by Eve Paludan
Kingsley surmised that there was no way that he had given Kevin Holden a lead to Sam in any part of their conversation. He put that out of his mind. For now.
As soon as Kevin’s car was out of sight, Kingsley sent Samantha Moon a text to let her know how his meeting went with the other vampire detective in Southern California. Including the fact that Kevin Holden knew Tyrone Tarkington had hired someone to tail his wife. And him. And that he was leaving town in the next twenty-four hours.
Chapter 14
Tammy pulled her car in the free lot of a nearby Metrolink park-and-ride, so there wouldn’t be a CCTV record on her license plate in the school parking lot. There were hundreds of cars in this free lot, if not a thousand, and it was doubtful that if something did go down at the school that the videos of this parking lot many blocks away would be scrutinized.
She and Anthony got out of the car and began to walk the rest of the way to the high school.
“Do you have any weapons on you?” she asked.
“No, Tammy. For Pete’s sake, it’s a school.”
“Right.”
“Now, since you asked me, I guess I better ask you. Do you have any weapons on you?” he asked her.
“Yeah, I have you for my bodyguard, a brother with superhuman strength who has arms that shoot flames when he gets mad. And I have a few fast-food hot sauce packages, just in case I need to squirt them on my own neck, so I won’t taste good to a vampire.” She paused. “That was a joke. I have no weapons, dork.”
“This is serious, Tam.” He shook his head. “I just don’t know how you plan to pull this off. You can’t do mind control on multiple vampires all at the same time, plus, your mild power of suggestion as a mind reader is not going to be equal to what even a newbie vampire possesses.”
“It’ll work.”
“I have my doubts. You’re a mind reader, not a Jedi Knight. Maybe one vampire, but a pack of vampires?”
“They’re called a clutch. A clutch of vampires. Anyway, I won’t have to be a girl Jedi Knight if we make ourselves believable. It’s going to be a twist on a Jedi mind trick. Just play along like we practiced in the car on the way over here.”
“They’ll never fall for it.”
“I’m telling you, they will. Even in the dark and still hearts of vampires, there’s a tiny shred of hope that such a wondrous gift could be theirs, if only they’ll believe.” She laughed maniacally.
“Can you back off on the diabolical laughter, sis? You’re scaring me.”
“Sorry, I’m just so in love with my clever plan.”
“Don’t let it go to your head. Are you ever humbled by your own ego?”
“Rarely.”
“Just be ready for me to pick you up, if I have to, and run like the wind.”
“Okay, and by the way, thanks for saving me earlier from Emily.”
“Fang helped, too. And like I said, Mom cannot lose you. She can’t lose either one of us. I mean, she has Kingsley, but he’s only her boyfriend and boyfriends can come and go when things go badly, like that one time they broke up. But her kids? That’s different. She needs us. Everything she does, almost, it’s for us.”
“I know,” Tammy said, more than a bit ashamed.
“You should appreciate her more. It’s really hard for her without Dad. She has to take all of these dangerous private eye jobs to keep paying the mortgage. And she has to do all the parenting by herself. Hell, you’re seventeen. You shouldn’t even need any parenting by now. I’m younger and even I don’t need the kind of high-maintenance parenting that you do.”
“You’re right. I just wish Mom and I wouldn’t get into it so much.”
“You gotta stop butting heads with her. It’s tearing her up and crapping on our strength as a family. And casting this bad energy in our house. I’m not the least bit psychic, but even I can feel the tension in the house—and it’s all caused by you.”
“Ant, that’s enough. I feel bad enough about being branded the wayward, troublemaker daughter, all right? You satisfied now?”
“I will be if we live through this long enough for you to suck up to Mom and get back in her good graces. I’m tired of you two fighting.”
“I’ll try,” she said.
“‘No! Do or do not. There is no try.’”
“Right, thanks, Yoda.”
They kept walking toward the high school.
Tammy said, “If we die this morning, I just want to tell you that even though we fight almost all the time, you’re a decent brother, and… I love you, Anthony.”
“Love you, too, Tam.” He drew a finger across his throat. “That’s enough emotional talk for me. What time is sunrise?”
“I checked that important detail before we left. It’s going to be at 6:18 a.m.”
“Are you sure? We’re on Daylight Saving time, you know.”
“Yes, Anthony. I wouldn’t screw up something that important.”
He looked at the time on his phone. “Okay, so we’ve got about twenty minutes to round up the bad vampires and kill them before the cheerleaders and their coaches start showing up for practice.”
“I hope it’s enough time,” Tammy said.
“It’s going to have to be. Wait, how will we know the good vampires from the bad vampires?” Anthony asked.
“Because the bad vamps will be the ones trying to kill us.”
Chapter 15
Kevin officially accepted the FBI job offer in San Francisco. He didn’t know what he was going to do when he had to tell them he could only work nights, but he had an idea that they would have to legally accommodate his “disability” of being allergic to sunlight. It wasn’t like he could dress like a beekeeper, all covered up, or walk around slathered in SPF 700 sunscreen.
