Your Coffin or Mine?

by Kimberly Raye

  “A wrestling match.”

  “Come again?”

  “Front row, side-by-side, surrounded by sweat and name-calling and guys with beer bellies scarfing hot dogs. Tres romantique.”

  “Um, okay.” The woman shook her head. “Next question: Who do you consider to be the world’s most romantic man?”

  “Stone Cold Steve Austin.”

  “And the most romantic woman?”

  “Paris Hilton.”

  “Most romantic food?”

  “Pinto beans.”

  “Most romantic color?”

  “It’s a tie between orange and black.”

  “Most romantic symbol?”

  “Skull and crossbones.”

  “Most romantic song?”

  “‘Can’t Touch This.’”

  “Most romantic saying?”

  “Is it always that small?”

  “That’s a wrap,” Sheila announced, killing the camera. She eyed me. “You do know this is a dating show, don’t you?”

  “Of course.” I did the dazzling smile thing again. “Why else would I be here?”

  Twelve

  Swallow, you fucking idiot.

  The command echoed through my head and I tried. Once. Twice. My throat burned, refusing to work. My mouth felt huge and swollen. I tried to swipe my tongue over my lips, but it wouldn’t cooperate. My brain scrambled, my thoughts ran in different directions. Stop it. I had to stop it. To think about one thing and keep my guard in place. I couldn’t let her in right now. I wouldn’t—

  Fuck!

  Pain exploded, jagging its way through my body. I went up in flames, my nerves screaming. My pulse pounded and my mind raced even faster. Images rifled through my head, one after the other, years and years of memories that I wanted to forget, to block out, to keep buried deep.

  Easy. Stay grounded. Right here. Right now. Nothing else.

  I pushed my eyes open as wide as I could and tried to fix on the dark shape moving about. Footsteps thundered on the concrete floor, the noise bouncing off the brick walls.

  Cold fingertips scraped over my bare skin. Hard leather slid across my flesh. Metal bit into my ankles and wrists. The icy slab of concrete at my back ground into my raw muscles.

  My watery gaze hooked on the small window near the ceiling. The last remnants of daylight pushed into the dimly lit chamber. A blaze of colored lights lit the background and danced off the opposite wall. It was almost night. Again. I tried to calculate how many that made, but suddenly I didn’t know. It seemed like ages since I’d sat upright.

  At the same time, I could still feel the blood on my hands, sliding down my throat, twisting in my gut. That kill had ended my life and landed me here.

  With him. And the pain.

  Heat gripped my ankles, spiraling up through my body, holding tight to each nerve ending until I arched up off the table. The smell of smoke and burning flesh filled my nostrils. My temples throbbed. My heart pounded faster and faster, as if it would explode.

  If only.

  “Aw, it’s not that bad, is it?” The voice was deep, controlled, familiar.

  Misery and guilt and a dozen other emotions churned in my gut. Desperation pumped through me. Panic pulsed, fiery hot and nerve-racking, up and down my spine.

  “What you feel is nothing compared to what I feel,” he told me. “What I’ve felt all these years.”

  The shadow moved to my other side, humming a catchy tune with each step, as if he were watering a garden instead of killing me inch by inch. Second by second.

  He wouldn’t.

  Not anymore, now that he’d killed me once, way back when. He wanted me to hurt. To feel the pain. The regret.

  That’s what this was all about.

  What my afterlife had always been about.

  White-hot pain ripped through me and I arched again, coming up off the table. A strangled gasp worked its way up my ravaged throat. My thoughts scrambled again.

  Memories stirred and images flitted in and out until the sensation died and I managed to snag my gaze on the window again. The lights danced and in the distance, beyond the thunder of my heartbeat, I heard the laughter. The music. The occasional ding of an arcade game.

  Fire lashed across the bottom of my foot and I bit my lip. Blood spurted into my mouth, gliding down my throat, stirring my hunger.

