Blood Knot

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  Martie coaxed her to a low table and armchairs inside three minutes, although she didn’t try to protest too hard. Time alone with him would give her valuable information for later, if she met him in the corridors of the Flatiron building and needed to draw him close enough to touch him. To disable him.

  For right now, she could milk him for information about his company just by being interested in him. So she played the part and let him buy her a drink.

  The first few mouthfuls told her something was wrong. She analysed her response to the Whiskey Sour, spotting complex acid chains and adjusting her body chemistry to break them down into harmless molecules, puzzled over the strong reaction.

  After a couple of minutes, Martie leaned closer. “The blond guy, your friend…he’s staring at me like he wants to bury an axe in my chest. They’re really a couple, those two?”

  Winter looked over her shoulder. Sebastian was clutching his glass. Just as Martie said, he was glaring and brooding. But Nial didn’t look any happier, either. He was just doing a better job of hiding it.

  Winter sighed. “Sebastian lost tonight’s bet. Nial got to pick my dress. I’ll go mend fences and be right back. Do you mind?”

  “As long as you agree to have dinner with me,” Martie replied.

  She hesitated. The traces of the chemical still swirling through her system bothered her. But this was a priceless opportunity. So she smiled at him, a warm, slow sexy smile that implied far more than she intended. “I’d love to.”

  And she hurried over to Nial and Sebastian. “For heaven’s sake, Sebastian, will you pull yourself together? You look like you want to murder the guy!”

  Sebastian took a slug from his glass. “I do,” he said. He looked at her, his green eyes glittering with emotion. “Deal with it,” he said flatly.

  “It’s a job. We’ve done a hundred of them,” she said, working hard to keep her voice low. She turned to Nial. “Help me out here.”

  Nial lifted the glass of ruby red wine to his lips, pretended to sip and put it back on the counter. “You would have me say what, Winter? That Sebastian should calmly sit here and watch that ape paw you?” The corner of his jaw flexed. He looked at her and although his expression was calm, for a moment she glimpsed a storm of emotions in his gaze. “I have lost my taste for hypocrisy. You can thank yourself for the change in diet.”

  A waiter approached them. “Your table is ready for you now.”

  Winter felt the fine edges of fury touch her. “We’re working,” she hissed. “You’re going to make this personal?”

  Sebastian drained his glass. “It is personal, Winter. It comes with the territory. There’s no separating it. You’ve just never figured that out.”

  Time was ticking away. She held out her hand, feeling helpless under the pull of it. “Martie wants me to join him for dinner,” she said. “I can’t pass this up.”

  “Then you’d better go join him for dinner,” Nial replied.

  Sebastian exhaled heavily.

  Nial rested his hand on Sebastian’s forearm where he was propping himself on the bar and stood up. “Let’s go and get you fed, Bastian,” he said. “You need to soak up some of that whiskey.”

  “Preferably the other side of the dining room from where they’re sitting. I don’t want to watch Shakeel drooling down Winter’s cleavage while I eat,” Sebastian replied. He didn’t look at Winter as he got to his feet.

  Winter stared at them, hurt slicing through her with the sharp pain of a paper cut. They were going to leave her here? Just like that?

  They were stepping past her, preparing to follow the waiter. Her heart almost halted in terror.

  Nial turned to her. “I would kiss you,” he said in an undertone. “But Shakeel is watching and would get the wrong impression. Enjoy your meal, Winter.” He gave her a neutral smile that didn’t reach his eyes. The blue remained shielded.

  Winter wanted to wrap herself about him and seek reassurance that Nial still wanted her, that he would be waiting for her when this awful task was over. She just wanted a sign. Something, some small thing.

  But Nial and Sebastian were already threading their way between the big overstuffed leather armchairs, following the waiter past the towers of bottled wine into the dining room beyond.

  She made herself turn back to Shakeel and not watch them any longer. To continue to stare after them would be unnatural for someone who was just friends.

  Martie Shakeel was watching her, though. His eyes were narrowed. Thoughtful.

