Fury Calls (9 page)

She didn't know if he was referring to their little interlude or to whatever they would need to do to find out why Otro Mundo had suddenly become a vamp killing ground. Uncertainty clouded both issues, but as he gazed at her, his emotions openly displayed on his face, she knew what he wanted to hear. Confused by all that was happening, however, she was unprepared to take it further at that moment.

She slipped her hand from his and she said, “I'm not sure of anything, but I would like to know I can count on you to watch my back.”

A glimmer of disappointment flickered across his features before he teased, “I'll be watching your back, not to mention your front and all other sides of you.”

The patented boyish grin that followed tugged a hesitant smile to her lips.

“I think you were a rake in another life.” With that she turned and walked in the direction of Diego's office. Blake followed behind her.

“I
never got to thank you before, but I appreciate what you did for my partner,” Diana Reyes said, hugging Blake and then Meghan as they walked into the office.

He dipped his head in acknowledgment, and as a puzzled look swept over Meghan's face, he said, “Diego and I got her partner out of a bind. Is he better?”

Diana forced a smile to her lips, but the smile stopped there while her eyes remained dark and troubled by the discussion. “David is…recovering.”

Much like she must be, Blake thought. The FBI agent seemed a bit too pale and had felt decidedly too frail as he had returned her hug. When she sat on the sofa, Ryder took a spot on the arm of the couch, hovering protectively.

He and Meghan took the chairs opposite the couple
while Diego stood to the side of them, his hands jammed into his pants pockets.

Diana's gaze focused on the gashes and scratches on Diego and then shot quickly up to those on Ryder's face. “Ryder said you'd had a problem tonight, but I'm finding it hard to believe that one young vampire did all this damage,” she said.

Blake held up his wrist. “Actually, this is from the newbie that's still alive. I had to feed him,” he explained with a casual shrug.

“Where is the injured vamp?” she asked.

Diego answered, “He's on his way home with a supply of blood bags and a promise to keep quiet for now.”

“Did he have anything to say?” she asked, but both Ryder and Diego shook their heads. She returned her attention to Blake.

“Ryder mentioned that you noticed something was wrong with her?”

“She seemed a might bloodthirsty for my tastes. I tried to tell the male vamp to watch himself, but he wouldn't listen,” he explained.

“And the dead vamp? What's with her?” She rose as she said it, leaving no doubt that she intended to survey the scene of the attack and the now-deceased vampiress.

Diego led the way. Meghan and Blake hung back, allowing the others to precede them into the private dining room, where the blood-crazed young woman remained bound to the small sofa. He stopped by the door and urged Meghan to stay with him as Diana walked around the corpse, the scene, before she pulled
latex gloves from her jacket pocket along with some small bags and tweezers.

She slipped on the gloves and began to process the body of the vampiress, searching for clues as to what had happened.

Blake had watched enough crime shows on a castoff television to know she was looking for evidence. The FBI agent carefully inspected the body, placing what he assumed were hairs and other fibers in the bags.

The vampiress was wearing a tight-fitting bustier and equally body-hugging leather pants. Diana recovered little from those items of clothing, but dangling from the vamp's neck was a long gold necklace with a pendant that had been resting in her cleavage.

Diana pulled it off her neck and held it up for all of them to view. The pendant consisted of an intricately woven web of gold that held a small glass vial. She peered into the vial, but it appeared to be empty.

“Any idea what was in here?” Diana slipped the necklace and pendant into one of the evidence bags.

“Maybe some of the banned drug Stacia told us about,” Blake replied, keeping an eye on Meghan for any reaction to the mention of the vampire elder.

Diana jiggled the bag in midair for emphasis, but then asked, “A drug that none of you knew anything about?”

“Stacia claims it was banned nearly a thousand years ago. None of us are old enough to have known,” Diego said.

“So we can keep the list of possible suspects to vampire elders?” Diana suggested.

