Darkness Bred (12 page)

H
ow can I explain the depth of my self-disgust?” Colin said. He offered Elin his hand but withdrew it quickly. “No, no, of course not. I can’t expect you to look at me with anything but loathing, especially so soon after my transgression. I treated you badly. My only excuse is that an enemy bewitched me and I was not myself. But I will prove how I’ve chastised myself. Now we can become friends.” He smiled around. “All of us.”

“Over my dead body,” Sean said. He wanted to tear the vampire apart.

He waited for Niles to react. Colin had once captured Leigh, intending to molest her. He behaved as if he’d forgotten the event.

“What do you think he really wants?”
Niles communicated without looking at Sean.

“If he does have a master other than Tarhazian, and I’m sure he does, that’s where the answers to all our questions may lie.”

“Could this…Bear with me, Sean, but could this be a connection to Aldo? I don’t like to mention—”

“You’re only voicing what I’m thinking.”

Colin stood there, serene, remote, unfazed by the currents of revulsion flying his way. He sighed, smiled, although Sean noted he showed very little of his teeth and the fangs were suitably withdrawn.

“Charming ladies,” Colin said, and Sean thought he must be hearing things. “Both of you.” He gazed from Elin to Leigh and his gaze lingered on her. Spittle gathered in the corners of his mouth.

Sickened, Sean communicated with Niles,
“He is lusting after Leigh because she is Deseran. He knows he could drain her blood and she would recover quickly so he could drain her again.”

“We would kill him if we didn’t need to know why he’s really here and what this is really about,”
Niles said.
“What’s his connection to Gabriel and why would he show up now of all times?”

Jazzy had been curled up almost on the hearth again. He stirred, sniffed the air, and slunk to Leigh, who picked him up.

“Bad karma all around,”
Sean said.
“I can’t think of a connection between Colin and Gabriel, but you can bet on it that Colin’s tasted whatever The Island has to offer. I feel the strong connection.”

“I came to talk to Gabriel,” Colin said, his eyelids heavy and half-lowered. “But I intended to look for you as well so this is doubly convenient.” His eyes, which showed no pupils, concentrated on Sean.

Throughout the exchange, Gabriel had hovered near the bar. Sally hadn’t moved a muscle.

“Molly’s a good friend of mine, you see,” Colin said. “I hadn’t seen her in weeks when she showed up yesterday afternoon and now I understand Gabriel can’t find her. Such a worry.” He sounded anything but worried. Excited perhaps, but not worried.

The connection between Gabriel and Colin was made, although Sean would be surprised if they had ever met before.

“When did you last see Molly?” Elin asked. Sean increased his pressure at her waist but she took no notice. “Did she drive to your place?”

“Reg was out with his tow truck,” Gabriel broke in, clicking off his cell phone as he came. “So the garage was locked up when you left her there.” He narrowed his eyes at Colin.

Cliff chose that moment to hurry from the kitchens and throw more logs on the fire. He must have noticed that Gabriel wasn’t paying attention to anything but Molly.

“Need you, Sally,” Cliff said gruffly. “Anything else you want?” He addressed everyone at the table—except Colin, whom he pointedly ignored.

“Nothing else, thanks,” Elin said.

Sally, who had yet to look at Colin since he arrived at the table, kept her face averted and followed Cliff back to the kitchens.

In a chatty way, as if he were with a bunch of friends, Colin said, “Molly came in her little green Fiat, but when she left, it was making very strange sounds. Well”—he shrugged eloquently—“of course I’m useless with such things. But I followed her to the gas station and left her there. They’re good at that sort of thing, or so I’m told.”

“Reg is the only one who works there,” Gabriel said, and Sean could tell he was having difficulty holding his temper. “If you’d hung around long enough to make sure she tried the door, you’d have known he wasn’t at the shop. He was out with his tow truck.”

Colin shook his head sadly, “Darn it. How like a man like that not to be around when you need him.”

“A man like that?” Sean said, unable to keep his mouth shut any longer. “He’s a hardworking man running a business on his own. You’ll have to excuse him for not living up to your expectations. So you drove off before making sure Molly was all right?”

