I cringed. At five on a weeknight? The neighborhood where I grew up was full of blue-collar people and über conservative. “So you’re catching a lot of flak, huh?”
“You have no idea the shit we’re getting.”
I pushed out a breath. “Well, it’s about to get a whole lot worse.” I ran my hand over my head, grabbing my ponytail out of habit. “There’s big money behind this whole thing. They want me to denounce my story or they’re going after Dad.”
“Dad? How can they go after him if he’s been dead for years?”
I told him what Don had said. My brother was silent for several seconds.
“Is it true?” he asked quietly. “Are they really doing those experiments?”
I leaned my back against the wall. “Yeah.”
“And there really are vampires. You’ve seen them?”
I’d said that in the report, but I understood his need to hear confirmation from me. “Yeah. I’ve worked side by side with one. Lea. She helped expose this whole thing.”
“Then don’t you dare back down, Rachel Sambrook. You stand up and fight like your brothers taught you.”
A lump filled my throat. “Thanks, Michael.”
“You would have made Dad proud.” His voice broke.
I took another breath to steady my voice. “I really wish Dad had told me that. Just once.”
He released a soft chuckle. “You think he told any of us kids that to our faces? He worried we’d get swelled heads. But he used to tell everyone who’d listen his Rachel was going to grow up and face the monsters when she became a journalist. She was going to report corruption and save the world. So, no bullshit cover-ups. I’m telling you now, Rach—” his voice lowered, “—go fight those bastards. Your brothers have your back, and I will personally kick the ass of anyone who tries to discredit you.”
“I don’t know what to say, Michael. Thanks.”
I heard someone calling his name. “Gotta go, Rach. When this is all done, don’t be a stranger. Come home to visit. And you might want to bring a guy with you to appease Nana. She reminds all of us that you aren’t getting any younger.”
I laughed, suddenly homesick. “Yeah. I’ll see what I can do.” I hadn’t been home since my college graduation. Maybe it was time.
“Go fight the monsters.”
He hung up and the elevator opened a minute later. Thankfully the car was empty. I needed to prepare myself for the stares in the lobby. I was sure everyone was probably talking about my report now. If the investors in the Asclepius Project were this desperate for me to issue a retraction, they must have already set up a campaign to discredit me. And the best way to do that was to make me look like a lunatic.
I’d made it out the lobby and the front doors leading to Rockefeller Center when my phone rang. I checked caller ID, wondering if it was one of my other brothers, but the ID had been blocked.
I considered ignoring it, but worried it might be Lea. She should have been on the plane, about to take off, but what if something had happened? I wasn’t taking chances.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Sambrook?”
My back stiffened. “Yes.”
“I saw your report tonight. The one about the vampires and the monsters.”
I steeled myself, ready to be insulted or threatened. “And?”
He chuckled softly. “I’m about to become your best friend.”
CHAPTER 3
LEA
Ivan grinned down at me. “That is your title, isn’t it?”
“How the hell do you know about Cazadors?” I wanted to take a step toward him, using my body as a threat. But really, getting close to the big wolf was not a good idea.
He shrugged and gave me a wink. “I have my sources.”
I took a few steps back. Obviously he wasn’t going to tell me what I wanted to know. I’d wasted enough time with him. I spun and strode toward the front doors of the TV station. I leaned against the bar in the middle of the glass door. Locked. Sitting at a desk directly across from me, a secretary filed her nails and chewed gum like she was working on her cud.
With the flat of my hand, I smacked the glass. “Open it.”
“You know,” Ivan breathed behind me, far too close to my ear, “if you ask nicely, they’re more likely to do what you want. Humans are all about manners.”
I inhaled slowly to steady myself, to keep my hands on the glass. Better than wrapping them around his neck. He leaned against the door beside me and knocked with one knuckle as he grinned at the secretary.
“That’s not going to work—”
Before I could even finish getting the words out, the door to the left of me pushed open and the secretary peered out. “Is she with you?” She flicked her head my way while batting her eyes at Ivan.
A grin slowly spread across that mouth of his as he looked at me over her head. “I’m not sure.”
Heat flushed through my body, which only pissed me off more. I grabbed the edge of the door and yanked it open. The secretary squeaked as I shoved past her and made my way into the station. I took a long slow breath and picked up Rachel’s unique scent. Even under her perfume, the smell of gun oil lingered.
I couldn’t help but smile. Good girl. Keep you friends close and your weapons closer.
“You can’t go in there!” the secretary yelled after me. I kept moving, following Rachel’s smell deeper into the station without looking back. I pushed through a pair of double doors onto a live set. There was a red light blinking like mad overhead, flashing the words On Air like we wouldn’t otherwise notice the bright red neon.
No one even looked at me.
The anchorwoman smiled into the camera. “Again, we apologize for the previous report. Rachel Sambrook is known for her pranks; we just had no idea our station would be center stage in her biggest stunt to date.” Her eyes tightened, but the smile stayed plastered to her face. “Our station does not condone her choice of jokes, nor do we endorse her lies.”
I couldn’t help myself. I closed the distance between the anchor and me until I was just behind the camera. Her eyes flicked to me, away, and back again.
