by Cat Devon
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About the Author
Copyright Page
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To my forever friends who are the guardian angels in my life—De, JK and FK, Susan, Jimmie, Margaret, Suzette, Alison and Donna. I love you guys! And to all my readers—I am so grateful for your support!
Chapter One
“Something is wrong.” Keira Turner put her hands palm down on Chicago Police Detective Alex Sanchez’s desk and leaned forward. “There’s been a series of thefts at area blood banks and hospitals that aren’t being investigated by the authorities. I want to know what you’re going to do about it.”
“The first thing I’m going to do is ask you to take your hands off my desk,” Alex said.
She straightened and rearranged her messenger bag across her body. As a reporter, she approached her stories with passion and intensity. For personal reasons, this one hit her particularly hard, which was why she was standing in front of this particular Chicago detective and glaring at him. Her ten-year-old godchild, Benji, had a rare condition that required him to get frequent blood transfusions. The threat of a depleted blood supply was a matter of extreme concern for Keira. But that wasn’t the only reason she was here.
She’d rushed right over to the police station from the trendy press luncheon regarding the city’s upcoming Taste of Chicago event she’d been required by her editor to attend. Glancing down at her favorite red skirt and cheerful floral top, she wished she’d worn something less feminine and more kick-ass. But she hadn’t wanted to take the time to change clothes before confronting Alex Sanchez. Instead, she pulled out her tough-as-nails attitude to deal with him. “That’s it? I tell you that there’s been a series of thefts that no one seems to be investigating and you do nada?”
“If that’s a reference to my Latino heritage—” Alex began.
She cut him off, leaning closer again to murmur, “It’s not. It’s a reference to your vampire heritage.”
That got his attention. His dark eyes met hers. “Shut up.” His words were all the more threatening since they were spoken so quietly and intensely. His smile was equally dangerous. “Leave,” he said. “Go home right now and don’t come back.”
“No way.” She stood her ground. It was too late to turn and run at this point anyway. She was here on a mission and if she failed, things could get very bad for a lot of innocent people, including Benji.
Alex stood. She refused to be intimidated, but it was difficult not to be shaking in her size eight ballet flats. He was darkly sexy with his black hair tumbling over his forehead. No buzz cut for this guy. He had classic features with standout cheekbones. In his black jeans and black shirt, he didn’t look like any of the other Chicago detectives that she’d spoken to over the past few days. But then he was a vampire.
She still found that fact hard to believe, but believe it she did. The past twenty-four hours had changed everything.
Yesterday at this time she’d been walking into the bank and opening a safe-deposit box with the key she’d found among her recently deceased mother’s possessions. While still mourning her loss, Keira was going through her mom’s things in an attempt to clear up her estate. As an only child with no other close relatives, Keira was left with the task of getting things in order and slowly clearing out her mother’s condo. Her mother was killed by a drunk driver, and going through her house and everything she’d held dear prevented Keira from focusing on the huge hole in her heart. She refused to fall apart; there was just too much to do.
She wasn’t sure what she expected to find in that safe-deposit box—perhaps birth certificates and other important papers, that sort of thing. That kind of stuff was in there, it turned out, along with an antique-looking journal and a letter from her grandfather who’d died a year ago.
She’d gathered everything up and taken it all home to look over.
Keira went through the diary in a state of disbelief. The handwritten text dated back to the days right before the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 and ended with his death a year ago. She’d thought he was an accountant, so surely what he’d written was mere fantasy and not reality.
But he addressed her assumptions in his letter to her. She had already memorized parts of it.
Listen, kiddo, I know you’re finding this all hard to believe. I would if I were in your shoes. But it’s the truth. Evil does exist. Vampires do exist. Check the records I have left. You can also verify the newspaper clippings in this journal. You’ll find that my birth certificate dates back to 1841. I’m a vampire hunter and as such I have extreme longevity. The fact that you’re reading this now means my time on this earth is done. Your mother knows nothing of any of this. I slipped my journal into her safe-deposit box without her being aware of it. Seek out vampire Alex Sanchez in the Chicago Police Department. Trouble is coming …
“Let’s talk. In here,” Alex said, interrupting her thoughts as he opened the door to an interrogation room.
Keira paused. She’d done what her grandfather requested. She’d researched on her own and reached the conclusion that it was possible vampires did exist. So here she was, mere inches away from one. The reason she was here was twofold: both for Benji and the blood thefts, as well as for the contents of her grandfather’s journal. She’d been up most of the night skimming the journal’s many pages and hadn’t thought things through regarding her plan of action with Alex.
To fight or to flee? She’d always been a fighter. So she stayed and walked into the room.
“Take a seat,” Alex said.
