Bad Blood (Aurora Sky: Vampire Hunter, Vol. 3)

by Nikki Jefford

  “That’s not what happened. If you shut up for one second, I’ll tell you what went down at the party. I’ll tell both of you.”

  Fane had walked in, bit me, bit his tongue, and saved the day. Like he said, Dante should be thanking him, not plotting his demise.

  I glanced at my phone and frowned. “Why did Dante text you, but not me?”

  “Do I look like I care?” Valerie snapped.

  I folded my arms. Valerie folded hers.

  “Want to know what happened?” I asked.

  “Not really.”

  Too bad.

  “While you and Dante were off getting private tours and sucking blood, Henry drugged me. He was going to have a vampire bite me to see whether or not I was a vampire hunter. Thank goodness Fane was at the party and stepped in, or I wouldn’t be standing here now.”

  Valerie’s arms remained crossed.

  “Then why did he spend the night?”

  “Because I passed out, and he was worried about me,” I said.

  Valerie’s eyes flashed. If anything, she looked angrier than before.

  “You and Fane are finished. If Dante doesn’t take care of him, I will.”

  That’s it. I’d had about enough of Valerie’s idle threats. That’s all they were. She liked to talk the talk, but that was as far as it went. Dante was right. Deep down, she must be very insecure. Well, I wasn’t.

  “Over my dead body,” I said, lifting on the balls of my feet.

  “Oh, really? I find that very interesting. I’m sure Dante will, too.”

  I glared at Valerie. She glared back. We stood, arms crossed, waiting in the foyer in silence for Dante.

  Three minutes later, we heard a car pull up on the street.

  “You’re in deep shit, Aurora,” Valerie said.

  I waited for Dante to get to the door and knock. I wasn’t exactly eager to throw it open and have him hug me in front of Valerie.

  The knock was light, more of a tap.

  Valerie glared at me. “Go ahead and open it.”

  I inhaled and opened the door. Daylight seeped in around a petite figure with long blond hair. She held a gun pointed at my face.

  There’d been many occasions for my life to flash before my eyes, but I was usually too busy cussing, struggling, and resisting imminent death to give my sorry existence much thought. None of those things compared to the cold fear that gripped my heart as I stared down the barrel of a revolver.

  Everything I still hoped to achieve in life took off like paper airplanes with nowhere to go, but down, crashing nose first to the floor after a brief flight in time.

  17

  Hostages

  I expected the gun to fire at any moment. When it didn’t, I took a step back.

  “What is it?” Valerie demanded. I didn’t see her face, but she must have seen mine.

  The blonde we’d rescued in Sitka stepped inside slowly. Giselle. She wore an off-white button-up blouse, airy and slightly ruffled. Her lips were stained burgundy, the deepest red, set off by creamy white skin. Her golden locks fell in thick wavy strands that stopped just below her breasts.

  She glanced at Valerie, but kept her gun pointed at me. Her expression was neutral, grayish-blue eyes sharp and attentive.

  “Stand next to your friend,” she commanded.

  I expected her to sound more French, but she spoke with only the barest hint of an accent. Maybe like Fane she’d adapted to the English language over time.

  I backed up beside Valerie wordlessly.

  “Take her purse and set it on the bottom stair.”

  Valerie scowled. “I don’t think so.”

  Giselle pulled back the safety on the gun. It clicked into place.

  “Just give me your purse,” I said.

  When Valerie made no movement, I took it off her shoulder and set it on the step. Valerie glared, but didn’t stop me.

  “And your phone,” Giselle said to me. “Put that on the stair as well.”

  I did as she asked, wordlessly.

  Giselle reached back for the front door handle, closing us inside together.

  “Is there somewhere more comfortable we can sit and have a conversation?” she asked.

  “Conversation.” That sounded a heck of a lot better than “prepare to die.”

  I nodded. “There’s a living room down the hall.”

  “You first,” Giselle said. “And you,” she added, pointing her gun at Valerie.

  “Only if you lower that god-damn gun,” Valerie said.

  She didn’t lower it. “I will shoot you,” she said.

