He squeezed her tighter, as if he sought to pull her within his body and protect her there. “There’s much danger afoot for your people right now, Pettrila, events that even I cannot stop. The hunters are planning a massive, coordinated attack. In the month next, every faction of Vârcolac Vânător in every county will strike at once, annihilating your breed in a single sweep.”
Jolting back in his arms, she gaped up at him. The clouds had parted, and moonlight bathed Ştefan’s face, revealing a stricken expression.
“You must abandon Romania,” he told her. “Every Vârcolac must. For all time.”
“But…this is our home.”
He gave his head a grim shake. “No more.”
There was no guile in his expression; he was telling the truth. She pushed the rest of the way out of his embrace and turned away from him, her chin drooping low, tears brimming again. “’Tis so unjust,” she said in a small, quiet voice. “We’re not monsters.”
“I know. I’m so sorry, sweetling.”
She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes and drew a bolstering breath. “What are we to do? How shall we escape this massacre?”
“I’m going to help you, my love, don’t fret. I’ve called in favors owed to me by some English privateers, arranging for a fleet of six ships to meet us at the Port of Constanţa in two weeks’ time. We’ll evacuate you and your people, then.”
She sliced a look at him, brows raised. “Privateers owe you?”
A smile worked one corner of his mouth. “My younger years were spent in a somewhat more…adventuresome manner than now.” He tilted her chin up on the edge of his hand. “I need your help to see this through, however. I cannot access every Vârcolac enclave to pass the word.”
“Why would you do this, Ştefan? You risk a great deal by helping my people—your very life.” Once again the question rose: who are you?
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his body again. “Because I love you.” He bent his head, his breath warm on her ear as he spoke. “’Tis my greatest desire to run off to England with you, little doe, and marry you.”
She laughed, the sound thick with emotion. “Marry a vampire? I think not.” No one but a man of her own race would ever want to wed her, for any child she bore him would spring from her loins with a blood-need. She stepped out of Ştefan’s embrace and turned her face to the sky, gazing at the diamond bright stars. A clump of snow shivered off a sagging pine branch and whispered to the earth. She wouldn’t allow herself to succumb to feelings of hope and love.
“Aye.” He turned her to face him. “I myself am Dracul.”
She drew her brows together. “A Dragon? You’re a…Mixed-blood Vârcolac?” Impossible. She’d already guessed he wasn’t fully human, but that she would’ve sensed on him.
“A Dragon human,” he corrected.
“Stuff! No such creature exists.”
He chuckled, his eyes dancing. “One stands before you.”
She passed a critical look over him. He did own the ethereal beauty of the Dragon line, eyes of piercing blue, unnatural strength. And the scent of his blood was unusually delectable. Lună şi steluţă, perhaps she should’ve guessed it heretofore, but who the devil knew a Dragon human existed?
“So what say you, my lady? Do you let me play the gallant and rescue you and your kind? Do you agree to be my wife? By God, ’tis ill-bred to keep a man waiting so.”
She traced his precious face with her eyes, moonlight bringing into sharp relief the handsome angles and planes. The thought of leaving her beloved Transylvania was a knife in her soul, but beginning a new life with a man she so deeply loved was a powerful solace, indeed. And what choice did she have? Stay behind and be slaughtered? She stepped up to Ştefan.
A roguish smile curved his lips, and her heart melted.
“I say,” she murmured, “that I believe ’tis time for you to steal that kiss, Ştefan.” She encircled his neck with her arms, letting all the love that warmed her show in her eyes. Thank you, stars above, for gifting me with this man. “’Tis what a future husband should do, is it not?”
Chapter Eighteen
Present: Topside, 7:39 p.m.
John Waterson gave the house door a solid knock, then waited, dragging on his cigarette—which was actually tonight’s dinner. Some weird addendum to his illness made it impossible for him to stomach anything after four o’clock other than caffeine and nicotine, which, of course, made his feeling-like-shit state degenerate into even worse shit.