I grinned at her, wide enough that I knew my fangs were clearly visible. The woman paled and her hand went to her throat as she stuttered a strangled squawk. I turned and ran for the door, spanning the distance in less than a second.
She let out a screech. To her, it must have looked like I’d disappeared into thin air.
“Take that, dumb ass,” I muttered to myself as I slipped out the door.
“You didn’t like what she had to say?” Ivan was again, rather annoyingly, right there as I started down the hall. I spared him a glance and tried not to notice the curve of his biceps under his shirt. Too tight. His clothes were too tight.
“No.”
“Why? You had to know they would discredit her.”
It took all I had not to hunch my shoulders. I had known. And I’d let Rachel go into it anyway. In fact, I’d encouraged her to do this report.
“Holy shit, you’re using her to flush them out, aren’t you?”
Fuck, if he’d figured it out, Rachel would too. I had to get to her fast and explain.
“Our only way of reaching those who know about Stravinsky and want to help was to go wide. Rachel had that reach. And they had to think I’d left her or they never would have approached her.”
“If this is how you treat your friends, remind me not to get on your bitchy side.”
We turned a corner. At the end of the hall a portly man with thinning hair was pacing and muttering under his breath.
“Rachel, you’re a goddamn idiot. I should never have listened to you.”
That was it, I’d heard enough Rachel-bashing for the day. I strode toward him, thumping my feet into the carpet hard enough for him to hear me coming.
He frowned and pointed at me. “Hey, you don’t belong in here.”
“Don’t I? Didn’t you just do a piece on vampires?”
“Ah
, fuck me. Get out of here, you loony tunes. Vampires aren’t real. The piece was a farce. A...political statement clearly hidden under...”
I snarled at him as my fangs descended. “What was that about vampires not being real?”
“Oh. Fuck,” he whispered as he spun. I was on him in a second, yanking him with me down the hall as he squealed like a pig.
Ivan laughed and I glared at him. “What?”
“You really have a way with people, don’t you?”
“Go the hell away, wolf.”
“Not a chance. This is far too interesting.” He followed me as I pushed the human into a tiny room. I flicked on a light and picked up the portly man, pinning him against the wall.
“Rachel isn’t here,” I said.
“No, no, she left. Please don’t kill me,” he whimpered.
I tightened my grip on him and leaned closer. “I haven’t fed today.”
“She’s not here. I swear it!”
He kicked his legs feebly, then let out a groan. The sharp scent of urine wafted up between us. I glanced down at the wet spot on the front of his slacks.
Ivan let out a roar of laughter and slapped his hands on his thighs. “Really, this is how you get information? My beautiful creature of the night, you need lessons.”
Ignoring him, I pulled the man off the wall and slammed him against it once, hard enough to rattle him.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t...” His eyes flicked to mine, then he swallowed hard and shook his head. “No, you’ll kill her.”
Heaven help what was left of my soul. “I’m her friend, dumb fuck. The one who helped her gather the evidence. You’re the one who hung her out to dry, aren’t you?”
The words were as much for me as they were for him. I’d known what would happen, and I’d encouraged her anyway. All on the slim chance it would open the doors we needed to find Stravinsky. I should have come clean with her.
“The Hilton Hotel. On First,” he breathed out. His eyes rolled back and he drooped in my hands. I let him fall to the ground in a puddle of his own piss.
“Good thing your cabbie stuck close, huh?” Ivan held the door open for me. Like we were on a date.
I would not smile at him. But my traitorous lips twitched as I walked past him, and maybe my hips swayed more than they should have. Damn him.
As we passed the receptionist’s desk, the secretary glanced up and held a fluttering piece of paper out to Ivan. “I’m free on Saturday.”
I snatched the paper and tore it in half. “He’s not.”
If Ivan had laughed right then, I would have cut his balls off and roasted them over an open flame. Our eyes met and his smile fell. “Shit, you’re from zero to sixty in less time than it takes to shape shift.”
“The cab.” I pointed and he held the front door for me. And again when we reached the cab. I slid into the backseat and put a hand over my eyes. The early evening sun wouldn’t kill me, but it hurt like a motherfucker, and the longer I was in it, the more of my energy it drained.
“Why did you really take the paper from her? I know I intrigue you—it’s all over your scent. But that’s it, no lust even, and I must say it kinda hurts my feelings that I don’t turn you on when I’m working so hard to make you notice me.”
My jaw tightened. Thank God he hadn’t noticed, or smelled, that I indeed had felt a spark of attraction.
“Because the less humans we interact with, the better. How do you think monsters are created? By accident?”
“No, but—”
“No buts. If you’re going to come with me, you play by my rules. We don’t play with the humans unless they are working with us and understand the stakes. The woman back there didn’t. She thought she was going to get a dinner, movie, and maybe some time between the sheets. She wasn’t signing up to learn how to howl at the moon.” I opened one eye to peer at him.
Ivan clenched the wheel, and the edge of his jaw ticked. “I’m not sloppy. I wouldn’t have turned her.”
“Everyone fucks up.”
“Even you?”
I snorted. “Except me.”