Anyway, he had wanted that job for years, had worked for it. And now that everything pointed to his time to reinvent his life, he was sorry to let go of what he had built with the Fullerton PD. The captain was not as understanding as he would have liked, but he was releasing him. After all, one didn’t get an FBI offer every day. But the captain was pissed off. After all, they were down one Narco detective with Amber in the hospital, and now, they were going to be down two detectives with Kevin gone. Tomorrow.
Still hungry, all of his instincts told him to just knock down a homeless person and feed, which was easy and they were plentiful, but he figured Kingsley Fulcrum had a tail following him, so he restrained himself from hunting tonight. Plus, he didn’t want to taint his own body with drugs from some random person since the FBI would definitely be doing a drug test on him before he started his new job.
After making a few phone calls, Kevin obtained a few gallons of fresh animal blood from a slaughterhouse. It was gross-smelling and even worse tasting, but he drank it cold and it helped, a lot. He didn’t feel such a raging hunger inside of him, and he told Arturo, the complaining evil entity inside of him, to shut up and like it because he was probably never going to drink human blood again, as long as he unlived.
It had taken many phone calls, but Kevin had also made arrangements to clean out and lease out his condo through a real estate management company. He took action to close out the other parts of his life in Fullerton and start a new life in San Francisco. He had rented a short-term apartment near the FBI building, sight unseen, until he could rent one for the long-term.
The whole thing about leaving his job and his feeder-woman was killing him, but he knew he had to burn his bridges or he’d end up dead from the massive werewolf and his supposed “brethren” with silver knives who would hunt him down. It was his first werewolf encounter, and he hoped it would be his last. Kevin felt like he’d dodged a silver bullet.
The thing with Kingsley arriving first at the gym had alleviated any suspicion that he had been followed there. Kevin wouldn’t make that mistake again. It was a handy thing to know as a cop and an FBI agent that surveillance didn’t always mean a tail. Sometimes, it meant getting a head start on your target.
Now, t
here was only one thing left to do, and he knew it was the right thing to do. It was just breaking his heart that he had to do it—because after all was said and done, he really did love Amber Tarkington. She was more than a feeder to him. Much more. She was his detective partner, lover, and best friend. Hell, they had been lovers for years. She had accepted him, even after he had been turned into a vampire on that one fateful night when he had saved her from being attacked by vampires by pushing her into the unmarked cruiser and telling her to lock the doors and call for backup. He fought as hard as he could, and even discharged his weapon, to no avail. He didn’t even know which vamp had actually turned him. And he had never run across them again.
That night, his heart heavy, Kevin showed his badge at the nurses’ station.
“Visiting hours are over, Detective Holden. We just sent Mr. Tarkington home to rest. He has barely left her side. And she’s very tired, too. The patient needs to rest for some tests.”
“It’s police business, it can’t be helped,” was all he said and gained entrance to her private hospital room. He softly closed the door behind him and when he saw her curled up with a pillow, as she used to curl up with him, spooning it, his breath gave a little hitch, even though he didn’t need to breathe.
“Hi, lover,” she said in a small, weak voice but smiled at him. “Thanks for coming to see me.”
“Hi, Amber. How are you doing, sweetie?”
“I’m much better from my bullet wounds, but they won’t let me go home without finding the cause of my severe anemia.” She swallowed, and tears came to her eyes. “My platelets are so low, they’re going to do a puncture of my hipbone for testing my bone marrow tomorrow to see if I have leukemia.”
“Oh, no. It’s just because you’ve been feeding a vampire. Right?”
“Of course. I tried to tell them that, and they laughed and chalked it up to the pain drugs they gave me. Kevin, they are going to make a hole in my bone and take out the marrow! I don’t know how to get out of it.”
He walked to the bed and held her close to his body. She was warm and amazing, as always.
“Do you need to feed?” She held up a pale wrist.
“No, I’m good.”
“You drank blood?”
“Animal blood, bought from a slaughterhouse.”
“Yuck. How was it?”
“Not as delicious as yours, my love.” He looked longingly at the blood bag hanging from an IV pole and dripping into her veins.
“Do you want that?” she asked.
“No, that blood transfusion is for you, Amber. And that’s my fault.”
She started to cry. “What if they think I have leukemia? I mean, all of my platelets are super low, and they are gonna hurt me tomorrow. A lot.”
“I’ll fix it.”
“How?” she asked in a trembling voice.
“I’ve been doing research online, deep in the dark web, you know?”
She nodded. “What kind of research?”
“Vampire physiology, biology. Maybe it’s fiction, and maybe it’s not, but we have to try something to raise your red blood count.”
“What can you do?” she asked.
“You’re going to drink my blood. A vampire’s blood supposedly has incredible healing powers.”
Amber gasped. “Will it make me into a vampire?”
“No, I think turning someone into a vampire can only happen one way, the way it happened to me. I was attacked and then, somehow died or was near-death and woke up with that thing inside of me that haunts me and forces me to go and drink blood.”
“Your ravenous inner beast?”
“Yeah, that creepy alien entity thing who calls himself Arturo. But that thing has made me super-strong, as long as I keep feeding on blood.”
“I don’t know if I want to drink your blood, Kevin.”
