True North (Aurora Sky: Vampire Hunter, Vol. 6)

by Nikki Jefford

  My stomach gave a slight gurgle at the mention of blood.

  “Or maybe he’s already skipped town,” Jared ground out between clenched teeth. “There’s only one way to find out.” He reached for the door handle and tried turning. It didn’t budge.

  Jared glanced at the road then looked at Valerie. Their eyes met briefly. Once eye contact broke, they each headed around the house from opposite sides. As Jared and Valerie disappeared around back, I glanced at the SUV. This would have been a good opportunity to look for a weapon if Jared hadn’t locked the damn doors.

  Adam cleared his throat. “You guys don’t need me to stick around, do you? I’ve shown you where Butcher lives. I doubt there’s anything else I can help you with.”

  I gaped at him a moment, unsettled that he thought I was part of Jared’s little gang.

  “I didn’t choose to be here,” I informed him.

  Adam relaxed his arms and leaned a shoulder toward the road.

  “So you wouldn’t shoot me if I started walking home?”

  I snorted. “With what gun?”

  Adam rubbed two fingers across his mouth and regarded me thoughtfully.

  “You wouldn’t go running to tell your boss?”

  “He’s not my boss,” I said with a scowl. “And he didn’t say anything about watching you.”

  “I have your word?” Adam asked. He remained in place, uncertainty in his voice.

  “You don’t have anything,” I said. “Walk away at your own risk. Or stay at your own risk. I’m not accountable for him.” I nodded in disgust toward the house.

  The front door opened just then, preventing Adam from making a decision.

  Jared’s head popped out.

  “Adam. Raven. Get in here.”

  “I’m going to head home,” Adam called out.

  Jared’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not going anywhere until Butcher returns. His bags are still here. He must be out running an errand or getting blood. We’ll be waiting for him when he returns. Hurry up.”

  Adam’s shoulders slumped as he walked up to the house. I followed behind him, entering a dimly lit living room adjoining a small square kitchen. Valerie sat on top of the kitchen counter, her revolver on the counter beside her. I looked away before anyone could catch me staring at her gun.

  “Have a seat, Adam,” Jared said.

  Adam glanced around before leaning against the far wall of the living room.

  Blinds covered the windows. Jared walked up to them and pried them apart with his fingers to stare out. He released the blinds and turned to face the rest of us.

  “Butcher, the great tracker is going to walk right into a trap,” he said with a laugh.

  Valerie snorted.

  Rather than sneak up beside her little by little, I walked straight up to the refrigerator and opened it. I took my time staring inside. The cold barely registered. Like most vampires, Butcher kept his thermostat way down. The cold air from the fridge was barely discernable from the cool air inside the house. There was a mason jar with blood filled a third of the way, a pie tin with cooked bits of gray meat, and a variety of condiments from ketchup and mustard to horseradish and Tabasco sauce.

  “What’s for lunch?” Jared called to me.

  “Meat chunks with your choice of dipping sauce,” I answered, wrinkling my nose as I closed the fridge door. “At least there’s blood,” I said, reaching for the cupboard door beside Valerie. She grabbed her gun and leaned back abruptly.

  “What are you doing?” Valerie demanded.

  “Looking for glasses,” I said, keeping my attention inside the cupboard, which turned out to be where Butcher kept his spices.

  “This isn’t snack time,” Valerie snapped. “We’re on a job and even if we weren’t, I only drink human blood, not inferior animal blood from some stinking musk ox.” Valerie’s nose wrinkled. “If their blood tastes anything like they smell, then it’s got to be disgusting.”

  “You all have been living in the city too long,” Adam spoke up from the living room.

  “You’re the one whose been living in the backcountry too long,” Valerie shot back. “And anyone who thinks Anchorage is a city needs to leave the state more often.”

  I had to reach beside Valerie’s head to open the next cupboard. She pushed off the countertop, gun still in hand. Her free hand formed a fist.

  “Stop encroaching on my space,” she snarled at me.

