by J. K. Beck
"Meeting here was a mistake."
"I have to feed."
"Stories I've heard about you, I'm surprised you don't find a human. One nobody'd miss much."
The corner of her mouth curved with a secret pleasure, and he wondered if he'd hit the mark. But all she said was, "I'm law-abiding. You got any proof to the contrary?"
"I don't give a shit what you do, so long as you don't screw Gunnolf." She laughed, the sound light and flirtatious, and right then she didn't seem like a warrior but like a woman. "Too late for that."
Hasik looked around. The other vamps were staring at them. All except one. A white-haired vampire with red eyes who was shifting in his seat, the tube going into his mouth flowing red. Whitey looked up, met Hasik's eyes, then flashed a bloody grin. Hasik turned away. "I don't like it down here."
"Scared?"
"Fuck you."
"Such language," she said, raising an eyebrow and sounding bored. She headed to the kiosk.
He tugged at her elbow. "We talk, I leave, you feed. I'm not sitting here while you do the suck-fest ritual."
For a moment he thought she'd argue, then she nodded. "Whatever you say. I came to this beautiful city to work for you, right?"
"Damn straight. Gunnolf tell you the plan?"
"The basics. Said you'd run me through the full briefing. When do we start?"
"Soon," Hasik said. The plan was beautiful, if he did say so himself. He'd pitched the idea to Gunnolf, and the pack leader had bitten right in. Sabotage that prick Tiberius. Make it look like he couldn't control the vamps in the area. Make it look like they were indulging their daemons and feeding off humans instead of skulking around underground in pussified feeding stations like this goddamn place. "This ain't gonna come out well for your kind, you know?"
Her face hardened. "I never said I claimed them as my kind."
"What the fuck? You're a vamp. So what's that supposed to mean?" She waved the question away. "Give me the deets, and let's get on with this. I 68
need to feed."
"You know Feris Tinsley?"
"Gunnolf's lieutenant in Los Angeles? I've met him."
"He keeps an office in the Slaughtered Goat, a pub in Van Nuys."
"I know it."
"Meet me there later. I'll brief you."
"Screw that. You tell me now. That's why you came here."
"I came to meet you," Hasik said, standing a little straighter. "I came to make sure I could work with a female." His lip curled. "Ain't ideal, but you'll do. But I don't take orders from you, bitch. You want in on this, you come to the Goat." He could see the storm clouds brewing in her eyes, a dangerous fury rising that had Hasik taking a step backward.
"We're talking now," she said, but no way was he giving in to a woman. Not even Gunnolf's woman.
"No we ain't. You come to the--"
"Nooooooooooo!"
The cry echoed off the stone walls, and Hasik shoved past Caris, searching for the source. He found it in Whitey, the vamp with the red eyes who'd been sucking on a flowing red tube. Apparently Whitey wasn't enjoying his lunch. The albino bastard jerked out of his chair, ripping the tube from the wall.
"Fuck this shit! Fuck this goddamn plastic shit. They got humans back there. Bleeding for us. I want to taste them, dammit. I want to taste the life. This is bullshit. Fucking bullshit! "
He lashed out, knocking the girl next to him to the ground, then crouching over her as the two kids Hasik had seen enter looked on with horror on their faces. "You full up, bitch? You full up with blood? How do you stand it? How the fuck do you stand it?" Something light and fast whipped past Hasik, and it wasn't until she had Whitey down on the ground seconds later, a lethal-looking blade to his neck, that Hasik realized the something was Caris, moving faster than Hasik had ever seen a vamp move. Whitey struggled beneath her, but she held him with ease. "Back off," she said. "Back off right now."
"I can't take it." His face contorted with pain. "How do you take it?" Caris kept her knife on his neck, then leaned in close. She turned her head slightly, so that she was speaking to Whitey, but looking at Hasik. "You do," she said.
"You just do."
