Into the Light (The Admiral's Elite Book 2) (6 page)

In answer, he slipped a twenty onto the bar’s pocked wooden surface. Pete noticed immediately and gave him a nod. Standing up, Michael shrugged into the coat he’d rested on his chair before helping Becca into hers. His hands didn’t linger; his touch was perfunctory. Feeling ashamed for considering putting her wants before the welfare of the town, Becca ducked her head and tucked a hair behind her ear, giving herself time to breathe. For the first time, she hoped the effects of her heavy blood ingestion would wear off soon. She couldn’t handle the raw nerves and constant state of arousal much longer. She worried she’d make a mistake that would end up getting someone hurt because she was thinking about what was in Michael’s pants and miss something that could get them killed.

Outside, the breeze had picked up. The crisp chill helped to return her reason. She pulled it deep into her lungs, grateful for the mild burn the sudden cold brought to her nostrils and brain. Michael waited patiently by the truck, his hand on her door. Tossing him a tight twitch of the lips that hardly passed for a smile, she bobbed her head and he opened it for her. Stepping inside with a sigh, Becca sank into her seat and let her heavy shoulders fall into the cool leather.

Michael was silent until they were back in their room and he was removing his coat. It wasn’t for comfort, his body temperature couldn’t be altered by any amount of clothing. The only way for him to change it was to ingest warm blood. Becca ignored the twinge she felt at recalling how much she herself had consumed. It might have saved her life, but still, it was disturbing to think she’d sucked stomachfuls directly from the source. On the few occasions she’d gotten up the nerve and asked how much it had actually been, he’d only shrugged and told her he’d given her “as much as it took.” Ryan had been the one to hint that it had been “a shitload.” However much that meant.

He watched her features, not missing the exhaustion in her bearing. There were the beginnings of dark purple bags under her eyes even though she’d slept on the plane. Yet he’d sensed her reaction when he’d touched her in the bar. And just the night before she’d been insatiable. He didn’t know any other humans who had consumed enough blood to feed three starving vampires as she had. But from what he knew of the transference of power through blood, she should be virtually inexhaustible. Still, all signs pointed to a body in decline. Michael frowned.

“So, what is this thing?” Becca sat down on the edge of the bed, not bothering to take off her coat. “Are we going out to hunt for it?”

Michael did some fast figuring. The wolves were already searching the area. Becca wasn’t up for an all nighter. “No, I think we should leave Ryan and Gab to track it. If we go running around out there we might confuse the trail.”

“How could they confuse
us
with whatever
this
thing is?” Becca squinted up at him.

“Because it’s a vampire.” He leaned against the wall and regarded her steadily, hands securely jammed in his pockets. “Like me, and you smell like me right now.”

Becca grimaced, not commenting on the fact that she smelled like a vampire because the blood of one was a part of her. “Who eats hearts and doesn’t drink blood?” She grunted. “I read the reports. None of the police reports say anything about puncture wounds
or
blood loss.” She tipped her head to the side. “Well, other than what they lost when their chest cavities were ripped open.” Her lip curled.

He bobbed his head slowly. “This is a different sort of vampire. It’s an ancient subspecies.”

“There are different kinds of vampires?” Becca’s eyes fixed on him. “Did you evolve or something?”

“More like
de
volve in this case.” Michael bounced himself off of the wall using only his shoulder blades. “If I’m right, this is a windigo. It bears almost no resemblance to what you think of as vampire.” He watched the wheels in her head working on this new information.

“I guess that depends.” She met his gaze evenly. “I’ve met a few of you now and already I can see differences.”

His brows rose and she went on.

“Look at the admiral. He’s crazy tall and I’ve never seen his skin color change like yours does when you feed.” She shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t have to eat as much as you because of how old he is.” Her observations received a minor chin dip of approval from him. “And he’s got those eyes.”

Michael could see the discomfort she tried to hide and gave her a half smile. He understood. Black’s most frightening feature was his flat, expressionless gaze. They bored into one’s soul, while at the same time making one wonder if he was paying attention at all. That and the fact that he never blinked were unnerving to say the least.

“And then Vanessa, she was more like you but,” she paused, considering, “but a little like the admiral too.”

Once again, Becca’s ability to wrap her head around the nuances of this world’s bizarreness without judgment fascinated him. Her place in his heart was cemented. It would hurt him deeply to lose her. “You’re right, she was much older than me. Not as old as Black.”

“So this thing is different than that? It’s not an age thing?”

He ran a knuckles across his jaw, a habit he’d never lost from when he was human even if his stubble was frozen under his skin. “A windigo is barely classified as a vampire. I’ve heard others call them zombies, sometimes demons. The body is skeletal, the fangs longer and the thirst for blood has been twisted.” In his mind’s eye he pictured the one such creature he’d faced decades before in Germany’s Black Forest. Describing only a few details, he left out the most disturbing. “It doesn’t go for blood in the conventional sense, it gravitates to the organs. This one seems to have zeroed in on the heart.”

“So how do we kill it? Does it have the same weaknesses?”

“Yes, it’s more sensitive to light though. Like a freshly turned vampire.” His mind was working through the possibilities as he filled her in. “We might be able to find it during the daylight hours if we can find its den.”