  Jared lifted his hand. “Someone’s coming,” he announced, moving to the window in swift motions.

  Valerie made her way over to the front door as Jared pried the blinds apart only enough to look out with one eye.

  “Dammit!” he said, releasing the blinds. He spun around and raked a hand through his hair.

  “What is it?” Valerie asked.

  “Cops,” Jared said, lip curling on the word.

  “Cops!” Valerie screeched, backing away from the door. “What are the cops doing here?”

  Jared looked at Adam, who shrugged.

  “Maybe they want some meat.”

  Sudden pounding on the door made my heart leap into my throat.

  “State troopers, open up!” a male voice boomed.

  The door handle jerked but didn’t turn. Jared must have locked us back inside after letting us in. There was more pounding. Panic raced through me. Should I run to the door and throw it open? Would Valerie shoot me in the back if I tried? Probably.

  “I said state troopers, open the door.”

  “Open up!” another voice chorused from outside.

  Valerie looked at Jared, eyes wide with panic.

  “All I have is this,” she said, holding up her tiny revolver.

  Jared ground his teeth. “I have my pistol, but the rest of the guns and ammo are in the damn car.” He backed up slowly. “Wait until we’re out of sight then tell them you’re opening the door,” he said to Adam.

  “Am I?” Adam fired back.

  “Wait until we’re gone.” Jared looked from me to Valerie. “Raven. Red. It’s time to go.” He led the way to the back of the house.

  As we retreated I heard Adam call out, “I’m coming. Just a minute. I’m unarmed.”

  My heart thundered erratically. Help was right outside the door and yet I felt an inexplicable instinct to run. Besides, I hadn’t tortured myself tagging along with Jared and Valerie only to let them get away. I still had a job to do.

  I followed Jared and Valerie into a back bedroom. The window had been broken, shards of glass sprinkled the floor below.

  “You first,” Jared said to Valerie.

  She holstered her gun and climbed out the window.

  Jared looked at me with arched brows. “You next.”

  I stepped over the broken glass and lifted my foot over the window, careful to avoid jagged edges still jutting out of the frame. It was only a few feet down to the snow-dusted ground. In the shadow of the house it felt extra bone-jittering cold. Jared climbed out behind me. He looked around then pointed forward. We started walking toward a log cabin.

  We’d barely cleared the shadow of the house when a voice boomed out, “Hands in the air where I can see them!”

  Jared stopped in his tracks, body rigid. Valerie reached for her revolver.

  “Hands in the air! Hands in the air!” someone screamed at her.

  I lifted my arms and turned slowly. There were five troopers dressed in full uniform with guns aimed at us. The brims of their navy hats made it difficult to see their eyes, but the tight clench of their jaws was unmistakable. Two of the troopers closed in on Valerie. The other two moved toward Jared cautiously. Valerie’s hand froze. When she turned and saw we were outnumbered and surrounded, she folded her arms across her chest and pouted.

  “I said hands in the air,” a trooper yelled at her.

  “I heard you the first three times!” Valerie screamed back.

  Jared turned around and began clapping. “Good work, officers,” he said with a sneer. “Think you’re pretty tough with
those uniforms and guns.”

  “You too. Get your hands up,” a trooper yelled at Jared.

  The troopers moved all around us, guns aimed, laser focused on our every movement.

  Slowly, Jared lifted his arms into the air, a malicious smile on his lips as though he were simply stretching.

  “Ah, shit,” Valerie said and lifted her arms.

  Oh, how I loved the men in blue. But was this it? Was this really it? Jared captured at long last—not by the agency, but by Alaska’s state troopers?

  Time slowed as the troopers took the guns from Jared and Valerie and patted each of us down. They cuffed us and marched us around the house to their awaiting vehicles. Cold metal slid over my wrists. Cool air ran through my lungs, up and down my skin. Excitement and dread coursed through me.

  It all seemed too good to be true, but it wasn’t. At long last. Jared had been captured.

