by Greco, Karen
I poured Chuck a glass of cold water. One more whiskey and he would be of no use to us. Shooting Max a look, I tried to sound reassuring. "Don't worry. Max is cool about our kind. Even the FBI has one or two that get it."
Chuck nodded and took a deep drink of the water. "There was no hospital and no blood type," he said once he swallowed.
I shook my head. "Max, this whole thing sounds like black market blood."
"Black market blood?" His face was a mix of fascination and repulsion.
I nodded. "There are plenty of humans who get their kicks from being 'vampires,'" I said using air quotes. "Black market blood is for the ones too scared to bite. They drink it."
"That's a public health threat just waiting to happen." Spoken like a true Fed.
"Humans are lucky that there are very few 'vampires' among them. These Betas, not so much."
"So where does black market blood come from?" Max asked.
"That's a question I can't answer. The black market blood I've come across was always stolen from blood banks. Hospital stickers were on them, blood type, that sort of thing."
"Our blood came from Jackson," Chuck offered.
"And who is Jackson?" Max asked.
"He's a guy that comes by our campsite."
"Campsite?" Max looked puzzled.
"Betas tend to stick together," I explained. "They are not strong like other vampires, and that makes them vulnerable. Chuck, why are you guys camping in the middle of winter?"
I was kind of surprised myself. Given their vulnerabilities, camping in the woods in the middle of winter was pretty reckless.
"It's only until we find a place large enough for all of us."
"How many's all of us?" I asked.
"About one hundred."
I whistled. "One hundred? That's a huge nest."
He shrugged. "Biggest I've ever been in."
"How do you guys travel together?" I asked, remembering that Betas moved around a lot because their vulnerabilities kept them on the run.
Chuck shook his head. "We don't. We all met here."
I crossed my arms and raised my eyebrows. This was not textbook Beta behavior.
"I came with my nest," Chuck continued. "There were around 11 of us. Big yes, but not a hundred."
"So if this is an unusually big grouping, what brought all of you together?" Max asked.
I was impressed with how quickly Max was grasping this. I didn't meet a Beta until one exploded on Frankie and me in the Superman Building. But I had studied them with Geena, one of my instructors at the Blood Ops base. She had only met one Beta, and it was someone Blood Ops had brought in for testing. Not only were Betas rare, but they usually stayed off the grid.
"Jackson," he said.
"The same guy bringing you black market blood?" I shook my head.
"Jackson said that Rhode Island was going to be Shangri-La for all supernatural creatures. Even Betas. He said that once the mayor took the city," Chuck said, pointing at Bertrand's empty bar stool, "he'd take over the state next, and he'd let us live safely."
I gasped. "Holy shit. Bertrand's building a supernatural Shangri-La? For what? What the hell is his endgame?"
"Not our focus right now," Max stopped me. "Is your camp the only one?"
Chuck shook his head. "I don't know. I don't think so. We saw Jackson a lot when we first got here, but now he only comes by every few days to bring us the blood bags. When he dropped off the bags the other day, I got a look into the back of his truck. I saw seven huge coolers — they could be full of bags. Now he just drops and leaves. I don't know where he goes."
"I think I am going to need one of those," Max pointed at the beer tap. "There has to be more camps."
Damn. I needed a drink, too. I poured out two pints of Narragansett — one for Max and one for me.
"What about these blood bags?" Max continued. "Why aren't all of you sick? Is there some sort of immunity?"
Chuck shook his head, his eyes filled with tears. "I have no idea why the blood isn't killing all of us."
"Because not all the bags are infected," I theorized. "I don't think any vampire, Beta or not, is immune to this."
"What is it then?"
"Frankie said he saw this before, when opium use was at its height. Vampires who drank the blood of opium users — hard to avoid and easy to seduce — exploded. He said the opium in the blood does something to vampires."
"So there's another way to kill vampires? Apart from the staking and beheading?" Max said, sounding a little too excited by that.
