Exsanguinate (19 page)

“
K
haldon
, I haven’t heard from him for over fifty hours. There should be emails, instant messages, texts, voice mails – but there isn’t a single one.” My voice grew more hysterical with each word.

“Calm down, take a deep breath. It’ll make you feel better.”

I tried to calm down, but it was impossible knowing Roxas was nowhere to be found. My thoughts spanned to every detail of Ludovic’s message about taking the rest of my loved ones. Who could that mean?

“We have to go, Khaldon!”

“Go where?”

“We have to go to Roxas’ house. I need to see if he’s safe.”

“Okay, let me get this straight.” He looked at me if I had eaten a stupid pill or something. “You want to go find a guy’s house to check on him because you think this Ludovic character has kidnapped him?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but yes. After what we just saw in that haunted barn, do you think he’s joking about anything? What would you do if the woman you loved all of a sudden fell off the face of the planet?”

Khaldon frowned. “I’m gonna call Stovall and put in an inquiry on this. Do you know anything else about him?”

“He has a Romanian type accent. Hell, if he’s vampire – he could be Romanian, right? Or is that considered preternatural profiling?”

“That’s a strong possibility, yes. Profiling, I hadn’t thought about it that way, but that’s the Hollywood stereotype. We have three times as many vampires in Asia as we do in Europe.”

I blinked. “Yeah, okay – I’ll leave that story for another time. Ludovic works at a bar on City Streets, but I don’t know which one. There’s at least twenty bars there. He has a brother. What was his name? Eric? Cedric? No. Edric! Yes, he has a brother named Edric. Unholy hell!”

“What?”

“In the hospital. That guy who kept taking my blood. It was Edric. I couldn’t make the connection then, because of the morphine, but he was Sherlock Holmes.”

“Sherlock Holmes?”

“Never mind. The point is – they knew I was in the hospital. His brother probably told Ludovic I had checked out.”

Khaldon called Stovall on his cell and relayed the information. “Stovall says he’s never heard of any vampires registered by those names. Doesn’t mean they aren’t using pseudonyms. He’s cautious about who to trust in this situation because if it was an internal tip off, then he could easily cause more issues. He’s going to make in-person inquiries and get back to us.”

He snapped his fingers as if a thought just occurred to him. “Can we pull up your servers and filter out Roxas’ IP address? Maybe check his login status?”

“We certainly can.” Clicking away at the keyboard, I filtered out Roxas’ internet protocol address. “Here - it says he’s been idle since the day I left the hospital. We have to go. We need to go now and get back before Ludovic contacts me again.”

Even though it was still raining buckets outside, I hurried to the foyer. Khaldon grabbed his umbrella while I reached for our raincoats.

“What’s the address of this guy anyway?” he asked.

“It’s here in my wallet. I sent him one of my 3D rendering suits a few weeks ago.”

Khaldon stiffened his back and opened up the umbrella over us as we stepped out into the unforgiving rain.

After we got into the car, he turned to me. “Listen. Whatever we find out tonight, I’m here to help you. I am your friend, all right?”

I nodded. I hoped I could trust him. I wanted to … I
needed
to.

I wiped a tear away from my cheek. “Gah! This is driving me crazy. Why do my eyes bleed? This is so messy and inconvenient.”

“Now that your body supports vampyric DNA, there are some human fluids not used anymore. Tears are one of those fluids. In time, you will have fewer tears as your inner vampire takes over the human emotions.”

“Lovely.”

I wonder if I’ll still have my monthly periods too, but I’m sure as hell not going to ask him about that!

The rain pummeled the night. The wiper blades were hypnotic as they swished the water away from the windshield. We drove to Roxas’ address via the GPS in the dashboard. I was surprised to learn just how close he was to me. I looked over at Khaldon. He looked a little green, and bit his lower lip.

“What’s the matter? Are you okay?” I asked.

“Are you sure you want to do this? What if he’s in there? Have you considered what in the world you are gonna say to him?

“I know, I know. But I don’t have a choice. We can say you’re a part of the detective team helping me look for my sisters.”

He narrowed his eyes.

I sighed and finished. “Yeah … lame. No use in lamenting on something that might not happen anyway. C’mon let’s go.”