  “Let’s find out what she wants,” I said under my breath to Valerie.

  “Fine,” Valerie said. “But only because I’m curious. I guess I can wait five minutes before I take this scrawny bitch down.”

  I braced myself for a gun-shot, but Giselle merely stared back with bottomless blue eyes that lacked any kind of emotion. My biggest concern was that Dante would show up and get us all killed with his heroics.

  Or maybe he’s already dead, a voice said from the depths of my skull.

  There’s no way he would have left the party last night without finding out what had become of me. He hadn’t called, texted—nothing. Valerie said he’d texted her, but he would have contacted me first. Something was very wrong.

  I needed to get Giselle’s gun and find out what was going on.

  I led the way back to the living room, glancing quickly into the kitchen for a knife laying on the counter. No such luck. There’d be plenty of time for Giselle to shoot me in the back if I were to rush in and go for the knife drawer.

  I continued to the living room empty-handed. I took a seat on the couch, hoping that if I looked relaxed, Giselle would relax too. Valerie narrowed her eyes at me as she walked in and plopped into an armchair. She folded her arms across her chest, lower lip jutted out as she looked at Giselle.

  Giselle took a stance roughly eight feet in front of us, finger still on the trigger. She’d chosen me as her primary target, meaning I’d be the first one down if Valerie suddenly lunged for her.

  “We didn’t get a chance to meet properly in Sitka. I am Giselle Morrel, and you are Aurora Sky and Valerie Ward. You broke into my house, and now my entire family is dead.”

  “You are aware that you’d be dead, too, if it weren’t for us,” Valerie said.

  I might have been mistaken, but I could have sworn I heard something that sounded close to unease in Valerie’s voice. That made me more nervous than I already felt.

  Giselle leveled her gaze at me. “Where is Xavier?”

  “We don’t know any Xavier,” Valerie said with a huff.

  “Jared,” I said.

  “Yes, Jared,” Giselle confirmed. “Where is he?”

  Valerie’s shoulders leaned forward. “Listen, G. If we knew where Jared was, he’d be dead.”

  “You want him dead?” Giselle asked.

  Valerie huffed. “Isn’t that what I just said?”

  Giselle lowered the gun an inch.

  “Why?”

  Valerie straightened her shoulders. “Because he’s the world’s biggest asshole.”

  “He tried to kill us in Sitka,” I said. If it was possible to get on Giselle’s good side, that ought to help. We had a common enemy. She shouldn’t be pointing her gun at us.

  I looked down the hall as far as I could see, still wondering if Dante might be okay after all and suddenly show up.

  Valerie leaned forward in the chair. “The reason he came after us is because we hid your brother and refused to kill you, you ungrateful blood-sucking-bitch.”

  Leave it to Valerie to keep the conversation running smoothly.

  I hurried to speak before Giselle had time to react.

  “What Valerie means to say is that it was too late for your parents. While Jared was confronting them downstairs, we planned to sneak off with you and your brother and get you both to safety, but Jared finished and came after us. We barely made it out with you.�
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  “How long have you been working with Jared?” Giselle asked.

  “That was the first time,” I said.

  “He hired you?”

  “We work for the same boss. He ordered us to go to Sitka. We were only supposed to look for clues.”

  Valerie stood up suddenly. “God, Aurora. Why don’t you tell her everything?”

  I glared back, momentarily forgetting Giselle.

  “Do you think Melcher or Jared are worth dying for?” I asked. “Because I don’t.”

  “I don’t give a shit about either of those scumbags, but I don’t have to answer to her.” Valerie pointed her chin at Giselle.

  “Sit down,” the vampire said.

  Valerie put a hand on her hip. “Or what? You’ll shoot me?”

  I balled my fingers into fists against my thighs. Things could get ugly real fast. I was on tenterhooks as it was wondering what had become of Dante. If he really had been on his way, why wasn’t he here? Why had Giselle shown up, instead? Had Valerie gotten mixed up when she read the text? Maybe Giselle had told her to meet here. Valerie wasn’t exactly clear-headed that morning.

