Dark Rapture (67 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Vince crossed the marble floor and fell into a thick reclining chair of softest rust suede. Rico followed suit, spreading out on the matching couch and pushing splayed fingers through his hair.

“Where’s the van?”

Rico stretched and sat up. “Blake and Rowdy are out
scamming for blood,
as Blake would say. I’m sure they’ll be back soon.”

“Damn, I could use a nice warm body myself.”

Vince’s thoughts took him to Scarlet. She hadn’t wanted to make love on the rooftop. He should have never attempted it.
God, you almost raped her
! Damn, she was so enamored of Sebastian.
But she let you kiss her. You were so close.
No. She had still been slipping on the edge of blood rapture; she hadn’t been of sound mind at the time.

So I’m a bastard.

But she needed me. I know she did.

Vince glanced over Rico’s closed eyelids and slack jaw, thinking the guy had already slipped into a light sleep.

He mentally kicked himself for pushing things with Scarlet, he would have liked to find out if she had come up with any leads regarding the diary. She would never give him the time of day now. If only he hadn’t been thinking with his cock instead of his heart. Though, admittedly, sometimes it was hard to determine between the two of them.

Vince’s stomach lurched painfully. The constant feeding he’d conditioned his body to withstand would never let him forget when it was time for sustenance.

“Come to me,” came the soft whisper from the couch.

Rico held out a hand, jeweled in blue and silver, steady and calm like the heart that had beat beneath his breast for two centuries. Seeing Vince’s reluctance he tilted his head, inquiring softly. “Have you never taken from your own sex?”

Rico’s question immediately brought Francesco’s wicked sneer to Vince’s mind. His ill-regarded blood master had told him more than once that he preferred men and women equally. The memory of Francesco’s hands touching him so casually—yet so letcherously, now he thought of it—made Vince’s skin crawl.

He looked to Rico, sitting there silently, patiently. He would drop his hand and forget his offer immediately if Vince refused him. Rico was that kind of man, he would never push or force someone into anything.

The thought of touching another man...in an intimate way…

Vince pressed his back into the chair. But this wasn’t about sex, this was about nourishment. The blood hunger needed to be answered.

He knelt on the floor by the couch. As he leant to Rico’s neck the brut, cedar smell of the man’s flesh tempted Vince to kiss lightly the vein before tasting his blood. He closed his eyes, inhaling the essence of Rico’s blood, finding it much the same as the attraction a woman’s perfume worked on him when he wanted her badly. He pulled away the soft strands of mahogany hair, slipping his fingers around the back of Rico’s head, and bit deep, opening the vein in a hot gusher.

The older vampire cradled Vince against his chest and moaned softly as the powerful sensations of blood release coursed through his body.

When Vince finished, and the swoon painted a silly blood grin on his face, Rico pulled him up into his embrace and latched onto his vein.

“Yes,” Vince whispered and melted into the vampire’s fatherly embrace. He was accepted without question by this man. He could do no wrong, and would expect the same from Rico. He finally had family.

Rico pulled his teeth abruptly from Vince’s neck. He sniffed the air as a bloodhound does when searching for its prey. The blood had renewed his tired senses and he was back to his normal self. “Something’s wrong.”

Vince slumped to the floor, rubbing his neck, and licked his palm clean of his own blood finding it delightful to wallow in the swoon this time. “What do you mean, man? This is about as right as things have ever been—“

Rico soared past Vince. “Come.”

Saddened his enjoyment of the swoon was being so abruptly terminated, Vince staggered to his feet and they floated down the hallway and into the darkness.

Rico paused at the t-turn. “My God. No!” He raced further into the darkness and, with Rico’s blood in his system, Vince was able to follow by tracking the man’s scent.

“What’s going on, Rico? I don’t understa—” Vince plunged right into Rico’s side. Okay, so maybe he hadn’t got the bloodhound thing down yet.

