by E G Bateman
“They’ve been here all day?” The woman looked puzzled.
“They brought the produce this morning, remember? You haven’t been at the gin, have you?” Caleb laughed.
“Of course I have. I paid for it. Well, they’ve been very well-behaved for most of the day. I haven’t heard a peep.” Betsy smiled and turned to her son. “People have given me envelopes all evening. It’s going very well.”
“That reminds me.” Dick took an envelope from his breast pocket and handed it to her. “Here’s another one for your collection.”
“William, you are quite simply the most charming man alive.” She took the envelope and it disappeared into her large purse.
“I’m sure nothing could be further from the truth,” the vampire replied honestly.
“Please excuse me one moment.” Stanley headed toward the billiards room.
“Your mayor thanks you for your support, Mr. Levin.” Todd held his hand out.
Dick took the proffered hand. “The mayor can always count on my support.”
Todd pointed an accusing finger at him. “Except on the golf course.”
“Hey, I’m always there for bowling night.”
The man looked at Lexi. “He’s always late for bowling night.”
“Fashionably so.” The vampire glanced quickly at her.
“Do you wear the shirt? And holy sh…moke, the shoes?” She tried to picture it.
“His grandfather was an exceptional bowler, golfer, and tennis player.” Betsy’s eyes glittered at the memory.
Lexi heard the men leave the room behind her. They were laughing and chatting but suddenly stopped. She could feel their eyes on her back but realized their main attention was on Dick. She knew that being shifters, they would have smelled the vampire. If they had been in wolf form, their hackles would be raised at the sense of danger. In their human form, they might not have hackles but the atmosphere had definitely tensed. Lexi grasped the weighted little purse as her companion turned slowly and deliberately to face them.
“Gentlemen.” He tilted his head.
She made to turn but he held her arm subtly. As this meant she would have to struggle to turn and that would draw attention, she remained as she was, facing away from the men.
“Move it,” Stanley instructed quietly. They continued toward the exit.
“Have you done something to upset the locals, William?” Betsy asked in surprise.
“I believe my houseboy might have dinged someone’s motorbike recently. I was under the impression the situation had been resolved.”
“I’d guess from the looks those men gave you that the situation has not been resolved to their satisfaction. I will ask Stanley to ensure they don’t return to the club any time soon.” The woman looked suspiciously at the retreating men.
“Todd, may I borrow you for a moment?” Caleb asked with his hand on Todd’s shoulder.
“Sure, Caleb.” They walked away together.
“You boys promised no business tonight. You have five minutes,” Betsy called after them before she returned her attention to the others.
“Uncle William, would you mind awfully if we head back soon? John will work all night if I don’t wrestle that computer away from him.” Lexi wanted to follow the shifters.
“You promised me a dance, young lady, and a dance I shall have.” Dick took her hand and wrapped it expertly around his arm.
“I did?” She was startled. “Are you sure I promised that? Because that doesn’t sound like a thing I’d promise.”
He led her through the room next door toward the ballroom.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Giving them a few minutes to leave. I’ll be able to follow the smell of a wolfpack as well in ten minutes as I can now with the added advantage of not running into them. I don’t think they like me.”
“Have you had trouble with them before?” Lexi took a glass of champagne from a passing waiter as they moved through the rooms.
“No. I thought I had a good relationship with the Palm Springs pack. I mean, sure, some of the younger ones can be boisterous, but I can’t remember the last time I met with such hostility.” He seemed nonplussed.
“Stanley’s the alpha, right? Can you talk to him?” She sipped the champagne.
“It seems I will have to. Are you sure you should drink that? We might need you to fire on all cylinders later.”
“This is only to get me through the dancing.” She knocked the drink back and handed the glass to a different waiter on the way to the dance floor.
The band played “Blue Moon,” and the two glided across the floor.
She caught bemused stares from many young men in the room. “I’m guessing you’ve pretty much done this town.”
“Repeatedly, over the years. To the point where it’s beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. It’s déjà vu all over again,” Dick admitted with a twitch of his lip.
“Have you never considered settling down with one person?” she asked, genuinely curious.
“Attachments bring vulnerability. I’ve lived a long time, Lexi, and I’ve gained many enemies. Some come and go but some have long memories.” He twirled her. “You dance surprisingly well.”
“Kindred taught me to slip seamlessly into any situation. It’s funny since I was clumsy as a child.”
He stopped dancing and stared at her. “You recall your life before Kindred?” He remembered where they were and their purpose and continued to dance.
“Flashes.” She knew she had confirmed what he already suspected.
“So, I wasn’t wrong when I accused you of being bloodthirsty. You were literally after my blood. You should have merely asked. My prices are very competitive.”
“I’m not a blood whore.” Lexi felt her face flame. “When Barry tried to turn me, the enhanced speed, strength, and senses were all great, although I was already very strong and fast for a human. That night, however, memories began to surface. I thought I’d never been counseled before—that’s what they call it when they wipe your memories after a particularly difficult mission—but I realized they’d done it to me many times and the memories were surfacing. That was why I left. I knew I couldn’t trust them and I knew that as soon as they discovered my memories were returning, they’d kill me.”
