UNCONTROLLED BURN

by Nina Pierce

  “RISEN operatives have nothing on you, my sweet, Alexandra.” His demented laugh echoed painfully through her head. “But please don’t insult me,” he said. “Look at you. Sweat beads on your brow, but you shiver as if it were December. Your eyes are bloodshot. You puke at the sight of blood. I have no doubt your head is throbbing like the percussion section of an orchestra. Your muscles are so weak, you can barely stand up. I know the signs. Tell me, have you tried eating anything but the chemical gruel he makes for you? A nice juicy steak perhaps?”

  She gagged again, unable to process how Ronan knew what she needed.

  “Ah, not quite there are you?” He pulled a vial of yellow serum from his pocket. “RISEN would no doubt love to get their hands on this. I do believe the good professor had finally discovered a way to re-code vampire DNA and make immortals human again.” He held the vial up to the light. “But I guess, since he died before any of his lab rats completed the transformation, we’ll never know will we?”

  Alex clenched her teeth against the wave of agony burning over her nerves. She wanted to get her hands on the vial and inject it—let the sweet elixir sear through her veins and wash away the agony and nausea. She wondered how many more treatments she would have needed to be completely human again. That last vial may very well be her salvation, but she refused to beg the sadistic asshole for her life.

  “There are copies of the professor’s work,” she said tightly. “The knowledge didn’t die with him.” Lifting her chin, she met Ronan’s skeptical stare. “His work will save vampires like me changed against their will.”

  “You lie, you sad, pathetic woman.” He stormed over to her, kicked the metal out of her hands and hauled her up by her shoulders. “I know damn well there are no more copies. I destroyed both the professor’s computers and thanks to Glenn, who located a briefcase full of research work and several affidavits, the rest of his research will go up in flames with this Godforsaken tavern and this insulting winery.” Ronan shoved her away from him and she fell on her ass. “Everything will be gone and no one will know how my father tried to play God!”

  “Your father?” Alex’s question came out trembling and weak.

  “Professor Morgan.”

  “But Paul had no children.”

  With a feral cry of frustration, Ronan picked up one of the few casks left whole and smashed it on the floor. When his angry eyes locked on hers, they were filled with unshed tears. “I was his dark secret. An abomination! Neither human nor vampire. I got dealt the shittiest of hands.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t understand. No one understands. How could a human sire a child with a vampire?”

  “I didn’t know it was possible.” Her statement stopped him cold.

  “Obviously, neither did he.” Ronan thumped a fist on his chest. “But here I am. Despite everything, I live!” Long fingers pushed the blond hair from his face. “And thanks to him I walked between the worlds. Too weak to be considered a vampire. Too aberrant to be considered human. I couldn’t eat food, but I had worthless fangs. Barely formed, they weren’t strong enough to tear flesh. I had to live off my mother’s kills. She brought woodland creatures home for us to feed on together. Woodchucks, rabbits and deer.” He laughed derisively. “I gotta tell you, it was a helluva a childhood.”

  Alex felt herself wilting as if someone was siphoning off every ounce of her energy. Elbows digging into her thighs, she willed herself not to completely collapse on the cement floor. She hadn’t expected to be so dependent on the serum— or the gruel supplement.

  The professor had believed he’d made a breakthrough with his last modification to the serum formula. Despite the side effects she’d witnessed on vampires using the previous serums, Alex had finally convinced the professor to try the cure on her. She’d had her last injection the night of the mansion fire. The chemical gruel the professor mixed for her had run out yesterday.

  Of course, the man hadn’t planned on being murdered by his own son. She couldn’t let Ronan get away.

  Another bout of nausea filled her throat. Under the guise of retching, she shifted closer to a piece of broken cask scattered on the floor. She would never have the strength to fight Ronan, but maybe, just maybe, she could incapacitate him and keep him here in the cellars until someone found them.

  Her confidence flared as she watched Chris open his eyes, his body obviously healing from the brutal beating. She just had to keep Ronan talking until Chris had the strength to fight the monster before her.

