by Tina Folsom
Inhaling, he took in Eddie’s scent. It was just as enticing as earlier in the day.
“You left early.”
Eddie’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “I’ve got lots of work to do.”
“You should have woken me before you left the bed.” Thomas leaned in closer, noticing how Eddie pressed himself against the wall at his back.
“I just couldn’t sleep anymore.”
“Was I keeping you awake by snoring?”
Eddie shook his head. “You didn’t snore.”
“I’m glad.” Thomas brought his face closer to Eddie’s, dropping his gaze to his parted lips.
Were they trembling slightly, or was he imagining it? “It would be awful if you didn’t want to sleep in my bed because I snore.”
Eddie’s chest heaved. “I, uh, I . . . ”
“Of course, there are other things that may keep you awake in my bed. I won’t always be able to guarantee that you get a lot of sleep when you’re with me.” Thomas let his lips hover less than an inch over Eddie’s and inhaled his heady scent. He felt him suck in a breath. Without pressing against his mouth, he continued, “I enjoyed what we did. Every single second of it.”
Eddie’s eyes closed. “Thomas, I’m not sure . . . I don’t think I can . . . ”
“Shhhh. I’m not making any demands.” Not yet, he thought. But soon he wouldn’t be able to hold back and would ask for what he wanted. “I hope you’re not mad at me for biting you. But the temptation was too great to resist. You tasted too good.” Even now he could still taste Eddie’s blood on his tongue, and the mere thought made him hard.
Without thinking, he pressed his hips into Eddie’s.
A hitched breath escaped from Eddie’s mouth, and his eyes shot open, his gaze colliding with Thomas’s.
“Oh God, Eddie, I’ve wanted you for so long. I want you even more now.”
In slow motion, he pressed his lips onto Eddie’s. Tilting his head to the side, he drove his tongue between Eddie’s parted lips, stroking gently against his counterpart. The contact sent a heat wave through his body and straight into his cock, making him grind his hips against Eddie.
With long and sure strokes, he explored Eddie’s mouth and dueled with his tongue, feeling how the young vampire in his arms gave up resistance and rubbed his body against Thomas’s.
When Thomas felt Eddie’s hands grip his ass and yank him even harder against him, a groan slipped over his lips.
He plundered Eddie’s mouth, reveling in his taste, the firm strokes of his tongue, and the hard press of his lips. He’d always loved the way a man kissed: with determination and strength.
And Eddie was no different: he kissed like he meant it, even if Thomas had been the one to initiate the kiss.
Eddie palmed his ass, squeezing his flesh in the same rhythm with which he ground his groin against Thomas. There was no mistaking the heavy bulge in Eddie’s pants. His lover had a hard-on of massive proportions. That fact shot another flame of white-hot heat through his body: he could arouse Eddie within seconds. It gave him hope that things between them would progress quickly and become even more intimate soon.
All of a sudden, the ring of a telephone tore through the sounds of heavy breathing in the room.
Eddie ripped his lips from him, releasing his hold on Thomas, and pushed him back a foot.
Panic shone from his eyes. “People will find out.”
Another ring sounded.
Eddie turned to the door and ripped it open.
“Eddie, please . . . ”
But Eddie rushed outside and down the corridor. Thomas slammed the door shut, frustrated.
Maybe kissing him in the office, where anybody could walk in on them at any time hadn’t been the smartest idea. Clearly, once Eddie had heard the phone and regained his senses, he’d panicked.
Thomas shoved a hand through his hair. He’d talk to him at sunrise when they were both home, and tell him that he would from now on confine his displays of affection to their home, where they had all the privacy they needed.
The phone rang a third time. Thomas turned to the desk and lifted the receiver. “This is Thomas.” His voice sounded huskier than usual. No wonder—after all, he’d been ready to fuck Eddie against the wall in his office.
“Please stop your people from looking for me,” a familiar voice came through the line.
Thomas was instantly alert. “Al!”
“Listen, I can’t talk long, but just forget about me.”
“What’s going on, Al? Why did you sell the shop?”
There was a brief pause during which Thomas could hear a heavy breath being expelled. “It was safer that way.”
“Safer? Did anybody threaten you?”
“Don’t get involved, Thomas. You’ll only regret it. I did what I had to do,” Al shot back.
“We can protect you. Scanguards can—”
“Nobody can protect me from them,” Al cut him off. “It’s better to get out of their way.
They’re too strong.”
“What did they threaten you with?” Thomas asked, hoping to get through to him.
“It doesn’t matter. Just let it rest, or people will get hurt.”
Thomas sighed. “People have already gotten hurt. Sergio and his mate are dead.”
A gasp echoed through the line. “Fuck! He must have resisted them. But I’m not stupid enough to play hero. Let them have what they want and get out. You can’t stop them.”
“I can and I will! But I need your help. Where can I find them now?”
“I don’t know. And I’d rather keep it that way. It’s safer not knowing.”
“Al—” But the click in the line indicated that Al had disconnected the call.
“Shit!” Thomas cursed. He didn’t have to be a brain surgeon to put two and two together: Kasper’s disciples were behind this. They were the newcomers and they had scared Al into selling and leaving town. They’d tried to do the same to Sergio. Only Sergio hadn’t complied.
