The Dark Side (28 page)

“
And you thought doggy breath would wake me up
?” I tried to lift my head and fire shot through my skull. I lay back down.

“
I don’t have doggy breath
.” His nose nudged me again, sniffing my fur. “
What happened?
”

In truth, he didn’t have doggy breath, he smelled like Dan.

“
Vampire
,” I said.

“
I can smell that
,” he said impatiently. “
What happened to
you
?
”

“
I don’t quite know. One minute she was making threats, the next minute I was knocked out
.” I remembered the gunshot. “
Is anyone hurt?
”

Ani padded closer. “
No. No one.
” Anger thrummed though her mental tone. “
Apart from the guy with the gun,
” she added with vicious satisfaction.

I decided I didn’t want to know any more about that just at the moment.

I braced myself and tried lifting my head more slowly. It hurt but not quite as much as my first attempt so I risked rolling to my stomach.

“
I can’t see any wounds
,” Dan said. “
What did she do to you?
”

“
I said I don’t know. She waved her hand then wham.
”

“
Someone hit you?
”

“
I don’t
know.” I snarled then whimpered as my head throbbed a protest. Dan nosed my ear and I closed my eyes and pushed to my feet, swaying a little as the world spun around me.

Sam moved around to my other side, pressing into me to keep me upright. “
Did you recognize her?
”

“
Yes. She was the one with that muzzled vamp at
Maelstrom
.
”

A rumbling growl broke from Dan’s throat. “
I knew that suicide was too close for comfort.
”

“
Did she say what she wanted?
” Ani asked.

“
As far as I could tell through the crazy talk, she wants Rhianna.
”

Dan’s ears went flat. “
I don’t think so.
”

“
That’s what I told her.
” I took a deep breath and caught the lingering smell of violets and vampire. The dress. I looked around me but I couldn’t see anything lying in the grass. “
I tore her dress. Can you see a piece anywhere
?”

“
No.
” The thought came from all three of them.

Ani twitched her tail. “
There was nothing here in the clearing but you. Dan heard you call him and we came pretty fast but it must’ve been at least thirty minutes before we got here. We’ve got people following the scent trail out of here but it will probably dead end at the nearest road.
”

Damn. The fabric might’ve been able to tell us something; might’ve even held a trace of DNA. Now we had yet another mystery. I stifled the whine that rose in my throat.

Dan’s nose rubbed my cheek again. “
So this woman and our suicide vamp are mixed up with Smith?
”

The hairs on my neck rose again at the mention of Smith. “
I guess. Rhi was bitten by one of Smith’s vamps and she wanted Rhi.
” I looked at the sky, trying to judge the time. The clouds were starting to turn that deep blue predawn shade. “
Shouldn’t we head back before sunrise?
”

Sam cocked his head. “
Are you up to it?
”

“
There isn’t much choice. It’s not like you can piggyback me.
” Werewolves are bigger than normal wolves but we still can’t do most things wolves can do. And none of us can change back to human form under a full moon.

Dan sat. “
We can wait. You might feel better if you changed.
”

I shook my head. “
I’m not walking miles with no shoes, no hat and, oh yeah, no clothes. Let’s go.
”

* * *

It was a long and painful trek back. My head pounded with each step and I felt like I hadn’t eaten for days. By the time I limped from the tree line near the Retreat, just as the sun was threatening to break above the horizon, I was ready to drop.

I reached the cabin Dan and I were using as the moon set and shimmered into human form gratefully. The pain in my head eased but didn’t vanish completely. Which told me whatever had caused it wasn’t completely physical.

Perfect. Because what I really needed was another vamp with bonus psychic whammy powers pursuing me. I was getting very tired of being chased. Not to mention knocked out.

Dan left me alone while I showered. When I came out wrapped in my towel, the table was laden with enough food for about five people. Or two hungry werewolves as it turned out.

We ate in silence, shoveling eggs, bacon, steak and toast down as fast as we could. The food eased my head a little more but pain still niggled, biting hard if I turned my head too fast.

“What’s wrong?” Dan asked after I’d winced reaching for the platter of bacon.

“My head hurts.”

“Since before you changed?” His voice sharpened and I nodded.