"If the infected Betas have been causing this much chaos, what do you think a full-on vamp would do?" I countered.
"Point taken," he said.
"This isn't good. For any of us." I took a gulp of my beer, enjoying the ice-cold brew sliding down my throat.
Chuck stared at me. "So what are you going to do? They said you would help."
"Who's they?"
Chuck sipped his whiskey and shrugged. "Dunno. Other Betas. We've heard stories. You clean out the bad vamps."
"And you think your nest needs to be cleaned out?" God, this sounded like genocide. What the hell?
"We don't want to do it, but it seems like the most humane option."
I shook my head. "No way. That's murder. Besides, they implode on their own." The memories of the two Betas exploding were still fresh in my mind.
"So you won't help us?" he said, looking crestfallen.
"Chuck, someone is deliberately targeting Betas," Max said. "You could kill off the infected members of your nest, sure. But that's not going to stop the problem."
I wrinkled my nose. "What are you getting at?"
He took a long pull on his beer and then smiled.
"How are you at camping?"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"No way!" I barked at Max as I stomped up the stairs to the apartment.
By the time Chuck left, it was last call. As soon as I turned the lock on the front door, Max was rattling off this plan to infiltrate the Beta camp in the dead cold of February.
I wasn't exactly outdoorsy. In fact, I hated camping. As part of Blood Ops training, I was sent out in the woods of Montana for survival training when I was twelve. It was pouring rain, and I spent a wet and miserable two days up a tree. That's when Dr. O decided I was more effective in urban areas.
"They need help, Nina," he shouted up after me. "Besides, camping is fun."
"No, it's not fun," I huffed at his footfalls following me up the stairs. "And anyway, this isn't my thing. You're the cop. You're the one that goes on stakeouts. I just...stake."
He followed me into the apartment. Closing the door, he leaned against it, crossing his arms. "And that's exactly why I need you there. You think they're targeted too."
"Of course they're targeted, but there's no telling who is targeting them."
"A vampire who wants to build a master race." He sounded so convinced of this, he was almost smug.
"Hell, maybe it's Bertrand," I offered. "They were lured here with that promise, that he's creating a safe haven for supernaturals. Or something."
"Bertrand's not concerned with Beta-Vamps," Max disagreed.
I shrugged and pulled a package of bacon out of the fridge. "No telling what that power hungry demonic jerk is concerned with."
"Yes there is," Max insisted. "And it's cleaning this place up. It's part of a power grab, sure, but so what? If it gets the nasty element out, why is it bad?"
"Wow," I shook my head. "When did you become a Bertrand fan boy? Look at what he did to you!"
He looked so normal, hovering between the door and the kitchen, a hint of his muscular body under his form fitting t-shirt and a pair of well-worn jeans. I could see the outline of his quad muscles through the fabric. After two months in the New England winter, his California tan had faded, but his skin still retained a slightly olive tone, though not quite as dark as mine.
I pulled out a cast iron pan and fired up the stove. It was hard to believe that,
when anger consumed him, this beautiful man in my kitchen turned into a monster worse than me. That he was actually defending the guy who did this to him was kind of unfathomable.
"I am not a Bertrand fan boy," he scowled at me. "I am just not a judgmental bitch."
Bacon fat spattered and popped when I placed the strips into a pan. "Wow, Max. That's spectacularly unfair. Not to mention rude. And kinda sexist, too."
"Maybe." He wasn't backing down. "But you are so consumed by your hate that you aren't seeing things clearly. Or objectively."
I pulled out two slices of bread and popped them in the toaster oven. Then I turned towards him, arms folded, and gave him my best hard stare.
"Look, I don't mean to be an asshole, okay? But I need you to hear me out." His tone downshifted to normal.
I gave him the universal sign for "keep going" while I tended to my sizzling bacon.
"I am the top gang expert at the FBI, and regardless of this, this...this thing that happened to me, I am still the top gang expert at the FBI."
"What does that have to do with any of this?" I asked, reaching for a tomato.