We got out of his car and ran to the building’s entranceway. He ran his hand through his hair. I tried to stay optimistic and think how I wouldn’t kill Roxas in the first minute if I found him home.

Finally the doors opened. I bolted through them.

“Which way?” Khaldon asked.

“Not sure, I always choose the wrong way.” The hallway didn’t give any numeric direction to the units, so I choose a path. Looking for his unit number, I learned I needed to turn around. “Crap.”

Walking back towards his apartment I heard a familiar sound. The closer to his door I walked, the louder I heard classical music. I recognized it and froze.

We stood outside the door. Khaldon pushed his hair away from his face and rubbed his neck. “That’s the online music Rox and I listen to when we we’re in the dungeon.” Realizing what I said to Khaldon was wildly inappropriate for the moment, I swallowed hard and turned around.

The door hung slightly ajar. My knock pushed it forward without resistance. No answer. I knocked again. “Roxas, are you here?” Still no answer, only the classical music.

We stepped into the room and Khaldon closed the door behind us. I stood there inside Roxas’ domain and covered my mouth with my hands.

On almost every surface of the room were images of Lady Cazenove and Roxas Morgwain.

I gasped at the life-sized canvas oil painting elegantly mounted over the fireplace. “Khaldon, this is from the night Roxas and I were engaged inside the game. We’re standing on a bridge I built near our virtual home.”

“It’s stunning.” Khaldon looked around the condo and then whistled. “This guy has the blazin’ hots for you.”

“You mean the human me before I became vampire. I guarantee you now that I walk with the living dead, he isn’t gonna be all that into me.”

I suddenly realized how my immortality would outlive him, and every other mortal person I loved. Logically I knew this would happen, but until now the emotional impact had not set in. My heart ached at the losses before I ever experienced their realities.

I crossed over to his fireplace mantel to admire a bronze statue. “Looks like Roxas had this commissioned from our last anniversary. He took me dancing on the Titanic.” My eyes glassed over as I held the sculpture in my arms as if it were a newborn child.

Khaldon looked at me and put his hand on my shoulder. “You okay?” He lifted my chin. I must have been feeling rather addle-minded at the moment. I could have sworn he sounded like Roxas just then.

Keep it together Chey. Don’t lose it here and now.

I nodded my head and explained to Khaldon what I was holding.

He smiled and nodded back.

We searched the apartment and found no one home. I walked through the house looking around getting to intimately know the man I had been virtually in love with for so long.

“I dunno. Seems kinda creepy stalkerish to me.” Khaldon shrugged and continued to look around. He fingered the top of a picture of the Lady Caz and Roxas riding horses.

“It’s not. It’s how we’ve had a relationship for the past two years. This is how we dated. Don’t you have pictures of your girlfriend?”

“Yeah, I see your point.”

“These are just pictures of our avatars, instead of us. It’s the only way we’ve known each other until I met him in the hospital the other day.”

Khaldon fingered a knife blade mounted on the wall. “Well, it doesn’t seem like anybody’s home. Let’s see what he keeps in the fridge?”

I didn’t say anything, but kept studying the shrine this man held for me, or rather, for my avatar. Roxas obviously felt the same love for me that I did for him. I found his office and went inside. He had an ancient weapons collection adorning the walls that could have put any museum on its knees. My fingers lightly stroked the edge of a pair of battle-axes hung in a crossed pattern. The intricate carvings on the wood revealed an ancient medieval dragon fight.

“Hey, Khaldon come in here. Take a look at these. They’re…”

Khaldon walked in with a bottle of bloodwine. “Ah, my favorite.” He took a long hard chug on the bloodwine as my mouth fell to the floor.

“What the hell is that?” I demanded. “What are you drinking?” I grabbed the bottle away from him, spilling the wine over his chin and onto his shirt.

“Crap, Cheyenne, this was one of my favorite shirts.” He gestured to his chest as he tried to wipe the blood off with his sleeve. Using the back of his hand to wipe at his chin, he stopped in mid-swipe to read my face.

