by Jaz Primo
“Yeah, but it was really subtle,” she said.
“It’s a shame you didn’t take any blood samples,” Ethan said.
“Or finger prints,” Alton said.
“Maybe even a photo or two,” Kat said.
Paige sprang to her feet. “Oh, screw you guys and your damned CSI bullshit! I was trying to handle a dicey situation with no less than a shell-shocked kid and a sweaty guy who was the poster child for the plague.”
“Kid?” I said. “Hey, I’m twenty-seven, if you haven’t noticed.”
“Enough,” Alton said. “Paige, we’re not blaming you for anything.”
“Hindsight is always twenty-twenty,” Kat said.
“And what’s not to like about the sight of your hiney, Paige?” Ethan prompted.
Paige grinned. “Aw, now that’s my man.”
She returned to perch atop Ethan’s lap.
Kat stood up, walked over to me, and wrapped me in her arms. “I’m so proud of you.”
“I don’t know what for,” I said.
“You know, perhaps it’s still not too late for the samples we need,” Alton said. “Paige can lead us back to where she disposed of the bodies.”
“Technically, we’re still operating in a window where any blood samples taken will be highly viable for testing,” Ethan said. “But I haven’t practiced in Connecticut for a long time. I don’t currently have lab privileges anywhere nearby.”
“Fortunately, I have access to a lab where I can overnight the samples,” Alton said.
“It sounds like a road trip is in order, shorty,” Kat said, looking at Paige.
“Just great,” Paige said. “I’ve barely finished burying them and now we gotta go dig ‘em back up again.”
Digging up dead bodies.
Bodies that I had killed.
I wasn’t a squeamish person, but the prospect seemed somewhat grisly, no matter the necessity.
“I need to get my shoes,” I said.
Kat tightened her embrace around me. “You’re not going.”
Part of me was more than happy to give in to her declaration, but a nobler part of me didn’t want to be left behind.
Alone.
An involuntary shiver ran through my body.
Granted, Roman was upstairs, but somehow that was neither reassuring nor comforting at the moment.
“I don’t want to stay behind,” I said.
I felt Kat’s chin settle on the top of my head, though she didn’t press her full weight down on me.
“All right,” she said.
“Good,” Alton said. “It’s decided then.”
“But not until Caleb gets something to eat,” Kat said.
“Hey, mothering me again,” I warned, though my stomach betrayed me at that moment with a resounding growl.
The profile of her face appeared in my peripheral vision.
“Oh, hush,” she whispered, her warm breath tickling my ear. Then she kissed me lightly on the cheek.
I couldn’t help but smile.
* * *
Before we left the house, Paige actually took some hot soup and crackers up to Roman. Normally, I’d have teased her a little bit about that, but I was too proud of her to do that. It really was a nice gesture.
We stopped at one of the steak houses in New Haven so I could have some dinner. The five of us were seated in a large corner booth where I sat between Kat and Alton.
My hunger felt epic, so I ordered a complete rib eye dinner while the others ordered salads. By the fourth salad order, the waitress frowned and looked at me.
“You must one persuasive fellow to talk a group of vegetarians into coming to a steakhouse for dinner,” she said.
“I won the coin toss tonight,” I said.
“I guess you did,” she said. “I’ll bring you some fresh rolls. Don’t worry, they’re meatless.”
“Well, snarkety, snark-snark,” Paige said after our waitress walked away.
“Oh, no,” I said. “She’s snarking again.”
“Yes, well, there will be no further snarking at the table, thank you,” Alton said.
“Snark-snob,” Paige muttered, to which Alton gave her a wan look.
Small talk ensued, which lulled me into a comfortable state of mind. Being reunited with everyone raised my spirits.
I leaned back against the booth cushion and stretched my arm across Kat’s shoulders.
As much as anything, it felt so good to do something semi-normal again. My life felt as if it had taken a sharp turn into the Twilight Zone.
Well, at least the sense of normality might last until we start digging up dead bodies.
I tried to put those thoughts out of my head, and was relatively successful throughout most of dinner. Instead, I focused on appreciating the company surrounding me.
Paige sullenly picked at her salad. “I don’t see why we couldn’t have just picked up a burger for junior here through a drive-thru and continued on our way.”
“Yes, but this is nice, isn’t it?” Ethan countered. “I mean, we don’t get to do this together very often nowadays.”
I nodded. “Don’t I know it.”
“The sooner we get out to you-know-where,” Paige said, lowering her voice, “the sooner we can start to figure out why Caleb was attacked.”
“You know, it’s not so much about why they attacked him, but who attacked him,” Kat said.
“Yes,” Alton said. “After the Slovene conference, there’s more than enough who’s to pick from.”
I fumbled with my fork, nearly dropping it.
“Look, can’t it wait for just half an hour more?” I asked. “Let’s just talk about something else.”
Kat patted me on the thigh. “Fine. What would you like to talk about?”
“I don’t know. Anything,” I said. “The plural of moose.”
“Easy,” Paige said. “Mooses.”