  Winter made herself smile at him. And then she remembered the chemical traces in her system. She hadn’t been able to tell Nial and Sebastian about them.

  She worked over the puzzle as she walked back to her chair beside Shakeel. She had taught herself enough bio-chemistry and straight biology theory to rival a university graduate simply to know more about what it was she did when she went inside people. As her personal wealth had increase and her access to resources had become more plentiful, she had tapped into some of the world’s cutting edge sources of information on bio-chemistry and biology. She kept herself up to date and informed in these fields.

  Now, as she walked back to the armchair, she recalled the acid chain she had found in her body and identified it based purely on its structure: Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid.

  Winter’s confident walk missed a beat.

  GHB. Shakeel had slipped a date rape drug into her drink. Now he was watching her for signs of it kicking in. And yes, her little stumble had brought a smile to his face.

  Fear touched her. She had to keep walking toward him, although Winter really wanted to run back to Nial and Sebastian. If she did that, though, she would be jeopardising not just tonight, but the Flatiron job, too.

  Shakeel sat back in his armchair, suddenly much more relaxed and cheerful.

  Winter let herself half fall into her chair, rather than lowering herself into it. “Ooops.” She clutched at the arms and blinked. “Woah!” She widened her eyes and looked at him as if she were trying to focus. “I think all the flying I’ve done lately is starting to kick in.”

  “Jet lag?” Shakeel asked.

  “Must be.” She forced herself to sit up. “Anyway, where were we?” She plastered a sunny smile on her face. “Dinner?” she asked.

  Martie Shakeel smiled. The smile spread slowly, like melting butter. “Are you so sure you’re in the mood to eat, Winter?”

  Winter kept her smile in place, but her heart seemed to want to squeeze shut and her stomach dropped. Shakeel wasn’t even going to bother getting her into the dining room where Nial and Sebastian could see her signal them. He was going to take her from right here in the lounge.

  “I’m starving,” Winter told him, drawling out the second word. She added a giggle for good measure and tilted her head to look at him like someone who was totally out of their skull and heading into deeper territory with every passing second.

  The scary part was, Winter was clearly not over-playing her reactions. Shakeel looked more comfortable and casual by the minute. He was used to this helpless, more-than-legless reaction. How much GHB had he slipped her? She had thought the Whiskey Sour was strong, but figured he’d simply bought her a double….

  Martie Shakeel was too practiced at this. It was routine.

  Winter nearly moaned aloud at the thought.

  Shakeel leaned over the wide arms of the chairs, so that his handsome face with the high forehead and thick, well-groomed hair was inches from hers. “I can give you everything you need to eat,” he told her in an undertone. “You’ll love it.”

  “I will?” Winter asked, making herself sound vague and uncertain.

  “Out in my car. Outside. Out in the cool air. The cool, cool air,” Shakeel murmured. “Out where the air can play on your skin. Your beautiful skin.”

  Winter closed her eyes, as if they were drifting shut in a haze of delight as she imagined a cool breeze playing over her flesh.

  The needle slapped into her arm with such speed and
precision Winter barely over-rode the need to jump or scream her shock.

  The auto-injector squirted cold liquid into her system that immediately turned hot, before she could scramble to deal with it. She was slowed by her shock, by the unexpectedness of the attack. Shakeel had already dosed her. Why a second drug?

  So fast!

  That was all she really had time to think before the drug started to slow her thoughts and her movements.

  The world started to swim around her.

  “…a bit too much to drink…” she heard Shakeel say.

  Hands on her arms.

  Winter tried to open her mouth to protest. Open her eyes to see what was happening. Neither her lips nor her eyes would cooperate.

  She was being hauled about now. Shakeel was still talking. She could hear him against her. Touching her.

  Terror swamped her and for one desperate, shining heartbeat, she screamed out in her mind, because she could not voice the words, or reach out with her arms.

