The abrupt pop of his gun startled her into action. Dante was alone up there against an entire hive of vampires gone feral.
She was in great shape and well trained for such physical maneuvers, but it was far more difficult to scale the drainpipe than Dante made it seem. She wedged the heel of her boot against the brick and raised herself up. Levering her other foot against the restaurant’s awning she reached for the window ledge above her. Leaping from the ledge, she grasped the edge of the roof and swung herself up.
On the far corner of the roof, the vampires huddled over Mack Saunders—or what was left of him. Dante closed the distance between them. Despite his superhuman speed, he wasn’t fast enough. The starving vampires fell upon the underworld boss like so many wild dogs. Two filthy ragged vampires dove for the veins in his neck. She saw the gleam of their yellow fangs in the moonlight. Saunders screamed then, high and thin like a young girl. He searched out Dante running toward him out of the darkness.
“Get them off me!” His mouth moved to say something else, then his eyes rolled up into their sockets, exposing the whites.
“Off him!” Dante ordered. The vampires ignored him.
At the sight of their fellows feeding, the rest of the starving vampires dove at Saunders. Two more tore the sleeves of his expensive suit in their haste to locate the veins in his wrists and elbows. Xandra choked back nausea at the sound of their slurping and swallowing.
“Last warning,” Dante shouted. Bracing himself he aimed his gun at the vampire feeding from Saunders’s jugular vein. Xandra saw the flash and heard the crack as the gun fired.
Rotten flesh splashed up from the feeding vampire as the bullet hit. He reared back, teetering for a moment in indecision between his meal and certain death. Food won the battle. Dante fired again.
This time the bullet hit him square in the heart. Clutching his chest, the vampire turned hateful red eyes on Dante. Then in horror, he watched as his body rapidly decayed from rotting skin to black ooze that ran in foul smelling rivulets through the gravel on the roof. In a breath another had taken his place.
A pair of female vamps with stringy hair that might once have been blonde tossed Saunders’s shoes aside and sank their teeth into the veins in his ankles, not even bothering to remove his socks. The beautiful vampire who’d been Saunders’s date reached him. Hissing and shrieking, she waded into the fray.
Dante swore. He raised his gun and fired again. His bullet took down the new vamp now slurping contently from Saunders’s jugular vein. Xandra understood his strategy. The jugular vein supplied the most blood. If he could get the attackers away from the mobster’s neck, then he might have a chance. The youth went down gurgling and spitting. His body blackened, then liquefied. It smelled like an open sewer. Xandra clenched her teeth against the bile rising in her throat. Neither the bullets nor their peers being murdered stopped the tide of vampires piling onto the mob boss, hoping for a piece of him.
Jeremy’s backup hadn’t shown up. And he’d specifically forbidden her from getting involved, but she had to do something. The vampires buzzed like a hive, sucking and slurping. They wouldn’t stop until there was nothing left of Saunders. Raising her gun, Xandra took a stance beside Dante and fired.
He shot a sideways glance at her but didn’t object. Her bullet caught one of the female vamps in the forehead. She raised her head, looking confused for a moment. Realizing suddenly that the bullet had lodged in her brain, she tried to gain her feet, but her knees gave out. Her blonde hair decayed to the consistency of steel wool. Her skin grayed, then blackened. Ooze ran down her face like melting wax. It took her face with it. Xandra saw the white outline of her spine briefly revealed, then that too became steaming slime.
Dante fired off another round. His bullets hit several of the vamps, but only one penetrated the heart of the filthy youth trying to gnaw through the center of Saunders’s suit jacket. The vamp keeled over. More surged to take his place, slipping and sliding in their buddy’s remains.
Cursing, Dante holstered his gun and leapt into the fray.
“No!” Xandra screamed. But he ignored her.
With an oath of her own, she stuffed her own gun back in its place at the small of her back and pulled her silver-plated knife. “Hurry up, Jeremy,” she muttered and then dove in after Dante.
