Stacy took a sip of coffee and pondered. That made sense. Sort of. “All right, but what has that got to do with me?”
He hesitated as though debating what he wanted to reveal.
“Trust goes both ways, you know,” she added.
“This isn’t the first rogue we’ve had to eliminate in this area.” His words tumbled out, spilling out on top of one another. “It’s the third in the last six months. And all of them except Mick were way too young to go rogue.”
Wow.
“No one knows what I’ve done yet. That you still know who and what I am. I’m not sure of the consequences of that,” he continued, the fear in his gaze real and terrifying. “But I need your help. Maybe you could figure out why these vampires are going rogue. You’re a scientist. A Specialist in Blood Bank. A blood banker and a forensic chemist.”
A huge two-hundred-and-forty-watt light bulb went on inside her head. She sat back in her chair and breathed. “You need my science.”
“Yes. I’m afraid we’ve never really taken a medical interest in our existence.”
“Then you need my friend Tori, not me,” Stacy said, sure of her answer. “She’s a pathologist.”
“No, I need you. As a forensic chemist, you’re also a cop. You know what it means to catch the bad guys. You understand the need to protect your race. The same way I need to protect mine.”
Without conscious thought, she played with the rim of her mug. “I guess I do. I’m also guessing there’s more behind the request.” She stared at him. “I think you’d better explain.”
“The rogue that has your scent, the one searching for you, was my adopted father. His name is—sorry was—Mikhail. And he was way too young to begin turning rogue, just like the others. My guess is that something made him turn. Some kind of poison, some kind of manipulation to the blood he consumed.”
“And you want me to find out what that is?”
“In return, I’ll keep you alive. For the few days it takes.”
She laughed. “You’re right. You really don’t know anything about science. It may take a whole lot longer than a few days.”
He winced. “Then, it takes what it takes.”
Stacy heard the sincerity in his voice and realized he meant business. “And in the meantime? Am I allowed to go out?”
“As long as it’s daylight, yes. The rogue won’t risk being seen and will have to wait until dark to feed again.”
That was reassuring. “And you?”
“I’ll be waiting right here when you return,” he smiled.
His smile, part hopeful, part reverent, part plain old hot, reached deep inside to the place of need she tried never to let out. For if she did, she’d have to acknowledge the complete, utter, loneliness of her life.
“And if I don’t return?”
He leaned forward, wrapping his hands around the top of a chair as if to keep them from breaking something. “You’re dead, and that’s all there is to it.”
“Comforting,” she replied without an ounce of emotion in her voice.
“It was meant to be.” There was no humor in his tone either.
“And if I survive?” Here comes the kicker, ladies and gentlemen. “Are you just going to make me forget you again?”
He hung his head between his shoulders.
Stacy drew in a harsh breath. “Thanks.”
“That’s the way it has to be, Stacy.”
At least, he sighed.
“What are my chances?”
“Of surviving?”
She nodded.
“Me. I’m your only hope. You saw what those three bullets didn’t do.”
“Not a damned thing.” A rock formed in her belly and fell to her knees. “And if you fail?”
“Then we’re both dead, I’m afraid.”
Chapter Six
Stacy
Dead. Living dead.
Stacy reached up to touch the scrapes on her neck. Because these were real, she took her coffee down to the bulkhead and sat, trying to make sense of the rest. Chaz followed but not too close, standing guard on the deck above her. She glanced back. His feet were planted shoulder length apart as he stood guard. His posture seemed natural, and it made her wonder.
He could hear her thoughts unless he blocked them. She forced a picture into her mind where her bullets did kill the rogue and turned to watch his reaction. He hid his feelings well.
“I wouldn’t play that game if I were you. Some of my compatriots are quick to anger and not prone to remorse.”
“Then, get out of my head and stay out.”
“Stop shouting your thoughts, and I will.”
Shouting them? Suddenly she realized that thoughts and emotions were intertwined. The more upset she got, the louder she ‘shouted.’ So, Stacy stared at the water lapping at the wood planks of the bulkhead and tried to apply reason to the last twenty-four hours.
Vampires don’t exist. Vampires do exist.
All right, time to use the scientific method. Vampires don’t exist. Therefore, this is simply a nightmare. Stacy pinched the skin on her arm. “Owww.”
No dream. Therefore, vampires do exist, and one was standing on her deck. Footsteps crunched against the gravel behind her. Stacy whirled around, and Chaz was gone.
“Captain Jeremy Pritchard, Third Continental Regiment, at your service.” He bowed. “Please call me Pitch.”
Ahhh. The man from last night. “Where’s Chaz?”
He stepped closer, lifting his brow, a sardonic smile growing on his face. “You know where.”
“Huh.” A picture entered her mind of the thing that tried to bite her, patches of skin sloughing off, long teeth hanging over its bottom lip.
“Stop. Please. Don’t do that,” Pitch strangled out. “He was my father.”
Surprise stayed any remorse she might have felt. “You could see the picture I made?”
He shook his head. “No. I didn’t need to. Your description…” His voice trailed off. “He’s not a monster.”
Stacy frowned and turned back to the water, drawing both knees up to her chin. “He is now.”
