Duncan (12 page)

Duncan reached out to his vampire—and Ari was his, not a child of his own, but sworn to him in blood—and calmed Ari’s rage with the touch of his power.

Together they studied the minuscule disturbances that spoke loudly to those who knew what to look for, even without the smell of death to guide them. To the untrained eye, there was nothing to see but dirt and a little bit of grass that was dry and brown from the winter. No one had bothered to lay down green turf, as they obviously had in the front yard before Victor’s last party. Had that been the one Lacey attended? If Duncan had still believed in a merciful God, he would have offered a prayer that it not be so. He didn’t want Emma to lose her friend that way, didn’t want her search to end here in this house of horrors. But the world had proven to him long ago that faith had no place in this world.

He sighed. “I have to talk to Emma first. Then I’ll make the call.”

Chapter Eleven

Emma was sitting in her car, the engine running to keep the heater blowing, because despite Duncan’s jacket, she was freezing. It was more than the winter temperature making her cold. She was scared. More scared than she could ever remember being. More than when she’d been forced to kiss her dead grandmother as she lay in the casket. Even more than when her mother had died and left her all alone. She’d been too young then to appreciate all the things that could go wrong, and young enough to believe she’d be fine on her own.

But not anymore. She knew exactly how the world delighted in fucking with her by taking away everything. Everything but Lacey. If she lost Lacey, too . . . She convulsed in a fresh round of shivering, and turned the heater up another notch.

Something awful had happened in that house. Duncan was a master at keeping anything from showing on his face, but his very stillness told her it was bad. If he was working that hard at keeping it inside, it had to be very,
very
bad.

And she was terrified.

The vampire standing guard on her stiffened abruptly, his gaze riveted over the top of her car, around the right side of the house. Emma stared through the windshield. Was something coming? Was it whatever awful thing lived in that house?

She caught a flash of movement, and saw one of Duncan’s vampires racing around the house and into the backyard. Curiosity won out over fear, and she opened the car door enough to put one foot on the ground.

“What is it?” she asked her guard. “Have they found something?”

The guard didn’t respond right away, his attention wholly focused on whatever was happening beyond the house. Emma was about to ask him again when he turned and urged her back into the car. “You should stay inside,” he said tightly. “It’s warmer.”

“Why? What did they find?” she asked, searching his face, knowing somehow that she was right. They’d found something. Not in the house, but behind it. She’d been back there before Duncan arrived, and there was nothing there except a strip of covered patio. Beyond that was a wide patch of dead lawn and then open field. What had they seen that she hadn’t? What could there be—

Emma’s breath caught as pain squeezed her chest. She must have made a noise of some sort, because the guard reached out to her, the look of sorrow on his face confirming her worst fears.

“No,” she whispered. “No!” she screamed and shoved the door wide open, knocking it into the guard and throwing him off balance. She raced for the backyard, knowing she’d never make it, that the guard’s vampire speed would catch her and stop her, but she ran anyway. She had to see, had to know . . .

The guard grabbed her before she’d gotten two steps down the side of the big house, scooping her up and wrapping her tightly in iron hard arms. “You don’t wanna do that,” he whispered against her ear. “Trust me, Emma. You don’t wanna see.”

“Let go of her, Baldwin.” Duncan’s voice was hard as he walked toward them.

Her guard, Baldwin, released her immediately. “Forgive me, my lord,” he said.

Emma didn’t know what he was apologizing for—letting her get away or holding her too tightly, but whatever it was, she didn’t care. “Tell me what you found,” she told Duncan. “And don’t lie to me.”

Duncan closed the distance between them, his hands coming out to take hers and pull her into a rough embrace. “Emma,” he started, but she pushed away from him.

“No. Don’t do that. Don’t coddle me like some fragile flower who can’t handle life. I’ve been taking care of myself since I was eleven years old, so don’t you do that. Tell me what you found,” she insisted.

Duncan sighed. “A body. We’re—” Emma made a pained noise in spite of herself, her fist coming up to her mouth as if to trap the sound inside. Duncan paused. “Emma, Baldwin’s right. You don’t—”

 “Don’t tell me what I want! Is it a woman?”