  Giselle lifted her chin and regarded Valerie with cold calculation. Her lips were pressed together, eyes narrowed to slits. She wasn’t glaring, merely regarding her hostage the way an eagle watches a sitting duck. Her cool calm gave me goose bumps.

  “I have no desire to shoot you,” Giselle said finally. “I would rather cut out your tongue and shove it down your throat right before I drive my blade through your beating heart.”

  Valerie’s lips curled back. “You’re dead, bitch.”

  “I’ve been dead a long time,” Giselle answered calmly. “And I’ve killed a lot of people.” She pushed the gun’s safety back up with her thumb and holstered the gun at her hip, beneath her blouse. On her opposite hip, she pulled out a dagger.

  Giselle took a step forward, lifting the dagger. “I’ll save my bullets for your friend. For you, I’ll use the blade.”

  “Wait!” I cried.

  Giselle and Valerie looked at me.

  “Before the two of you start shedding blood, can you tell us what you want?”

  Giselle pressed her lips together.

  I looked at Valerie. “Can you please sit down a couple minutes longer?”

  Valerie made a show of mulling it over. She blew a strand of hair out of her face and lowered her butt to the chair slowly. “Fine, but you better get as much information out of her as you can before I silence her for good.”

  “I’ll ask the questions,” Giselle said. “What kind of clues were you looking for at my house?”

  “Your father… stepfather? Andre was a murder suspect,” I said. “Two people were killed last February at or near a party hosted by a vampire named Marcus.”

  “I know who Marcus is,” Giselle said.

  And she knew Fane, too. Sorta. I wondered if it would help to bring that up. From their one meeting, it didn’t sound like they were close. It didn’t sound like Giselle was close with anyone other than her dead family, and she clearly blamed Valerie and me for their deaths.

  “Andre was at that party,” I continued. “We were sent to Sitka to search for clues. Jared snuck into your house earlier and claimed to find a cross worn by one of the victims.”

  Giselle gave me the same cold stare she leveled at Valerie moments before.

  “Andre was many things,” she said slowly. “But he was not a murderer.”

  I nodded. “I think Jared killed the woman, Agent Crist, then planted evidence as an excuse to kill you and your family. I overheard him confronting Andre. He said you all left him for dead in Paris.”

  Giselle made no answer. Since she said she was the one asking the questions, I waited for her next one.

  “The five of us were grave robbers in Paris,” Giselle said.

  Melcher had mentioned this about the Morrel’s, but I didn’t expect Giselle to admit it so openly, unless she planned to kill us afterwards. Or maybe she’d been around for so long nothing scared her—not even Jared or Evil Red glowering from the chair beside me.

  “We dug up fresh corpses and sold them to medical laboratories for dissection,” Giselle continued. “We checked the cemeteries as often as we could without arousing suspicion. It wasn’t easy work, but it paid the bills. Then Xavier got greedy.”

  My eyes drifted down the hall while Giselle spoke. I didn’t realize they’d gone that direction until Giselle followed my gaze. I quickly snapped my attention back to the living room.

  Giselle met my eyes.

  “Jared,” she said. “I shall call him by his new name. One day, Jared came up with an idea to make more money. He said why wait for people to die when we could kill them ourselves. Not only would we have fresh bodies, but there’d be no sneaking around cemeteries at night, shoveling through six feet of soil.”

  My lips pulled back. My empty stomach turned.

  “Henriette didn’t like it, either,” Giselle said. “No one did besides Jared. Eventually he got caught, tried, and convicted. Everyone thought he was dead, hung in the gallows, but I had to see it with my own eyes. Before his sentence could be carried out, there was an outbreak in La Force prison. Hundreds of inmates perished, but not Jared. He showed no symptoms—was, in fact, in perfect health, and that made the mystery man curious.”

  “Mystery man?” I asked, leaning forward.