“Did you … just now, get this out of Roxas’ refrigerator?” My thoughts processed faster than a multi-core processor. I held the bottle out for him to look at. “Why would Roxas have a cold bottle of bloodwine in his refrigerator? Or any bottle of bloodwine for that matter?” Khaldon pursed his lips. I didn’t let him answer. “Don’t only vampires know about this stuff? Isn’t it specially ordered from those vineyards Stovall talked about?”

“You mean the blood orchards?” Khaldon’s eyes grew wide.

“Whatever the hell you call them. Yes, those.” I sat the bottle on the office table next to the computer and sat in Roxas’ office chair behind his computer. “I don’t understand. How could I have missed this? Roxas either is or associates with vampires?” I said aloud to myself. “How is this possible? Why would he not have told me?”

Khaldon glanced up me with that confused look on his face again. “Maybe he is vampire and knew you were a human. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t meet you in real life.”

My eyes lit up. “Khaldon, I could kiss you.” My face lit up. I jumped up and took a sip of the wine. “That makes perfect sense. Of course – so it wasn’t me all this time. Oh, thank the Goddess. It was his issue of us not meeting for so long. We have to find him. He has to know what has happened to me.”

In my jubilation I accidentally bumped the mouse next to the keyboard on his computer when I put the bottle back down. I saw an opened email on the monitor as the screen woke up from its hibernation. I leaned down to read it.

Khaldon quickly jumped over in front of the monitor. “We shouldn’t be reading the guy’s stuff, now should we?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t seem to have any trouble making yourself at home by raiding his fridge now did you?”

Khaldon grimaced. “You have a point.”

“Maybe it’s a clue as to where he is.” I turned back to the email and read a note from what looked like a friend.

My face went numb. I dropped the little bronze statue I had been holding and it made a loud thunk onto the floor, right beside my heart. Khaldon had moved behind me and I supposed had read the email over my shoulder. He cleared his throat and reached out to touch my shoulder. I turned around in the chair and looked up at him – madness hazed my vision.

Khaldon forced me to look into his eyes again. This time, his waves of interference forced me to relax. “Breathe, Cheyenne. Things aren’t always as they seem.” His voice soothed me as my heart felt like it shattered into a million pieces.

The air grew heavy and I recognized the change in energy between us. Khaldon was in control, suppressing my emotions. Blood pooled in my eyes. Tears expressed from utter joy just moments earlier, had in an infinitesimal moment turned to frigid tears of hated betrayal.

I sucked in my lower lip, trying to maintain any modicum of self-control. “Have I been so blind?” I whispered through clenched teeth. “Is Roxas involved with my sisters kidnapping? No wonder he had to be gone so much while I was in the hospital. Look at this email. It says – sisters.” I looked away from Khaldon’s gaze as he relinquished whatever force field he had over me. “Did you read that? It’s from some chick named Darkrose. Roxas and I made a promise to each other not to date anyone else.”

I stood and squared my shoulders toward Khaldon. “So where is this Club Mordez-Moi? What the hell does that mean anyway? I need to confront this sonofabitch.”

“Whoa now, filly, hold on a minute. Club Mordez-Moi means quite literally, Club Bite Me. It’s a pretty nasty vampire hangout. Not a place for noobie vampires.”

I could have staked him with my eyes.

“Look, we have less than a couple hours to get you back and ready to receive that call from Ludovic. Are you gonna compromise getting instructions of how to find your sisters by going after this guy?”

“What choice is there? It’s the only lead, unless I try to come back here again later in the morning. I have no idea how long Ludovic is gonna make me play inside the game.”

“I’m not keen on this, Chey. It’s not a good idea. Bite Me isn’t exactly a place that serves high tea and chocolates.” Khaldon reached around the back of his head and pulled the silken knot out of his hair. It fell all around his shoulders. “What happens if you find him there? What are you gonna do? Shoot him in the corner all gangsta style?” Khaldon held out his hands to form mock guns shooting from the hips. “You can’t possibly understand what kind of hell you might be getting yourself into.”

I swallowed hard, trying to take in his logic. My mind tried to counter with objections, but his argument was sound. I sat back down in the chair and hit the print screen key.

“Why don’t we do this – I take you back to your apartment and you wait for Ludovic. I’ll go to Mordez Moi and stake it out. I’ll see what I can uncover for you. I’ll casually run into Amicula and see what’s hanging.”