Mortal Bite (Golden Vampires of Tuscany) (26 page)

Paolo and Marcus were ecstatic with their find until they got the call
from Lionel Jett.

“Lionel! You escaped, thank the God of vampires. Good to hear your voice.
We had feared the worst,” Marcus said.

“Prepare yourself, Marcus. I have some bad news.”

Paolo couldn’t help but overhear the conversation. He instantly thought
of Cara. He had not felt anything coming from her for some time. He’d thought
perhaps her altered memory had made the physical distance between them more
significant than it had been earlier.

“Cara is missing.”

Paolo grabbed the phone. “Lionel, was she taken?”

“No, Paolo. I am sorry to say we misjudged her and she slipped right out,
when we were distracted.”

“Distracted?”

“It’s a long story. I must bear the responsibility myself.”

“When?”

“Sometime this evening. She had been put to bed. The maid brought her
some fresh clothes and a nightgown, and watched her fall asleep. When she
checked on her later, Cara was gone. Sometime between midnight and two.”

“Who do you have looking for her?”

“Just about everyone.”

“I’ll be there shortly. Let me make arrangements and I’ll come help out.”

“Thank you. And Paolo?”

“Yes?”

“I am so sorry for my poor judgment.
 
We were sort of celebrating. All my fault.”

Paolo didn’t want an apology. He wanted Cara back. She was at huge risk,
being out there by herself. But he also knew Lionel would even lay down his
life if necessary to save her.

“Let’s concentrate, Lionel. We need to be sharp, or we won’t find her.”

“That’s affirmative.”

Paolo handed Marcus back his phone.
 
“No matter what, you stay here with Anne and the baby until all this is
over. Protect Lucius. I have to go find her. If you have to, go before the
Council with the book and give it to them. Explain this to them. I wish I could
stay and study it with you, but I think I can still feel her emotions, and that
gives us an advantage.”

“And you are also doing the Council’s bidding. You forget that they want
to see her tomorrow.”

“No, Marcus. I haven’t forgotten the stakes. I will not fail you again.”

Paolo peeked outside the kitchen windows and saw Lucius and Laurel in
serious conversation about something on the patio. He walked over to his son
and hugged him, inhaling the boy’s fresh scent one last time. This wasn’t the
kind of war he’d expected to wage, chasing after a mortal woman down a dark
alley. Waiting for the dark forces to rain down their wrath on all their
innocent women and children. On his son.

“Lucius, you mind Laurel. I have to go away for a little bit.”

“How long?”

“I’ll be back very soon. I promise.” He hated to make a promise he wasn’t
sure he could keep, and a glance at Laurel told him he was a bad liar. She was
fighting back tears.

“You are going alone?” she asked.

“We have all the guys back in California. Marcus will stay here with you,
Anne, the baby and Lucius. Cara’s escaped.”

“Oh Paolo, I’m so sorry. Don’t be foolish. We need you. If she has a
death wish, don’t let it cost—" she stopped because Lucius was
hanging on every word. The boy’s lower lip quivered.

“Be brave, Lucius. Can you do that for me, for auntie?” Paolo asked.

Lucius sullenly nodded his head.

Paolo picked up his duffel bag, gave the boy’s hair a tussle, kissed
Laurel on the cheek. As was his tracing routine, he inhaled, as if taking the
last breath of the land he loved so much. He arrived a moment later in the
living room of Marcus and Anne’s house in Healdsburg.

Lionel Jett was waiting for him. Paolo noticed Lionel wouldn’t look him
in the eye. He could tell the man was filled with remorse.

“You’ve got to get a grip, Lionel. Things happen.”

“But I let you and the family down, sir.”

“No, you’ve been our loyal, trusted bodyguard for centuries. We owe you
our lives from so many occasions in the past. This is a complicated mess. We
must concentrate. Can you do that for me?”

“Affirmative.”

“Where should we start? Know anything about what she was thinking before
she left?”

“No. I didn’t speak with her. I was otherwise occupied,” Lionel blushed
and squeezed his eyes shut. He briefly told him what had transpired in the
warehouse.

“And she is with your men, looking?”

“Yessir.”

“You trust her?”

Lionel was having difficulty answering. “I just don’t know who to trust
anymore, sir, and I needed the manpower. The woman is fearless, Paolo. I don’t
feel she means to do us any harm. She could have done that easily already.”
Lionel blushed again as he looked at his feet.

“Lionel, I thought you were smarter than that. For all we know, your
little lapse in judgment wasn’t that, but a carefully orchestrated plan to draw
Cara out into the open so they could snag her.”

“I’ve thought of that.”

“Where is everyone else?”

“Where
aren’t
they? We’re in
radio communication. Since Cara doesn’t have a vehicle, we’re all over Sonoma
County.”

“Do a check-in with everyone. See if there are any new leads,” Paolo
directed. He walked into the study, scanned the bookshelf and satisfied himself
that the book was still where Marcus had placed it. He wanted to touch it,
knowing it was something Cara had touched, but he didn’t want to leave his
scent anywhere it could be detected by a dark vamp.

Cara was freezing cold, which only added to her confusion. She was
running away from a house full of armed guards into the night filled with
who-knew-what crazies. What was she running from? But her instincts had
demanded she get out of that house. Something else internally told her she
didn’t have much time to get her hands on that book before it fell into the
wrong hands.