“Okay. Then when Ryan and Gabrielle get back, we’ll all sit down and figure out how to find it and then we’ll kill it.”

Chapter 7

The wolves hadn’t had any luck finding the windigo. Gabrielle, according to a reliable source, was in a foul mood and had gone directly to bed leaving Ryan alone to knock on their door at sunrise the next morning. The slamming door woke Becca just before Ryan’s knock. The exhausted Ryan took Michael’s revelation in stride.

“That explains the smell. It was worse than a vamp.” He wasn’t too tired to take a cheap shot. “Like you, except all decayed and unwashed.”

“You found it?” Becca was getting a drink of water from the bathroom sink and popped her head out around the door.

He was shaking his shaggy auburn hair. The werewolves’ hair continued to grow. Their bodies were alive versus their undead counterparts. “No, but I think it just wanders aimlessly all night. The stink was everywhere; we couldn’t follow it. We went in circles all night.”

Becca felt her heart stutter. “Could there be more than one?”

“No,” Michael sounded certain.

“Just ‘no’?” Becca asked, curious. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because there would have been more bodies,” he answered without wavering.

Becca wasn’t put off by his direct response. She’d grown up with direct. A therapist would have something brilliant to say about Michael’s similarities to her father. To which she had a smart comeback, her father didn’t drink blood. “So where did it come from? Why is it striking
now
?”

“They are a winter borne creature, migrating at the end of the season and going into torpor during the warm months.”

“So we have to catch it before spring or it’s gone until next year?”

“I’ve never run across one of these things.” Ryan yawned, removing himself from the conversation. “This is Mike’s forte.”

“We have to check in with the local police. See if there’s something in the files that might give us some history.” Michael’s hand dropped to his pocket. “There’s something not quite right here. The attacks aren’t sloppy like they should be. They’re too random and far apart to be just one acting alone.”

The water got stuck in her throat and Becca temporarily lost the ability to swallow. “I thought these things were like zombies.”

“You said there was only one.” Ryan ran a hand through his hair, leaving it gripping the back of his head. One hand remained propped on his hip, pushing his back forward, and he stopped stretching.

Becca put down her glass and pressed her point. “You know, brain dead versions of vampires wandering through the woods taking the occasional victim. You mean someone can
use
these things? Like some sort of attack dog?”

“
Anything
can be conditioned to follow simple commands.” Michael was already dialing his phone. “Even a brain dead zombie vampire,” he told her without the slightest hint of levity.

Ryan, on the other hand, guffawed loudly, offering no apology when Michael cut him an impatient scowl. “I’m sorry Mike, that just sounded too funny. Thanks, I needed that after a whole night of pissed off Gabs.”

Becca caught the strain in his voice and got annoyed for the millionth time with Gabrielle. The woman was an absolute bitch, how Ryan managed to like her even some of the time astounded her. Thinking the double meaning of the term brought a titter bubbling up. Immediately she bit her lip to kill the grin that went with it and Michael withheld the glare she imagined was coming.

Holding his phone up as an explanation, he made his way past where Ryan leaned by the door, and closed it behind him.

Instead of returning to his room for the sleep his body was screaming for as evidenced by his unusual flat affect, Ryan crossed the room and fell on his face on the nearest bed.

Becca gave him a few seconds to finish groaning. “Do I need to ask how last night went?”

The baby blue floral coverlet muffled his encore groan, but he held both hands up over his head in an “oh my God” gesture.

“I’m sorry you ran all over the place following that thing. Michael thought if we went out there he’d confuse the scents.”

The shaggy head rolled so that he was facing Becca with his eyes closed. “I would have chased that damn dead thing all night. It’s Gabs. She’s making me crazy.”

The subject of Gabrielle’s attitude wasn’t a new one for Becca to ponder, but it
was
a new conversation for her to have with Gabrielle’s boyfriend. She was careful with her answer. “I’m sure she was just tired. I mean we got in and you guys went right out and were running all night,” she justified.

Ryan made a sound. “That explains
one
night, not
all
of them.”

Becca knew better than to take the opening. Even if Ryan was mad today, he might not be tomorrow and he would remember whatever she said. “Well, everybody deals with things differently. Maybe Gabrielle has some worries about the two of you. Have you tried talking to her?”

Big green eyes opened slowly and Ryan lifted his head. “Can you see Gabrielle seriously
talking
about her problems?”

Thankfully he didn’t expect an answer. Becca kept her lips pressed tightly together.

“Besides,” he went on, fully in therapy mode, “we don’t really talk about stuff. We pretty much work together and screw. It’s all she’ll give me.”

“That’s not true,” Becca was really uncomfortable with the turn their discussion had taken and was hoping her phone would ring or Michael would come back. Maybe a meteor would come crashing through the roof. “I’ve seen you two talking when we’re not working.”

Rolling over onto his side, Ryan propped his head on his hand. “We talk about work or what a bastard Black is when we’re out of earshot. It’s never anything personal.” He focused on his hand, splaying it out to cover two giant white polyester flowers. “I’ve tried to talk to her, to get her to talk about stuff I hear her say in her sleep.” He clenched the flowers in one fist. “She mentions people.”