Only hours into the job, and already Sara's desk groaned beneath the weight of case files, two three-ring binders, and three yellow pads full of notes. The spoils of a full day's work. Though it might be Friday, Luke's bail hearing was already scheduled for Monday, and Sara had hours and hours of prep work ahead of her. And yet despite the stack of work on her table, her overburdened thoughts, and her exhausted body, she kept coming back to that one, simple word: vampires. Almost without realizing she was doing it, she pulled her wallet out of her purse, then withdrew the small photograph she kept behind her driver's license. A picture of her 69
and her father on the Pepperdine campus. He looked undeniably professorial in a tweed jacket and holding a pipe, and she'd been trussed up in a dress with an itchy petticoat. They'd come--she and her mother--to watch her father receive an award. Sara didn't know for what, only that a lot of people were applauding for her daddy. She'd made it a point to clap the loudest.
Four days later, her father was dead. His neck ripped open. His blood drained. And her own screams echoing through the park.
She squeezed her eyes shut, willing her mind to replace the horror of that night with happier memories. The smell of tobacco and mint that always laced his jacket. The way he'd stroke her hair when he'd tell her bedtime stories about Caesar's triumph over pirates or Nero's hideous singing. When he talked, the past had come alive for her. Not anymore. He'd become part of history, a daughter's memory.
And it had been a vampire who had taken him from this world. From Sara. Full circle, she thought, drying her tears with the back of her hand. Today, everything circled around to vampires.
Vampires.
A vampire had murdered her father, leaving his daughter with only memories and a legacy of nightmares.
A vampire had seduced her, leaving her sweaty and satisfied and clinging to the illusion that she had met a man who was worth something. A man whose kiss had brought her to her knees. A man who'd left flowers along with a silent promise that he would be back.
What a crock.
She pulled the ribbon out of her pocket and twisted it around her finger, cutting off the circulation to the end of the digit. Her naivete disgusted her. Even if Bosch was right and she was insusceptible to a vampire's mental tricks, she'd still fallen under Luke's spell. The potent allure of a confident man who takes what he wants; the decadent pleasure of being the woman he'd desired.
Enough of that.
She released her tight hold on the ribbon, letting it fall to the desktop. Then she used the remote control to power on the monitor mounted on her wall. Martella had shown her how to flip through the camera feeds, and she rotated through the images until she found the feed from Luke's cell.
He stood at the glass wall, his hands pressed to the barrier. Even over the computer monitor, his presence was compelling, a man who didn't merely occupy a space, but commanded it. Now he was quiet, pensive. And though his expression was no more revealing than it had been in the interview, Sara thought she detected a hint of sadness, of worry.
A bubble of concern rose within her, and she immediately quashed it. Of course he was sad and worried. He damn well should be considering the weight of the murder charge against him.
He moved across the cell to sit on the concrete bench that served as a bed, thighs straining against the thin material of the PEC-issued pants. She told herself she was unaffected by the view, insisting that the lazy curl of desire that eased through her was nothing more than residual lust. She couldn't want him, this murderer, this beast. She was better than that. Had more control over her emotions. Over her damn hormones. 70
Yet she'd picked up the ribbon again, and now her fingers were tying themselves into knots. And when he tilted his head and looked straight at her--at the camera--she felt the heat swirl through her. It shamed her. Infuriated h
er. Not because of what she'd done with him that night, but because the memory of his hands on her skin still fired her senses, making her nipples peak and her sex tingle.
Even knowing what he'd done--what he was--her body still craved him. His hands. His lips. Even the scrape of danger as his teeth dragged over her bare skin. She wanted it--a vampire's touch--and she despised that weakness in herself. Despised him for being the cause of her folly. Slowly, purposefully, she looked down and opened the file in Division v. Dragos. She flipped to the crime scene photo and stared hard at the image of Braddock's neck wound, so similar to the wound she saw night after night in her dreams.
The ripped flesh. The dried blood.
There was no room for lust here. No room for desire or longing or fancy wishes of different circumstances.
This was murder.
Luke had killed. She was a prosecutor.
It really didn't get much simpler than that.
She stood up, then dropped the red ribbon into her office trash can. Time to get to work.
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Chapter 11
"Sara Constantine," Tucker said, squinting at his phone. "Haven't met her. You?"
