Jax shook his head. “Why would he want me?”
“You’re a shifter,” Tuco said. “A man in a panther’s body. He wants to sacrifice you to the last god of the Xibalba, the lord of it all, the jaguar king of the underworld. You’re as close to a jaguar in a man’s body as he’ll ever find.”
Targ nodded. “That sounds right to me.”
“We need you to take us to his home,” Jax said. “Was he there when you left? How’d you get away?”
“He wasn’t there. I think he wanted me to leave, to lead him to you.”
Jax immediately stared out the window into the busy streets of Capitol Hill. “Then he’s here, around us somewhere. He’s your maker. He can track you and find you whenever he desires.”
Targ gasped. “Oh God, I should never have called you. I should have destroyed myself.” He closed his eyes and let his head fall against the head rest. “But I couldn’t. Pia…she needs me.”
Jax patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, man. We can sense him. If he shows up, he’s the one who will get the surprise.”
Tuco snarled from the rear of the car. “I’ll tear him apart in my jaws.”
“No,” Jax said. “Never try to kill a vampire when you’re in your panther body. This body is good for one thing where they are concerned. We can smell them and track them. Vampires must be killed with the weapons of the Sangue Cacadore. Did you receive them?”
Tuco crossed his arms over his chest. “Swords and knives, the primitive weapons of the past. How can they work?”
“The best way to kill a vampire is to stake it with wood. The second-best way is to cut off its head. Guns and bullets, unless the bullets are silver, are worthless. A vampire as old as this one smells will be very hard to kill. He may even be able to daywalk.”
“I was supposed to be the offering to some god called Ahalmez. He needs to replace me,” Targ said in a weak voice. “He’ll be out hunting if he’s not tracking me.”
“The offering to God L, the jaguar god of the underworld, will be his final offering,” Tuco said. “He will make the other offerings first. He is on nine as you say, Targ, after that there will be three more. And then he will come after Jax.”
“He can find Targ at any time. He’s probably out hunting right now,” Jax said.
Targ leaned his head against the window. The blood hunger ate into his soul burning him with need. He turned his head toward Jax and his fangs snicked out. Embarrassed and horrified, he covered his mouth with his hand.
“First things first,” Jax said. “We need to feed Targ or eventually, he will jump one of us. The blood hunger is something a newly-made vampire can’t fight.”
Rickie held out his arm. “He can feed off me.”
Targ stared into Rickie’s eyes and felt a stirring in his crotch. His nostrils flared and he leaned toward the offered wrist.
Jax smacked Rickie’s arm away. “We need all of our strength to fight Balam. We’ll have to make a withdrawal from the blood bank.”
Chapter 12
Chan Balam crouched on the roof of the Capitol Central Apartments and stared into the street below. He was directly across from the Blind Owl. He saw his child enter and waited. Surely the gods would smile on him and deliver the shifter right into his hands.
Abruptly, a huge black panther burst from the bar, shifted back into a human and leaned panting against the fender of a Dodge Charger. Almost immediately, two men emerged leading Targ between them. Their auras shimmered—three shifters! Could they all be panthers?
Then he noticed. Two of the shifters were twins, identical twins. Surely, if one of the twins shifted into a black panther the other one did. He dropped to his knees and prostrated himself on the roof. The gods had delivered twin black panthers to him. There could be no more perfect offering. He chanted prayers of thanksgiving as he lay on his face for several moments.
The Mayan hero twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, their father and uncle were summoned to the underworld to play the Mayan ball game with the gods of Xibalba. They lost the game and were sacrificed, but the twin’s mother, who was pregnant with the twins, escaped Xibalba and the twins avenged the death of their father and uncle. The two men who triumphed over the underworld were twins. Twins were revered by his people. Balam could barely comprehend the enormity of his gift.
* * * *
Halfway down the block, something huge landed on the car’s roof. Jax stomped on the accelerator, shooting down the block as he avoided cars and the numerous pedestrians on Broadway at all hours of the day and night.
The wheels of the powerful car spun. Jax screamed and turned the wheel trying to break free. He could see the red eyes of Chan Balam in his rearview mirror, glaring at him as he lifted the car by the bumper keeping the rear wheels off the pavement.
