"Anna, what brings you here? I haven't seen you in a year," the bartender said, setting napkins down in front of us.
"A close call," she admitted with a sigh. "I'll have a bloody Mary. Heavy on the vodka, Lonnie."
"Got it. And you?" He turned green eyes in my direction. Lonnie had sun-bleached, short brown hair, laugh lines and was in his early forties. He'd smiled too much at Anna, in my opinion.
"I'll have the same, with only a splash of vodka. Lonnie."
"Right-O, mate." Lonnie mimicked an Australian accent—badly. It wasn't the first time an American mistook my British accent for Australian. Truly, they had no ear for such. After my second century, I'd learned to ignore it. Before, it made me angry and often resulted in unnecessary compulsion and gleeful thoughts of the offender's death.
"You were serious, weren't you?" I stared as Anna drank half her bloody Mary in seconds.
"I wasn't kidding," she turned hazel eyes on me. "Alcohol destroys my shields, and I pick up all kinds of garbage. I believe you'd call that rubbish." She tipped her glass and finished off the rest of the drink, slapped the glass on the bar and nodded at Lonnie to bring her another.
Leaning against the bar, I watched her drink two more. Lonnie had been more than generous with the vodka and Anna's gaze was hazy as she stared at me.
"Adam," she motioned with a hand, asking me to move closer.
"What?" I leaned in, getting a whiff of tomato juice.
"You see that man at the end of the bar—the one with the blue shirt?" Anna hiccupped, making the corner of my mouth curl slightly.
"Yes, I noticed him earlier." I hoped she could hear me; the music was still loud inside the bar.
"You need to stop him. He's really drunk. If you don't stop him, he'll walk out of here, get in his truck and drive away. He'll kill a car full of kids two miles from here."
"What?" I now stared at Anna in alarm. "What do you expect me to do about it?" I leaned in closer to ask.
"Adam, you can do this. I know you can do this. Just keep him from driving away, all right?" Anna hiccupped again.
"I'm supposed to take you seriously when you're drunk enough to hiccup?" I leaned away to search her face.
"Please, Adam?" She begged me with her eyes and her words. Cursing under my breath and wondering what might have possessed me to even consider it, I followed the man outside when he slid off his barstool.
"You will sleep this off in your truck." I deftly plucked keys from shaking fingers as the drunk stared at me. The compulsion would hold, although he was completely pissed. Just to make sure, however, I tossed his keys into a weed-covered empty lot next door. He'd never find them in his current state.
Smelling of sweat and bourbon, the man obediently fumbled with the door of his truck. Sighing, I opened it for him, ordered him to roll down his window halfway and watched him climb inside the vehicle. As ordered, he fell asleep the moment his head dropped against the headrest. Closing the door on him, I left him snoring behind the wheel and went in search of Anna.
"Anna?" I leaned my mouth close to her ear—she'd propped her forehead against the bar.
"Adam, I'm drunk." She slurred her words.
"I know. I could smell you from the door," I teased.
"Hmmph," she muttered.
"Come on." I slapped a hundred on the bar and lifted her in a fireman's carry over my shoulder. We left the bar amid shouts and cheers.
* * *
"Here, you should drink this." I lifted a glass of water to Anna's lips. "It'll help with the headache tomorrow."
"Have some experience in the drunk department?" Anna had trouble focusing on my face. I'd set her on the sofa inside her condo, after driving her home. She'd slept most of the way, only waking for a few moments as I carried her into the condo.
"Long ago," I admitted. It had been; the last time I recalled being drunk had been with my younger brother at his stag party in 1790, only a few weeks before I was made vampire. I was twenty-seven when I was turned and until that time, my father worried that I'd never find a wife. Justin, my younger brother by two years, married first. My father, as it turned out, was right all along.
"I'll sleep here." Anna curled up on the sofa.
"I'll find a blanket," I murmured. After rummaging through a hall closet and finding nothing except a vacuum and a few jackets, I located Anna's bedroom. An extra blanket was tucked inside a cupboard within the walk-in closet. It surprised me, that closet. I expected more clothes to be hanging there. Instead, it was barely half-full, and I counted only six pairs of shoes.