"Never heard of her," Doyle said. He was sitting in Dragos's office, the bastard's electronic calendar up on one of the computer monitors. They'd come back to the mansion after leaving the lab, and now Doyle was trying unsuccessfully to concentrate on the screen. No luck. His body was wrung out, every movement akin to pushing his limbs through pudding. And the miners with pickaxes whacking at the inside of his skull weren't helping the situation.
He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed in hard through his nose. "Who is she?" he asked, determined to stay on task. To stay focused.
"Prosecutor," Tucker said. "She caught this case. Martella says we need to be in her office at ten tomorrow, sharp."
Doyle nodded, managing a half-assed grunt.
"Fuck it, Doyle," Tucker said. "Give it up and let's go get you what you need." Doyle gritted his teeth and shook his head. "Be fine," he managed. "Just gotta sleep it off."
"The hell you do," Tucker retorted. "You've been spiraling down ever since we sent Sanchez and her band of merry men on their way. You think I didn't notice how ripped you looked when we were at the lab? I'm surprised Orion didn't confuse you with one of his corpses and do an autopsy right there."
Doyle lifted his head to tell his partner to fuck off, but found he didn't have the energy.
"Okay. That's it. We're shutting it down." Tucker had been reviewing Dragos's security camera footage, hoping for an image of Braddock. Something, anything, to raise the already stellar evidence to the level of unbreakable. "The geek squad should be doing this grunt work anyway. I'm going to call a tech, get him to haul all this electronic crap to Division, and you and I are going to take a little ride."
"No." He hated that his partner knew what he went through. Hated more that Tucker had been sucked into helping each time Doyle sank deeper into the mire.
"I don't see that you have a choice, buddy," Tucker said, hauling Doyle up from under the armpits. "You're fading fast. When was the last time you had yourself a Happy Meal?"
Too long, and he hated that he needed the hit. Needed to feed. The weakness in him shamed him. He was only half daemon, dammit; he should be able to wrest more control. Should be able to function without taking, without feeding. And it wasn't just the weakness that plagued him when he didn't feed. He lost his gift, too. How was that for fucked up? He could see the deads' attackers, but only if he made himself one of them.
No. He wasn't like that. Wasn't like Dragos. He controlled it. Hardly ever took straight from a human. And when he did, he never took it all. Never drained them. Never left the humans to wander as lost, empty shells as some of his kind did. He had control, after all. Had spent centuries fighting to gain some semblance of 72
control.
So much easier to keep control when he was like this. Weak. Feeble. So much easier to be human. To be lost.
When he fed, his daemon side surfaced. Claimed. Wanted.
Yes, he'd have strength. He'd have power. He'd have his visions. But he'd also have the dark fury of a daemonic temper fighting for release. The constant battle exhausted him. And in his darker moments he even understood why some of his kind lost control. Why the vampires let the daemon take over. So much easier to just stop fighting. To let go. To give in to his own inherent nature.
No.
He'd lived that way once, and he wasn't going back.
He wasn't a thing. Wasn't evil.
He wasn't Dragos.
And if he had to battle his own nature until the end of time to prove it, then that's what he'd do.
His body jerked forward, then slammed back, and Doyle realized his eyes were closed. He opened them, and found himself in the passenger seat of his car, with Tucker stomping on the brake beside him. "What the fu--"
"I told you, man. You're bad off. I carried you out like a damn baby and you didn't say a word."
Doyle glanced out the window. "Where are we?"
"South-Central. Roll down your window."
"Shoulda taken me to a Trader bar. Orlando's. One of the others."
"Fuck that. You know I don't go in those places. You want to go there, then don't get so bad off you pass out on me."
"Shit."
"Roll down your window," Tucker repeated.
Doyle groaned in protest, but lifted his hand, which felt like it weighed about as much as the car he was riding in.
"Never mind," Tucker said. "This will take a decade if I wait for you." He scooted over on the bench seat, leaned across Doyle, and cranked the window down. One sharp wolf whistle and he'd caught the attention of a hooker who weighed at least eighty pounds over the legal limit for spandex. She pasted on a smile, adjusted her tiny skirt and enormous tits, then tottered toward them from her station under a streetlamp.
"Your lucky night, sugar," she cooed. "I'm running a two-for-one special."