He studied her a moment, then turned his head slightly, as if listening to what was happening in the yard. When he turned back and met her gaze, she knew. “Yes,” he said unnecessarily.

“I want to see. If it’s—”

“No. That’s not necessary. We have a picture of Lacey, and they’ve buried her things with her. We can identify—”

“I want to see,”
Emma repeated in an uncompromising voice that she barely recognized as being her own. “It’s my right, Duncan. She’s my—” Emotion stole her voice, and she drew a breath, turning away for a moment. “Lacey’s
my
friend,” she continued, ignoring the hot tears rolling down her cheeks. “Mine.”

Duncan clearly didn’t want to give in, but he just as clearly believed that what Emma was saying was true. It was her right to be the one, her right to lay claim to Lacey, and no one else’s.

“Very well,” he said unhappily. “You may view the body. But, Emma, decomposition has already begun. You may no longer recognize Lacey even if it’s her.”

“I’ll recognize her,” Emma insisted stubbornly.

Duncan frowned and shook his head slightly, as if already regretting his decision. “You will tell me if you think it’s Lacey or not,” he said finally. “And then you will leave. Baldwin will drive you home.”

“But if it’s Lacey—”

“Take it or leave it,” he said, his voice every bit as uncompromising as hers had been.

Emma nodded once. Duncan reached for her hand, but she pulled away, choosing to proceed under her own power.

She moved in a blur, her eyes so filled with tears she could barely see. Her mind kept whispering denials, kept telling her it didn’t have to be Lacey, that there’d been other women at the parties, that this house and Victor had been around for years, and that the land around here was riddled with old burial grounds. But in her heart she knew what she’d known ever since Lacey hadn’t come home Sunday night. She’d known that something awful had happened, because nothing else would have kept Lacey from calling her. And now . . .

“Emma?” Duncan’s voice next to her was gentle, full of compassion. But she didn’t want his compassion, couldn’t afford it. She had to stay strong. She looked around and realized Duncan’s vampires were all looking at her expectantly. They were standing in a circle around something, and now had opened the circle as if to admit her. She looked down and her heart began to pound.

“Emma, you don’t have to do this.”

She brushed away Duncan’s hand and stepped between two of the vampires, nearly tripping on a pile of dirt. One of the vamps caught her arm, and she looked down into a big hole in the ground. No, not so big. Just big enough for . .

A cry of denial was torn from her throat, a wordless, animal sound of grief. Emma stumbled as she backed away, suddenly wishing she hadn’t insisted on being here. She didn’t want to see what was in that hole, didn’t want to see that dead thing wearing a grotesque caricature of Lacey’s face, her blond curls limp and tangled, her limbs twisted in death as they’d never been in life. She wanted to rewind her life and keep Lacey home from Victor’s party. They’d eat popcorn and drink bad wine and watch cheesy horror flicks until neither one of them could sleep. And they’d never have to worry about anything worse than movie monsters under the bed.

“Emma.” She hadn’t even seen Duncan move, but suddenly he was there, wrapping her in his arms. And she knew the monsters were real this time.

She shoved away from him. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed. “If not for you—” She knew she was being unfair, that it wasn’t Duncan who’d put Lacey in that grave. But it was his people. Vampires. Monsters who preyed on humans, who seduced Lacey with their promises of wild parties and high living. She stumbled down the side of the house, bracing herself against the wall, determined to get back to her car. She had her cell phone there. She’d call the police and—

Duncan’s strong arms scooped her up. She fought against him, but he only tightened his hold and ordered, “Stop it, Emma.”

“Put me down,” she demanded, pounding on his shoulders, hearing herself sob with grief and not recognizing it as coming from her own throat. “I don’t need—”

Duncan’s arms were like steel bands as he carried her to the front of the house, anger radiating off of him in waves, though somehow she knew the anger wasn’t directed at her. Emma saw her car, saw Baldwin rushing ahead to open the door. Duncan lowered his head to her ear and whispered something.

And then there was nothing at all.