Balam let the bumper go, flew to the back door and ripped it off. All three shifters morphed into panthers at once. Tuco hit Balam in the chest, knocking him onto the road while Jax and Enrique attacked simultaneously, tearing at his throat and head. Vampire blood, thick and viscous, sprayed them. This vampire was unbelievably strong. He opened his mouth and roared, grabbed Tuco by his ruff and threw him fifty feet.
In the back of Jax’s animal mind, he knew their case was hopeless. He shifted and went for the trunk, leaving Enrique alone on top of Balam. The vampire easily tossed Enrique aside and leaped to his feet. He was bleeding, half his throat missing. He scooped Enrique, who was still in his panther form, under his arm and prepared to leap to the nearest roof.
Jax grabbed a crossbow out of the trunk, aimed and fired. The bolt was tipped with silver. It smashed into the vampire’s chest. Balam dropped Enrique, opened his mouth wide and roared. With one hand clutching the shaft of the bolt, he leaped to the roof and disappeared.
Suddenly Targ gasped. “I must follow.”
Targ crawled out of the car and started after Balam. Both Valdavar twins had shifted back. They tried to stop Targ. “No, you can’t go after him,” Enrique said.
“He has to,” Jax said as he went back to the trunk. A huge crowd of curious onlookers closed in around the car gawking. “His maker is calling him.”
Jax snagged his whip out of the trunk. Al had made it for him, a wooden handle that was also pointed like a stake with a silver-thread thong. He cracked it once, snapping it, and slung it at Targ who was gathering himself to run. The long strands of silver, strong as a spider web, wrapped around Targ. Jax yanked it tight and Targ was snatched off his feet screaming.
Ignoring his nudity and the throngs of onlookers, Jax ran to Targ. “It burns, get it off me,” Targ screamed.
Targ’s skin smoked and sizzled where the silver touched him. “Get it off!”
Jax spoke softly into Targ’s ear. “I want to, Targ, but the impulsion to follow your maker will force you to hurt me or one of the twins. This is for your own good as well as ours.”
He lifted Targ to his feet. The tall blond vampire moaned and cried bloody tears. “It burns, please take it off.” Jax turned to the twins who were now dressed. “Hey, help me get him into the car.”
Enrique held Targ’s shoulders. “Take it off him, Jax. It’s hurting him terribly.”
“I know it is, but if I release him, he’ll hurt us and then follow the Mayan vamp. Now that the vampire no longer needs Targ to find us, he might kill him.”
Tears filled Enrique’s green eyes. “The pain is unbearable. Look at the burns. There must be something you can do. He’ll be scarred for the rest of his life.”
“No, he won’t,” Jax snapped. “Vampires heal fast. That Mayan bloodsucker probably already regrew his frigging face.” Jax shoved Targ into the back seat between Enrique and Tuco. “Don’t remove or loosen the whip.”
“Give me a blade and I will put him out of his misery,” Tuco snarled. “He disgusts me.”
“No!” Enrique put a protective arm around Targ’s shoulders. “We still need him to take us to the home of this vampire.” He paused and stared into Targ’s r
eddened eyes. “I could never hurt you,” he whispered. “It’s not your fault you’re a vampire.”
Jax drove the short distance to I-5 and headed north. Targ needed blood and Ken Ishimoto had the key to the morgue. The morgue connected through an interior door to the hospital blood bank. That was the only solution to the immediate need to feed Targ he could come up with.
Ishimoto had a condo in Mountlake Terrace on Lakeview Drive overlooking the Nile Temple Country Club. When they got there, he turned around in the seat. “Don’t let him out of the car, don’t release the silver restraints. I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?” Tuco asked.
“Targ needs food. This is the only way I know to feed him.”
There were lights on in Ishimoto’s condo when Jax knocked on the door. Jax heard music, pop music, it sounded like Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance.
The door opened a crack and at least ten balloons poured out, disappearing into the damp sky. An arm snaked out of a solid wall of brightly colored balloons and grabbed him. “My, you’re a hunk,” a husky female voice said.