Saunders’s date had fallen under the sheer weight of his attackers. In their frenzy, several of the feral vamps had moved to feeding from her. Her high-pitched shrieks punctuated the sounds of their slurping. What kind of vampires fed from their own kind? She had only a moment to puzzle over that strange phenomenon before the feral vamps caught the scent of the blood racing through her veins and turned in her direction. Dante was pulling vamps off the mob boss by their hair, their filthy clothes, or anything else he could reach. But as fast as they’d been dislodged, they went back to feeding mindlessly. Too busy wading through the melee, he didn’t notice that the vampires had turned their attention to Xandra.
One reached her. She stabbed out deftly with her knife. The vampire screamed as the silver penetrated his flesh. The sound brought Dante’s head up. He took one look at her holding a trio of feral vamps at bay with only her knife and swore.
Giving up on the knife, Xandra fired her gun again. She took out one of the trio, but the other two lunged at her. She fired again and brought down another, but many of the hive had been denied a bite of Saunders by their sheer numbers. Suddenly realizing a living, breathing human being stood there unprotected, they rushed at her.
She fired until her gun was empty and then put the knife to use. She obliterated another two, maybe three, but soon the fence of their bodies blotted out the sky.
“Dante!” she screamed in desperation.
From somewhere nearby, she heard his harsh curses, but she couldn’t see him. Teeth closed upon her wrist. She screamed and used the knife again. Something shrieked.
Down on the street she heard sirens. Jeremy. Too late—as usual.
Suddenly there was air above her. She heard the percussive pops of a gun going off a close range. Someone seized the vampire sucking at her wrist by the hair. His head snapped back, but he wouldn’t give up his grip on her flesh. Her knife was ripped from her hand. It gleamed as it scraped across the neck of the vampire feeding from her. Black blood poured out over her. She screamed again. Vampire saliva raced through her system. She felt lightheaded and sick.
Talons scraped across her chest as she was snatched from their clutches. Lifted, she felt herself flying through the air. No, not flying, running at high speed. They hit the roof of the nearest building. The impact of meeting the pavement beneath jarred every bone in her body.
Behind her, Jeremy yelled through a megaphone. Regulation boots slapped against the pavement. His operatives scaled the wall. Gun shots pock-marked the brick.
Slung over someone’s shoulder, she tried to raise her head to answer Jeremy’s frantic summons, but she couldn’t seem to find her voice. Being sick to her stomach was a definite possibility. She clenched her mouth shut.
In the pocket of her torn jacket, her cell phone rang. The sound startled her back to reality. She attempted to claw herself upright.
“Leave it. It can wait.” It took her a moment to recognize Dante’s voice. It sounded deeper, slower and more hypnotic.
With the last of her flagging strength, she levered herself against him. “Put me down.”
“No.”
“What do you mean no?” She struggled again, earning a harsh curse in response.
“Stay still,” he ordered.
She raised her head, noticing for the first time how fast the buildings were rushing by them on the street. She looked down again. Dante’s feet hit the pavement more rapidly than she could track with her human eyes. Or maybe she was just dizzy from loss of blood and the vampire virus surging through her bloodstream.
“My car—” she started to say.
“Yeah, I know,” he grunted back. “My car’s back there too.”
>
“So why don’t we go back?” Was she being kidnapped? Surely he wouldn’t be so stupid. Both their vehicles were back there. It wouldn’t take Jeremy long to recognize the fleet car parked in the street. Or notice that the gunmetal green Miata next to it had also been abandoned. Jeremy would trace the vehicle’s ownership.
“You’re injured,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“You’re taking me to the hospital? They do have ambulances you know.”
“A hospital is the last thing you need.”
She struggled some more and only succeeded in exhausting herself. “But I’ve been bitten—”
“I know,” he said tersely.
Her panicked mind raised the question: was he taking her off somewhere to die? Somewhere no questions would be asked? And no one would know the answer to who had created the vampire hive? Just because Dante was a cop didn’t mean he was an honest one.