  “You feel it again, don’t you?” The shadow moved closer, blocking out the window. “The agony?” Another prod and I hissed. “Yes, you feel it. It twists inside of you, like a cold, slithering demon, eating you from the inside out. It snacks away on your insides until you’re just a shell of what you once were. Until you feel like giving up.”

  I ground my teeth against the lightning bolt of pain. Anger rushed through me, the primitive instinct to kill instead of be killed, and my lips pulled back, my fangs extended. I wanted to rip him to shreds. I would have, but he’d taken too many precautions.

  “That’s it, vampire. Show your true colors. You’re a vicious bastard. It doesn’t matter how many criminals you take down, or how much good you do the world. You’ll never escape your true nature. You’re an animal who rapes and pillages the weak. A murderer. You’ll never change.” Cold, rank breath whispered over my ear as he leaned down. “I won’t let you…”

  Now would be a really good time to wake up.

  The thought pushed its way past the darkness that engulfed me and my eyes popped open. But there was more darkness. Pitch-black. Smothering.

  “I won’t let you…”

  The voice echoed and I panicked. “You and what army?” I kicked and clawed and bolted upright.

  Feathers rained down on me as reality struck and I realized I wasn’t fighting for my life in some cold, dank dungeon.

  Rather, I’d just battled it out with my favorite pillow and half a goose down comforter.

  I’d obviously won.

  My frantic gaze darted around the room, drinking in the familiar dark blinds, the cherrywood dresser, the scrawny cat that sat on my favorite rug and stared back at me as if I were Bugs, Daffy, and Sylvester all rolled into one.

  My heart slowed a fraction.

  O-kay. A dream. That’s it. Just a bona fide nightmare. Nothing to get all freaked out about.

  That’s what I told myself, but deep in my gut, I knew it was more. My gut and my feet.

  I hiked up one aching extremity and stared at the sole. An angry red line glared back at me, proof that the past few minutes had been much more than the result of my downing an entire glass of cold blood right before hopping in the sack. I checked my other foot. Same mark. Same pain.

  What the hell was going on?

  I eased my legs over the side of the bed, wincing as my tender feet hit the braided rug. My wrists ached and my back hurt and my ribs felt as if they’d been kicked a few dozen times.

  I closed my eyes and did a mental rehash of the dream/possible alien abduction. (Give me a break, all right? I still had three hours of sleep left and my brain was a little fuzzy.)

  Cold slab. Taunting voice. Torture. Ty.

  Realization struck and my eyelids shot up. I bolted to my feet and pain knifed through me. Nothing compared to what Ty had felt.

  What I’d felt.

  He’d linked to me. Or I’d linked to him.

  Either way, we’d been there together. Seeing. Feeling.

  “Holy shit.”

  I took a step and barely caught a scream of pain. I contemplated floating to the kitchen where I’d left my purse, but then decided that was too much effort. I sank down to the bed, focused my attention on the expensive clutch, and willed it around the corner, straight toward me.

  A few seconds later, I retrieved Ash’s business card and snagged my cell off the nightstand. I punched in the number and waited for him to answer.

  “I’m busy right now,” came the deep voice. “Leave a message…” Beep.

  “It’s Lil. Lil Marchette. I need to talk to you ASAP.” I left my number and punched the off butto
n.

  I sat there for the next few minutes, willing the phone to ring, but nothing happened.

  Would you just chill? He’ll call soon enough and you can tell him…What?

  It’s not like I’d gotten an address and directions while I’d been linked to Ty. No, the only thing I’d gotten was a disjointed conversation and a semidecent view of someone’s basement, and a really weird smell—a mix of mustard and diesel and a sticky sweet scent that made my stomach churn. Talk about nothing.

  But at least I’d figured out why Ty hadn’t answered me when I’d called out to him. He’d (a) been too busy being tortured and (b) hadn’t wanted me around.

  I didn’t know whether to be sympathetic or hurt.

  I settled for both and blinked against the sudden tears that burned the backs of my eyes.

  I was NOT going to cry. Crying accomplished nothing. Even more, it made me look like a big marshmallow rather than a badass über vampire.