John’s partner, Pablo, glanced over his shoulder at the driveway. “Her car’s here.”
“She’s home.” John knocked again, harder. “Police,” he called out. “Please, open the door, Miss Mawbry.”
A second later, the front door edged open and a wary eye peeked out. “Y-yes?” the woman’s voice quavered. “May I help you?”
John turned his head aside and exhaled a blast of cigarette smoke into the night. Well, damn. Body language like that pretty much screamed “woman who’d been victimized.” Which…of course she had. Stupid of him to have held out hope that this woman’s abductors had just snatched her for money. He’d been a cop too many years now to mess with things like optimism. “Kendra Mawbry?” he asked politely. “I’m Detective John Waterson of the San Diego Police Department.” He tucked his cigarette into one corner of his mouth as he pulled his badge from his breast pocket and flipped it open, holding it up to the crack in the door. “And this is Detective Pablo Ramirez. We’d like to have a word with you.”
The eye widened. “Why? Is something wrong?”
Is something…? Hell, as ridiculous questions went, that one ranked high. “Well, yes, Miss Mawbry. Two nights ago, we were called here to your home to investigate your abduction. That usually constitutes a problem.”
“O-oh. Well, I’m back now.”
He tucked his badge away. So she was, the first of any of their seven missing women ever to return home. Thank God her concerned neighbors in this quaint town of Cardiff-by-the-Sea had thought to call and report Kendra’s return. This could be just the break John needed.
In nearly five months of investigating seven disappearances—three women from two nights ago, another a day after that, two others taken two months ago in April, and then the original first in January—neither he nor Pablo had come up with anything besides a bunch of dead ends. They had some general information about the cases, like the perps always had black hair, black flame tattoos, and very dark, nearly black eyes, the weirdness factor was high at each scene—hence the involvement of the Occult Crimes Unit—and the victims’ stats were similar; all of the abducted women had been single, blonde and beautiful, ages ranging from twenty to thirty-five. Not much to go on in California, birthplace of the hot blonde. The description could fit thousands.
It certainly fit Dr. Toni Parthen, the hematologist who’d consulted with John on a murder case back in January, a murder investigation that’d turned into a disappearing dead guy case when the corpse had poofed itself out of the morgue. Yeah, high weird factor. That same January night, another amazing thing had happened. The beautiful, sexy, funny, smart hematologist John had been crazy about for months finally gave him her phone number. And after that…? Fate had toe-tagged his chance at life in the ’burbs with the hottest woman going on two legs; Toni had gotten into a car accident and then utterly and completely disappeared.
The original missing of the seven.
Oh, wait, she hadn’t completely disappeared, had she? He’d seen her one last time in the company of a group of suspicious-acting people at Scripps Hospital. One man from that bunch had tried to feed John some hooey about Toni having been out of touch because she’d been going through a classified interview process for a position at a top secret research institute. Yeah, right. Pull my other leg for a while. Another man in that suspicious-looking group had just so happened to have black hair, black-looking eyes, and black teeth tattooed on his forearms—not black flames, but still.
Toni had gone missing again, this time for good. Neither he nor Pablo had found a trace or a lead in five months. Nothing. Jesus, but someone might as well cut off his dick for how impotent he felt about—His face flushed with warmth. That was, actually…not the best analogy to be using these days.
“I-I’m leaving town, okay,” Miss Mawbry stammered from her door crack. “I’ve been with my travel agent all day arranging a flight back home to my mom. I’m taking the red eye out in three hours, and…there’s nothing you can do about this, anyway. You can’t beat these men. I saw them get shot, and they just kept coming and coming.” A tear trickled down her cheek. “They’re like machines or something, I’m telling you.”
John lifted his brows and glanced at Pablo. She saw them get shot? He tugged the cigarette out of his mouth. “Shot by whom?”