“Because of what that vamp did?”

I shrugged while I chewed and swallowed. “You’re the expert on supernaturals.”

Dan pushed back his chair. “We should get you checked out.”

“I just want to go to sleep,” I said. “I’m tired and I want to get back to Rhi.” I gave him a pleading look. “I promise, if my head still hurts when I wake up, I’ll let the doctors at the base take a look at me.”

“But she might have—” he broke off as I shot him a look.

“She knocked me out. She didn’t thrall me. I know what being thralled feels like, remember?” At least I didn’t think she had. She’d made me come to her but she hadn’t controlled me totally.

Dan’s eyes darkened. “I could hardly forget.”

I sighed, swigged the last of my orange juice and wiped my mouth. “Let it go. Just for a little while. Please, Dan? I’m going to bed. Are you coming?”

* * *

I woke up alone. I vaguely remembered Dan crawling in beside me at some point but he’d obviously left again. The clock on the bedside table told me it was almost midday. Five hours sleep wasn’t exactly enough but it would have to do.

After my run-in my new least favorite vampire I was uneasy about leaving Rhi alone, even on a heavily guarded military base. Smith seemed to have a long reach and I didn’t want him to get his hands on anybody else I knew. Especially not Rhi.

By the time I’d taken another shower to wake myself up and made coffee, Dan reappeared. He tucked his cell phone into the pocket of his suit jacket as he joined me near the coffeemaker.

“News?” I asked.

“No.” He poured himself a cup. “But I need to check in with the office before we go back to the base. So we’re going to Seattle first.”

I stiffened. A little consultation might have been nice. “How about you go back to town and I’ll go back to Lyman? Someone here will lend me a car.”

Dan shook his head. “Marco will watch out for her.”

“She doesn’t
know
Marco. And she didn’t really seem that keen on vampires generally. She’s all alone there.”

“Something she’ll have to get over.”

I almost choked on my coffee and shot him a death glare. “Gee, Dan, your empathy is making me cry.”

“Ash, I know she’s your friend but the sooner Rhi adjusts to reality, the better off she’ll be. You know that.”

At least he sounded as though he thought she might adjust to reality. I hadn’t told him about Marco’s assessment. It was easier to try and believe Dan was right. “Not everyone can just snap their fingers and be overjoyed their whole life has changed,” I pointed out. “Rhi’s only had a few days. And she’s been unconscious for most of that time.”

“I know.” He rinsed out his mug and set it on the sink to dry. “But I’m not letting you drive back there alone. Not if Smith and his crazies are planning on making another move. Going back to the city won’t take too long. I’ll see if I can scam a helo to take us back to the base afterward.”

“You could get someone from the team to escort me.”

“Ash, they’re all busy right now. Besides, I need you to see if you can ID your vampire from Esteban’s tapes.”

Right. Busy with what had happened in Caldwell. And here at the Retreat, presumably. “How many dark-haired women leading muzzled vamps do you think were there that night?”

Dan shrugged. “It’s a dark club. Who the hell knows?”

He had a point. Besides, if I could ID our lunatic vamp, maybe we’d find her image in one of the criminal databases. Maybe we’d finally have a lead.

Or maybe not.

“What if she’s not on the tapes? We need to keep looking for Smith too.” How the hell could we get at Smith? What was the chink in his armor? When in doubt, stick to what you know best. In my case, that’s money. Money equals leverage. “Maybe we should try and encourage him to make a move.”

We weren’t having much luck tracking Smith down following the paper trail. If we could smoke him out and capture him then we’d solve all our problems. Stop the anti-vaccine. Cure Rhi. Kill Smith and all his cohorts slowly and painfully.

Dan looked as if he thought I’d gone mad. “That’s a bad idea.”

“Why? We’re hitting nothing but dead ends.”

His frown deepened. “I suppose you think you should be the bait?”

Hardly. I wasn’t planning on putting myself back in the not-so-good doctor’s hands any time soon. But Dan had a point. I was the most obvious thing to use to provoke Smith. Apart from Rhi. And that wasn’t going to happen.

Neither was staking me out like a goat. So, next idea required. We needed to hit him where he lived. Stop him. “No. I think we should try cutting off his funding.”