It was becoming increasingly difficult to think clearly. The cadence of Dante’s voice insisted she rest and forget about things of vital importance like her own survival. “I need the antidote. I need…”
What did she need? She couldn’t remember.
“You need vampire blood,” he said quietly.
For a moment there was only the slap of his boots hitting the pavement. Then he said, “Don’t worry, there’s lots of that where we’re going.”
“What?” Nothing made any sense. Dante was supposedly a member of the Vampire Liaison Squad for the local police force. She was a vampire hunter, a member of a secret organization. While the two forces didn’t necessarily get along, they should have been aware of each other’s existence. So why was he running away?
The vision of Jeremy screaming at the unfortunate operatives who’d answered her emergency call shot through her mind. Jeremy would be furious. If she lived through this, she’d probably be fired. Tell it to my corpse.
A sudden thought occurred to her. Why hadn’t any of the feral vampires tried to bite Dante?
They’d fallen on Mack Saunders like vamps who had been starved since they’d turned. They’d certainly shown no hesitation in biting her, nor even the attractive vampire who had been the mob boss’s date. Why not Dante? Not one of them had touched him. They’d seemed almost afraid of him…just like they’d been that night in the alley when she’d been wounded.
She turned that idea over in her mind but found no answers.
Somehow she was missing something vitally important, but the thought dissipated before she could focus on it.
She felt acutely ill. Her brain didn’t seem to be able to connect the urgent information pouring into it. Dante wasn’t taking her somewhere she’d be safe. He was taking her somewhere to die. Warnings rang in her mind like a distant alarm bell, but she couldn’t piece together enough coherent thoughts to answer it. She ought to be fighting. She should do something—anything. But her will felt as weak as her arms and legs.
Consciousness drifted away from her.
Chapter Four
Voices pierced the darkness. She was carried for what seemed like forever and then suddenly set down. Someone spoke to her, low and urgently. She tried to answer. Panic tugged at the edges of her consciousness, but she couldn’t penetrate the heavy fog.
A voice she dimly recognized insisted she wake up and pay attention. She tried to answer their summons. Her eyelids flickered. She saw gentle candlelight and black velvet drapery.
She was very sick, but she couldn’t seem to muster enough urgency to worry about it. She needed medical care—that much she knew. But sleep was a far more seductive longing. She drowsed off, letting go of the worry and the pain.
After what could have been mere moments or perhaps hours, she lurched back to semi-consciousness. That low, mellow voice urged her to focus. There was something vitally important that she must do. She followed the sound of that voice, obeying its instructions blindly.
A wet sound came from very close to her ears, then a muffled curse. Something soft pressed against her lips. Someone rubbed her throat. She swallowed instinctively, choking on something wet and salty.
Whatever it was hit her stomach like so much fire. It flowed out into her bloodstream in an invigorating wave. She moaned, protesting the intensity of it all.
“That’s better,” said the voice. “I told you I had what you needed.”
What did she need? She’d demanded to be taken to the hospital. And her request had been forcefully denied. It was all coming back to her now, the restaurant, the rooftop and the vampires…Dante. She struggled for consciousness.
“Shh.” Dante’s voice, she knew that now. “Rest, everything’s okay. You’ll see.”
Sleep tugged at her. She felt herself drifting away again, except this time she didn’t feel quite as sick, or in pain. It was like the whole world was wrapped in white cotton gauze and gently suffocating her.
“Trust me,” he urged. Then, “You’re safe. Go back to sleep.”
She didn’t trust him, not one single bit. But a strange compulsion lay beneath his words. And she had no choice but to obey it.
***
An indeterminable amount of time later, Xandra awoke to the sound of water running somewhere nearby. For some reason the old plumbing’s protests sounded unduly loud. The rush of water, the clunking of the ancient pipes grated on her nerves. She struggled against the heavy press of blankets. She was warm—almost too warm. Looking down, she found herself wrapped heavily in blankets like it was the middle of winter. It wasn’t winter—was it?