“I assume the blood-hit didn’t take your memories back as far as you needed?”
“Not nearly. So far, I’ve remembered to my late teens and the occasional flash of life before.”
Dick stopped again but she forced him to continue. “How many times have you done it?”
Lexi paused, then decided she’d told him enough of the truth so might as well finish it. “Only three times. Barry, then you, then a blood den in Portland.”
“You know you can’t keep doing it, don’t you?”
“I'm careful. Look, I’m sorry about the whole neck-breaking thing. Don’t get me wrong. I still think you’re an arrogant jerk.” She smiled and he laughed.
“Well, you’ll have to go to the back of an extraordinarily long line of people who think that.” Dick glanced at the pendant Scott had given her. “What’s happened to your pendant?”
She looked down and realized that the shiny silver had turned black. “I don’t know. How strange.” The song finished and they started to leave the dance floor. He glanced across the room at Betsy, who had watched him dance but turned quickly to speak to a group of women. He hesitated.
“Go on.” Lexi gestured toward the dance floor.
“I’m sorry?” He looked blankly at her.
“She wants to dance with you.” She shooed him away.
The band was playing “Unforgettable.” “How apt,” he said. He walked across the floor and offered his arm to Betsy, who took it with a dazzling smile on her face. They danced and spoke but Lexi couldn’t hear the conversation. At the end of the song, the woman delivered him to her side.
“You dance beautifully, exactly as your grandfather did. It’s like being t
ransported back and I could turn and find Harvey standing right there with a grin on his face. Do you remember how he hated to dance, William?” Betsy looked into the distance and into another time.
Dick smiled warmly, no doubt remembering too. “You’ve told me.”
“The fun we all had.” She grasped the younger woman’s arm exuberantly.
“They must be wonderful memories,” Lexi said politely.
“I’m a silly old woman.” Betsy wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “You look so much like him. It’s the eyes, I suppose.”
He kissed the back of her hand. “Everyone says that, so it must be true.”
“Harvey spoke of him often. When he never returned from Europe, it broke his heart. We never forgot our William. Well, off you go, then. Don’t let it be so long next time. It was lovely to meet you, dear.” She turned to the party.
The vampire watched her walk away. “Let’s get out of here.”
While they stood outside and waited for the valet to arrive with the car, a voice spoke from directly behind them.
“It was good to see you again, William. Perhaps we’ll run into each other again soon.” Lexi jumped slightly at Caleb’s voice. No one approached her from behind without her being aware of them. No one.
The vampire paused for a moment. “I’m sure we shall.” He sounded absolutely certain of it.
They headed down the drive in silence and didn’t speak again until they had left the property.
“He gives me the willies,” Lexi admitted the moment they were through the gate.
“Yes. I’ve felt uncomfortable around him for as long as I’ve known him. And when a vampire says that, it shouldn’t be ignored.”
She stared into the darkness. “I have the feeling we didn’t pull the wool over his eyes at all.”
Dick glanced at her as he drove. “What do you think about tonight?”
“I think Kate’s problem is coming from much closer than she thinks it is. You?”
He nodded. “I agree. Also, I’m concerned it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Something bad happened today. I think those young shifters did it and Caleb gave them an alibi.”
“Telling Betsy they were hanging around at the club all day.” She nodded.
“I think we need to drop in on Leonard. I shouldn’t have involved him and have a very bad feeling about this.”
“Agreed. We can find the shifters later.”
“I don’t think that’s an option. We have a bogey on our six.” Dick frowned into his rearview mirror.
“A what on our what?”
“Someone’s tailing us. I thought all you Kindred types spoke like the military.”
“No. What on earth gave you that idea? Can you lose them?”
“I’ll give it a try.” He accelerated and the vehicle behind matched their speed.
They rounded a bend to find a truck parked across the street. Dick skidded the car onto a side road.
“What’s up here?” she asked, then twisted sideways in her seat to look out of the back and front.
“It’s residential. We might be able to lose them on one of these roads.”
A truck suddenly hurtled from a side road. He was able to speed up to avoid a T-bone, but it impacted with the rear of the car, which fishtailed. Dick pressed the accelerator to the floor.
“These guys aren’t messing around.” Lexi turned to kneel on her seat. She dug in her pocket and drew a rifle. Dick looked at her as she adjusted the scope.
“Where the actual fuck did that come from?”
“A lady never tells.” She slipped a magazine into the weapon and slid into the back seat, banging her head as the car went through a pothole. “Ow!”
He made eye contact through the rearview mirror. “Complain to the mayor.”
She turned to steady the rifle on the back of the seat. “I’m afraid you’ll lose your back window.”
“Just do it.”
With a nod, she leveled the rifle as best she could. “Do we have a straight road?”
“We’re coming up on a bend now. I think they’ll attempt to herd us over the canyon wall. There aren’t many places where that’s possible, but we’re heading toward one.”
