Something passed between them in the grip on his shoulders, something electric and exciting. Targ stared at his full lips and strong jaw line, the soft dark hair where it curled off his neck. “Who are you?”
The man turned his head and shuttered his huge eyes with heavy lids. “I am Enrique Valdavar and you are Targ Erikson. Now we have met.”
Targ lifted one hand slowly as though in a dream and touched Enrique’s face. “You’re beautiful.”
Enrique grinned, an impish smile that spoke volumes. “And you are too hot to handle. I find my first vampire, a man I am supposed to kill, and I fall in love. Life can be one enormous prank played by a god with a warped sense of humor.”
Targ looked at Jax whose mouth hung open. “Shut it, Jax.” Targ tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “You know what I’ve become. What are you? Are you like them?”
Jax grabbed him by the arm. “Come on, man, let’s get out of here. We can’t talk about shit like this in the middle of a bar.”
“We need to find Tuco,” Enrique said as he gathered his brother’s clothes from the bar floor.
All around them, bar patrons stared. The bartender with the red suspenders approached. He eyed Targ and the two shifters shaking his head. “And I thought I’d seen everything.”
“Remember, if that dude named Balam comes back here, call me,” Jax shot over his shoulder as they left.
“Oh, you got my attention now, bro. I’ll call.”
“Asshole,” Jax snarled as they walked into the rain.
They found Tuco wet and pissed off, hunkered down by Jax’s car. Enrique handed him his clothes. “That was truly awe-inspiring, my brother,” he said.
“I couldn’t help it,” Tuco snarled. “He is vampire. Can’t you smell him?”
Jax stared at Tuco’s bare chest, at the tattoo of the panther. He reached out as though in a dream and touched it. “Sangue Cacadore.”
Rickie grabbed Jax’s shoulder. “How do you know of the brotherhood?”
Jax opened his shirt and slid it off his shoulders. On his back was the ritual tattoo.
Rickie gasped. “We are brothers.”
Targ stared at Tuco’s and Jax’
s tattoos. They were in different locations, but exactly the same. “What’s going on?”
“We’re your enemy,” Jax said. “We were born with only one purpose, to kill all vampires.”
Targ closed his eyes. “I don’t want to be a vampire. I wanna go home.”
Jax slid his arm through Targ’s. “Get in the car. We’ll talk about this later.”
Targ jerked away from Jax, his gaze bouncing from Tuco to Jax and then stopping on Rickie who slid his hand under Targ’s arm. The man’s touch made Targ’s blood sing. He bent his head, closed his eyes and smelled Enrique’s hair. He reeked of shifter, a scent Targ would now never forget. But he also smelled of man, sun-kissed hair and skin on a beautiful day. Enrique stroked his face and whispered. “I should hate you, but I can’t. I want you as I’ve never before desired another.”
Targ swallowed. The smell of Enrique’s blood and his arousal was almost more than he could stand. A cloud of raw sexual desire enshrouded them. He wanted nothing more than to bury his cock in Enrique’s ass and his fangs in his neck.
“Stop it right now, Targ.” Jax’s voice broke the spell. “What the fuck’s wrong with you?” He demanded. “Control yourself. Get in the car and tell me what happened.”
The four climbed into the car. Jax had to force Targ to sit in the front. “Where did you go? We were freaking out.”
“I was taken by a Mayan priest name Chan Balam. He made me…” Targ swallowed. “He desired me. He wanted to have sex with me.” His voice broke. “I couldn’t help myself. I wanted it, too. While we were…while we were screwing, he bit me, drained me dry of every drop of blood. And then he brought me back by making me a vampire. I think he wants something from me. I was able to read that in his mind after I woke. He saved me from death for a purpose.”
“Can you take us to his house?”
Targ nodded. “I think that’s why he allowed me to leave. I woke at dusk and he was gone. Escaping the house was too easy. He believes I will come back with you.”
The Virgin Vampire Page 6