Blood Games

by Lee Killough

Irina grinned. “However naive, he observes well. My innocent, do you think Mada kept only one account? Financial security comes of diversity. Mada made herself very secure. I have located everything and transferred it to you.”

  He stiffened. “What! No! I don’t want it.”

  A knuckle thumped him on the head as Grandma Doyle used to do. “Don’t be foolish. You will need it. Is too late to refuse anyway. Everything is already in your name.”

  He stared at her. “That’s impossible.”

  She sighed. “Why do children never believe their elders? Listen...I am expert forger--a skill you need to learn also. When next they check signature cards, they will find yours on them. Not accounts in your name, but each alias signed in your handwriting. Changing names on accounts requires only clever hacking. Learning this skill is why you have taken my suggestion to become computer literate, true?”

  “You shouldn’t have done it.” But his protest sounded weak in his ears. He felt trapped.

  She rolled her eyes. “So you say now. In fifty years, hundred years, tell me so. Now--” She stood in a smooth motion. “--we will rejoin the wake and toast Grania Megan Mary O’Hare Doyle, old, dear soul. I have with me a vintage we can enjoy. Is disrespectful to her memory to wallow in misery. She wished, deserved, to be celebrated. I’ll bring financial records to you in Baumen. But--” She stared hard down at him. “--you must plan for leaving there.”

  “I’ll think about it,” he said.

  Chapter Three

  The wake seemed a lifetime away, not just the day before. Maybe because it felt so comfortable coming back on duty after the torture of a week at home ducking meals and his father. He certainly liked the unreserved warmth of Sue Ann’s smile.

  “Welcome back, Garreth.”

  Nice. On the other hand, he had never heard quite that lilt in her voice before. What gave? He checked his locker with care before opening it. She did not generally play practical jokes, and setting up someone coming back from a funeral seemed more Duncan’s style, but...it paid not to take chances. The padlock sat at the number where he always left it. No fire extinguisher foam showed in the louvers of the door. Once unlocked, the locker’s catch slid up without obstruction. He eased the door open. Nothing gross fell out. Everything inside appeared just as he left it.

  Wrapping the duty belt around him, he returned to the office. “Sue Ann, not that you aren’t always cheerful, but...what’s up?”

  She turned from her communications console and winked. “I think it’s spring.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  Maggie banged in through the rear entrance. “Sue Ann, that key pad on the door still isn’t working right. I had to punch the combination twice before--Garreth!” He found himself wrapped in leanly muscular arms and the sweet scents of her skin and blood. “I’m so sorry about your grandmother. And I’m sorry I didn’t have the chance to see you and say anything before you left for California. And--” She shoved him backward into the locker room and turned the lock behind her. “--I’m so glad you’re back.”

  Apparently. Her kiss knocked his glasses sideways. Recovering from his surprise, he pulled them off so he could participate without interference. No matter that in wrapping his arms around her he felt mostly the body armor under her shirt, the feel and taste of her brought a warm flood of pleasure...followed by a surge of desire as he responded to the urgency of her mouth. Only when his arms banged into the lockers and the cases on her duty belt ground into his torso did he realize he had lifted her off her feet and she had wrapped her legs around him.

  Moving his mouth back far enough to talk he said, “Sergeant Lebekov, is it your intention to incite me into having you right here up against the lockers?”

  She sighed deep in her throat and tightened her arms and legs. “I’d like nothing better. We’re such fools--well, I’m a fool. Life is too short to waste wanting more than you can give me. But...I suppose I better wait until you’re off duty.” She unwrapped her legs. “What say I have the bed at your place warmed up and waiting?”

  “That’ll be--” No word he could think of sounded superlative enough. “It’s a date.” With a last hard kiss, he made himself release her, then taking a deep breath to clear his head, headed for the door

  “Just one more thing.”

  He glanced back.

  She grinned. “Better carry your briefcase in front of you on the way to the car.”