“I’d rather stand.” She kept her back to the wall and stayed near the door should she need to make a quick exit. Who was she kidding? Like she could run from a vampire if he wanted to stop her.
Keira had been accused of being an adrenaline junkie in the past. She blamed that trait for her willingness to have a private conversation with a vampire.
According to her grandfather’s journal, vampires came in various shapes and ages. Some were darkly attractive like Alex, who was even sexier than the hot guys on a Telemundo telenovela. Others were completely nondescript. All possessed the ability to move at freaky-fast hyper speed. She had a snowball’s chance in hell of escaping unless Alex chose to let her go.
Alex leaned his hip against the table and tossed down a yellow legal pad. “So tell me, what’s your interest in this case?”
“Really?” she challenged him. “That’s the first thing you’re going to ask me? Not about my vampire comment?”
He remained calm. “What’s your name?”
“Keira Turner.”
He wrote her name on the legal pad. She noted that he was a leftie. He had artistic hands that had her wondering what it would feel like to have them on her body. That freaked her out, making her fiddle nervously with the ring on her right middle finger. The evil eye ring had been a gift on her sixteenth birthday from her grandfather after he’d taken a trip to Turkey. The red stones were rubies and the white ones, diamonds.
Her grandfather had told her that the r
ing would provide protection and good luck. At the time she’d asked if that meant she’d get into Northwestern as her number one college choice. Now she wondered if the ring could help save her from unfriendly vampires. As if there were friendly ones.
Alex wasn’t looking very friendly at the moment. Not that he went all feral and bared his fangs at her or anything. Indeed, he had an edgy surface charm that belied the fact that he was a vampire. She still wasn’t sure why her grandfather had insisted she see Alex, but his notes had indicated that it was imperative she do so.
“And your interest in this case is…?” he was saying.
“You’re really going to stand there and pretend this is just another case? I don’t believe you,” she said.
“Yet you believe I’m a vampire.” His eyes glowed with anger.
“Because you are a vampire,” she said with absolute certainty.
* * *
Alex looked at the fiery woman in front of him. He didn’t have time for this shit. He had a heavy caseload as well as the issue of the stolen blood. The human officials in the police department weren’t placing the latter very high on their priority list.
And now this woman walked into his police station. He could sense the rapid beat of her heart, yet she showed no other signs of fear. She couldn’t be compelled or she would have left when he’d ordered her to do so. He knew from experience that humans who couldn’t be compelled weren’t ever completely human.
She wasn’t a vampire. He inhaled deeply and analyzed her scent. Lemons. She smelled like lemons. Her dark hair barely brushed her shoulders, and her big brown eyes were much lighter than his. She was tall, curvy, and wearing a flowery top with a flirty red skirt and flats. He preferred heels on his women. Very high heels. Despite the fact that it was midsummer, her skin was pale and luminescent. So even though she wasn’t one, she looked more like a vampire than he did.
“Your address?” he asked.
She bit her bottom lip. Her mouth was highlighted with a lush red lipstick that glistened in the fluorescent overhead lighting.
The flash of her white teeth nipping her own flesh made his vamp senses spring to life. Just looking at her made him go hard. He hadn’t expected such an intense reaction. But there was something about her that called to him on some deep level.
Being a detective meant that Alex had to deal with more humans than the rest of his clan. Her accusation that he was a vampire was a first for him. So was his response to her. Sure, he’d seen sexier women, but this one spiked his interest. She was different … not in a good way but in a guaranteed-trouble kind of way.
“What’s your interest in this case?” he repeated.
“I’m a reporter with ReadIt.” She held out her press credential.
He reached for it. Their fingers touched and he felt the reverberations throughout his body. He could sense her heart rate speeding into the stratosphere.
The photo on her ID didn’t do her justice. He was familiar with the online news blog. She didn’t look like a force to be reckoned with but she sure acted like one.
“Are you going to address the elephant in the room?” she demanded.
Alex deliberately looked around. “I don’t see any elephants.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m not a mind reader.”
“No, you’re a vampire.”
“So you’ve said. And you’ve reached that outrageous conclusion because of a series of robberies at blood banks?”
“No.”
Getting answers out of her was like pulling teeth.
“Are you denying you’re a vampire?” she said.
“Are you interviewing me as a reporter? Because that’s not how this works. I ask the questions and you answer them,” he told her.
“Why?” she countered.
“Because I’m a cop. That’s what I do.” It wasn’t the only thing he did. There were times when he threw the police policy and procedures manual out the window and took things into his own hands. Justice was too blind sometimes. But Alex had excellent vision.
“As a cop, you should be solving crimes like these robberies,” she said.
“Have you contacted the robbery division?” he countered.
“Of course I have. They brushed me off just like you are doing right now. Well, not exactly like you, given the fact that you have powers they don’t. You tried to compel me a few minutes ago. It didn’t work.”