“I wish you could’ve known him. You’d understand why this is so hard for all of us to comprehend.”
“Any harder than for me to comprehend your reality—who and what you are?”
He snorted. “I suppose not.”
Stacy played with some stones then brushed the sand off her hands. “I don’t want to thank you, but thank you for cleaning my gun.”
“I didn’t mind. Kept me from having to pay for trashing a dive hotel room.”
“Rinkleman’s? We used to call it Rinky’s for rinky-dinky-do. You know. For— they charge by the hour.”
“I understand.” Was his tone just a bit lighter? “I slept in the chair.”
“Copy that.” She shifted to keep him within her eye line, letting her legs fall over the edge of the wood. “Would you like to sit?”
He opened his mouth, his jaw hanging, and lifted his eyebrows until they were nearly in his forehead. “I’m not used to having this kind of conversation with a human.”
For a moment, Stacy wondered what kind of conversations he did have. Then she shook her head. “Look, Chaz already told me that I have no real way to protect myself, so I’m going to have to go on faith that what he said was true. You don’t want to harm me.”
He bowed. “Thank you for your offer, but I haven’t fed yet. It’s better that I don’t.”
Whoa! “All right then.” Stacy decided to change the subject. “Continental Army, eh? Did you serve with General Washington?”
“Actually, no. I served under Colonel James Reed. You see, as a vampire, I’ve had to train myself to only take what was necessary to survive. The blood of a battlefield? Not a great place to be, especially for someone so young. The smell.” He shook his head and stepped up to the bulkhead so she wouldn’t have to twist to talk to him. “Just like this water. Very fishy.”
“Chaz told me you have an in
credible sense of smell.”
“When men die on a battlefield, that’s one you don’t forget.”
Stacy was used to crime scenes, not carnage. “I can’t imagine.”
“So now you know why I wasn’t in the infantry. Actually, I was a spy.”
Somehow that made sense. “The water is from the bay. Kind of just sits.”
Throughout their entire conversation, Stacy had the feeling they were speaking on more than one level. So she addressed the underlying thread.
“Chaz said there was nothing either of you could do. I can only equate what I saw, and what attacked me, to a rabid animal. There’s no reasoning with it. A rabid animal is a danger to all, people and animals.” She paused to think about it. “And I even suppose other vampires. It needs to be put down for everyone’s safety.”
“I know,” he said, his words coming out strangled.
“Chaz said someone or something caused your friend, sorry father, to go rogue.”
A crunch on the stones had them both turning. Chaz frowned at her.
“Did he now?” Pitch asked.
“Pitch, listen.” Chaz reached out to Pitch, but his friend simply stared. “I didn’t tell you because I don’t want you to go off half-cocked.”
Stacy watched them carefully.
“So you knew Mick was in trouble?”
“No. Of course not. He sent me some pictures of an abandoned estate. I still don’t know if there’s a connection. What I do know, and so do you, is that he’s going to come back for her. And that we’d have a better shot at stopping him at my place, not here.”
“Yeah. Too open.” Pitch bowed his head. “Ma’am.” Then he walked over to Chaz. “I have your back. As always.”
Chaz hugged him and clapped him on the back. “Thank you.”
The sound of stones mashing together sounded as Pitch left. “Is he going to feed?”
“Yes.”
Chaz looked at odds with himself. One minute he seemed to know exactly what he wanted to do, then he didn’t.
“Something’s wrong. What is it?”
“I need to give you Lethe. You can’t know about any of this.”
“I thought you said you needed my help.”
“I know what I said!” He stood next to her before she could even blink. “I can’t put you in that kind of danger. You’ll be better off acting normally. Pitch and I will be with you every step of the way. We’ll get Mick. You’ll get your life back.”
“That’s very kind of you, but you need my help. I’m a big girl. I can make my own decisions.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
Stacy picked up a particularly large stone and hurled it, where it crashed against the opposite bulkhead then plunked into the water. The sound echoed down the lagoon. “You can, and you will.”
He shook his head.
“I’m still a police officer sworn to public safety. My duty is to protect. I use my knowledge, my brains, and my expertise to catch criminals so they can’t harm anyone else. Sound familiar?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I can’t let you put your life on the line. My job is to protect also.”
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one,” she answered, quoting one of her favorite characters in one of her favorite sci-fi series.
“Good line. No longer applicable.”
Stacy slammed her hand down on the bulkhead. “Don’t you understand? I have to make amends somehow. I have to do something—anything—so that Jim didn’t die in vain. You won’t let me tell the truth, at least give me this chance to redeem myself.”
He looked ready to reach out and shake her. “So you can die too?”
“If that’s my fate.”
He barked out a bitter laugh as his arms fell to his sides. “You know nothing about fate.”
“And you do?”
“After nearly eight hundred years of being a Paladin? Yes, I do. Fate sucks. Fate isn’t kind. Fate isn’t predictable. The moment you think you know what’s going to happen, bam! Fate’s a fickle bitch and definitely not to be trusted.”
Stacy sat back and stared up at him, surprised by his answer. “Wow. You haven’t been very happy as a vampire, have you?”