Rico’s breath chilled over Vince’s lips. “Don’t you feel it? I know you can. You’ve said to me before that you’ve noticed the heaviness, the sad feeling that comes over you when you’re down this way.”

“Yeah, but—” Vince made a sensory check of his surroundings. The hallway was silent, save for Rico’s accelerated breathing. A faint whiff of cedar tickled his nose and something else that seemed a bit rancid, and it was very cold. “Hmm…it does feel a little different, not so murky—the air—”

“That was her!” Rico pulled Vince’s hand along with him as he thundered forward into the darkness. “I’ve always been able to feel her presence. I’ve kept her near me even though I knew that I can never be with her again. Vince, something is wrong! I can’t feel her anymore.”

They landed three steps and Vince heard a door crack open. It seemed to him it was very heavy for Rico was only able to move it slowly as stone groaned and scraped against stone.

Rico clutched Vince’s hand to his chest and pulled him close. “Hold tight to me so you don’t stumble in the dark. This is the pit, Vince, you know what we’re going to walk through.”

The pit. Yes. Blake had explained this was where all the bodies were disposed. A fact that had never disturbed Vince until he stepped inside the chilling hollows of the stinking pit.

“Oh God!” He couldn’t see a thing, which was good. The smell brought the bile to his throat.

Rico squeezed his hand. “There’s a door just ahead.”

In the next room a stream of early dawn light filtered through the window in the wall where he noticed the bars and glass had been forcibly removed.

“A candle,” Rico commanded. “Out in the hallway. Quickly!”

Vince blindly rushed back the way they had come, realizing half way the room he was in was peopled with dead bodies. Pressing his hand over his nose and mouth, he rushed to the steps and grabbed a candle from an iron bracket on the wall and then reluctantly stepped back across the room.

“Rico?”

“Right here.”

Rico’s hand touched his elbow and Vince gave him the candle. Seconds passed before a small yellow glow encompassed the pair. Vince stood back, holding the flickering light as Rico approached the vandalized sarcophagus. The room instantly filled with the loudest, deepest wail that Vince had ever heard.

“Nooo!” Rico clung to the stone mount, his body slumping against it in defeat, his knees buckling. “Someone has taken her, Vince. She could have never gotten out on her own. I made sure of that.”

Not sure what was going on, Vince picked up a thick length of chain that had been strewn over the coffin lid and dropped it on the floor. The rising dust made him to choke. “I don’t think I’m following you here, Rico. Christ!” He gagged, as a deep breathe pulled dust and the noxious odors into his throat. “I take it your sister was in the coffin. But why would someone want to steal a dead body?”

Rico’s breath came out in fervent pants. “Why would you assume she was dead?”

“Well...you said you’d lost her years ago. And…if she was in a coffin—” The light bulb exploded above Vince’s head. “Ooookaaay. I think I got it now.” He couldn’t believe he hadn’t realized it before. “Are you telling me your sister was a vampire, too? But why—”

“Catrina” —Rico stood tall and reached for Vince, laying a shaking hand on his shoulder— “was
my
blood master.
She
created me. It’s a long story.” He swallowed and used Vince’s shoulder to rest against. “But you must know I have never loved another as much as I love her, Vince. Even in her confinement my heart has stayed true to her.”

“Well, I can understand, she was your sister—”

“We were twins,” Rico explained. “Born into the world from a shared womb we grew to share everything in life. We were two bodies who shared one heart, one soul.”

He turned to the coffin and pressed his palm into the cold, barren stone. “You can’t imagine how hard it was for me to lock her away. I grieve her absence daily, and caress her presence as well. Vince, whoever took her away from me—who would have done this? Whoever did this does not know what they have on their hands.”

Vince pulled his t-shirt up and pinched it over his nose. “What do you mean?” he said nasally. “Why did you lock her away?”