  As he left the locker room, Sue Ann eyed him with satisfaction. “I was right. Winter’s over.”

  Chapter Four

  Warmed up and waiting? Any warmer and the bed would catch fire. She met him naked at the door of his apartment over Helen Schoning’s garage, pulled him inside and across the room by his uniform shirt, hauling it off him in a rip of Velcro, followed by his belt. Her mouth fastened on his. By the time they reached the bed his zipper had also yielded to her urgency. He peeled out of trousers and boxers faster than he could ever remember before, giving thanks that his boots zipped, too...and that he had drained his thermos before coming upstairs. Even with his hunger satisfied, the pulse pounding in her throat brought a surge of appetite that made his teeth ache, while the rest of him ached at the scents of skin and blood rising from her like steam. He fell onto the bed with her, letting the steam envelop him.

  Later, lying in contented lassitude against her back in the tangle of sweat-soaked sheets, he re-lived the tumultuous session. That had to be the reconciliation of all time. His back stung where she scratched him and even his muscles might feel the strain tomorrow. Forget his promise to Irina; he could not think of leaving now. He refused to hurt Maggie.

  True, he needed to be careful. She had given him a terrible moment when she started to bite his shoulder. He had quickly turned her head and kissed her, but he still went cold at the possibility of her touching his blood.

  According to Lane, vampires carried a retrovirus. The small amount present in saliva rendered a single bite harmless to a healthy human, but give that human vampire blood with its high concentration of virus, as Garreth had received by biting Lane in defense during her attack, and that person became incurably infected, the virus waiting in every cell for death to let it assume power. If Maggie continued this intensity of passion, he needed to watch out for her teeth.

  He buried his nose in the nape of her neck and ran a hand down over the curve of her hip, admiring how fit she remained. Only a scattering of grey hair and some lines in her face hinted at her age. He breathed in the scents of her skin and blood, savoring them.

  Then fear socked him in the gut. Free from the heady distraction of sex, now he registered the actual substance of those scents. Another breath, long and slow and analytical, confirmed his suspicion. Her blood smelled different than it had in the past...wrong...tainted. By what he had no idea, but remembering her comment about life being too short, he had to wonder if this taint related to that and drove her passion. He thought of Grandma Doyle’s vision. Could the pale man be Death itself...coming for Maggie? He gathered her tighter against him until dawn, smelling the taint of whatever and feeling chilly darkness swirl around them.

  Maggie woke with sunrise as usual, as he once had, but this time did not dress and slip away before the neighbors woke up, leaving him free to escape daylight in sleep, settling into his pallet with its quilted pockets of earth. Instead, she rolled over and pressed against him. “In this weather I wish I had your low body temperature. But sleeping with you is next best...like tucking against a body length cool-pack.” Her lips worked their way up his neck and along his jaw while her hand slid to his groin. “How about an eye-opener?”

  Despite her hand and words, she smelled of fear, not desire. He pulled back enough to see her face, though without looking her in the eyes. Let her choose on her own to talk, if she would. “Suppose you tell me what’s wrong.”

  “There’s something wrong with wanting to make love to you?” Maybe she intended to sound sarcastic, but the words emerged as defensive.

&nbs
p; He ticked his tongue. “Come on, Maggie, you know that isn’t it.” Fortunately he had a ready way to explain his knowledge. “I’ve been a cop too long not to read body language. What is it you want to use sex to deny?”

  She jolted as if slapped, then with a shudder, buried her head against his chest. “There’s...a lump...in my breast...”

  Which explained everything. Her mother had died of breast cancer about this same age.

  “I have an appointment in Hays this morning for a needle biopsy. I’m scared to death what they’ll find.”

  He wrapped his arms tight around her, feeling her terror. His own gut knotted. “I know.”

  She pulled back to look up at him. “Garreth...I don’t think I can face this by myself and I haven’t had the courage to tell Dad. I know it’s asking a lot when you haven’t had much sleep and aren’t a morning person, but...will you come with me? Please?”