  15

  Deadly Frontier

  Valerie and I were marched over to one of the state troopers’ white SUVs while Jared was taken to a separate vehicle and forced in back.

  I wanted to hug the trooper escorting me to the back of his SUV, but my hands were cuffed and I doubted he’d appreciate a detainee reaching her arms toward him. He looked like he was in his late twenties. Under the brim of his hat his head was shaved. As soon as he had us secured inside his vehicle, the trooper climbed into the driver’s seat. Outside the windows, I watched the rest of the troopers get into separate vehicles. Two SUVs, two Ford sedans, and a truck. It looked like the whole cavalry had been called in.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Valerie demanded from the backseat.

  “We received a report of breaking and entering.”

  Classic. Jared and Valerie being taken down for breaking and entering. It was like Mickey Cohen being convicted of tax evasion. If my hands weren’t cuffed I would have rubbed them together gleefully.

  “We weren’t breaking and entering!” Valerie cried. “We were responding to a bulletin about free meat.” She huffed. “Since when is it a crime to respond to an ad?”

  “We caught you trying to escape out a broken window,” the trooper responded gruffly as he drove past the same homes we’d passed to get to Butcher’s place.

  Perhaps a concerned neighbor had called us in.

  Valerie jerked forward in her seat, lips inches from the metal divider between us and the trooper. “Yeah? Well, we were there responding to the ad when you and your friends came rushing in with firearms. That’s why we went out the back window. We were concerned for our safety with all the police brutality that goes on in this country.”

  I snorted derisively. Valerie swung around and glared daggers at me.

  The trooper drove us through town and pulled into a parking lot in front of a beige building with brown trim. There weren’t a lot of windows other than a row of long narrow strips that looked like bars on the second story.

  The trooper in the truck pulled up next to us and helped escort Valerie and me out of the backseat, into the building. Once inside, they removed our cuffs.

  While they fingerprinted us, Valerie threatened to sue the city, the troopers, and the entire state of Alaska. Jared smiled manically while waiting for his turn at the inkpad. After being photographed, Valerie and I were led to a cell and locked inside together. Shortly after, Jared was escorted to a cell across from ours.

  “I want my phone call,” Jared said.

  The trooper who had locked him in the cell didn’t respond. He walked out, leaving the three of us behind bars.

  “Who could you possibly call?” I asked.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know, Raven?” Jared returned, pacing the enclosure. He sounded more annoyed than concerned.

  It must have been an act. How could he not realize he was royally screwed? Game over.

  My happiness was tinged with impatience. Fane. I couldn’t wait to see Fane again. I couldn’t wait to wrap my arms around him and make up for all the kisses we’d missed while we were apart.

  My elation tapered as the hours passed. Tired of sitting on the bench with her arms tightly folded, Valerie sprang to her feet, walked up to the cell door, and wrapped her fingers around the bars. I wasn’t the only one getting antsy.

  “Why hasn’t anyone come back to check on us?” she demanded. “We could be thirsty. You see what I mean about police brutality?”

  Jared took a seat on the bench of his cell and stretched his arms back behind his head, resting them behind his neck. His stared off as though deep in thought. I didn’t like Jared thinking too much.

  I rubbed my elbow and stood in the corner opposite Valerie.

  Just a little longer and this would be all over. I simply had to bide my time until the agency got word we’d been apprehended. Once they did, Fane would fly right up. He was probably already on his way.

  The longer I waited, the more I began feeling like the child whose parent had forgotten to pick her up at school.

  What if he wasn’t coming?

  My throat tightened. With heavy footsteps, I walked over to the bench and sat down, hunching over. Eventually Valerie took a seat on the opposite end of the bench.

  I didn’t know how much time passed before a trooper in his mid-forties walked in. Valerie, Jared, and I all stood. A man followed the trooper. I couldn’t see him right away, not until the trooper announced, “I’ll give you a moment.” He sidestepped the man, revealing Melcher standing ramrod straight in a black suit.

  The trooper walked out.