Jax’s mouth flew open and was immediately covered by two lush lips connected to a redhead whose voluptuous body was mostly concealed behind balloons trapped between them. The kiss lasted far longer than Jax would have liked. He pushed her away and held her at arm’s length, doing his best not to notice the two swaying breasts playing peek-a-boo between a green, a purple and a blue balloon. Ishimoto’s living room was filled with balloons. Men and women, totally naked, engaged in sex which involved in many graphic and strange ways those balloons.
“Where’s Ken?” he asked the woman with his head averted. Two balloons popped and he jumped. The redhead giggled. When he turned it to avoid looking at her, he spotted Ishimoto rolling across the floor on a carpet of balloons with a plump blond. They giggled hysterically as four popped in rapid succession. Ishimoto rolled onto his back and the woman began massaging his dick between a canary-yellow balloon and an orange one. “Never mind.”
He waded through the roomful of balloons, shoving them aside as he stepped over a man masturbating with a pink balloon and pushed past a dude filling the balloons from a tank of helium. “Ken!” he yelled.
Ishimoto shoved the woman away “Who’s calling me?” He spotted Jax looming above him in a tornado of jiggling, wiggling, moving balloons. “Jax, what’re you doing here?”
Jax held his hands open. “What is this?”
“Looners, Jax. We’re looners. It’s harmless fun. I’m off, man. My time is my own.”
Jax peered around the diminutive Japanese. Ishimoto’s blond rubbed two balloons over her breasts while a slender brunette fondled her from behind. “Fun, huh?”
He grinned and rubbed the big red balloon across his crotch. “Wanna join us?”
Jax shook his head and with difficulty, closed his mouth. “I need the keys to the morgue. The two consultants from Guatemala have to go back and examine the bodies one more time.”
“It’s after two. Isn’t that a little strange?”
“I wouldn’t be using that word at the moment.” Jax pointed to the red balloon. “I’m working. Give me the keys.”
Ken rolled his eyes. “Wait a minute. I’ll get them.” He disappeared into a cloud of bobbling balloons.
Suddenly hands began massaging Jax’s butt. He leaped, turned around and found a handsome young man grinning at him. “Jax, what’re you doing here?”
Jax had no idea who he was. He lifted one eyebrow.
“Cameron, Cameron Jardin, I work in communications. Wanna party?” He snagged two balloons out of the air and popped them both. “This is such a blast.”
“I have a partner and I’m working. Where the hell did Ishimoto go?”
Ken reappeared and handed the keys to Jax. “That all you need?” He winked.
“See you on Monday.”
“Don’t let any of my balloons out,” he called after Jax.
Jax shot out the door. Balloon freaks, looners for God’s sake—even weirder than plushies.
He jumped back in the car and drove to the King County Coroner’s Office. Enrique and Tuco helped Targ out and into the blood bank while Jax found two bags of O-positive, popped the seal and handed them to Targ. “Drink, you need it.”
Targ stared for a moment at the blood.
“Drink, Targ, it’s getting late. You need it, believe me.”
“I know, but it’s gross and I’m in so much pain. Take the silver off me. I’ll be good.”
Jax patted his shoulder. “I really want to, Targ, but the compulsion to answer your maker’s call is on you. You’ll say anything and promise anything to get to him. Drink the fucking blood or I’ll pour it down your throat.”
Targ put the opening to his lips and sucked. Once he got started it took only seconds to drain both pints.
“That should hold him for a while,” Jax told the twins. “Let’s go.”
Back in the car with Jax behind the wheel, he got on I-5 again and headed for his home. Soon, Targ would need a place to hole up for the daylight hours. He hated to involve his family in this, but there was a freezer in his garage that would be perfect.
He was almost home when the phone rang. He used his Bluetooth to answer. It was Pia.
“Jax, Jax,” she said in a breathless voice. “It’s Martha, her water broke and she’s screaming at me. I need to drive her to the hospital.”
Targ moaned something unintelligible from the rear seat.
“Hang on, Pia. What, Targ?”
“Can’t drive worth a shit. Don’t let her do it.”