  As if he could sleep now. “Of course.”

  “And will you drive? I can’t concentrate enough.”

  He hesitated only a moment. “Sure.”

  Chapter Five

  The drive back to Baumen had so far been silent. Garreth felt even more leaden than usual in daylight, and despite his dark glasses, the sun glaring through the windshield set his head pounding. He had tinted the ZX’s side windows nearly opaque and the rear one as dark as allowed by law. If only the windshield could be smoked, too.

  Beside him Maggie sat rigid and pale, hands clenched together in her lap. When he laid his own hand over them, they felt icy.

  He squeezed her hands. “Well, we could have guessed you wouldn’t have any results today. But they said they’ll let your doctor know in a few days.”

  “I don’t know how I’m going to stand the wait!”

  “The first thing is to tell your father and family. It’ll be easier with them to support you. And you have me, too. Let’s be optimistic.” He poured all the soothing persuasion possible into his voice. “If it isn’t benign, you’ll be catching it early.” He had smelled nothing wrong in February, the last time they were together. “No matter what happens, I’ll always be here for you.”

  Irina could be wrong. Depending on what happened, there might very well be a time to offer what he had to give. He knew nothing about the vampire virus’s effect on a healthy person. Maybe it would bring her half over...cure her without taking away her humanity. They could decide later what to do at her death: let her come on across or give her true death.

  “What if I end up flat-chested, and hairless from chemo?” Bitterness and fear mixed equally in her voice.

  “I’ll go right on loving you.”

  He spoke without thinking, then realized it was true. All these years, despite being lovers, he never called the relationship love. He saw now he had been fooling himself, blinded by memory of what he had with Marti...saw that while what he had with Maggie was different, it was also love.

  He felt her eyeing him...saw her smile. “Garreth, as much as you’ve infuriated and frustrated me, shut me out, evaded, and refused to trust me with a look into the dark corners of your life, you don’t out and out lie to me.” She took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll talk to Dad and probably Aunt Susan. I’ll try to relax and not--Garreth! That van!”

  He blinked. “What?”

  She pointed to a vehicle ahead of them. “The Colby police have an alert bulletin out for a van like that. Maybe you haven’t read it yet since it came in while you were gone. Suspect is a tall, thin male in his twenties, very pale skin, black hair, driving a late model Dodge conversion van, tan with dark brown striping, Colorado tags.”

  “Let’s have a closer look.”

  Garreth stepped on the accelerator and swung into the left lane. Nearing the van, though, a sense of menace shot through him, and an image flashed in his head...a young man, pale skinned, white-haired, with eyes glowing red.

  “Garreth!”

  He straightened the car just in time to keep from sideswiping the van.

  “Are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  He felt like it. That had to be Grandma Doyle’s vision! Looking like a real person, not symbolic. But...why had he seen it, too?

  I leave you me love and a gift to protect you, Grandma Doyle said. Did she mean this? Her Feelings?

  “What’s this guy wanted for?”

  “He forged a stolen check to pay his motel bill, and apparently they also found bloodstains and a bloody cup in the motel room. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  He gripped the wheel harder to keep his hands from shaking. Bloody cup! The vision’s eyes glowed in memory. Was the suspect in the van the man in the vision? And a vampire?

  A minute later they pulled even with the van, Garreth bracing himself to see that pale face behind the wheel. It was almost a letdown to see a girl driving...fifteen or sixteen years old, a mane of dark hair. Beyond her in the passenger seat, he glimpsed the head of an even younger, blonde girl. “Any mention of female companions in the bulletin?”

  “No.”

  But they had the right van. He knew that in his bones. “She looks pretty young to be driving without an accompanying adult. The male might be in back.” It was impossible to tell with the huge side windows tinted almost opaque. “Call it in.” He slowed to slid in behind the van.

  The department let them keep their high-band portable radios off duty. Often he turned his on to keep track of area activity, but today had forgotten it until now. Maggie picked it up from between the bucket seats and switched it on. “Ellis or Bellamy SO.”