“Don’t we need to find his funding to do that?”

I rubbed my temples, trying to work out what my instincts were telling me. Putting together puzzle pieces. “He rang me at Esteban’s. He knew what I was doing there. So something—or someone—warned him that we were looking into Esteban’s problem. Maybe we should freeze Esteban’s accounts, see what happens.”

“You want me to try and get a court order to freeze Lord Esteban’s accounts?” Dan leaned down, staring at my eyes. “Is this the same Ashley who freaked when I wanted to get his security tapes? Are you sure you don’t have a concussion?” He held up three fingers. “How many fingers?”

I batted his hand away. “I’m serious. Making vaccines, doing high-tech biological research and all that stuff doesn’t come cheap. He needs a facility and staff and all sorts of supplies and equipment. Cut off the money and Smith will be in trouble.”

“I thought you didn’t want to piss Esteban off,” Dan said slowly.

“Maybe we can just ask him to go along with it. Give him a chance to move enough cash to keep him afloat for a week or so to a brand new account that we can watch. Freeze the rest.” Even as I spoke, it sounded like a terrible idea. Esteban wasn’t exactly the kind of guy to help the FBI out of the goodness of his heart. Maybe Dan was right; maybe I
did
have a concussion. Or maybe I just needed to find the right way to sell the idea to Esteban.

“What if he’s helping Smith?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think he is.” I didn’t know why I felt so sure. Esteban had a nice little thing going on with his clubs. Not so little really. He made his money from humans and vamps. He didn’t need an army of infectious vampires causing trouble with humans. Besides, Tate had been Marco’s lineage...something told me, Marco would’ve gone after Esteban already if he had any suspicion Esteban was in any way involved in creating a blot on Marco’s bloodline.

“It’s a big risk to take if you’re not sure.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

He shook his head. “Other than seeing if we can identify your mystery vamp, no.”

“Who says we can’t do both?” I put my mug beside his on the sink. “I’m sick of waiting around for Smith to jump out at me. Let’s make him jump.”

He hesitated.

“Look, they knew about Rhianna. They’re three steps ahead of us. We need to do something unexpected. Will you think about it, at least? Smith might be Rhi’s only chance.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Smith might be able to fix her—no, not change her back,” I said as Dan’s eyebrows shot up“—make her noncontagious. I—” My throat closed for a second.

“What?”

“I don’t think she’ll survive the way she is. Marco said he thought she’d choose the sunrise.”

Dan went still. “Suicide?”

“Yes. Dan, I can’t lose Rhi too. Please, we have to try something.” I held my breath, waiting for an answer.

Eventually he nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

* * *

“Well, well, look who’s here,” Jase said when I arrived at the office after a long drive which had featured a heavy rotation of Dan trying to dissuade me from asking Esteban to cooperate with us. Apparently ‘thinking about it’ meant ‘try to come up with every possible reason why it’s a bad idea and tell me about them.’

But despite his misgivings, my theories seemed to have gone some way to convincing him that there was some merit in trying to cut off Smith’s funding. He currently seemed to be leaning toward getting a court order to freeze Esteban’s assets.

I don’t know what Jase thought he had to feel snippy about but I wasn’t in the mood. “Last time I looked, I owned the place,” I said shortly. The few parts of the trip that hadn’t involved me arguing with Dan had been spent trying to understand more about shielding. I’d only had time for a few minutes discussion with Ani before Dan had wanted to leave and really, I was none the wiser. She’d suggested more practice but that would mean finding a vamp to try and voodoo me. Not an experience I was keen to have.

Jase passed me a stack of mail. “I thought you were at the Retreat.” His tone was more polite this time. Which was almost worse. Jase and I didn’t do polite.

“I was. But I’m heading back to—” I paused“—Caldwell.” I wasn’t allowed to tell Jase where Rhi was. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone.

“Caldwell isn’t Lake Stewart.”

Lake Stewart was the town nearest the base. I hoped my surprise didn’t show on my face. How did Jase know about Fort Lyman? Was he...?” Get out of my head.” I slapped the mail back down on the desk.

His lips went thin. “I’m not in your head.”