Chapter Twelve

Duncan watched Emma’s car until it rolled beyond the line of spruce trees and he couldn’t see it anymore. She was in the backseat, sleeping deeply, and she’d stay that way for several hours, until Lacey’s body had been recovered and the scene processed. He and his team had a few hours left, but they would have to return to D.C. before morning. There was no way he’d ask any of his people to spend a single day sleeping in this nightmare of a house. When they were finished here, when the forensic people had recovered every last bit of evidence they could find, he’d have the whole damned building razed to the ground. After that, the land could sit fallow. Maybe in a century or three, the horror would fade.

He’d already called the experts in to deal with this. If there could be any good fortune in this tragedy, it was that it had happened in Virginia, with the FBI’s Quantico facilities so close by. Several vampires worked in the labs there, although their identities were known to only a select few in the vampire community. Raphael, of course, knew who they were, which meant Duncan did, too. The death he and his vampires had discovered here tonight couldn’t be covered up completely, but it could be managed. How well depended on Emma. If she went to the human authorities and demanded an investigation . . . Well, he wouldn’t let it come to that. He didn’t want to replace her memories, but he would if necessary, knowing that if she ever found out, he would lose her trust, and might very well lose
her.
But he could not jeopardize the whole of vampire society for the sake of his affection for Emma Duquet.

That didn’t mean he discounted the crime committed. He might cover up the specifics, but he wouldn’t forget the offense. Victor was already dead, along with his four vampire guards, all of whom had no doubt participated in the violence and blood fest. But there were others still out there, humans who had willfully, joyfully, joined in the torture of young women for sexual gratification. He would hunt them down and destroy them every bit as permanently as he’d destroyed Victor.

“Sire.”

Duncan turned. “Yes, Miguel?”

“In the house, my lord. In what we believe is Victor’s safe room. There are videos.”

Duncan met his lieutenant’s carefully shuttered gaze, and knew the night was about to get worse. He sighed wearily and placed a comforting hand on Miguel’s shoulder.

“At least now we’ll know who to kill next, Miguel.”

“We’ll hunt, my lord?”

Duncan nodded. “We’ll run them to the ground and listen to them beg as we shred their beating hearts.”

Miguel bared his teeth, growling his approval, and Duncan braced himself to enter that house of evil one more time. As he crossed the threshold and the horror pierced his soul, he had only one thought—despite the agony of his last breath, Victor had been granted far too gentle a death.

An hour later, he sat on the front porch, taking in some much needed fresh air, when an unfamiliar truck rolled up to the house. He stood, eyeing it warily. As if by magic, several of his vampires appeared, taking up positions between him and the approaching vehicle. It rolled to a stop and Duncan watched as a small, dark-haired vampire dropped first to the running board and then to the ground. Her mane of bushy black hair had been pulled away from her face and forced into a severe bun at the back of her head, and she wore a plain, dark pantsuit and black cotton blouse. Together they made her appear older than she was, or rather, older than she’d been when she’d been turned over a century ago.

“Phoebe,” Duncan called out, sending a mental command to his guards that this was the forensic expert he’d been expecting.

Phoebe Micheletti had never been an FBI agent herself, but she’d trained with one of their finest investigators, a human male who’d later become her husband and mate. After years of sharing the mate bond, and blood, with Phoebe, Ted Micheletti had been forced to retire early from the FBI when it became too obvious that he wasn’t aging. The two of them now ran a consulting business of their own, offering their investigative services to law enforcement agencies around the country, many of whom couldn’t afford to keep a full-time investigator on staff. Duncan was sure business was booming in these difficult economic times, and he knew that sometimes Phoebe and her mate worked for free. They simply enjoyed their work.

“Duncan.” She started to kneel, but Duncan stopped her. Phoebe lived in Virginia, which meant Duncan was officially her master now. But, though they’d never met in person before, they’d known each other for years, and he was too weary tonight for meaningless ritual.

“It’s good to see you,” he said.

“And you, my lord. Congratulations on your ascension.”

Duncan nodded, and Phoebe looked beyond him to the open back of a cargo van where two vampire forensic techs were loading a black body bag. There’d been no need to leave Lacey’s body in situ, no need to preserve the grave site. They already knew who’d killed her.