Everyone stared at her.
“What?” she said. “It’s like fish and fishes, and goose and gooses.”
“The plural of fish is fish,” Kat said.
“And the plural of goose is geese,” Alton said.
Paige shook her head. “Fine, so it’s meese then.”
I laughed. “No, it’s moose.”
She frowned and looked at Ethan, who smiled and nodded.
“Whatever,” she said, folding her arms before her. “Who the hell cares about moose anyway? Pick another damned topic.”
“What color are you painting your toenails next”? I asked her.
“Oh, well, there’s this new salmon-colored polish I bought just the other day,” she said.
“Please spare me,” Alton said.
Paige gave him a dirty look. “In fact, I bought two bottles since they were on sale.”
“Salmon, huh?” I asked. “Hey, I bet you don’t know what the plural of salmon is.”
Kat chuckled while Ethan reached up to hide his grin with one hand.
Paige gave me an evil look and leaned across the table toward me. “I’m fixin’ to bite you.”
“So, dessert anyone?” Kat asked.
After our meal, while on our walk out to our vehicle, Alton tossed the car’s keys to Paige. “As only you know our destination, you’re the chauffeur. Please remember it’s a rental.”
She scowled and muttered something indistinguishable under her breath in response.
“I should point out, we’ll need to make a couple of stops for some specialty items,” Ethan said.
Following stops at both a twenty-four hour pharmacy and a Wal-Mart, we drove east out of New Haven city limits on the Governor John Davis Lodge Turnpike.
“Everyone turn your phones off. We won’t want to risk our phones being used to track us any further,” she said while powering down her smartphone.
As I powered mine off, I realized that such a thought hadn’t even occurred to me. There seemed to be an awful lot of angles to consider when heading out to dig up bodies in remote locations.
&n
bsp; Eventually, we passed a sign for Guilford and made our way south; it was territory far outside my scope of familiarity.
After traversing a series of gravel and dirt roads, we finally stopped near a rather remote, seemingly desolate area that hosted sporadic copses of trees.
In truth, the location had an eerie sort of feel about it.
I exited the vehicle with everyone else and visually scanned my surroundings. A cold wind sent a chill through me and I quickly zipped up my coat.
“It’s only a short distance on foot from here,” Paige said.
“I’ll help carry some stuff,” I said.
“Get back in the car, young man,” Alton said.
“But—”
“I don’t want to risk any of your stray DNA getting left behind. Unlike yours, ours would simply burn up during daytime,” he said, pulling on a pair of leather gloves.
I started to protest again.
“And, mark my words, if I hear even one more attempt at argument over this, I’ll put you over my knee,” he said.
For some reason, that really irritated me.
“Hate to disappoint you, but I’m just not into that,” I said.
Paige laughed aloud. “That’s not what I heard.”
I glared at her, but she stuck her tongue out at me.
“Paige, please retrieve the shovels from the trunk,” Kat said.
Ethan appeared amused as he opened the driver’s side door and reached into the vehicle.
The trunk popped open.
“Caleb, I realize the past couple of days have been troubling and stressful for you. However, you’ve responded in a commendable and highly respectable manner, and I’m very proud of you,” Alton said. “That being said, you will obey me. You’re staying here.”
The king has spoken.
“Fine,” I said, shrugging and folding my arms before me. “Whatever.”
“Hey, that’s my catch phrase,” Paige said while leaning the shovels against her shoulder.
Kat offered me a sympathetic look as she held open the rear door and gestured with her hand toward the interior of the vehicle. I started to enter, but she gently caught my arm to halt me.
“Just so you know, I agree with Alton. His concern makes sense, my love,” she said, lightly tapping me on the tip of my nose with her fingertip. “And I’m also very proud of you.”
I offered her an appreciative look. “Thanks. That’s something, I suppose.”
As I scooted onto the back seat, Alton appeared in the door and handed me a small automatic pistol.
I looked at the pistol and then at him with a wide-eyed expression. “Seriously? Where the hell did you get that?”
“It’s one of Roman’s. The safety’s in the trigger, so just point and shoot,” he said. “I’m relatively confident that we weren’t followed, but until we know who we’re dealing with, I’d rather not take any chances.”
I merely nodded, not sure what to say to that.
“We’ll be back here immediately if something happens,” Kat said. “Shoot first. Let us worry about the rest.”
She frowned at me as she closed the door. I heard the locks engage and the car alarm’s chirp as it activated.
I could easily tell from her expression that she wasn’t pleased at all.
For one, Kat’s never been in favor of me having a firearm. Granted, they didn’t intimidate me, though I wasn’t especially experienced with them. The fact that I was holding one at that moment only made me feel less at ease over my current situation.
There were a lot of unknowns at the moment.
Foremost, who’s out there targeting me?
Chapter 2
Katrina
As I pulled on my pair of leather gloves, I took one last glance at Caleb sitting in the car. I was so very proud of how he’d conducted himself, and so grateful that his training had helped to save him.
But he was hardly adept at hand to hand combat.