“Why did Molly visit you?” Niles’s cool voice cut through the babble. “Did you know this was one of Molly’s friends, Gabriel?”

“No.” Gabriel looked sick. He’d have to be blind not to know, or at least suspect, Colin was a vampire, especially when he had been around his kind before. “I’m going to call the police to help organize a search party.”

Sean and Niles’s eyes met.
“We can’t stop him,”
Niles communicated.

“I’ll make sure Saul’s warned,”
Sean came back.
“How do we get rid of this vermin, Colin? We may find we do need him, but he’s been here too long. Nothing useful will come out of this. You do know there’s only one reason Molly would be visiting him?”

“She’s—was—a vamp whore.”
Niles’s mouth turned down.
“I’d like to keep that from Gabriel but maybe he already knows. He loved that woman, no matter how she treated him.”

“She didn’t deserve to die like that,”
Sean said.
“I think this blood eater knows more than he’s saying. It’s dangerous for him to come here alone when he knows I can take him. He has to be desperate for something. Unless he’s convinced himself that what I did to him was a fluke.”

“Keep Elin close to you and Leigh—I’ll find a place to contact Saul about the search.”

“Elin?”
He attempted to connect with her.

“Yes?”
Her startled reaction was almost funny.

“I have to warn Saul about a search for Molly. Stay with Niles, please.”

Her silence made him expect her to pretend she hadn’t heard this time, but after a while she gave him a slight nod and squeezed his arm.

“Excuse me, all,” Sean said. “I’m going to bring the bike helmets inside.” No need to get detailed.

He got up and went out into gusts of rain. At least it had warmed up enough to get rid of the sleet. Cold wasn’t a problem for the hounds but he’d just as soon not have ice spicules peppering his face. Sean walked past the bike and crossed the gravel parking lot. Entering the dense trees that surrounded the place, he kept walking, dodging back and forth between thick trunks until he felt he was far enough away from Gabriel’s.

Mind communication wasn’t something he wanted with any vampire but at this moment it would be useful. He leaned on a tree and worked his cell phone from a back pocket of his jeans. Now he had to hope for decent reception.

He flinched at a sudden flapping in front of his face. A woodpecker made a show of flying away.

Sean called Saul, who gave him his usual monosyllables. Short translation: He wasn’t worried about any search.

With a dramatic flourish, Colin appeared almost in front of Sean. “I hoped I’d find you easily enough.”

Sean took his time putting the phone away.

“You’re the reason I came here at all,” Colin said. “You’re all that interests me.”

Instantly on alert, Sean said, “Aren’t I lucky?”

“You’re why I was at that cottage, too. I knew you would come to help the woman. I admit you surprised me with your trick of strength. In fact, you only become more of a curiosity. Could we be partners, do you think? What an alliance we could make.”

The vampire never ran out of angles, Sean had to give him that. “Get lost,” he said.

“You’re typical of your kind, not that I’ve been unfortunate enough to meet many of you. Rude and arrogant. Detestable, in fact. I think it’s time for you to understand your place and climb back into it. I am your superior.”

Sean laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Are there any more at home like you?” he said. “Or were your parents lucky enough to have only one son with delusions of grandeur? If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be getting back.”

“You’ll be coming with me,” Colin said. “Much as I’d like to hang around and concoct an opportunity to steal the succulent Leigh, I’ll have to make do with you. Duty demands it.”

Until he knew what Colin had in mind, Sean didn’t want to alert Niles. He needed him there with the women, not that he’d leave them with no protection.

“I’m intrigued,” Sean told Colin. “Or I would be if I had the energy.”

Colin quickly searched the area.

“Are we expecting company?” Sean asked.

“You tell me, but if you don’t do as you’re told, quietly, that female of yours will suffer. She obviously means a great deal to you. But you won’t be able to keep her from me, and my kind, for the rest of her life anyway. That may be a short time given what I have in mind, but your disobedience will make sure her stay is even shorter than it might be.”

“What do you want, blood eater?” Sean shrugged away from the tree and stood with his feet slightly braced. He had to hold himself back from taking this thing by the throat.

“You and I will leave quietly, now,” Colin said. “We will attend a meeting, a momentous meeting and, for you, probably a very stimulating one. It will certainly be enlightening for me.”