  “Your parents loved you,” she said quietly.

  “My mother loved me. My father loved my mother.” Ronan lost himself in his reminiscences. “My mother was loathe to let him experiment on me, but she continued the treatments, dreaming of making us both human one day. My father worked tirelessly to discover what made vampire blood different. He took samples upon samples, injecting her with serums he hoped would work.” Tears ran unchecked down Ronan’s face as he paced the cement floor, his bloody footprints leaving a gruesome trail. “He took everything from her and never got any closer to finding anything. Still, she let him experiment. Over and over, he stuck her. Until she became incapacitated and could no longer get out of bed. I was a teenager by then. I was forced to learn how to hunt and feed. I fashioned false canines and honed my hunting skills, bringing home animals so I could feed us both. I was so angry at what he was doing to her. My father and I argued. I wanted him to stop, but he insisted it was what she wanted.”

  Alex moved again, a splintered section of wood now resting beneath her thigh. “She wanted to save you from the hell of immortality.”

  “Immortality?” He laughed at the ceiling. “I wasn’t given that power. I couldn’t heal. I had no superior senses. I was weak like my father. I hated him for creating me. I hated him for killing my mother.”

  “She died?”

  “She was murdered!” Ronan’s frustration echoed off the stone walls.

  Alex could barely breathe. “Your father was a kind and gentle man. He offered vampires salvation.”

  “Look at you. Weak as a newborn kitten. You call the life you have right now salvation? And all those vampires you turned back when his cure didn’t work, do you think you’d saved them?”

  She stared mutely at him, unwilling to play his game.

  “Oh, please, don’t insult me with your doe-eyed-innocent act. It’s all documented in the papers in the briefcase on your desk. He wrote meticulous notes on how he brought them to the brink of death trying to make them human and how you offered your vampire talents saving them from the human frailty of death and restoring their immortality when his cure didn’t work.” He snapped his finger, the noise echoing like a clanging cymbal to her sensitive ears. “And it seems you were busy helping him burn those who didn’t survive.”

  “I didn’t know about the fires.” Her defeated words came out in a whisper. “He confessed to me later that he’d only wanted to give the dead vampires a proper funeral pyre. I thought he’d stopped …” The words winded her and Alex inhaled deeply, trying to catch her breath. “He was only trying to help people like me, pulled into this ungodly world without consent. Glenn saved me from the monster who left me for dead. I will never blame him for completing the transformation. But I never wanted this life.”

  A small pop sounded above them as if something had fallen.

  Ronan looked at his watch. “Right on time.” The smile he sent her held no mirth. “And so the final chapter begins.”

  “What’ve you done now?”

  “The chemicals I set up have started a fire in the bar. But like every fire I’ve started, it will smolder slowly and leave no trace of arson. I’ve still got time to cleanup a few loose ends for you.” Ronan squatted in front of her and stared into her eyes. “Look at me, Alexandra. Really look at me.” With a vicious growl, the vampire within him was unleashed.

  This close, with his fangs hanging in her face and the fires of hell burning in his eyes,
she recognized the vampire who had possessed her dreams for thirty years. “You? But that can’t be.”

  Ronan squeezed her chin. The unexpected spike of pain burned hot behind her eyes as he dragged his tongue up her cheek. With a sharp hiss of air, he filled his lungs with her scent. “The night my mother died, I ran from the house.” His voice was hot in her ear. “I was angry and alone. I wanted to kill. To feel the power of the vampire. You were a student of my father’s. So young and weak. I recognized you in town and I followed you to the tavern. I waited patiently until you left and I took you. Dragged you into the woods. Pierced your neck with the canines that had become my life’s salvation. I drank greedily, your blood as sweet as liquid honey filling my mouth. You were my first. A vampire never forgets his first.” His fangs grazed her neck just above her scarf. “I drank until I couldn’t feel your pulse. I figured I’d killed you. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I returned to South Kenton and found you alive. My sweet Alexandra.”