Back at the house, while Caleb still slept, Alton and I’d had a brief discussion regarding how to proceed with his training from this point. At the very least, I felt confident that my mate was well on his way to being formidable for most any opponent.
Except actual vampires.
While I didn’t like the idea of leaving him alone in the vehicle, Alton had made an excellent point about the potential for DNA contamination. Besides, given all that Caleb had recently experienced, I felt better not exposing him to corpses; particularly ones he’d helped to create.
As the group of us proceeded across the field, the moonlight cast the ideal illumination over our surroundings. These were conditions only a vampire could fully appreciate.
I breathed in the fresh scent of the ocean from the nearby bay, and I reveled in the soothing sounds of the wind and the telltale clunking of dry tree branches against one other.
Paige had selected an ideal location for disposing of the bodies. I doubted anyone would come across them for years, if ever.
Though, in truth, if ever rarely occurred. Given the rate that land continued to be developed in recent years, the most we could hope for was a few decades.
Despite the considerable burial depth, between Paige and Ethan it took only minutes to dig far enough to reach the bodies.
Paige had done well. She was so reliable regarding matters such as this.
Careless or short-sighted vampires didn’t last long.
But then, wasn’t that true of all killers? Only the most thorough and intelligent ones successfully eluded detection over the long term.
Paige easily leapt out of the impromptu grave, holding both shovels.
“Someone please hand me that pharmacy bag,” Ethan said.
I handed the small bag of items to him and peered into the grave to watch.
As Ethan removed the plastic sheeting that covered the bodies, my breath caught in my throat, and not merely from the acrid scents of early decomposition.
Both of the men’s faces appeared somewhat pale, much like a vampire’s, though not quite as stark as was typical for my kind.
“They don’t look normal at all for humans,” I said.
“Yes, there’s a strange pallor to their skin. Very odd,” Ethan said. “But I’ll know more once we run our tests.”
“Caleb wasn’t exaggerating after all,” I said.
“Mm. So it would seem,” Alton said.
As I stared at the bodies, my anger mounted.
I wished I could revive them just so that I could kill them all over again. After they dealt with me, they’d think Caleb had done them a favor.
Ethan used a bottle of water to rinse one of the men’s forearms and withdrew a syringe from the sack.
“Two from each, please, as we discussed,” Alton said.
I looked at him curiously.
He shrugged. “One for the lab, one for future reference, if needed.”
I nodded. Good idea.
Evidence sometimes had a way of disappearing when it made its way into the wrong hands.
Minutes later, Ethan hopped out of the grave and landed across from me, sack in hand.
In turn, Alton jumped into the grave.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Their fingerprints will aid in our identification process,” he said.
He withdrew a small device from his pocket and proceeded to press each of the men’s fingertips against the screen.
“I’ll go online to check them against the database after we’ve returned to the house,” he said.
Once he had finished, he replaced the plastic sheet over the bodies.
With a single leap, Alton once more stood beside me.
Paige handed me a shovel and we proceeded to fill in the grave. It didn’t take us long.
As we approached our vehicle, I noticed Caleb tentatively looking out through the opposite sides of the car windows, which were already fogged up.
That made me smile.
“Just look at that,” Paige said. “Caleb couldn’t
see a car if it drove up beside him. Remind me not to take Mr. Heavy Breather on a stakeout.”
In fact, Caleb jumped slightly as Paige used the remote to unlock the doors. I quickly opened the rear driver’s side door to see a surprised expression on his face.
“Back already?” he asked. “That was fast.”
“We’re vampires,” Paige said as she placed the shovels in the trunk. “We’re fast.”
I slid onto the seat next to Caleb and stretched my arm across his shoulders. Alton opened the door opposite me and sat on the other side of him.
I held out my free hand before Caleb, my palm up and open.
“What?” he asked.
I arched one eyebrow at him.
His features fell. “Oh, all right.”
He placed the pistol in my hand, which I quickly pocketed for safekeeping.
“You’re not ready to carry one of those yet,” I said.
“Then I need to start training very soon, don’t I?” he asked.
Oh, clever man.
“Perhaps,” I said. “We’ll see.”
“There’s some other training I’d like for you to begin first, Caleb,” Alton said.
“Really?” he asked. “What sort of training?”
“Oh, you’ll find out beginning tomorrow,” Alton said.
My mate flashed me a suspicious look.
“But I have class,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” Alton said. “You can easily append this to your other training. Just set aside a little more time for it. It’s important.”
When Caleb flashed me a curious look, I merely nodded in knowing fashion.
“You’ll see,” I said.
* * *
Upon returning to the house, we unloaded the vehicle and gathered in the living room.
“I’m going upstairs to take a shower,” Caleb said.
“I’ll join you soon,” I said.
I turned to Alton, who was staring down at his laptop which he had set up on the coffee table. He looked quite pleased with himself.
“Care to share in your good mood?” I asked.
“Success. We have positive results from the fingerprint scans on both of those men,” he said.
Good. Because once we identify who sent them, they’re going to forget all about Caleb.