“Who? Pia?”
Targ moaned and nodded.
“Is that Targ? Is he okay?”
Jax felt like his head was spinning from going back and forth. “Targ is with me. He’s…he’s sort of okay. Listen, Pia, he said you can’t drive very well.” Targ moaned again from the back. “I have to drop him at my house and then I’ll come right over and get you and Martha and take you to the hospital.”
Pia wailed. “Hurry! She’s on the couch screaming.” Jax’s enhanced hearing picked up Martha’s shrieks of pain in the background. He mentally flinched. He and Shelly were birth coaches.
“I live close, I’ll be there shortly. Hold her hand and tell her to breathe.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Pia said.
“No, tell her to remember her coaching.”
Chapter 13
Jax pulled the Charger up to his garage. He and Shelly had moved into a townhome close to the school where Shelly taught. He turned off the engine and told the twins to take Targ inside.
He ran up the stairs and woke Shelly. “Grab Emily. We have to get to Martha’s as fast as possible. She’s in labor.”
Shelly dressed fast, had Emily ready and stood by the front door waiting. When he saw Targ, he clapped his hand over his mouth. “What happened?”
“Targ’s had a bad couple of days,” Jax said. “He’s going to have to stay in the garage for the daylight hours, if you get my drift.”
Emily’s eyes opened wide and suddenly she hissed. Her hands turned to claws and she struggled in Shelly’s arms.
“He’s a vampire, isn’t he?” Shelly said.
Jax nodded. “Emmy can sense it. She’s trying to shift.” He took her from Shelly and hushed her. “Emmy, you know Targ. He’s been turned into a vampire but we have to help him. Stop the change. You can do it. Concentrate.”
Slowly Emily’s claws changed back into small hands and her whiskers disappeared. Jax kissed her cheek, handed her back to Shelly and kissed him. “You don’t know how glad I am to see you. What a night.”
Shelly stroked his hair. “Love you.”
“Ditto.”
Jax returned to the big problem of the moment—what to do with Targ while he raced to Martha’s to get her to the hospital. “Enrique, I have to do this. We’re Martha’s birth coaches and … well there are some strange complications surrounding this birth. I have to be there. You a
nd your brother stay here. Keep Targ in the silver restraints. When it starts to get light, he needs to go into the freezer.”
Enrique nodded. “I’ll be glad to do this for you and for Targ.”
Tuco stared at his twin. “I will not babysit a vampire. We should have followed Balam immediately instead of feeding this monster and worrying about his welfare. He’s a vampire. If you leave me alone here, I will kill him. The desire to do this fills me. I won’t be able to stop.” He growled and his entire body shimmered. For a moment, he wavered between his panther and human forms. With a huge groan, he pulled himself together and rushed out the front door right past Shelly.
Jax grabbed his hair. Frustration was making him crazy. He had to get to Martha. “Can you watch him alone, Enrique? It’s a huge responsibility. You can’t free him. We’ll never find out where the killer lives.”
Enrique nodded. “I can do this. Go. Take your friend to the hospital. I guess Tuco can go with you.”
“He’ll have to. I don’t have time to take him to your hotel and I can’t leave him here. We need Targ.”
* * * *
Rickie’s tender heart went out to this man handed an unsavory plate to eat through no fault of his own. He was in pain from the silver and he was suffering.
Rickie’s forte was feeling other people’s emotions. His empathy was what allowed him to be a great profiler. He understood evil and the motivations of the worst killers in the world. He absorbed this evil and looked beyond it. In this way, he was able to determine what motivated them to commit the crimes they did.
Targ wasn’t evil. He was a good man who had been forced to assume the dark cloak of a vampire. Rickie went to him, sat down beside him and placed an arm around Targ’s hunched shoulders. “I know you feel your world has become unbearable, Targ, but many people care about you and love you.”
When Targ looked up, there were bloody tears in his eyes. “Who’s gonna love me now? I’m a killer, an evil being from children’s worst nightmares. Pia will hate me. My little Pea Pod. I’ve lost her.” He sobbed. “The silver burns, please take it off.”
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