"Gangs, at their core, are like old-school, KKK-type of outfits. There's a lot of Darwinism in there, even amongst the religious fanatics. Whatever is targeting these Betas could be some sort of gang pushing for a master vampire race."
I chewed on that for a second. A vampire gang? It sounded preposterous. Sure, some vampires had nests, or groups that they stuck close to. But even then you were looking at four, maybe five tops in the group. And most vamps were free agents. Beta-Vamps were the only vampires consistently in nests, and those nests tended to be larger, but even then only slightly. For the Betas, there was safety in numbers.
"So let's say that there is some vampire KKK thing running around. What do you propose we do in the woods?"
"A good, old-fashioned stakeout."
"In the woods? In what? The trees?" I snorted from deep inside the fridge, where I searched unsuccessfully for lettuce. Looked like it was a BLT without the L sort of night.
"Yes."
I could not believe he said that with a straight face. "You are joking, right?"
"I can get camouflaged platforms that go into the trees. There's no leaf cover, but as long as we are dressed in blacks and it's at night, we should be okay."
So he was serious.
I speared a slice of bacon with a fork and shook it at him, flinging the hot bacon grease around the kitchen. "I am not shimmying up a tree with you."
"Frankie'll be there, too," he said.
I burst out laughing. "Frankie? Up a tree? In the dead of winter? Are we talking about the same Frankie?"
"He'll do it."
"This is the same Frankie that is snapping up all the expensive designer jeans in the state? The same Frankie that mourns the end of the Medici court? Come on, Max. He wasn't even a hippie in the '60s!"
"He'll do it," Max repeated.
I piled the bacon onto the bread without even bothering to let the fat drain off. "And when are we supposed to go on this stakeout?"
"I think we go in as quickly as possible, tomorrow night even."
I paused and weighed my options. A stakeout could get me out of the Killing Haley concert. But it worked the same in reverse. Which poison was I willing to swallow? Bertrand's bullshit, or Max and me up a tree in the freezing cold? Bertrand was totally winning.
"Sorry, I can't," I said. "I have to babysit Killing Haley."
It was Max's turn to laugh. "That's convenient."
"Go with Frankie! It'll be like a male bonding session. You can even hug a tree together."
"Nice try, but we need eyes."
I sighed, knowing he was right. "I so do not want to get wrapped up in this shit. I want to get this Jackson guy too, but a stakeout in the woods? There isn't another way?"
"Sorry, Nina. You got wrapped up in this when that Beta knocked on the bar door last night."
I groaned. "Fine. But what about the blood supply. They need to eat, and they can't keep taking chances with those bags."
"What do you want me to do?"
"How's your poker face?" I flattened my bacon overloaded sandwich down with my hand.
"I am not going to like this, am I?" Max asked.
"Can you make up a reason why the FBI would need blood bags from the hospital? We can take it out to the nest, and then they can feed safely."
He raked his hand through his wavy dark blond hair and sighed. "That's illegal, Nina."
"We're just bending the rules a little. For a good cause." I took a bite of my sandwich. I missed the cool crunch of the lettuce, but the extra bacon fat made up for it.
"What if a human needs the blood?"
"What if?" I shrugged. "Does that make the Beta-Vamps less important or deserving?"
"That blood could save a life. The Beta-Vamps are already dead."
"But are they, really? Did Chuck seem any less human than you or me? One day when the vampires come out of the closet, this will be one of the great philosophical debates. In the meantime, I think we need to get them some safe blood to drink."
"How can you live so comfortably on the fringes of morality like that?" Max said, staring at me.
"It's easy, Max. We are the fringes of morality. We are the monsters under the bed, the boogie man. But we aren't the bad guys, Max. We really aren't. Once you learn to live in a world that is not black and white, then maybe you'll finally get it."