  “The creature who attacked me was no more than pimply faced teen. You wouldn’t have aged.”

  “You would have thought. But just like my own father—no one in this shitty town has recognized me.”

  “It’s just not possible. You look—”

  “Different? Powerful?” He scoffed. “Suffice it to say that even a half-breed vampire can learn to fight like a warrior, when accepted by a true clan of vampires.” He brushed his fingers across her cheek, his fetid breath hot across her lips. “Six years. Six long years I trained with vampires hiding high in the mountains. And the night of my twenty-first birthday the leader of the clan, a beautiful vampire with ivory skin and firm, tight tits came to my room …” He slid his hand from her throat to her breast and squeezed. “… with the lust of youth and the passion of a grown man, I loved her. And as my seed filled her, she sank her fangs deep, drinking my blood, sharing her immortality and making me fully vampire.” His thumb dragged across her bottom lip, slicing it with his nail. “Maybe we could share that you and me, Alexandra. My fangs deep in your flesh, while we …”

  She refused to listen to his repulsive description. He’d turned her. The man she’d come to hate had been the one who’d pulled her into a world she abhorred and an existence she hadn’t chosen. Alex let the hatred fill her. With all the years of rage behind it, she retrieved the splintered wood from under her leg and swung with everything she had toward Ronan’s heart.

  At the same time, Chris stood on unsteady legs coming at the vampire from behind.

  With explosive reflexes, Ronan wrenched the wood from her grasp with one hand and retrieved the warped piece of the file cabinet with the other. Her world suddenly morphed into a sickly horror movie playing out in gruesome slow motion as Ronan let out a warrior’s cry, swinging the shard of metal with deadly accuracy at Chris’s throat, separating the vampire’s head from his body.

  “No, Chris!” She crawled to him, screaming until her throat was raw.

  “Don’t mourn for that inferior creature.” Ronan grabbed her by the hair, hauling her to her feet. She barely registered the additional pain. “He was no more worthy of being a vampire than you.” His chill tone froze her heart. “And like everyone inferior—he was totally expendable.” As he half carried, half dragged her back into her office, something exploded above them. “Perhaps my father’s serum was working and you are human. You’re not fighting half as hard as your reporter friend.” He threw her on the floor next to the desk.

  She couldn’t convince her muscles to move. It took all her energy just to push air over her vocal chords. “Hope? What the hell did you do with Hope?”

  “Ah yes, your dear friend.” His demonic laugh bounced eerily around the stone walls as he pulled papers from a leather briefcase and scattered them about the office. “Glenn tried to save her that night you know? Such a waste of lovely flesh that one.” He shook his head as if her demise really mattered. “And Chris? Chris was such a team player, ditching her car in the lake while I killed Glenn. Burkett will never find that body. And isn’t that so sad for him?”

  Glass shattered above them. Surely, the fire department had been alerted. Reese would come, run into the flames and rescue her. But unlike Glenn, she prayed he wouldn’t be too late. At the thought of him, sadness poured into Alex’s hollow chest. She wasn’t sure when Reese had stolen her heart, but it belonged to him as surely as the Grim Reaper was whispering her name. Alex refused to cower at his beckoning. “You won’t get away with this. Reese will hunt you down and destroy you.”

  Ronan snorted in disgust. “RISEN will never suspect the one they seek is hidden right beneath their stuck up noses, especially when he stands beside them mourning the death of so many honorable vampires who were trying to improve their existence.” He fingered air quotes even as his face wrinkled in disgust.” He knelt beside her, running his hands over her body. She was too weak to fight his intimate touch. “I came to South Kenton looking to avenge my mother’s death. It was a pleasure when I’d discovered it was you fermenting the blood wine. The fact that you’d been working with my father—bonus!”

  “What makes you think I won’t tell Reese all of this?”

  Ronan pressed his mouth to hers, crushing her lips against her teeth before pulling back with a sigh. “Because, my sweet love, you won’t be alive when he arrives. And all the evidence exonerating you,” he waved his hand across the floor at the papers scattered there, “well, they will be ashes.”