“You have a vivid imagination,” he drawled.
“I have proof,” she said.
“I doubt that.”
“My grandfather was Horace Turner. He died a year ago.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“You might know him by his other name. The Executioner.”
Alex was careful not to show any reaction. Hell, yes, he knew The Executioner. He was a vampire hunter extraordinaire, the stuff legends were made of. No one had been able to pin down his identity. He’d died mysteriously last year—or so rumor had it. Even then, no name had ever been attributed to him other than The Executioner.
“He was a hunter,” she said. “Have you heard of him?
Alex kept his expression blank and his mouth shut. The sins of the grandfather shouldn’t be the sins of the granddaughter … unless she, too, was a hunter?
“I’m a reporter—” she began.
“Doing a story about vampires and blood banks?” he interrupted her to demand.
“No. Well yes, sort of. Maybe I should start at the beginning.”
“That would be a good idea. But keep it short.” Alex tapped his watch. “I don’t have all day.”
“You have eternity.”
“I’m a cop,” he said. “I have other cases to work on.”
“Fine. There has been a sudden rash of robberies from area blood banks and hospitals. Or to be more specific, robberies in certain areas of Chicago. The Gold Coast and an area northwest of there.”
She was referring to Vamptown although she didn’t know it. The Gold Coast was a well-known section of the city bounded by Lake Shore Drive and North Avenue. Back in the day, millionaires built their mansions there. The area was still inhabited by some of Chicago’s wealthiest citizens and deadliest vampires.
But Vamptown, an area northwest of there, remained entirely beneath the human radar. You wouldn’t find it on Google Maps or anywhere else. The vampires who resided there liked it that way. They existed within one of the biggest cities in America yet no humans knew they were there.
Keira was speaking again. “Several of the locations had surveillance cameras, but the strange thing was that nothing showed up.”
“You’re saying the surveillance was tampered with?” Alex said.
“Vampires can’t be filmed.”
Alex sighed. “So we’re back to that, are we? Vampire lore? Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“The cameras might have been tampered with because someone on the inside with access to them messed with them,” he said. “A human, not a vampire.”
“I realize it’s not proof. I’m just saying that it’s one of a number of things that are very suspicious,” she said.
“What else do you have?”
“Why steal blood?”
“To get attention,” he said. “Which is why we aren’t promoting this in the press. There have only been three robberies and one attempted robbery.”
The attempted incident had taken place in Vamptown last night. Damon Thornheart, the head of security for Vamptown, had heightened the security level because of the earlier thefts.
Alex agreed with Damon’s early assessment that the Gold Coast vampires were probably responsible. But they had no proof. And now they had this reporter nosing around. Even more disturbing was the fact that she was The Executioner’s granddaughter.
Before Alex could devise a plan to deal with her, the door to the interrogation room swung open and Lawrence Lynch, leader of the Gold Coast vampires, stood there. Tall, but n
ot at tall as Alex, he was the embodiment of wealth, power, and entitlement.
“You may leave now,” Lynch told the police officer he’d compelled to take him to Alex. The vampire’s courtesy was at odds with his ruthless manner.
“It appears we have a situation,” Lynch continued before eyeing Keira. “What have we here? A little snack before lunch?”
”She was just leaving,” Alex said curtly before tilting his head toward the exit.
“Without you introducing us? But that would be so rude.” He smiled at Keira. “I’m Lawrence Lynch. And you are?”
“Just leaving,” she said to Alex’s relief.
The instant she was gone, Lynch said, “What was that about?”
“Nothing.” Alex got right down to business. He had no time or desire to exchange pleasantries. “I assume you’re here because of the blood thefts?”
“Naturally.”
“There’s nothing natural about this. Stealing blood is a direct breach of the truce between our clans,” Alex said.
“I’m aware of that fact. I’m also aware of the probability that you think we are behind the incidents.”
“Are you saying you aren’t?”
Lynch flicked a tiny bit of lint from his Italian-tailored jacket sleeve. “I’m saying that you should consider us innocent until proven guilty.”
“That’s mortal law,” Alex said. “Not vampire law.”
“Because vampires are never innocent,” Lynch said. “True enough. But we aren’t responsible.”
“Did I say you were?”
“Not yet. I thought I’d stop you before you did.”
“So the only reason you stopped by was to tell me that the Gold Coast vamps have nothing to do with the recent thefts?” Alex said.
“I didn’t say that.”
Alex balled his hands into fists out of frustration. “No, you didn’t. Why are you here?”
“I’d hate to see a turf war break out over this.”
“Then stop the thefts,” Alex told him.
“How do I know that the Vamptown clan isn’t behind them? After all, you have a busy funeral home in your territory … or do you prefer the term neighborhood?”