  Then Winter began to think instead of panic. She was on her own. Wishing for help or a miracle wasn’t going to get her out of this. She was going to have to sort it out for herself. That meant she had to convert the drug. She had to analyse it and neutralize it. The longer she took to do it, the more time Shakeel had to do whatever he wanted with her. That was all.

  Her hearing seemed to be unaffected and she recalled Nial saying that hearing was a passive system, common to both vampires and humans.

  They were outside, now. The air was cooler than the restaurant, but that just meant the drug was making her sweat and the evening breeze was chilling her flushed skin. Winter struggled to open her eyes but still her muscles wouldn’t obey. The signals weren’t getting through.

  She concentrated on countering the drug instead, knowing that now, every second counted. Shakeel had no reason not to hurry now.

  She heard his grunt and felt pressure against her abdomen and lighter pressure across the back of her knees. He’d tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

  Winter turned her focus inwards, to the free-flowing icicle chip molecules of the drug. She grabbed one and studied it.

  Complex! Alien and weird. Definitely put together in a lab, and not one where people wore white coats and sterile paper socks over their shoes. This was the sort of lab where people thought it would be cool to drop this chain of amino acids here, and insert that one there instead and let’s snort it up and see what it does, just for laughs…

  But it was organic and therefore biodegradable. She ripped apart the chain, breaking it down into oxygen, hydrogen, water and other harmless base elements and pushed it toward other similar molecules. The tear started a chain of crumbling molecules. The drug was a marvel of inventiveness but it was highly unstable and fell like a house of cards as soon as she poked at it.

  The demolition chain reaction fizzing through her body, flooding it with rich oxygen and water, Winter was now free to focus on external concerns.

  The back of her head hit a padded wall. Hard. She gritted her teeth against the pain.

  A door closed with a familiar muffling sound. It was a car door. Shakeel had dumped her on the back seat of a car and she had hit her head against the the other closed door.

  Winter lay still. She had to wait for Shakeel to touch her before she could put him to sleep. The drug he had given her had left her completely helpless. If she sat up now or reached for him, he’d know something was wrong and she would never be able to approach him at the Flatiron building. Everything counted on the next few seconds remaining as “normal” as he expected them to be, even if she personally wanted to tear out his testicles.

  But Shakeel didn’t touch her. Instead, he tore her gown from her body with the help of a knife and dispensed with her panties the same way.

  Winter lay helplessly, her eyes closed while he hummed softly. She imagined him smiling that slow smile of his while he studied her. It made her want to throw up.

  The windows on both doors of the car smashed inwards, spraying little squares of safety glass everywhere. Winter carefully opened her eyes. There was a roar of noise that sounded almost human, but not quite. Nial’s hand reached through the falling window behind Shakeel, who was crouched over Winter. The big hand hooked around Shakeel’s neck and pulled him backwards through the windowless space as he squawked and clawed at his captured neck. There was no mercy in the hold. Shakeel was dragged relentlessly from the car through the broken window.

  At the same time, Sebastian’s streamlined body drove through the window over Winter’s head, grabbed the back of the front seats for leverage and pulled the rest of the way into the crowded back seat area.

  He straddled Winter’s body, picked up Shakeel’s struggling form and fed it out the window for Nial to deal with. Then he unlatched the door, kicked it opened and stepped out. Finally, he turned to face Winter. He was already unbuttoning his shirt. “Did he touch you at all?” he asked, his voice controlled and icy.

  “I might have been able to do something with him if he had,” Winter said, trying to keep her own voice just as steady. “He used a knife to cut everything off me. I had no chance.”

  “Bloody bastard,” Sebastian said levelly. He held out his shirt. “Here.”

  She knelt up on the seat, carefully moving around the broken glass. “Thank you.”

  Sebastian looked away. “Not a problem.”

  Winter slid the shirt on and buttoned it. It was large enough on her that it was a decent sized dress. She would flash thigh and stocking tops as she walked but for New York, that would barely raise an eyebrow.

  Sebastian helped her from the car. Her shoes were missing. Another insult to add to the injury for the evening. She sighed.