Kendra hugged herself. “These men who saved us, four of them, a special security team, they said.”
John dragged hard on his cigarette. Well, that was one Holy Mother of a revelation. “What kind of security team?”
“I don’t know.” She clutched the doorknob. “Look, I’ve told you all that I—”
“Miss Mawbry,” John cut in, calling up a compassionate smile. “I understand that what you went through was harrowing, but you obviously have some valuable information, and this is an official criminal investigation. We need to ask you some questions.”
She still hesitated, her lower lip quivering.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist.” John kept his expression neutral, hoping he wouldn’t have to really insist.
“All right.” She closed the door long enough to unhook the chain, then re-opened it.
John snuffed out his Marlboro in a potted plant on her porch, then crammed the butt into his jeans pocket. He and Pablo stepped into Kendra’s little seaside bungalow.
The décor ran along a beach theme, with pristine white bamboo furniture and sea-blue cushions. A glass bowl filled with sand and seashells sat on a bulky glass coffee table, and a huge built-in white bookshelf displayed sunset-colored candles, pieces of driftwood, a large conch shell, and tall, colorful hardbound books on photography. Everything was immaculately kept: what he and Pablo had lamentably referred to as an “evidence free zone” when they’d been through here the first time around. The CSIs had found only a few hair fibers, though nothing fresh enough for DNA sampling, and traces of silicon, quartz, and feldspar on the carpet: sand typical of the San Diego region. Real late-breaking news.
Kendra herself was just as tidy in appearance, a beautiful woman, like all the victims, although with over-dyed brassy hair that John didn’t personally find attractive.
Reaching into his breast pocket again, John pulled out a small notebook and pen. He got right to the point. “Have you ever been told that there’s something different about your blood, Miss Mawbry?”
“What?” She blinked, the question clearly catching her off guard. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“You gave blood this past weekend at the Balboa Park June Blood Drive, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, three other women also—” His notebook fluttered slightly. Dammit, his hands were trembling. He shoved the notebook and pen back into his shirt, then stuck his hands in his jeans pockets and squeezed them into fists. He hated it when this happened. Hated it even more that he didn’t know why the pills he was taking for his insert-foreign-medical-term-here problem weren’t working anymore. He probably wasn’t going to find out any time soon, either, seeing as the only doctor he’d ever liked was a sexy blonde hematologist.
“Um…” John regrouped. “Three other kidnap victims also gave blood at the same drive. We’re trying to figure out if there’s a link between your blood and the other victims’, so maybe we can prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future.” By virtue of a court order, he’d obtained the medical records of all the missings and had an expert examining the blood work for similarities. So far, nada.
“O-oh, yes. Two other women were also there.”
“There?” John frowned. “Where?”
“We were all taken to a warehouse, where we were handed over to these gross guys as some kind of payment. We all thought it was a twisted white slavery thing, but then one of the men mentioned something about wanting to impregnate us. I’m a little hazy on the conversation because I was just, uh…” She edged away from him, moving to stand next to a window, her fingers toying with the curtains. “Anyway, th-the whole thing’s confusing because the people at the research institute said that those men worked for scientific competitors who—”
“I’m sorry, wait.” John held up a hand, his heart lurching to a halt inside his chest. “Did you just say research institute?”
“Yes. Although, frankly, it didn’t look like one. The place was a mansion with—”
The living room window exploded.
Kendra screamed as two large booted feet smashed in through the glass beside her, a muscular body swinging in after the boots, a rifle following…The butt was rammed into John’s gut.
John went hurtling backward, air evacuating his lungs as if his bronchiole had caught fire, and crashed into Pablo. He heard a sharp crack around his wheezes for breath as Pablo’s skull met the wall, then his partner sank to the floor in a puddle.
Shit! John staggered forward, yanking his Beretta out from his shoulder holster. “Police!” he yelled, adrenaline slamming through his body. He straight-armed the gun at the huge, black-haired intruder. “Freeze!”