“I simply had no choice.” Rico heaved a great breath and leant against the sepulcher, the rancid smell seeming not to bother him. “It was earlier this century, perhaps about 1920 or 1921. She was mad, Vince. The nightmares consumed her until she could no longer determine whether they were real or the life she lived was nightmare.”

“But the fear,” Vince interrupted. “There are no nightmares with the fear.”

“Yes.” Rico raised a weary finger. “But we hadn’t yet discovered that delicacy. No, we were still
compassionate
, killing only in trust then, desiring only the blood of eternal youth without the struggle. As you know so well. I discovered the fear immediately after putting Catrina to her rest. I was so lost and angry then…”

Vince stared at the pile of dusty chains on the floor, each link the size of a woman’s fist. He couldn’t imagine being locked away, and because of that, had always chosen to sleep in a bed to prevent the possibility of never being able escape from a locked coffin. “Why didn’t you just—”

“Kill her? Oh no, that is impossible.” Rico’s eyes closed as he hugged his body tight with crossed arms. “Don’t you see, Vince? With Catrina’s death…I would die too.” He turned and walked to the window, falling into the shadows of the room. “Not physically, but there would be no reason for my survival after she is gone from this earth. You can not imagine the bond between twins, Vince. It is an immeasurable force that we choose to embrace with all our physical being, instead of trying to be separate and different as the twins of the modern times do.”

He appeared silently at Vince’s side, startling him. “I must get her back. I cannot allow her to be harmed.”

“I still don’t understand, Rico.” He dropped his t-shirt and touched the edge of the coffin. It was icy cold. “Who is going to steal a stiff vampire? I mean, it has to be someone who knew that you kept her down here—”

“Wait!” Rico clung to the fabric on Vince’s back, twisting tightly as he scanned his thoughts. “It was that bitch of yours.”

“Who? You mean…Scarlet? Wait a minute, she would never—”

“I found her down here last night, Vince. She said she was lost, that she had been looking for you. Oh, that miserable women, she is to blame for this.”

“Scarlet was here last night? Why didn’t you tell me? I asked—”

Rico waved him off. “It was after you had asked.”

“Wait a minute, even if Scarlet was down here—which I have trouble believing since I know she would never willingly cross the pit—she would never steal a body. She couldn’t, at least not by herself.”

“If this is his style of revenge…” Rico smacked a solid fist into his palm. “You said she lives with Sebastian DelaCourte?”

Vince nodded.

“It was him! If the two of them are together then I know it has to be. We go back a long way, Vince.” Rico made for the door. “Come on, we have to find them.”

“Wait a minute!” Vince stumbled across something on the floor and nearly fell, but he instantly pictured what was lying on the ground and miraculously caught himself mid-fall. “What do you mean, you and Sebastian go back a long way? I thought you didn’t know him?”

Rico drew in a long breath and sighed. “Like I said, it’s a long story. Come, I’ll explain everything on the way. You’re going to show me where DelaCourte lives.”

***

“I can’t believe you let this happen!” Sebastian slammed his fist down on the hood of the Lincoln.

“Me? Oh, and now
you’re
blaming
me
for everything. You were the one who had to spend all your time flirting with those girls.”

Sebastian pinched two fingers together before Scarlet’s face. “I am this close to smacking you, do you know that?”

Scarlet’s eyes widened at her lover’s remark. Frustrated, she thrust her fists to her sides and stamped her foot. “Go ahead, smack me around. See if that helps you find your old girlfriend any quicker. I should have never told you about any of this!”

“You mean you should have kept Vince a secret and continued to see him behind my back? Isn’t that a typical woman for you. Damn!” Sebastian kicked at the open door with his boot, slamming it shut. “I can’t believe I let myself trust you. How could I have been so blind? How stupid I’ve been.”

“It’s your superiority that causes your blindness, Sebastian. You put
yourself
on a pedestal before all others. Sure, you say that you love me, but you only do when I obey and submit to your demands and rules. One little step in my own direction and wham! out the door she goes.”