  Not happening.

  I spent the next fifteen minutes not crying until I gave a final sniffle and wiped at my eyes. There. I felt a little better. Still lonely and helpless, but I could deal. I turned and swept the stray feathers off onto the floor for cleanup later. (In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m not much for housework and would rather wear a powder blue polyester pantsuit than engage in any sort of domestic activity.)

  Meow…

  Killer’s soft voice drew my attention and my gaze swiveled to where he sat beside the bed amid a pile of down. I frowned. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the bathroom?”

  You try snuggling up to a toilet. He blinked up at me. I need some love.

  He did look a little sad.

  Since he hadn’t left me any more presents—none that a quick glance could detect—I decided that it couldn’t hurt for me to pick him up and maybe let him lay at the foot of the bed. After all, he’d had a bath (Mrs. Janske) and a spritzing of Chanel (moi). There really was no reason to sentence him to the cold, gloomy tile of the bathroom. On top of that, I wasn’t in any hurry to find myself accused of animal neglect.

  No way was I even thinking of picking him up because I felt that lonely. And helpless. And scared.

  I snatched him up and stuck him in bed next to me.

  And then I did the only thing I could do since it was still daylight and I was a vampire (and they’d yet to invent an SPF strong enough to keep me from going poof!) I snuggled up with Killer and spent the next three hours watching the clock and worrying.

  Thirteen

  “Let’s go over it again.” Ash sat in my office at Dead End Dating, his powerful body overflowing the leather chair, and eyed me.

  I slumped over my desk. I was tired. Frustrated. Hungry. My feet hurt, and not because of the brand-spanking-new strappy paisley sandals I’d put on before leaving the house. While I knew the marks would heal in less than twenty-four hours—one of my vampy perks—I couldn’t ignore the pain. Or the truth. Ty was in a real mess, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to help him.

  “Again.”

  “But we’ve been over it a half dozen times already.”

  “And each time we learn something new. Come on. Spill it.”

  “Okay.” I went over the dream from start to finish while he nodded and took even more notes. “So what do you think? And if you tell me to repeat it again, I’m going to stake myself.”

  He didn’t grin. He was too busy staring at his notepad. “I’m thinking he isn’t too far away. It sounds like he’s been confined for a really long time, which probably means that whoever snatched him took him straight to this basement and hasn’t let up since.” He eyed me. “You said something about smelling diesel?”

  “And mustard. And something I’m not really sure of.”

  He seemed to think. “There are lots of industrial plants in northern Jersey. Or the smell could be from a large truck. There are trucks in and out of the city.”

  “And the mustard?”

  He shook his head. “That could be the abductor’s lunch for all we know, rather than a clue to Ty’s whereabouts.” He closed his pad and pushed to his feet.

  “Now what?”

  “I keep looking and you wait for him to slip up again and link with you.”

  “Isn’t there something I can actually do? All this waiting makes me crazy.”

  He shook his head. “I’m checking out Ty’s list of fugitive apprehensions and running the prints I pulled against every database in the country. That’s all we can do until we get a solid lead.” His gaze met mine. “Keep trying to reach him. He might be getting weak, which is why you were able to link up with him. If that’s the case, then you’ll be able to do it again.”

  I nodded, but at the same time, I was hoping that last night had been it. Ty would be found ASAP and I would be off the hook as the telepathically linked, fantabulously dressed girlfriend.

  As much as I wanted to help, I didn’t really do pain and suffering all that well. While I knew there were bad apples in every bunch, I’d actually seen the brutality for myself. And felt the pain of it. And the experience sort of scared the crapola out of me and put everything into perspective.

  Take my stack of bills, for example. Inconsequential compared to life and death. My stack of business cards from the MMW applicants? Important, but it’s not as if I’d burst into flames if I didn’t follow up every single lead. The stack of messages from my mother reminding me about Sunday’s mating prospect for Jack? Okay, so maybe that did qualify as afterlife and death (my own). But everything else? So off my list of must do right now or suffer dire consequences.