The other man’s suggestive tone tensed Sean. “I have no business with you, or anyone you know.”

“You’re wrong,” Colin said. “And you have been singled out for your interference in things that are nothing to do with you.”

Sean decided to try a direct attack and hope he could shock this one. “Are you tight with Brande and his pack?”

Colin did pause, but only for a moment before he laughed loudly and shook his head. “You know better than that. I wouldn’t be tight with Brande and his wolves any more than I would with you, dog.”

When Sean didn’t respond, Colin waved for him to follow and turned as if to make his way deeper into the forest. He stopped after a few steps and looked over his shoulder. “Come with me, unless you want me to
take
you, and you know I can. You’re no match for me, Sean.”

“Are you insane?” Sean asked. “Nothing has changed since I threw you away like a rag doll.”

“A lucky accident,” Colin said. “I was caught off guard.”

Argument was wasted on this self-involved, self-in
dulge
nt creature. Sean stayed where he was, his head cocked and indicating his detached interest in whatever Colin might come up with.

“You’re forcing my hand. Be logical. We have the same enemies and we could learn from each other.”

“I’ve got to give you points for creative trying,” Sean said.

Colin scowled. “Enough of this.”

He moved as only a vampire can, so fast he became invisible but for velocity streaks marking his path. And then he was upon Sean, grabbing him by the throat and swinging him off his feet.

Sean’s legs collided with a tree and he hooked them around the trunk. Grabbing Colin’s body, Sean snapped him into the air and slammed him down on snags of fallen wood, rocks, and the wintry thicket, sharp where all leaves and berries had fallen from the pointed branches.

The vampire breathed like a train on an uphill path through a tunnel. Colin gasped loudly in the hollow way only vampires could achieve. He struggled out of the brittle underbrush that enmeshed him, faced Sean again, and tore at one of his ears before Sean realized his intention.

Sean heard the tissue rip, felt the pain, and slapped Colin’s hand away. Since Colin had already encountered him in fully human form, there was no dilemma about shifting or not shifting.

Colin was on him again, trying to finish severing the ear, taking hold of Sean’s right shoulder and moving violently to dislocate it and wrench the arm completely loose of its socket.

Using both feet, Sean landed a flying kick into Colin’s throat. The sight of the vampire staggering, gasping, and rasping, if only for moments, allowed Sean to rush in and press his advantage.

Grimacing at what felt like thrusts with a burning sword, he jammed his arm back into place at the shoulder and rammed Colin backward.

How to disable him without taking him to the point where he was so disabled, the next act should naturally be to drive a stake into his heart and go on to kill him? Much as he wanted the other dead, he wanted the information Colin might have more.

The man’s eyes were black with red rims around the irises. Hunger did that to these people. Sean smiled at him. “Can I offer you a snack? A few sips of something I think you’ll like. I keep it in the refrigerator for surprise visitors. I do believe in hospitality.”

Colin’s tongue whipped, snakelike, over his red lips. “Where did you get it? Do the Deseran, like Leigh, build up too much blood, is that it? Do they have to drain some away now and then?” He smiled, forgetting to keep his fangs retracted. “How luscious.”

Sick to his stomach, Sean kept on smiling. “It usually goes for transfusions.”

Colin threw up his hands. “Such a waste. Where is it? Quickly, while it’s still there.”

“You cannot know where…where it is. I shall have to blindfold you.” And in the unlikely event that Colin did as Sean asked, he would then have to lead the vampire where he could contain him—whatever that would take.

“You think I’m a fool?” Colin sneered.

“No, that’s why I didn’t offer the blood immediately. Never mind. Perhaps another time.”

“It is so sweet,” Colin said, sounding dreamy. “I have heard about it. And your alpha doesn’t even use it. Such a waste.”

A movement behind Colin, at the base of a tree, then in the thicket, caught Sean’s attention. He quickly averted his gaze. It could be nothing but a small animal making its way through familiar territory.

Or it could be a certain small animal up to no good and about to get them both in terrible trouble.

“I could keep my eyes closed while you take me,” Colin said. “I am a man of my word and I won’t look.”