She sat up dizzily and looked around. She lay on a worn leather couch, cocooned in a thick comforter. Someone had removed her torn and bloody clothes. Someone had washed away the blood and tended to her many cuts and bruises. She wore a pair of well-worn sweats and a faded T-shirt, both obviously made for a larger body—a male body.
The warmth came from a gas fireplace on the far side of the room. The only illumination came from the fireplace and a single candle burning in a pewter holder on a low table nearby. Staring at its small golden flame made her eyes tear. She blinked. Dante’s house, she guessed. He’d promised to take care of her.
The sound of running water ceased abruptly. A door opened and then footsteps padded across the worn wooden floor. Drawers opened and closed.
Something disturbed the still warm air. Footsteps headed her way. She knew deep down that he could move far too quickly for human eyes to track and that he could walk without making a sound. So he must have known she was awake. And he was taking great pains not to startle her. He walked into the room dressed casually in worn blue jeans and a long-sleeved black knit shirt. For a moment she wondered at his lack of wardrobe variety, then decided he probably wore black for the same reason she did—it hid blood stains the best. Still rubbing the moisture from his blond curls, he stared down at her. There was heat in that stare that hadn’t been there before.
She pulled her feet out of the way and he sat on the couch beside her. “I see you’re back among the living.”
“Just barely.”
“Water?”
She nodded gratefully.
He returned a moment later with a tall glass. The water felt cool against her parched throat and she downed it in a couple of swallows.
Thinking back to the date that had gone so very wrong, she said wryly, “You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”
Something stirred in her imagination. She remembered the taste of a thick, salty substance on her tongue…someone…Dante urging her to drink. She glanced at his wrist and saw the raw outline of a wound there. No, her mind insisted. Don’t ask, don’t examine it too closely. She wanted to go back to sleep, to hide herself in that velvet oblivion…to crawl back under that comforter and forget everything.
But she couldn’t. She had to know.
“What have you done to me?”
His amber eyes shifted uncertainly. Whatever it was, he really didn’t want to tell her about it. “Nothing permanent, I assure you.”
He studied her face, reading her resolve. “I did what you asked me to. You’d been bitten. You needed an inoculation of vampire blood.”
Her mind rebelled at the thought, even though deep down, she knew the truth. But she choked it down. First she had to know exactly what had happened between them. “They have shots at the hospital. Jeremy was there. He would have called an ambulance for me.”
“I know,” he said—like that explained everything.
“So given the choice of taking me to the hospital, you chose to risk my life by bringing me here?” She dared him to deny it.
“You were never in any danger. Like I said. You needed vampire blood. You got your inoculation. It won’t make you sick like the stuff they give you at the hospital. You may become a little more sensitive to light and sound, but you’re going to be okay.”
Strangely enough, she did feel okay. Instead of the nausea and weakness that usually accompanied the inoculations, she felt…better. She shouldn’t be feeling better. She should be feeling sick.
More memories rushed in…thick salty blood in her mouth…the warm press of a very male body against hers. No, her mind insisted again. Not yet.
From somewhere nearby came a gust of cold, moisture-laden air. Apparently, it hadn’t stopped raining yet. Dante got up and pushed aside the drapery. Old wood protested. He slammed the window shut. The gas fireplace took the chill out of the air. He came back, a shadow walking toward her in the dimness.
He pulled up a leather ottoman in front of the couch and sat down. “Xandra, I wished you’d stayed out of this. I warned you. Why didn’t you listen?”
She drew in a breath, amazed again that she wasn’t in pain—that the expected nausea had not appeared. “Like I said, I don’t take orders from you.”
He studied her for a moment, as if deciding what he should say. “The man you do take orders from doesn’t have your best interests in mind.”
What on earth did that mean? Jeremy was like a father to her. A gruff, often disapproving kind of father, but still. Did he know Jeremy? Personally or professionally? She decided to bluff. “And what would you know about my orders—or who they come from?”
Feral Passion Page 5