“Now that's a right scary thought,” Blake said, imagining that none of the elders, except possibly Stacia, would be all that keen to talk to a mortal—or even one of them—about a supposedly banned drug.

Before anyone could answer, Meghan asked, “Just how many elders are there?”

“Dozens worldwide who flit from one city to the other,” Diego began. He paced back and forth for a moment, lost in thought, then said, “Stacia's in town. I'd have to see if she knows which other elders have come in. As for elders who reside in Manhattan, there's Hadrian and Maximillian.”

“Maximillian the designer?” Diana asked. At Diego's nod, she chuckled and added, “That explains his
outré
taste.”

Diana slipped the bag with the vial into her jacket pocket then withdrew test tubes with swabs. With deliberate care she took several different blood samples and specimens from the dead vampire's mouth and throat.

“Do we know whether this drug is ingested, snorted or shot up?” she asked.

“We'll have to question Stacia,” Ryder said, but Diana shook her head.

“Not we. Me,” she said, the tone of her voice rife with jealousy at the thought of Ryder going anywhere near Stacia.

“Ditto that,” Meghan mumbled, both pleasing and surprising Blake with the comment.

Diana stepped back to walk around the room, seemingly on the lookout for anything unusual. She examined
the coffee table area, making note of what had been on its surface. Motioning to the remnants of the food, she said, “Are we sure that nothing was put in the meal?”

“I made it myself,” Meghan said.

Blake quickly added, “And I brought it straight here. No one else touched it.”

With a nod, Diana resumed her inspection of the room, but clearly found nothing of interest. When she returned to stand beside Ryder, she said, “Who knows Hadrian and Maximillian well enough to approach them?”

“I do,” Diego immediately confirmed.

“Try to do it as soon as you can while I get these samples processed,” she instructed, and Diego nodded.

Blake felt useless just standing there. While Diana's FBI geeks were working on processing the evidence, the delay might bring yet more dead vampires. “While the FBI lab works on the samples—”

“I'm not taking these to the FBI lab,” Diana said. Her gaze locked with Ryder's as she continued. “I'm on leave right now. Besides, I think Melissa Danvers is a better candidate to help us. She's a hematologist. Plus, she knows our secrets and how to keep them.”

Our
secrets, Blake thought, wondering at Diana's choice of words as well as the reason for why the agent was on leave. Although he was intensely curious about both, he kept his silence, well aware that to press would elicit Ryder's anger. For now, he wanted to stay on the good side of everyone involved.

“What can we do in the meantime?” he asked.

“The other incidents were very different, weren't
they?” Diana pulled out a small notebook to record the details of the earlier attacks.

“The first time, we found two vampires feeding to the death from each other,” Meghan offered, with a shiver that he felt rattle her body as she stood beside him.

“And the second?” Diana questioned, arching one dark brow in emphasis.

“We saw something in the alley by the garbage cans. Found the body when we went back there,” Blake said. “Something with white hair that did a bunny hop away from the corpse right after I spotted it.”

Diana jotted down something in her notebook. “What about this one?”

Blake shot an uneasy glance at the dead young woman again. “This vamp had a wild look in her eye when I came to serve the meal. She'd already taken a bite from her dinner companion.”

“Dinner taking on a whole new meaning in the context of this setting,” Diana quipped morbidly, and smiled. The smile transformed her face, eliminating some of the tired lines and bringing the barest hint of color to her wan cheeks.

“We don't just wait now, do we?” Diego inquired, pacing back and forth once more. His concern and frustration were evident in every line of his body.

“We don't just wait. Like I said, I'll get the samples processed. You'll reach out to Hadrian and Maximillian.”

“What about Stacia?” Ryder asked, earning another disgruntled glare from Diana.

“We'll ask her in for some questions once we know
a little more.” Diana faced Blake and Meghan. “The Blood Bank should be good for some kind of information. Do you think—”

“Been there, done that,” he advised. “The only new thing is that this Asian vamp—”

“An Asian vampire?” Diana questioned.