"Were you disappointed?" Anna mumbled when I draped the blanket over her.
"No, sweetheart. Your keys are on the counter. Pleasant dreams." I walked away from her and closed the condo door softly behind me. I'd called her sweetheart. Where had that come from? Squaring my shoulders, I walked toward the stairwell, turned to mist when I determined I wasn't under camera surveillance and misted to Corpus Christi.
* * *
"Somebody was out late last night," Joey sang as I opened the fridge to extract a unit of blood the following evening. I stared at Joey over the refrigerator door.
"And you weren't out late as well?" I nipped the top off the unit and drank.
"I had a date. After Lion and I got done at the car dealership, anyway. I had an excuse. What's yours?" Joey's smile was smug as he watched me drink my meal.
"I also have an excuse," I retorted after emptying the bag and tossing it in a recycle bin. "Anna and I were almost blown to bits. Somebody put a bomb on my rental."
"What?" Joey stood abruptly, his mouth open in surprise.
"Exactly what I said. Xavier is arranging for another rental, and I'm sure there was a bit of difficulty with the rental agency." I smiled at the thought of Xavier having to explain everything.
"I can get us a rental if there's a problem," Joey sat down again. He'd been working at his laptop on the tiny kitchen table.
"Go ahead. It wouldn't hurt to have two," I nodded.
"I was thinking about checking on Roy Cheek again," Joey said. "The EPA shut down the refinery earlier today."
"What?" I was now the one surprised. I strode to Joey's side and read over his shoulder. He'd pulled up the online version of the local newspaper; the headline plainly stated that Hartshorne Oil's Corpus Christi refinery had closed that afternoon. The drilling platforms were still working, however, and plans were made to transport oil to another refinery in Louisiana.
"Anna was concerned about the work crews on the platforms. Too bad they weren't shut down, too," I remarked.
"What do you have planned for tonight?" Joey asked.
"I have an appointment with the local Packmaster. He has two of the bodies stored in a walk-in freezer. I'm going to examine them and take a few photographs."
"If you don't need me, I'll do some Roy Cheek watching."
"Go ahead. Rent two vehicles—use my credit card for mine," I pulled out my wallet and tossed a card on the table.
"All right," Joey said and pulled up a car rental website. "What do you want?"
"Get another SUV with four-wheel-drive. The last one came in handy."
"Until it got bombed," Joey snickered. "How close were you when it detonated?"
"I would have been in it, if not for Anna," I muttered and raked a hand through my hair. "I need to brush my teeth and call Xavier," I added.
I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about having the necessary conversation with Xavier. Anna's behavior was certainly far from normal, and whether she thought of herself as psychic or not, she certainly held talents associated with that gift. I worried that Xavier might be more interested in her than I wanted him to be.
I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror before brushing my teeth. I had my father's nearly black hair and my mother's gray eyes. When I was still human, I'd had no lack of female companions—if I wanted them. My brother often teased me about it; his hair, like my mother's, was a lighter brown. I often left the flock of titter
ing women with him and went to the stables to see to my horses.
The last night of my human life, I'd missed a dinner with my brother and his new wife. I'd ignored the invitation, choosing to tend one of my horses when the farrier could have done the same. I often regretted that final decision. I'd been caught in the streets late that evening and my human life had ended. Three days later, I'd awakened vampire and thirsty for blood.
* * *
"Xavier, I have a meeting with the Packmaster. I'm sorry I can't explain these occurrences better to you. I can only report what I've seen and heard." Xavier kept asking questions about Anna Madden, and I'd run out of explanations.
"But do you believe her to be psychic? You know how important this information might be, Adam." Xavier's voice was curt as I flung open the door of my rental. Joey and I had run into Corpus Christi after he'd made reservations for a rental for both of us. It hadn't taken long—vampires run quite fast.
"I have no idea, Xavier. This bears greater scrutiny, I believe."
"Then watch her carefully and report everything to me."
"I will," I acquiesced reluctantly.