The perp clearly could give all of two shits about a gun being pointed at him. He stared insolently at John as he stood by the broken window with one hand wrapped around the back of Kendra’s neck…almost as if he thought he couldn’t be killed. High fucking weird factor. The man was holding an AK-47 assault rifle with almost causal indifference. John catalogued the nasty scar on his upper lip.
“Please!” Kendra wailed, her face awash with tears. “Don’t let him take me, p-please. Not him!”
Hell if this asshole will… John bared his teeth. “Drop your weapon or I’ll—”
A second man clambered through the jagged hole of window.
“Hold!” John tightened his grip on his Beretta. “Not another move or—!” The command stopped coming out of his mouth, just stopped.
This new perp had a tattoo on his cheek that was the exact same one as the guy at the murder scene John had investigated with Toni Parthen. As in, the corpse. The same damned face, too. “Impossible.” John’s harsh whisper grated in his chest. “You’re dead.”
“Wrong-o, copper.” Jaw Tattoo aimed a Walther at him. “You are.” Blam!
John shouted in pain as a bullet raked a streak of fire across his upper right arm. He reeled sideways, cursing through gritted teeth. His hand shook, but he managed to squeeze off a shot of his own before his arm dropped like a dead weight. He winged Jaw Tattoo, liquid spouting up from the guy’s left shoulder and spraying the curtains behind him. John went down on one knee, the world sloshing into a watery haze. He watched as if from a long tunnel as the curtain smoked and melted. What…? Acid. He blinked hard to right his vision as—
A third intruder came in through the broken window.
This man swung inside in a blur of speed, his trench coat belling out behind him. One hand gripped the upper window sill, the other was clenched around a…Jesus, a military issue M4. Who the hell…?
“Help!” Kendra screeched with renewed fervor. “Help me!”
John tried to raise his Beretta again, but his arm wouldn’t obey the order. Damnit to hell. He was going to die and let down Miss Mawbry. No�
��! Gritting out a yell, John used all of his strength to haul up his arm. He shot wildly at the new intruder, bullets zinging.
Several chunks of flesh erupted off the top of the new man’s shoulder. “Aargh!”
A fourth man started to come in through the shattered window now, too. John caught a glimpse of a tattoo on the man’s bicep, not flames or teeth, but a skull of some kind.
Trench Coat whirled toward the window and punched the man hard in the chest, sending him flying back out.
John’s finger spasmed around the trigger. “Everybody down!” More bullets hit the window, sending slivers of glass crashing down from the upper pane like lethal icicles.
Trench Coat skidded sideways. “Stop shooting at me, you fucking idiot! I’m on your side!”
Sweat poured into John’s eyes, blinding him.
Kendra shrieked as Scar Lip swept her onto his shoulder and charged out the front door.
“Shitfuckpiss!” Trench Coat started after the two, but Jaw Tattoo grabbed him by the lapels and slammed him against the wall. Plaster fractured into an outline of the man’s big body, and he groaned in pain. Clutching his shoulder, his face blanching a sickly shade of white, he slid down the wall and landed on his butt, leaving a wide streak of shiny red blood behind him.
Police sirens wailed in the distance. John nearly wept with relief. Backup was on the way. He wobbled to his feet and moved to stand over the fallen intruder.
Kendra’s screams faded down the street.
“You stupid prick,” the man ground out, his eyes flashing a livid silver. “I could’ve stopped them, if not for you. Ah, Christ.” His lids closed. “You have no idea what kind of rathole they’re taking her to.”
John leveled his gun at the man’s head, his arm throbbing as if it was half-amputated. “You’re under arrest,” he croaked. The muzzle of his gun began to shake wildly.
The man glared, blood from his shoulder seeping steadily between his fingers. “You’re going to…blow my fucking head off.” He grunted once, then toppled over unconscious.
The Community Series, Books 1-3 Page 46