  “When I came to La Force after the outbreak, one of the guards told me that Jared was gone, that a man of great power had visited him and ordered his release. I rode home and told my family that Jared was dead. I thought it was better if they believed he was dead rather than spend their lives looking over their shoulders. I knew what my family wanted: a fresh start. There was already too much controversy associated with our name around Paris. When Jared was tried for murder, even the newspapers in London printed stories about him. So I convinced my family to move to America. We intended to make our fortune and return to France when enough decades had passed, but the new world became our home. We made a good life for ourselves. We were happy until Jared reappeared.”

  The more I stared at Giselle, the more I was convinced that this was a girl who had never been happy a day in her life.

  “Last February, I woke up in my brother’s car in the parking lot of the Westmark Hotel. When I returned home, there were police cars surrounding my house. They’d already removed Henriette, Andre, and Etienne—I saw them at the morgue. The police said they found one man unconscious at the house and took him into custody, only to be ordered to release him after a call came from above—just like La Force.”

  “How did you find us?” I asked. She didn’t sound like she’d had any communication with Jared—in which case, how did she figure out that Valerie and I were at her house?

  “I returned to the hotel and questioned the night deskman who described a young redhead and a raven-haired woman who returned the night of my family’s murder and asked for a cab. I next spoke to the cab driver and the airport ticket agents and tracked you to Anchorage. But the red-haired woman had taken a different plane in Juneau, and the black-haired one left Anchorage soon after arriving. So I waited patiently, and now here we all are.”

  “What about my mom and grandma?” I demanded. “Why did you take over their French class?”

  Thank God they were in Florida. I’d never felt more relieved about hustling them out of the state. I didn’t even want to imagine what it would be like if we were having this conversation at Gran’s condo. Giselle could have decided at any moment to retaliate.

  “I thought I might need them, but I didn’t,” Giselle said.

  One of the many things making me nervous about Giselle was the way her expression never changed.

  “Need them for what?” I asked carefully.

  “As hostages in exchange for Jared and your boss, the mystery man.”

  My mouth gaped open. She’d planned to kidnap my mom and grandma. The thought of it struck terror in my heart.
While I’d been away at camp, their necks had been within snapping distance of the Mad Madame.

  “I’ve had about enough of this,” Valerie said. “Melcher is not this so-called mystery man. He’s a hundred and ten percent mortal, and there’s nothing mysterious about him.”

  Valerie had a point. Melcher would have to be a vampire in order to have saved Jared from the Paris prison. Not in a million years! (Which was a stretch even for vampires.) Melcher wanted to eradicate the vampire race. He hated vampires. He couldn’t be one of the damned (as he called them).

  “You will deliver Jared and your boss to me. This is non-negotiable,” Giselle said.

  Sure thing. As if we could ever pull that off. Jared, maybe, but Melcher was untouchable on base. I took another look past Giselle into the empty hallway.

  Her eyes bore into mine.

  “Dante's not coming,” she said.

  My heart nearly slowed to a stop. I lost my breath. How did she know his name? She couldn’t unless she’d done something to him. No. She was bluffing.

  Giselle doesn’t bluff, a firm voice scolded from deep inside my skull.

  How do you know? Dante’s probably fine. He got hungry. He always gets hungry. He stopped for food. That’s why he’s late. Or he’s hung over. That bastard bartender drugged him, too, and he passed out in a guest room at The Lodge. He’s still sleeping it off. He hasn’t been conscious long enough to call you.

  Delude yourself all you want. Dante’s been kidnapped or worse, he’s dead.

  Stop it!

  My entire body felt like it was shutting down.

  Get a grip, Aurora. I took a deep breath and balled my hands into fists, nails biting into my palms.

  “Where is he?” I demanded.

  “He’s not dead, but he will be if you don’t deliver your boss and Jared to me. That goes for Gavin, as well,” Giselle said, glancing at Valerie. “I have both your boyfriends, and I will kill them if you don’t do what I want.”

  “To hell with this,” Valerie said, suddenly leaping from her chair. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

  Maybe Valerie truly cared about Gavin, or maybe she was still pissed off about finding Fane at my house. Or it could be that she was sick of being told what to do. For whatever reason, she jumped off her chair and went at Giselle like a banshee out of hell, ginger locks flying behind her in a flash of rage.