  After a moment the radio crackled. “Ellis County. Go ahead.”

  “We’re off-duty Baumen PD officers Mikaelian and Lebekov, following a suspect vehicle proceeding east on I-70, approaching the Victoria exit.” She gave the van’s description and tag number.

  Another voice came on. “This is Bellamy County. Continue to follow and keep us informed. We’ll intercept at the Trubel exit.”

  Garreth kept tucked in behind the van. They passed Victoria. Maggie reported their position. His radio picked up the Highway Patrol band, too, but Garreth heard no indication of an area trooper close enough to assist. He found himself running up on the van’s rear bumper and slowed to keep his distance, but then presently found himself closing on the van again.

  Two cars sped past them, then a semi. He glanced down at his speedometer. “Shit!” It read sixty miles per hour.

  Maggie glanced at him. “What’s the matter?”

  “We’ve been made.” In his care to keep behind the van, he never noticed it gradually slowing...tricking him into slowing, too. With almost all other traffic going seventy or seventy-five, nothing demonstrated better that he was deliberately following. “I’m going to pass and hope they think I was just an inattentive driver.”

  As he accelerated around the van, the sense of menace shot through him again, but even stronger, and this time looking sideways he found the face in the vision. A male in his twenties, bone thin, albino pale, eyes hidden behind wraparound sun glasses.

  Maggie whooped. “Yes! He’s changed his hair color, but that’s got to be our suspect!”

  Who had indeed made them. The driver gave them the finger, then using the extended middle finger, he pushed up his nose into a pig snout, and finished by drawing the finger across his throat. The van surged forward.

  “He’s booking!” Garreth stamped his accelerator. He intended only to keep up and drive the van into the waiting arms of the Bellamy deputies, but just as he had felt certain of the van’s identity, he suddenly knew the driver had other plans. “Maggie, he’s going off at Walker. Call it in.” The exit lay just ahead.

  “How can you--”

  Even as she started the question, the van swerved right, rode the shoulder around a recreational vehicle and shot onto the exit ramp. It blew past the stop sign and slewed left in a scream of tires, narrowly missing a southbound pickup. Garreth followed, with Maggie shouting the change of direction into his radio.r />
  Excitement colored her cheeks. “You think Walker has time to put up a road block?”

  But the van did not follow the highway into Walker. It turned onto a county road, continuing straight north, then several miles later swerved onto an eastbound county road. Garreth could have sworn the turn was too sharp for a vehicle like the van, but while it swayed and fishtailed, dust spraying beneath the tires, it remained upright. Garreth hit the turn with a death grip on his wheel. The ZX slewed onto the gravel, too, sending it scattering like shrapnel.

  “There’s the Bellamy County line!” Maggie thumbed the switch on the radio mike again.

  Ahead, brake lights flared.

  “He’s turning north on 12!”

  Garreth gritted his teeth and fishtailed through the turn. Ahead the van had accelerated still more. It shot past a tractor hauling a huge round hay bail. And though they climbed a hill, Garreth swung out to pass, too.

  Only to face a truck and stock trailer coming over the crest.

  “Garreth!”

  He floored the accelerator. The car leaped ahead. They shot around the tractor and squeezed back into the lane with what seemed like millimeters of clearance from both tractor and truck.

  Maggie grinned. “I think those farmers just damned your soul to hell.”

  Some might think they were too late. “Find out if there’s anyone in a position yet to head this turkey off.”

  She asked, but it appeared Bellamy had no deputy in that end of the county right now. Garreth silently cursed the way the wide open spaces spread law enforcement officers so thin.

  A voice announced itself as a Rooks County deputy. “We can be waiting with road spikes if he stays on 12.”

  If the van stayed on 12. “We have, what, two roads intersecting 12 between here and the county line?” he asked Maggie.

  “Yes. The first one’s just after we cross the river.”

  “Then we better not give him a chance to turn.”