He ended the call, preventing me from forcing the end of the conversation. I sighed, tossed my phone onto the seat of the SUV and climbed inside. Packmaster Roger Prewitt's Seafood Shop was my destination for the evening.
* * *
Prewitt's shop was a squat, square building with a concrete façade on the front. In the back, where I parked the SUV, it was downright ugly. Pushing the unimaginative architecture from my mind, I slipped my keys beneath the mat, rolled the window down an inch and shut the door. A new, green Ford truck was parked close by and someone climbed out of it when I walked away from my SUV. He was werewolf; I knew by the scent.
"Roger Prewitt," he held out a hand. I took it.
The Corpus Christi Packmaster was dark-haired and dark-eyed, but many werewolves were. He was of medium height, but looked to be lean and well-muscled. I wasn't surprised; werewolf Packmasters had to be damn tough to keep their position in the Pack. According to my records, the Corpus Christi Pack had thirty-four members. Thirty-three, actually, since one of them was dead.
"Sam Greene's widow says Sam told her Bill Gordon's boat was stolen, but that Bill thought he knew where it might be," Prewitt explained as he unlocked the back door of his business. "I know the police have a different story," he added as he led me inside the dim interior.
"That almost fits other information I've gotten recently," I said. "I heard from another source that Bill Gordon's wife may have sold the boat so she could put a down payment on a car. She was already planning to leave her husband, I think, and selling his boat was the way she chose to start."
"That could be, I guess," Prewitt nodded. I followed him down a narrow hall, where he produced a second key to unlock the walk-in freezer. "We've kept the bodies here since they were found."
Both bodies were lined up on wide, wooden tables inside the freezer. I examined the bite marks on both. "This doesn't look like the work of a vampire, Packmaster," I pointed out. "These punctures are too far apart."
"I thought so, too, but I'm no expert on these things," he admitted.
"Was there any smell of blood around the bodies when they were discovered?" I asked.
"None. They were killed elsewhere; I'm certain of it. Whoever left them in the wildlife refuge was likely hoping they'd be consumed by predators or swallowed by the swamp."
"And no evidence turned up anywhere on the ship channel, where they were reported to have gone fishing?"
"Nothing. I've sent my best trackers out several times, but they had to be careful not to tread on the local authorities' toes."
"Understood."
"Can a vampire really drink somebody dry?" Prewitt's eyes met mine briefly.
"That's a common misconception," I muttered. "We can't. The best of us can only consume two or three pints at most. If a vampire wants to allow someone to bleed to death, they often slash the throat to hide fang marks. Allowing someone to bleed to death from two small punctures is a very slow process, leaving more than enough time for them to be caught in the act. With the spacing of these wounds, I'm inclined to believe this is something else," I replied.
"But what? I want to give the Grand Master an answer tonight, if I can."
"I'm sorry, but this is something I haven't seen before," I admitted. "We'll have to investigate further. I'll ask Wlodek's assistant to contact the Grand Master, and if he wishes to speak with me personally, here's my card." I handed over a card that bore only my cell number.
"I'll ask him to call," Prewitt nodded. "Do you need more time with the bodies?"
"Just a few photographs." I pulled a tiny camera from my pocket and snapped close-ups of the wounds. "There. That should do it." I pocketed the camera. "You can dispose of the bodies now, if you want."
"I'll do it tomorrow night. We'll weight the bodies and dump them twenty miles out in the gulf."
"Good enough," I agreed. Prewitt locked the freezer door behind him and I followed silently toward the back door. My cell phone rang as Prewitt opened the back door and stepped through it. All hell broke loose after that.
* * *
"What do you suppose is happening?" Merrill turned his gaze on Griffin, who sat inside his study. Griffin had poured wine for both of them, then sat in one of Merrill's wingback chairs, savoring the drink.
"I can't tell you. You know that already."
"There are times, brother, when I'd like to tell you to fuck the rules." Merrill leveled a piercing blue gaze on Griffin.
"We are forced to abide by the rules, Merrill. Just as you are forced to abide by those set down by the Council. All I can say is have patience."
"I have patience. More than enough patience. Patience for two thousand years, Griffin."
"I know."