Out of the corner of his eye, he shot a glimpse at Meghan. “A kiang-shi, according to what I got out of Stacia.”

“That girl does get around,” Diana murmured, seemingly aware of how he had gotten that information. “You've met this…kiang-shi?”

“The other night. He dined in the restaurant and wanted to meet me,” Meghan said. She picked up her hand and rubbed it, once again experiencing the oily feeling of malevolence she'd gotten from Lee. “I didn't like him. I felt his evil,” she admitted.

Blake snorted in agreement. “Totally evil, according to Stacia, although Foley would probably know best.”

“Why Foley?” Diego asked, approaching them as they waited at the door to the room.

“They seemed to be friends.
Very
good friends,” Meghan said, recalling the way Lee had touched Foley.

“Not friends,” Blake corrected. “It was more like he had control over Foley. Like Foley was afraid.”

Diana was taken aback by the statement. “Foley afraid? Now that's something I never expected to hear.”

“Just my opinion, mind you,” Blake added.

Meghan quickly chimed in with, “Something was really off about them.”

Diana considered their statements, then said, “I'll see
what I can find out about the kiang-shi. In the meantime, if you and Blake could somehow talk to Foley about him…”

“Will do,” Blake confirmed straightaway.

“Good. Seems like we've all got our work cut out for us.”

Ryder rose and stood behind Diana. He laid a hand on her shoulder, the gesture protective, Meghan thought, though the look on his face seemed filled with sadness.

“Certainly seems like we do,” Ryder said.

“I guess we're off to the Blood Bank.” Blake glanced in her direction, obviously wondering whether she would agree to go with him.

Recalling their earlier encounter in the kitchen, going to the Blood Bank brought concern that something would go on besides questioning Foley. The allure of the back rooms and another intimate session with Blake might just prove too tempting, and yet…

“The Blood Bank it is,” she confirmed.

 

Meghan and Blake leapt down from the rooftop to the mouth of the small cobblestoned street leading to the Blood Bank. A Friday night, there was a line of patrons waiting to enter the nondescript building. The Blood Bank needed no fancy signs or other trappings to attract the clientele to its door. Word of mouth had kept it going for decades.

The door was guarded by a large, muscular bouncer. As Blake approached, the man made a menacing motion in his direction until Blake flashed a bit of fang.
The bouncer then stepped back and held open the door for them.

Inside, the place was far more crowded than it had been the other night. Definitely more vampires present, Blake thought, the vibration of vamp power wafting to him from those immortals mingling with the humans.

He searched the crowd for any sign of Foley, but he was nowhere to be found. Leading Meghan to the bar, he inched between two lesser vampires and, with a quick rumbling growl and hint of fang, warned them away from their spots.

Meghan slipped into the space he had created and, after they got their drinks, downed her tumbler filled with blood. When she finished and met his gaze, the bright glow of vampire sight had replaced the deeper emerald color of her eyes.

He cupped her cheek, leaned close to her lips and whispered, “Can I have a taste?”

She hesitated for a moment, but then she slowly closed the distance between them and he covered her mouth with his, licking at the remnants of her feeding. As he passed his tongue along her lips, the slight bit of fang she had released nicked it. The barest hint of his blood escaped, but she quickly licked it away.

He felt the rush through her body from the sip of his blood, vamp blood being supercharged to another immortal. When she pressed against him, he somehow managed some control. Easing away slightly, he whispered, “Later, love. Control yourself for now.”

Meghan moaned in frustration, needy from the rush of desire his blood had created and disgusted with
herself at her lack of composure. She reminded herself where that had gotten her last time and that during this go-round with Blake—if that was where all this was leading—she would need to rein in her reactions to him.

She pulled away from him and reached for her glass, but it was empty. Blake offered up his. She took a small sip and then returned the tumbler. He made a point of turning the glass to the spot where her lips had left their mark. As he drank, she imagined his mouth on hers again. On other parts of her that were throbbing and vibrating with the pull of their undead connection.