  I summoned a smile. “Maybe today was the worst of it and he’ll come walking through the door, completely unharmed. Or at least limping with no permanent damage.”

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  I didn’t. That was the problem. “I’ll keep trying to contact him.”

  “Good, and stop thinking so hard about what happened.”

  “You’re the one who made me repeat it a zillion times.”

  “To get the facts. Now it’s done, so don’t dwell on it. You might be inadvertently blocking a vital piece of information. Just try putting your mind on something else and, who knows, you might have a breakthrough and give us something solid.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  His eyes grew brighter until I actually had to blink. “We’ll have to deal with the situation.” He started to turn and I couldn’t help the sudden curiosity that burned through me.

  “Why are you so intent on finding him?”

  He paused and shrugged. “I hunt criminals for a living, but there are so many that it’s a full-time job. Ty’s good at what he does and he eases my caseload. Usually bounty hunters get in the way, but he’s the exception.”

  “Because he’s a vampire.”

  “Exactly. When he brings in a bounty, he knows whether to bring them to me or hand them over to the police.”

  “But aren’t you the police? You’re a homicide detective,” I pointed out. “At least that’s what you told me.”

  “I am, but I don’t work directly for the local police or the feds. I operate out of a smaller, more elite department. We function with a completely different agenda in mind.”

  “To serve and protect?”

  “To retrieve and punish.”

  “Vigilante justice?”

  “Quite the opposite. We’re sanctioned by Big Daddy himself.”

  Hmmm…

  In human terms, Big Daddy referred to the head of the FBI or CIA or even the president.

  In vamp terms, it referred to a royal descendant of the daddy of all born vamps—at present Count Christoff Deville. I’d matched up one of his cousins—Francis—not too long ago. Since Francis was still sort of dweeby and, therefore, the black sheep of the Deville clan, I’d finally given up the hope that I’d be seeing any sort of token of gratitude—high five, new car, small country. Plus, I’d kind of matched him up with a human (big no-no), whi
ch would have killed my chances anyway. Not that I regretted pairing him up with Melissa. They were in love and living together. Big sigh.

  As for Big Daddy…In were terms, B.D. meant the pack leader, be it wolf or bear or labradoodle.

  I eyed Ash. Nix human. Forget vamp. Were? Nuhuh. He was some sort of Other, I knew that much since I couldn’t read him and he could make his eyes glow brighter than the sun at midday (or so I’ve been told). But since I’d led a sheltered, pretentious existence like every other born vamp, my knowledge of Other supernatural creatures was a teeny bit limited.

  “We let the cops and the bounty hunters take out the minor offenders,” he went on, “while we concentrate on a select few. The most dangerous.”

  “The least human?”

  He grinned. “You just might have the intellect to go with that mouth of yours.”

  I followed him out into the lobby where Evie still sat at her desk, looking office fab in a pair of leather and embroidered cork wedges, a cotton dress, denim vest, and Tina Tang gold vermeil bracelet. She salivated over Ash as he walked through the outer office and then disappeared through the front glass doors.

  She sighed. “Can I have him?”

  “He’s not mine to give away.”

  “Married?”

  “No.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “He said no.”

  She breathed a deep sigh. “That’s what they all say. He’s probably got a girlfriend. That, or he’s gay. The good ones are always taken.”

  “Let’s hope not,” I told her, fingering through the stack of profiles she’d just entered into our database. I spared a glance at Word, who stood on a ladder in the far corner and drilled a hole in the ceiling for one of the docking speakers. “Any luck matching up your cousin’s profile?”

  “Sorry. Last night I was too busy watching a CSI: Miami rerun to catch Animal Kingdom.”

  I grinned. “Keep looking. I promised him three matches.”

  “You promised him,” she pointed out. “Me working his profile is a major conflict of interest on account of we’re related.”

  “Three times removed is not related.”

  “Okay, it’s a conflict of interest on account of I can’t stand the sight of him.”