A few minutes later, we pulled onto the street opposite the entrance to the Hilton. Ivan put a hand to the door.
“Stop,” I said. I leaned forward and watched the vehicles parked around the hotel. Three were of a color and style I recognized all too well. Government black. Men in dark suits and glasses sat in those three cars.
“She’s being watched. Which means they probably have a description of me.”
“And you don’t exactly blend in, with your leathers and cowl.”
I grimaced. He was right, and we both knew it.
“I have an idea.” He slipped out of the cab and was gone before I could say a word.
I closed my eyes and tried to rest, but my mind wouldn’t relax. To say Rachel would be pissed when she figured out the manipulation I’d pulled was an understatement. And seeing as she was one of my few friends, I couldn’t afford to hurt her.
Not to mention the tiny fact I’d bonded her to me without her knowing.
The cab door jerked open. Ivan slid back in and handed a plastic bag back to me. “Here, get changed.”
I peeked into the bag. Red crinoline and sparkles, along with a pair of stiletto heels. “What the hell is this?”
“A disguise. We’ll leave your gear here in the cab, and we can go in as a couple. They aren’t looking for me. They’ll still notice you in that dress, but for the wrong reasons.”
A part of me hated that he was right. But at my age, I’d learned to let pride go, from time to time. I slid out of my clothes and pulled on the dress. Fire-engine red and strapless, the dress was snug around my bust, and the skirt flared out to mid thigh. The crinoline pushed it out further. Like a Barbie doll outfit. I put on the heels and stared down at my bare legs.
“You got sunglasses?” I held a hand out to Ivan. He gave me his. They were large and round, far too big for my face, but they would have to work. I let my hair down, fluffing it.
“This isn’t a beauty contest.”
I lowered the glasses to glare at him. “I need as much skin coverage as possible, wolf.”
“Shit. I forgot about that.”
“Kind of an integral part of my life,” I muttered. “We’re going to do this fast. I can handle the sun for only a few minutes before I start to blister.” Just my luck the setting sun was positioned just right between the buildings to shine on the entrance.
“Ready?” He had his hand on the door. I nodded and did the same.
Ready as I was going to get.
CHAPTER 4
RACHEL
“Who is this?” I stepped closer to the building to get out of the flow of people.
“Someone you want to know.”
I sighed and rubbed my hand against my aching temple. “If you don’t cut the bullshit and get to the chase, I’m hanging up.”
He released a smug laugh. “I have information that can help you.”
“Like what?”
“I know about the suicide pills.”
Now he had my attention. My investigation of a series of serial killer crime scenes was what had landed me in this rabbit hole. All the victims had met with death by vampire. I hadn’t mentioned it in my report, but I’d found a vampire suicide pill outside one of the scenes. My on-air time had been limited, and other information had taken priority. What was the point of mentioning something like that when there were far bigger issues to discuss, like the bioterrorism weapon that turned humans into crazed monsters? Or the vampire blood that cured diseases but created others? Why would someone give a shit about vampire suicide pills if they didn’t even believe in vampires? “How do you know about them?”
“Rachel, you’re a reporter,” he said in a mocking tone. “Why are you asking the wrong questions?”
His voice set me on edge. He sounded like a patient serial killer, toying with his victim before he got to work. Yet I couldn’t hang up. “Oka
y,” I said, stalling to come up with a plan. I needed to play his game. Based on his egotistical tone, he wanted to make this about him. Time to suck it up. “You must be someone of importance if you know about the pills. From what I’ve gathered, only a few strategic people know about their existence.”
“Very good, Rachel.” Pride infused his voice. “You’re catching on.”
“Did you work in the Rikers Island facility? Before it was destroyed?”
“I was assigned there at one time, but I’ve since moved on. I’m part of the Aglaea division. Do you know what that is?”
“Sounds Greek to me,” slipped out of my mouth before I could help myself. It was probably a wrong move. It sounded like this guy got off on an obedient subject. Being flippant would either leave me out in the cold or possibly hunted and killed.
To my surprise, he laughed. “Clever girl, aren’t you?”
“I like to think so.”
“Aglaea was the goddess of beauty and magnificence. Can you guess what I worked on?”
“The vampires.” Which explained how he knew about the pills.
I heard a grin in his voice. “You are a clever girl.” I also heard a hint of a British accent. He sounded like he was in his thirties, maybe early forties.
“Do you still work in the Aglaea division?”
“I want to help you, Rachel. Will you let me?”
The sudden change of subject made me shudder. This guy was giving me a serious case of the creeps. “I can use all the help I can get…” My voice trailed off. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours. What should I call you?”
He chuckled. “Call me Hades.”
“Death?” When he didn’t respond, I added, “Now you’re the clever one. Hades controlled the underworld. Why do I think you’re someone of importance in the Aglaea division?”
“Oh, Rachel, I knew you were the one…” His words trailed off, almost like he was getting off on the connection I’d made.
Jesus. How badly did I need this guy? Unfortunately, I already knew the answer. “Why did you call me, Hades?” I felt ridiculous calling him that, but I’d call him the messiah if he helped me stop these people.
Replica (The Blood Borne Series Book 2) Page 2