Thomas ripped the door open and stalked down to Zane’s office. He had to find the nest of vampires who were forcing the good vampires of the city to leave so they could replace them with their puppets.
At Zane’s office, Thomas rapped his knuckles on the door. “Zane?” Without waiting for a reply, he opened the door and saw Zane sliding a silver blade into the sheath strapped to his ankle.
“Going out?” Thomas asked.
Zane nodded. “Patrol.”
“Change of plans. Tell your patrol partner to find a replacement.”
“What for?”
“I need you for a little breaking and entering.”
Zane’s lips curled up in an almost-smile. “Sweet.”
26
Thomas looked over Zane’s shoulder, watching how he worked on the lock of the entrance door. The building was a run-down, two-story house on a busy street along one of the streetcar lines in the Outer Parkside neighborhood. The attorney’s name, Wilbur Wu, was stenciled in gold letters on the large window facing the street. Parts of the letters had stripped and faded, adding to the unappealing look of the law offices behind the uninviting facade. Somehow Thomas couldn’t imagine that this attorney attracted much walk-in business.
“Got it,” Zane murmured and pushed the door open, sliding inside the dark interior.
Thomas followed without a word and eased the door shut silently behind him. To the left was a staircase leading up to the second floor; ahead of him lay a dark corridor, and to the right was a door. He pointed to it.
“Let’s start here.”
They walked inside what turned out to be an office. Several filing cabinets lined one wall, a massive desk dominated the center of the room, and two rickety old chairs stood in front of it, presumably meant for clients, though Thomas couldn’t imagine what person in their right mind would want to sit down in a chair that looked like it would be crushed under the weight of a cat.
“The blinds,” Zane advised and walked to the window, lo
wering the shades, then adjusting them so they were fully closed.
Thomas pulled out a flashlight from his pocket and switched it on, pointing it at the filing cabinets. “Let’s get started.”
They rifled through drawer after drawer, starting with the one labeled ‘K’. Thomas shone his light at the labels of each file contained in the drawer, looking for K Industries.
“Nothing here,” he commented.
Zane grunted. “If he wanted to hide something, he wouldn’t be filing the documents under K.”
“Good point.” Thomas continued his search, painstakingly thumbing through file after file.
“Did Al have no information at all?” Zane asked out of the blue.
“If he did, he didn’t want to share. All he said was that he didn’t want to fight them. And Al is no coward.”
But knowing what he knew, Thomas couldn’t fault him for his caution. The dark power that those vampires possessed could frighten anybody. There was no defense against the mind control they could unleash on an unsuspecting vampire. Only somebody like Thomas, who possessed the same kind of dark power, would have a chance of fighting them. But first he had to find them.
Zane closed another drawer. “Nothing here either.”
Thomas let out a resigned breath. “Upstairs then. There must be more.”
Leaving the office behind, they walked up the creaking staircase. Thomas’s nostrils picked up a scent as they reached the landing.
“You smell that?”
“Not a good sign.”
Thomas followed the smell that led him to a door at the end of the hallway. The stench was strongest here. He braced himself for what he was about to see and pushed the door open.
A Chinese man in his fifties, presumably Wilbur Wu, lay on the floor, his body lifeless.
There was surprisingly little blood, despite the wounds on his face. His mouth had been cut from his face, exposing his white teeth. His tongue was missing.
Zane pointed to the injuries. “Looks like a warning sign.”
Thomas couldn’t agree more. “He knew something he wasn’t supposed to know.”
“And was about to talk about it,” Zane added. He pointed to the manila folder the dead man clutched in his hand.
Thomas bent down and took it from him. The label had been ripped off. He opened the file. It was empty. He had expected as much. Why kill Wu and leave evidence behind? “Too late.
Whatever was in there is gone.”
Thomas rose, bracing himself at a filing cabinet that was labeled ‘Banking’.
“He probably got greedy and blackmailed somebody. Looks like what they paid him in the first place wasn’t enough.”
“Greed is a terrible thing,” Thomas confirmed.
“Yep. Couldn’t take his bank account with him, could he?”
Suddenly something clicked in Thomas’s mind. “His bank account! That’s it!”
“What are you talking about?”
Thomas turned to the cabinet behind him and pointed at the label. “If Wu’s gotten paid, there should be records of transfers or checks.” He ripped the top drawer open and looked at the neatly organized files. “Perfect, they’re in date order.”
He remembered the date of the Delaware filing and pulled out the files around that period, tossing one to Zane while examining one himself. “They would have had to pay him for doing the company filing for them, and most attorneys work on a retainer—which is always issued prior to any work being done. And since the company couldn’t have a bank account prior to the filing, somebody would have had to issue a check from their personal account.”
“That’s why you’re the genius at Scanguards,” Zane remarked.
“Hardly.”
“Now, now, why so humble? You do know that everybody looks up to you, don’t you?”
Thomas shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay, blind and a genius! You should look around you occasionally. Especially the young kids at Scanguards look at you like you’re their god.”
“Zane, you’re so full of shit. Is there anything you want, or why are you sucking up to me?”