“Shit.”
He skidded around the bend. “Okay, straight for twenty seconds,”
Lexi leveled the rifle again and took two shots in quick succession. The first was intended to shatter the window and the second the driver of the truck, but the first one took the driver and the second simply compounded the damage. The truck went out of control and off the road. It was replaced by the two others. The one closest turned on a row of four spotlights above its cabin, intending to blind them. The large vehicle behind also had its high beams on and created a silhouette of a man who stood out of the sunroof in the first truck and tried to aim a rifle.
“Amateurs,” she muttered, aimed at the man, and fired a single round as Dick swerved. With a grimace, she returned her aim to the gunman and killed him.
“I’m turning,” the vampire told her. “This road leads to a hiking-trail parking lot. The moment I stop, find somewhere to hide.”
He skidded into the parking lot and vanished. Lexi had a moment of indecision. She didn’t need to look at the scar to know the magic had completely dissipated. Her first instinct was to retrieve the vial from her pocket, knowing it would help her in the fight to come. The moment she’d used to think was all the time she had. Before she could get out of the car, one of the trucks plowed into it and shoved Dick’s vehicle several feet.
It’s a good thing I wasn’t hiding behind this fucking car.
A man jumped out of the other vehicle and walked closer. She put the rifle into her pocket and climbed out with her hands up. The guy she’d shot still dangled from the sunroof. He’d been a little too round in the middle for that maneuver.
“Where’s your friend?” The man walked toward her with his weapon raised.
“He ran off.” She tried to sound pissed about it.
When he pushed her back with the end of his rifle, she complied and noticed that these were not shifters. He ducked his head quickly into the car and returned his attention to her.
“Where’s the gun?” He poked her again with his rifle.
“He took it.” She maintained a blank expression as he shifted his gaze around the darkness.
“The guy’s armed,” he shouted to his friends. Two of them had joined him and now stood a few feet behind, which left two more near the back truck. “What’s your friend’s name?”
“Dick.”
As she faced them, she saw the one at the very back disappear quickly and silently in the dark.
The guy before her lifted his semi-automatic weapon and called to the others. “Get the lights on and shine them around the area. We’re looking for Dick.”
“Aren’t we all?” Lexi agreed to the men’s amusement.
The next man vanished.
“To be honest, he’s not usually this hard to get,” she added. “If you simply stay in one place for any length of time, he’ll probably get around to you.” The remaining men all laughed now except the one who returned the aim of his gun to her.
“Come on, smart mouth. You can come with me.” They walked to the edge of the trail and a spotlight followed them.
“Oh, good. With all this light, he’s unlikely to hit me,” she commented.
“Don’t point it at us, you idiot. Point it ahead of us.” The dark settled around them when the light was redirected.
She spun, disarmed him in three seconds, and swept her leg out to drop him while she twisted the gun out of his hold. He had other ideas and head-butted her in the face, and she stumbled back. In the darkness, she hadn’t seen it coming.
Lexi struck him on the ear with her quarter-filled purse, and he fell to his knees.
I’ll have to thank Jesús for that idea.
As she delivered a kick to his head with her right foot, he lashed out, and she stumbled and toppled. He w
as on top of her immediately with his rifle across her throat.
She had stretched her hands closer to pop his eyeballs with her thumbs when Dick’s face appeared from the darkness behind him, barely visible except for his teeth. It was a truly terrifying sight—the stuff of nightmares, but not hers. The man made a choking sound, and the vampire whisked him away. She scrambled to her feet, sprinted through the darkness, and settled behind the car with the rifle.
“Should we keep moving the light?” asked a voice from the truck. Receiving no reply, the light moved in the opposite direction until it illuminated the man lying on the ground.
“He’s down! Go get him,” a voice shouted. There was no response. “Chad? Mike?”
“I’m afraid they’re rather indisposed,” said Dick’s chillingly cold voice from the darkness.
The man scrambled from the vehicle and ran directly into his adversary.
Lexi stood. In the light from the truck, she saw the trail of blood from the vampire’s mouth to his white shirt. With none of their attackers remaining, they climbed into his car and drove away past the two trucks. The third vehicle, which had left the road and should have had a dead driver, had disappeared.
He leaned out and sniffed as he went past. “That one had shifters in it. I’ll want to speak to them after we’ve been to see Leonard.”
“Let’s pick Scott up first,” Lexi suggested.
She felt his eyes on her. “You should have sensed that head-butt coming. The more you rely on that stuff, the less you can depend on your natural ability.”
“I don’t rely on it,” she snapped, knowing she hadn’t fooled him.
“Of course not.” He returned his gaze to the road.
Chapter Six
Dolores checked the time. As promised, she’d packed everything in her Denver, Colorado office. The only things visible were the desk, two chairs, the filing cabinet, and the clock she now watched.
The client was expected to arrive on the hour. He had sounded desperate on the phone and in her experience, the more desperate a client was, the earlier they arrived. She considered the possibility that he might not be as desperate as he had intimated.