  He got up and walked into the cask room. Alex heard boxes moving and loud rush of wind.

  So this is how it would all end. She wondered if Paul Morgan had known his son was the cause of her tortured life. The professor’s questions at her initial interview for his drug experiment would have corroborated when and where she was turned. Perhaps Paul believed saving Alex would atone for his son’s brutality. Glenn had simply pulled her out of death’s arms, believing a vampire’s life was better than none at all. Tears welled in her eyes and slipped down her cheek at the loss of the people she loved.

  Ronan returned, dragging Chris’s body in his wake. “I’d hate for the two of you to die alone.” He dumped Chris next to her and rummaged around on the floor, coming up with a shard of wood, smiling when he saw her tears. “Now, now, Alexandra, there’s no need to cry. The chemical combination I developed ignites in air and burns wherever it lands. The fumes and heat it creates will kill you long before the flames reach you.” He shot a look over his shoulder. “Of course I’ll tell them Chris had discovered your secret plans and must have come here to stop you. You killed him, then got caught in your own fire. Neat and tidy.”

  Ronan misunderstood her tears. She didn’t weep for her own life, but for those whom she’d loved and had been stolen from her. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Alex was too weak to move. In reality, it was her desire to become human that had killed her. Whether she died at the verdict of the tribunal in a few months, at Ronan’s hands now or in six decades, her mortality had been her choice.

  Glass exploded upstairs. “I really have overstayed. You and Chris have kept me here much longer than I intended. I’ll be sure to say goodbye to Colton for you.” Ronan lifted the wooden stake high over his head. She refused to flinch from this final blow to her heart. Without those she loved, there was no greater pain he could inflict upon her. She would not beg Ronan for her life. Alexandra Flanagan intended to die with her dignity intact.

  In disbelief, she watched him shatter the bulb above her. Without a word, Ronan strode out of the room. He slammed the cellar door. The thunderous snick of the lock was the last thing she heard before the fires of hell erupted from the cask room.

  Chapter Nine

  The engine’s lights pulsed through the streets of South Kenton, barreling into the night toward another structure fire. And not just any structure— O’Malley’s Tavern. There was no way this wasn’t somehow connected with the professor, Glenn, and the rogue vampire. Unusually wired, Reese’s knee jumped.

  When the alarm ra
ng a little after 2 a.m., he’d been lying on his bunk trying to work through the puzzle. Pieces were clicking into place, but some key element was missing. Reese believed Alex hadn’t committed the murders, yet his gut screamed whatever she was hiding would be the key to solving everything. Their afternoon of mind-blowing sex had ended with her walking away. There had been something final in the way she’d kissed him, turned her back and gotten into her car. He’d been too pissed at Josh and his outburst to analyze it at the time.

  When he’d arrived at work, Josh had gone out of his way to avoid him. Until they found Hope—and he had to believe they would—Reese was going to be hard pressed convincing Josh of Alex’s innocence.

  The sexy vamp had been working with Glenn and the professor to perfect the blood wine. All the vamps killed, it turned out, were regular clients of the winery. The humans who’d died, save for the professor, had been sucked dry. Glenn was dead. His barn burned. And now the tavern blazed. There was no doubt the fires of the last three nights were related and the missing connection lay in adding up the common denominator.

  Who hated vampires living off blood wine enough to systematically purge them and its creators from the population of South Kenton? The question rolled over and over in Reese’s head.

  The engine pulled into the dirt lot of the tavern, the tanker close behind. Fire had already destroyed the right side of the building. Flames and smoke rolled out of the broken windows, sparks dancing in the freedom of the night. Liquid fire dripped down the side of the building and lay unfed in the dirt lot.

  Reese jumped from the engine, gloves, mask, and helmet donned before he jumped from the truck. One car stood alone in the back corner of the lot, its silhouette screaming out accusations. Alex shouldn’t be here. But here she was, at the scene of yet another fire, her presence another tick mark in her guilty column.