“My happiness or lack thereof is not the issue here. I’m beginning to think you have a death wish.”
He looked like he wanted to start pacing, but the edge of a bulkhead wasn’t the place for that kind of exploit.
“Far from it. But I do have a duty. I can’t change what happened, and by putting together that cover-up, I can’t tell anyone the truth. No one would believe me.” Stacy sucked in a deep breath, letting the air out slowly and stood. “But I can do everything in my power to make sure no one else dies.”
“Duty,” he said. “I have a duty, too, to protect my race. We have a Council of Elders. They may decide you’re a liability. If they do, I won’t be able to stop them from killing you. Now, do you understand?”
Stacy twisted to stare at the water again. “I believe that what I’ve done with my life was for a reason. If so, it sure makes sense now. I mean, c’mon. Don’t you think it’s a little odd that I gave up blood banking to become a forensic chemist? And a cop? Kinda surprised me too. But it all felt right—every moment. So please don’t take this moment away. Give me the chance to do what I’m meant to do. Fate simply dictates an outcome. Destiny reaches an outcome with purpose. Let me fulfill my destiny.”
“And if I can’t protect you?”
“Then buy me some time, so I can help you. Let what time I have left have meaning.”
“What time you have left? Are you crazy? How can you accept what I’ve said, what I’ve done, what I am, so easily?”
Was that what she was doing? Simply accepting her fate? Stacy wondered. “When I was a little kid, the whole world spread out in front of me. I thought I could do anything. A drunk driver changed that.” Stacy couldn’t help the images flooding her mind.
“I’m sorry,” Chaz choked out.
“So don’t think for a second that I don’t know what fate is.” She swung around and looked straight into his eyes. “You took what I said wrong. What I meant was until I have to forget you. Which I don’t think will happen now. But then again, I’m entitled to my own opinion. Can you guess why?”
Heat flared, lighting up the soft brown of his gaze. She didn’t have to hear his thoughts to know what he was thinking. His head dipped. Her heart started to hammer. Their breaths mingled. Stacy closed her eyes.
A moment later, he was gone, a slight slough of wind brushing her face. She opened her eyes to find him about ten feet away. Funny, she didn’t even hear the stones move.
“No. You. Me. Bad idea.”
The corner of her mouth quirked. “Gotcha.” Then again, maybe not such a bad idea at all.
Chapter Seven
Chaz
Time. Time was an entity he knew all about. So were mistakes. He’d misjudged her, fallen into her trap, and let her know he cared. And Chaz dared not care about anyone. For nearly a thousand years, Chaz had been alone yet not alone at all. The memory of what he’d done to his wife still haunted him. He’d drained Mary to the brink of death, and only her will allowed her to live. Mick tried to tell him it wasn’t his fault. But he knew the truth. He stayed nearby, hunting in the area, so terrified of hurting another human that he barely fed. And he watched from a distance as his wife died, bit by bit. He watched her waste away and succumb to the fever a few short months later.
The knowledge that he was responsible for Mary’s death would never leave him. But it was the loss of control that haunted him the most. The understanding that the need for blood could overtake even him.
How arrogant and yet he knew no better. Once he found his purpose, and he watched what blood fever could do to a man. He understood. One day he would go rogue. A comforting thought, that. Would he run?
Chaz vowed each and every time he fed, he wouldn’t be the cause of another death. So ther
e couldn’t be more than what he called a bite and a bang. Which left him cold inside. And so very alone.
Now a beautiful woman stood within ten feet of him ready, willing, and able. Damn.
Stacy left and went into the house. He followed her into the kitchen a few minutes later. Her cell rang. “Hi, Tori. Did you get that info for me? Uh-huh. I see. Yeah. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll be in and out of my lab tonight. Good. Later.” She hit the end button on her screen.
He watched her features fall, knowing he felt the same remorse.
“I called my friend, Tori.”
“We met. At Adrian’s.”
“She’s a pathologist at the hospital. They took Jim to the morgue. I wanted to get some details.”
His stomach fell through what he believed to be shared regret. “You shouldn’t have done that. We were lucky last night that we were able to cover up what happened.”
“Lucky? A man died. Does that even mean anything to you?” Stacy yanked on the coffee pot cord.
“Of course, it does.”
“Really?” Both her hands banged down onto the counter. “You could’ve fooled me. You certainly didn’t act like you cared. Then or now.”
“That wasn’t my intention.”
She drew in a huge breath, shuddering with the effort to control her temper. “Then what was?”
He raked his hand through his hair, jaw clenched. The question deserved too many answers. Or none at all.
“Don’t you see? It’s eating away at me. I didn’t save him.” Chaz closed his eyes then opened them. “Again, I’m sorry. I’ve been alive long enough to see…too much death.”
“Alive too long,” she repeated. She nodded as if she understood what he was trying to tell her.
“I had no choice.”
“So you’re simply ready to move on?”
His gaze darkened, and his body locked. He could feel the muscle above his jaw twitch. “That’s not fair and you know it.”
“I’m not so sure. Everything you’ve done since we met has been calculated, with purpose. You asked me to help you. To do that, I need to understand where you’re coming from.”
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