* * *
Eight werewolves jumped us at once, and Prewitt died quickly, his throat torn out and still in human form. My claws and fangs were out and I'd already decapitated two wolves, but the others were better at strategy. My left arm was practically useless; skin and muscle hung off the bone in shreds after I'd been attacked from both sides. Both my legs were nearly in the same shape; two more wolves had attacked while I was busy killing the first two.
I'd backed against the wall of Prewitt's ugly building, to keep them from assaulting me on that side. Werewolves preferred to attack vampires in packs—it was easier to bring them down that way. I might have been able to fight off four or five, but I was severely injured and six still growled and paced about me, looking for any opportunity to strike. I was a dead vampire and I knew it; it was only a matter of time.
Four of the six stepped forward, preparing to attack when a snort came from behind them. I jerked my head up—I'd been concentrating on the enemy before me to the exclusion of everything else. What arrived surprised me greatly—most animals would run for their lives from werewolves. They recognized the danger and knew to flee. A white horse stood behind the werewolves, and I wasn't sure how or why that might be.
One of the werewolves turned and growled, intending to warn the animal away, I think. The horse's ears twitched as a hoof lifted and pawed the ground in challenge. Knowing horses as I did, I knew this one to be in its prime, with a long white mane and tail lifting in the breeze, its muscles rippling in the light provided by a nearby streetlamp. No horse was a match for a werewolf, however, and now the horse and I looked to be victims of the six surrounding me.
"Run," I whispered, my breath short. The horse shook its head and pawed the ground again. One of the werewolves growled, then leapt at the horse. Fully expecting its throat to be slashed, instead I stared in shock as the werewolf was kicked aside. It yelped once and lay still when it hit the ground. How had the horse moved so fast? I hadn't seen it, and could only imagine that my mind was playing tricks on me after I'd lost so much blood.
"Well, now," I stood straighter. "Looks like a fairer fight." Another werewolf hit the di
rt after attacking the horse, and I swept out my hand, decapitating a werewolf who'd turned to watch.
* * *
"How did you know?" I woke briefly as Joey steered my rental into the safe house garage. He and the two Corpus Christi vampires had shown up as the last werewolf died. Joey had lifted me into my rental after I'd been checked briefly by Jeff, who demanded that I be taken back to the safe house quickly. The horse had disappeared the moment the last werewolf fell, leaving me with Joey and the others.
"Got a call from Anna," Joey muttered as he left the driver's side and trotted over to pull me from the vehicle. "This isn't gonna be fun for a while, Adam. They have to scrub all the werewolf saliva out of your wounds, and it's gonna hurt."
"I know." Wearily I closed my eyes as Joey lifted me easily and carried me down the steps leading into the safe house.
Werewolf saliva is poison to any vampire. Enough of it will kill a vampire if it isn't washed out of the wounds—the vampire's healing reflex will attempt to close the wound, locking the saliva inside to infect the flesh around it.
Death by werewolf saliva isn't pretty, either; I'd seen photographs of puddles of dissolving flesh after an attack by werewolves. My vision swam and I lost consciousness for a while, until Jeff began scrubbing my ripped flesh with a stiff brush and peroxide. The screams—my screams—started then.
"He's fighting us," I heard Joey's voice and footsteps. "We have to get the wounds cleaned out."
"I know. Let me help."
Anna's voice. What the fuck was she doing here? Not only did she not need to see this, it was dangerous. For us, as well as her. Plus, she now knew the location of the safe house. In my foggy consciousness, I promised myself that I'd punch Joey for bringing Anna here the moment I was able. My vision was blurry, but I recognized Anna's face and scent as she leaned over me.
"Adam, you'll feel better in a minute. I promise," she said to me. As confused as I was, I had no idea, short of staking or beheading, if anything might make me feel better.
"Hold still," she soothed and settled onto the bed beside me. Surprisingly, Anna lowered her forehead until it touched mine. What happened after that I have no words to explain. The pain fled and I was floating away. The last thing I heard before I was gone completely was Anna's voice, asking Jeff to continue his efforts.
Hope and Vengeance (Saa Thalarr, book 1): Saa Thalarr, book 1 Page 5