Zane rolled his eyes. “Sucking up? Me? Not likely. However, now that you mention it, can you get Maya off my back about that whole apology thing to Oliver?”
Thomas sank his head back into the file and continued scanning the documents. “It wouldn’t do you any harm to apologize. Besides, I thought I had convinced Maya to forget about the party and buy him and Ursula an all-expenses-paid trip abroad instead.”
“She’s still on about throwing him a party. And you know how I hate anything sappy.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“Thanks.”
Thomas closed the file, having found nothing. “Anything?”
Zane pulled out a sheet and looked at it more closely. “Maybe. It’s a photocopy of a check and there are some notations in the margin.”
Thomas reached for it and shone his light on the words Wu had scribbled next to the check.
Del filing, K I, then a date of about two weeks before the filing date.
“Looks like it,” Thomas murmured and shifted the light so it illuminated the check.
An address was printed on the left hand corner of it. The address was local; however the name could not be read. Whoever had photocopied the check had placed it incorrectly on the photocopier and cut off the top section of it that contained the name of the issuer.
Thomas’s eyes drifted to the signature on it. In a rather old-fashioned script, a name was written in blue ink. He couldn’t decipher it. Nevertheless, his heart skipped a beat. The handwriting looked familiar. He shook off the shiver that crept up his spine. He had to be mistaken. Lots of people had similar handwriting.
27
The address they’d found on the check was located on the edge of Chinatown where it bled over into Little Italy, or North Beach, as it was officially called. The streets were narrow here, the buildings mostly three stories, or occasionally four stories high. Store fronts were interspersed with restaurants, and above them, apartments were located from which laundry hung to dry. The area was colorful to say the least.
Even at this late hour, many of the shops were still open, and pungent smells drifted from their entrances. Thomas turned up his nose and glanced sideways at Zane.
Zane’s lip curled up in disgust. “What now?”
“Let’s check it out.” Thomas motioned his colleague to follow him up the steep side street until they reached the building. It was nothing special, a simple, rectangular, gray, three-story building, most likely built in the sixties or seventies, with small windows and no distinguishing architectural features. There was a garage on the entry level, a rarity for this part of town, where parking was at a premium.
Thomas looked at the house and noticed that the street lamp in front of it wasn’t working, making this part of the street darker, and effectively hiding the entrance from human eyes. His vampire vision, however, still enabled him to see the door clearly. He lifted his head to look up at the windows. There was light behind them, and no curtains or blinds were drawn on the first and second floors. On the third floor, blinds obstructed any view into the interior.
He lowered his gaze to the floor above the garage and focused on one window. The room behind it was well lit. Silently, Thomas stood in the dark delivery entrance of a store and waited, Zane, next to him, not making a sound either. They were used to this. Waiting and watching was part of their work. They’d done it a thousand times, and while they hated waiting, both knew it was necessary.
It took a few minutes before he saw a movement in the house. A man walked past the window, a phone pressed to his ear.
“Somebody seems to be home,” Zane said, rocking back on his heels. “Wanna visit?”
Thomas was about to nod when a second person appeared. He recognized him immediately: Xander, the man who’d cornered him a few days earlier. He wasn’t at all surprised to see him at the house. It o
nly confirmed what he already knew: Xander was behind K Industries. He was the driving force trying to restore Kasper’s empire after his demise. If he could take out Xander, then the rest of them would retreat into the holes they’d crawled out of. If none of them possessed more power than he’d sensed emanating from Xander, he could easily defeat them.
Yet, he wasn’t going to bring Zane into his. While Zane was a mean fighting machine, even he couldn’t win a fight against a vampire carrying Kasper’s blood.
“No. Let’s wait. I’m going to talk to Samson first,” he lied. He motioned to the house.
“They’re not going anywhere. We’ll come back after we’ve formulated a plan.”
“Fine,” Zane agreed. “Let’s go talk to Samson.”
“I’ll take care of it. Why don’t you go back to the office and organize the clean up at the attorney’s office? We can’t leave him like that.”
Zane narrowed his eyes, looking at him with suspicion. Could Zane tell that this was merely an excuse so he’d get out of his way?
“Your call. See you later.”
When Zane turned on his heels, Thomas breathed a sigh of relief and walked in the opposite direction toward Nob Hill, where Samson’s house was located, just in case Zane turned around to make sure he was doing what he said he’d do.
After two blocks, Thomas turned around and returned to the house in which he’d seen Xander. Looking left and right, he crossed the street and approached the entrance door. In front of it, he paused, inhaling deeply. Then he closed his eyes and let his mind travel, reaching past the door and into the building’s interior.
He clearly could sense several vampires on the premises. Xander and whoever had been on the phone were not alone. That fact didn’t deter him. As long as he could take down Xander, the others would be easy pickings. All he needed to do was keep Xander in the belief that he intended him no harm. Then once he dropped his guard, Thomas would attack.
Clearing his mind, Thomas rang the door bell and waited, his entire body alert and ready to engage the enemy at any time. Footsteps from the inside alerted him to the approach of a vampire. There was a slight hesitation of the person who stopped just behind the door, but then the deadbolt was turned, and the door opened inwards.