  What was Melcher doing here? More importantly, why would Fane send Melcher and not come himself?

  Jared leaned against the bars, slipping his arms through as though embracing his cell.

  “Gabriel,” he said in an even, placid voice. “We have to stop meeting this way.”

  Valerie placed her hands on her hips. “Shouldn’t you be on base, taking orders from Fane?”

  Melcher turned his back to Valerie and me. I couldn’t see his expression as he stood in front of Jared.

  “Yes, what are you doing here, Gabriel?” Jared asked.

  Melcher straightened. “I’m here to fix everything.”

  An unsettling feeling drop-kicked my gut. What did he mean by “fix everything”?

  Jared gripped the bars. “I’m listening,” he said in a low voice.

  Melcher brushed the sleeve of his blazer. “There will be plenty of time to talk after I get you out of this dump.”

  He walked out, leaving me with a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. Jared looked across the hall to our cell and bounced on his toes.

  “Gabriel will have us out of here in no time,” he boasted.

  The fact that he sounded happy sent warning signals screaming across my brain.

  I was no longer in a hurry to be freed from my cage. Something wasn’t right. If Fane had any idea I was here he would have accompanied Melcher. He’d be here right now. But he wasn’t.

  Before long, two troopers entered. The older one, who had led Melcher in earlier, unlocked Jared’s cell followed by mine and Valerie’s. His partner opened the door of Jared’s cell while he opened ours.

  “You’re free to go,” he said. “Your supervisor is waiting in front.”

  “I’d like to make a phone call before I leave.” The words tumbled from my lips.

  The trooper’s jaw clenched. “I’m afraid I can’t allow that. You’ll have to ask your superior.”

  Superior? Yetch! This guy had no clue.

  I stood my ground, determined not to leave until I was allowed use of a phone.

  “Move it, Raven,” Jared snarled.

  “No,” I said. “I’m not leaving until I make a call.”

  Jared started toward me. Bold move considering our current location.

  “I have a phone,” a familiar voice said.

  My head jerked. That’s when I saw Henry lingering in the doorframe. Like Melcher, he was wearing a suit.

  “Henry? What are you doing here?” I ask
ed, unable to mask my surprise. There’d been no sign of him on base. The last time I’d seen him was at the palace before Valerie brought him in. I would have thought he’d be the one inside a cell at the agency.

  “Hello, Aurora,” he said pleasantly. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “You hear that?” Jared said, linking his arm around mine to drag me forward with him. “Nothing to worry about. Val and me are the ones in trouble.”

  If that were the case, why did I feel like I was jumping out of the fire and into the frying pan?

  Our group moved into the room where they’d taken our fingerprints, a room now devoid of my heroes in blue. The two troopers who’d released us hadn’t followed us into the next room. What the hell were they doing? Relocking our empty cells?

  I tried digging in my heels, but Jared pulled me forward, herding me with the rest of our small ground outside to the parking lot where two black SUVs waited, exhaust spewing into the frigid air. Someone had recovered Jared’s vehicle and parked it in the corner of the lot.

  Henry led us to Jared’s SUV.

  “I want to ride with Melcher,” Jared said.

  “You’re riding with me,” Henry answered. He set a brisk pace across the parking lot.

  “I’ll drive,” Jared returned.

  “Not an option.”

  “Shotgun then,” Jared said.

  “Sit where you want,” Henry said evenly.

  “Can I borrow your phone?” I asked.

  “No,” Henry answered.

  “Why not?”

  Henry looked over his shoulder briefly and said, “Agent Melcher will debrief you shortly.”

  I attempted to free myself from Jared’s grip by yanking away, but his fingers tightened. There’d likely be bruises on my skin the way he was manhandling my arm.

  Henry opened a back door and Jared shoved me inside and slammed the door shut. When I reached for the handle, Valerie grabbed my arm and pulled me toward her.

  “Don’t touch me!” I snapped.

  Her nostrils flared. Her face turned red. “You’re not getting out of this car.” She reached for my other arm and grabbed my wrist.