“But I don’t want you to needlessly have to go through a bone marrow aspiration tomorrow, either, and maybe chemo when you don’t even have leukemia.”
“If I drink your blood, will I get better in time, so I don’t have to deal with all of that? I want to go home. Except for being super weak, I would have just pulled these IVs out of my arms and left by now under my own power.”
“Do they come and get your blood for testing at regular intervals?”
“Yeah, they do. Like every four hours. Look at my arms, even my hands.”
He stroked her arms. “Not just all the healed marks on your wrists from me, but they made you into a complete damn pincushion. You’re punctured everywhere.”
“Tell me about it. The veins are collapsing, and they plan to stick me in my foot veins next. Before I even got here, you blew out a bunch of my veins from all the feedings on me.”
He grimaced. “I’m sorry, I truly am.” He paused. “Look, Amber, I don’t know how much time I have before the nurse comes in to kick me out.”
A shuddering sigh broke from deep inside of her. “Will you kiss me before I drink your blood?”
“Of course.”
The soft sounds of their kisses and soft murmurs of each other’s names contrasted with the violent hunger for human blood that stirred so turbulently inside of Kevin.
“How do we do this?” she asked, almost in a whisper.
“Same way I fed from you in the beginning of when we started this, except this time, I’m the giver and you’re the receiver. I’ll just open a vein in my wrist with a little hole and you’ll suckle on it and drink as much as you can. Just keep swallowing until I stop you, okay?”
“It’ll make you weak, though.”
“I have more animal blood in my fridge. That’s what I plan to do from now on. No more human blood. It changes who I am.”
“That’s true. It did. But I still loved you. I always have.”
“Me, too, Amber. You’re my soul mate. More than just a feeder.”
“I liked it, too. I was giving you a part of me that no one else could.”
“And building your psychic powers.”
“That, too. They’ve come in handy on occasion as cops and later, as detectives.”
“Yeah, we’ve been together a long time,” he said sadly.
“Yeah, I cheated on my husband with you long before you were a vampire.”
He got an idea. “No, you didn’t,” he lied.
“Yes, I did. I remember the first time, and we promised each other it would never happen again. It was like five years ago. And then gradually, it happened more and more often until it was almost every day. It’s been at least two or three years of constantly finding places to do it. Even in the police station. Closets and offices and the locker room. We’ve been so bad and so bold. Me spending the night in your condo? That was brazen. We could have been caught a million times, Kev.”
“You’re misremembering the timeline, my love. You never slept with me until I was a vampire,” he lied. And then, he looked into her eyes and said, “You’re going to believe this, that you didn’t cheat on your husband with me until I was a vampire. You are now compelled to believe it, that you never cheated on your husband of your own volition. And that you never cheated on him with me until I was a vampire.”
A long sigh came out of her and it sounded like she was going to cry.
“You okay, baby?”
“No, I’m not okay! What did you just do to me? Tell me the truth.”
“I just gave you back your life, the one I stole.”
“How?”
“It’s not important how, Amber.”
“Yes, it is. I feel like I lost something precious, but I don’t know even what it was.”
“You’ll be fine,” he said with a tremor in his voice. “You ready to drink from my tap for a change?”
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s try it and see if I feel better. I hope I do. I want to get back to work with you.”
He didn’t say anything about that yet, only got out a disposable scalpel and took off the cap as if he were going to cut a little slit in her wrist, as his
feedings from her had started out, long ago. But this time, he sliced and poked his own wrist a bit, then pressed his bleeding flesh against her lips as she sucked. They looked at each other with love in their eyes.
“Don’t stop drinking until I say so.”
“Kev.” She blinked her acknowledgment and drank in small swallows that he could hear going down her throat.
He said, “This is so fucked up that I became a vampire, just when you were going to tell Tyrone about us and file for divorce.”
She nodded and kept drinking.
“I love you, baby. I know I can be a real selfish asshole at times. Especially when I’m in cop mode or vampire cop mode, but when it’s just the two of us and I’ve fed, there’s nothing else in the world but you and me.”
She nodded and drank more blood from his wrist.
He said gently, “I’ve been thinking that it’s time for me to leave Fullerton.”
She stopped drinking and pulled away and some blood got on the sheets. “No,” she said, “you can’t leave.”
He pushed his wrist against her mouth again. “Drink it all down, baby. All you can, because you are going to be good and strong and you will have lots of platelets and a higher red blood count the next time they come to take your blood and do tests on it.”
She whimpered against his flesh. Kissed it.
“Suck it down. And… just let me talk, sweetie. You listen, okay?”
She sobbed against his wrist but nodded and drank.
“Remember the job I told you about in San Francisco and how we were both going to become FBI agents? And how they recently made me an offer?”
She nodded against his flesh.
“Well, it’s just going to be me leaving, now. It’s time for me to go, and you keep on doing what you do here, at the Fullerton PD. You have a life. A husband who loves you. I was just told by the nurse at the station that he wouldn’t leave this hospital room for hours. Your only daughter is about to pop out your first grandkid. And your sons are both getting married in the next year or two to those crazy twin sisters. You don’t want to miss all that by traveling all the time as an FBI agent. You want to be home on a regular basis with the people you love. And who love you back.”