  The car was a white Lincoln Continental, and it was parked in an alleyway that looked like it was the back service alley for businesses. Possibly the restaurant itself, which made sense. The alley backed onto housing buildings and was dark and lonely.

  Nial stood in the middle of the alley, his arm around the throat of Martie Shakeel, the other hand holding the man’s wrist high up behind his back.

  Nial, like Sebastian a few minutes ago, had discarded his jacket and wore just his shirt and suit trousers. Now Sebastian was bare-chested. Nial had rolled his shirtsleeves up as usual.

  When Winter emerged from the car, Nial’s gaze slid over her from head to foot and his expression hardened. “Not touched, hmmm?” he said, speaking into Shakeel’s ear.

  “I swear!” Shakeel groaned. “I just took off her clothes!”

  “And drugged me. Twice,” Winter added. “The second one was a doozy. Cooked up in some backyard lab somewhere. I would have been as limp as a beached jellyfish while he did his nasty business.” She could feel her mouth trying to turn down as she looked at him. “That’s really the only way you can get your jollies, Shakeel? Animated girls don’t do it for you?”

  Shakeel whimpered. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

  Sebastian glanced at her, lifting his brow. “Someone knows something he shouldn’t,” he murmured.

  “Oh god…” Shakeel murmured. “I didn’t know you were one,” he told Winter. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t have…I never would have, I…oh shit.” He gulped.

  “Relax, Shakeel,” Nial told him. “She’s not a vampire.”

  Shakeel gave a little squeak at the word, and his eyes rolled backward in his head as he tried to look at Nial.

  “Yes, Shakeel,” Nial crooned, his fingertips stroking Shakeel’s exposed neck. “I am a vampire.” He struck Shakeel’s neck, biting with a growl.

  Shakeel squealed, high and loud, trying to struggle in Nial’s grip. But Nial was far stronger than Shakeel and after a few seconds, the other man fell limp and silent.

  Nial let him go and Shakeel slumped to the ground.

  “What did you do?” Winter demanded.

  “Nothing but bury my canines into his flesh. I wouldn’t taste his blood if he were the last human left on th
e planet.” Nial pushed at the motionless body at his feet. “He fainted, Winter. Some humans do that if they can’t cope with sudden, overwhelming fear.”

  Sebastian laughed loudly. Then he glanced at Winter and shut up. But she could see his body shaking with amusement and his eyes glittering with it.

  Nial touched his shoe to Shakeel’s flaccid shoulder again. “You’ll have to work your magic, Winter. Strip his memories of the evening.”

  “And replace them with what?”

  “Nothing,” Sebastian said. “He’s a serial date rapist. He’s not going to own up to losing an evening. He can’t afford to have his personal life examined closely. He’ll just sweat out the fact that he’s lost time and know that someone knows. It’ll do him good.”

  “I like that,” Winter said. She stepped across the rough road surface carefully and crouched down next to Shakeel. “That means I don’t have to be too delicate about pulling the memories, either. I can leave him with a headache.”

  “Please do,” Nial said. “I regret that I must ask you to heal my bite marks from his neck. They’re too much of a giveaway, especially to Shakeel who knows of our kind. I managed to minimize the aphrodisiac I used, though. That bite really hurt him.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Nial,” she assured him. “Although I’ll leave the lactic acid in place so he’ll still have a stiff neck when he wakes up.”

  “That will do, I suppose,” Nial said regretfully.

  Once she had finished wiping Shakeel’s most recent memories, Nial and Sebastian dumped his sleeping form in the back of the Continental and Winter ensured he would sleep for another ten minutes or more by dropping him into another REM cycle.

  She turned away from the car to find both Nial and Sebastian standing together, watching her, barely two paces away.

  Winter took the two paces gingerly across the rough tarmac, then reached up and threw an arm around them and tried to gather them both to her. A cold shudder ran through her as she relived the moment in the restaurant when she had realized what Shakeel had intended to do with her, and that Nial and Sebastian were too far away to help her. Terror in retrospect.