"Save it," Tucker said. "I'm just here to watch." Her brows rose slightly. "That'll cost you extra." When Tucker didn't protest, she turned her attention to Doyle. "What's he want?"
What Doyle wanted was to get the hell out of there. That, however, wasn't happening. Especially not with Tucker next to him playing pimp. He half wondered why Tucker didn't just tweak the whore's brain. Then again, where was the sport in that?
"Do you kiss?" Tucker asked.
The hooker looked affronted. "What? On the mouth? Shit, no."
"That's what he wants," Tucker said. "And he'll pay extra."
"How much?"
73
"Whatever it takes."
"Yeah?" She looked at Doyle with respect. "That a fact?"
"Get in," he croaked, his voice thin, his lips barely moving as he forced the words out.
Her brow furrowed, and she took a step backward. "That boy's sick. No way I'm getting whatever he's got."
"He's not sick," Tucker said.
"Kiss my ass." She turned and started walking away. Doyle reached up and clawed at the door handle. He needed it--her--and he needed it now.
"Wait," Tucker called. She turned, hands on her hips and a scowl on her face.
"Kiss him," Tucker said, with that look on his face. "Kiss him nice and hard." She teetered a bit on her heels, then sauntered back to the car, her eyes glassy and slightly confused. "Got a freebie for you, sickie-poo," she said, leaning into the window so that the shelf of her breasts balanced on the window ledge. "Come to Mama." He did, leaning into the kiss and opening his mouth wide.
Opening and sucking and feeding and- Oh, fuck yeah ...
Her soul filled him. Nourished him. And, yeah, it roused the daemon inside him. Right then, he didn't care. The strength flowed back, and he wondered how he'd ever given it up. How could he have thought to exist without this? Weak as a kitten and docile as a bunny?
This was it. This was good. This was power and strength and--Beneath him, the woman made a mewling noise. T
ucker's bond had broken, the soul that remained within her insufficient to accept the suggestion. He needed to back off. Needed to leave her some. With even a scrap, she'd heal. Wouldn't be hollow. Wouldn't be a shell. A casing for one of the incorporeal creatures to fill.
He knew all that, yet he clung to her, the taste of the power flooding him too sweet to resist.
Beside him, he felt Tucker tug at his arm. Heard him mutter words of protest, his tone frantic, but his words indistinct.
He heard the melodic tones of Tucker's phone, felt another poke, and then--holy fuck--the asshole was inside his head.
Let go.
Doyle did, releasing the whore in an instant, minute scraps of her soul still intact. He rounded on Tucker, his hands to his partner's throat, his blood boiling as he pressed the traitor up against the driver-side window.
"Never," he said, slowly. "You do not fucking get inside my head."
"You were ... destroying her," Tucker said, gasping for air.
"Who the fuck cares?"
"I thought you did."
That got through, and Doyle released Tucker, shooting back to his side of the car, horrified by what he'd just done. "Tucker, I--"
Tucker held up a hand to stave off the apology. "You together now?" Doyle took a breath and clenched his fists, fighting, concentrating, until he felt his 74
daemon side slip reluctantly beneath the surface. "Yeah," he said, wiping beads of sweat from his brow. "Sure."
"Division called," Tucker said. "Dragos. Furlough. Now. "
"Fuck." Doyle closed his eyes, forced himself not to think about that as he wrestled his daemon half into submission.
Tucker peeled away from the curb with one last nod toward the hooker, who'd resumed her position under the streetlight. "She gonna be okay?" Doyle thought of the strands of soul he'd left her. They'd grow back. But he'd stolen from her. Cheated her. And that left a mark.
"No," he said, as the daemon inside celebrated the knowledge of what he'd wrought. "She'll never be the same again."
"This is bullshit," Doyle raged as he stalked the length of the antechamber.
"Fucking bullshit." He was on edge, his daemon half still too close to the surface after his feeding. Couple that with the total fucked-up nature of the situation, and Doyle found himself in a fury that he considered completely fucking legitimate. At that very moment, behind the thick metal door, Security Section was fitting that murdering fuckwad with mobile detention devices, and as far as Doyle could tell, he was the only one who saw a problem with that little scenario. He lashed out, kicking the door but failing to make even a dent in the metal.