And with that, I took a huge bite of my BLT-without-the-L. Max just stared at me. His left temple was throbbing, and he was working his jaw around a little, like he was trying to hold back some angry retort. I calmly swallowed down my food, watching him like he was an aquarium fish, wondering if he would keep his temper in check or Berserk on me in the kitchen. I almost hoped for the latter simply to prove my point.
Instead, he got up and went to the bathroom.
With Max sulking in the loo, my adrenaline depleted and exhaustion kicked in. I pushed my plate away and dropped my head on the table. I wanted to close my eyes, just for a minute.
"Ow!" The side of my head slammed into a wall, jarring me awake.
"Sorry," Max said flatly. He had me in a fireman's carry, taking me down the hallway towards the bedrooms.
"What the hell?" I squirmed. Being held like that was damn uncomfortable.
"You passed out cold on the kitchen table. Could not get you to wake up. Until now. When was the last time you slept?"
"No idea," I said.
"I thought so. You look like you could use eight hours."
"That's kind of rude."
"Not rude if it's true." He carried me into Babe's room.
"Not my room," I muttered.
"Yeah, well there's so much crap on the bed in the other room. Where the hell have you been sleeping?" He dropped me on the bed.
I sank into my aunt's pillows. "On top of the crap."
Half-asleep, I felt a tug on my sneaker on he pulled at the laces on my Chuck Taylors. Instinct trumped logic, and I kicked out my right foot, landing a solid blow straight into his solar plexus. The force of the kick sent him reeling back and he landed with a great expulsion of breath. I sat straight up, my hand over my mouth, partly out of shock but mainly because I didn't want him to see me giggle.
"Dammit, Nina!" he said. He still sounded a bit winded. "I was going to say that you're still drop dead gorgeous even when you look like shit."
"That's not...oh fuck it." I flopped back down and pulled a pillow over my face.
"Promise not to kick me again if I sit down for a minute?"
I let out a muffled affirmative. He didn't even try to finish removing my shoes, so I dangled my feet off the side of the bed.
He settled in beside me, snatching the pillow off my face and placing it under his lower back. He leaned against it and stretched one arm across the headboard. The other arm was crossed in front of his stomach, just in case.
"Sorry," I said with a sympathetic grimace.
"It was just a reaction. I didn't mean to...you know."
"Apology accepted," he sighed, shaking his head. "But it still hurt like hell."
"Whatever," I shrugged, already drifting back to sleep.
"Hey wait," Max said as he shook my shoulder. "Before you go to sleep."
I shrugged his hand off. "God, what?"
"What the hell is that?"
I opened one eye and saw him pointing at a kind of hideous sculpture that sat on my aunt's bedside table. Modeled after an ancient Mayan sculpture, it was very primitive. It looked more like a rabid Chihuahua with really large fangs than a large predator cat.
"That's Babe's Jaguar. She calls it her protector. It has something to do with being the sun in the dark. It's a Mexican thing." I snapped my eyes back shut.
"One more thing."
"Ugh. Max! What?" I just wanted sleep, sweet sweet sleep.
"I'll get Chuck and his friends the clean blood bags."
"Wait. Seriously?" My eyes snapped open and I pushed myself up on my elbows.
"Yes, seriously," Max said. "You were right."
I grinned. "Say that again?"
He rolled his eyes. "You were right."
I slipped back down among the pillows. "Hearing that never gets old."
He chuckled and pulled the quilt up from the bottom of the bed to cover me, my sneakered feet still hanging off the bed. "So that means you're going camping with me?"
"Mmm hmmm, nice try though," I said, yawning.
"We'll sort out the details tomorrow," he continued.
I was too exhausted to keep the argument going. It would be better battling this out after I had a chance to recharge. But camping? No. Way.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"Wakey wakey!" Frankie's voice boomed through the bedroom just before something ice cold and wet hit me, soaking me from my head to my chest.
"What the hell?" I shot straight up, my eyes barely opened. My forehead came into direct contact with Max's solid shoulder. He was already sitting up, water dripping off of his face too. "Ow, dammit!"