Though she had on a long-sleeved shirt and jeans, they had not provided
her with a jacket. She was going to have to find an all-night restaurant that
served hot coffee, and had a decent bathroom. Then she’d sit down and think
about what her next step should be.

Over and over in her head she thought about the dark, handsome campus
security staffer, Paolo Monteleone. Hadn’t she seen something in that face she
could trust? Why was she not surprised when she slid into that bed last night
and felt his presence? Was that the room he stayed in? Surely the master of a
house that size would have a lavish master suite. And the maid had said it was
a
guest bedroom.
So Mr. Monteleone
was a guest?

She scanned the pebbles along the dirt pathway that shone in the
moonlight. It helped to keep moving. There was, thankfully, no wind. She would
need some money in case she wound up on the road for a few days. She cursed the
fact that she had no cell phone.

She remembered her old phone, which was in a box at the apartment.
Perhaps it had survived the bomb. She had planned to give it to Johnny. She
stopped, frozen in space.

Johnny.
Suddenly she was filled
with images of him lying in a pool of blood in her office, his head ripped
almost completely off his body. She remembered the police and rescue crews. She
now remembered the questioning she had undergone.

So, Paolo Monteleone, whoever the hell he was, had been right. She had
forgotten all these things, temporarily. Now they were coming back in layers.

Cara headed further down the dirt path along the country road she knew
led to the square in downtown Healdsburg. There might be a coffee shop open
somewhere nearby. Someone who might give her a free cup, since she had no
money.

Paolo Monteleone.
Something in
her heart called out to him.

And she felt the warm response in return.
I am here, mi amore.

Cara stopped and turned around. The street
was deserted. An oncoming car’s headlights, though distant, scared her. She
jumped behind some hedges and waited for it to pass.

Her mind was racing as little pieces of memory began to stitch themselves
together. She remembered the smell of the lemon shower gel, the way the robe in
the bathroom had left a tingling sensation on her skin when she brushed against
it. Sliding into the almond-colored satin sheets had been like sliding
into—

Then she saw the lovemaking. Paolo leaning over her, kissing her, filling
her with his love. Hot tears began to slip down her cheeks. How could she have
forgotten so much? Or were all these just vivid dreams?

Are they dreams, or did I live
them? What is happening to me?

She started to run, seeing lights of a gas station directly in front of
her. Checking her surroundings, she saw a car full of men waiting in the
shadows. Grateful they hadn’t noticed her, she detoured around the bright lot,
heading down Healdsburg Avenue toward the square.

The bar crowd was letting out, and several couples lingered under twinkle
lights of the square, gazing into shop windows. She pretended she was one of
them. A bar was still open on her right, so she entered.

Grateful for the darkly lit room, she motioned to the bartender she
wanted to use the restroom and was granted a nod, as he pointed to the back.
Locking the bathroom door behind her, she collapsed to fetal position, leaning
against the wall covered in graffiti. The tears came. She felt hunted. Trapped
in a strange bathroom. No money, no help. And there was something else;
something dark and sinister had formed around her.

Her eyes had been shut. When she opened them, a man she recognized from
her apartment, dressed in black, stood before her in the women’s rest room.

It was not Paolo.

Instinctively she held her neck.

“That’s right, little one. I nearly separated your pretty little head
from your luscious body.”

His hungry eyes perused her body like he owned her.

“Paolo should be shot for keeping you all to himself.”

“But I am not with Paolo.” She tried to sound brave. It didn’t work.

“And good for me, then. Does this mean I won’t have to beat you to
submission?” Dag stepped closer and yanked her to her feet, gripping her by the
upper arm. “Or, do you like it rough, my sweet?”

His foul breath sickened her.
Paolo.
Help me. He is here.

Dag cocked his head to the side. “How nice. You speak to each other
non-verbally. I get to eavesdrop on the lovers. This is a most unexpected
pleasure.”

Cara was terrified she’d committed a fatal error. She was hoping the fact
that Paolo wasn’t answering her back meant that he was trying to locate her
without being detected. She could tell he was close. God, she needed him and
his strong arms.

“When you and I are having delicious sex, your lover boy will be able to
enjoy the festivities as well. How nice for you both.” Dag smiled and Cara
could see the pink healing scar on his cheek from the wound Paolo had given
him. Dag grabbed her by the hair and forced her face against his. His tongue
plunged down her throat and made her gag.

“I’m going to enjoy this. I shall kill you slowly, as I fuck you to
death, Cara. Or, excuse me if I call you by the very apt name he gave you,
mi amore.
”

Dag hauled her to the hallway and pulled her through the bar. She looked
with alarm at the bartender, who frowned. He bent down and reached for
something from under the bar. Dag turned on him before he could stand up.

“Not wise, unless you want to sacrifice your life for hers.”

The bartender stood back and raised his hands in surrender. “No trouble,
please, no trouble,” he babbled nervously.

“That’s what I thought. Good choice,” Dag said and continued to haul Cara
out onto the street. A black van pulled up with its rear doors flapping open.
Dag threw Cara inside and into the arms of several men, then slammed the door
shut.
 

She was assaulted by the rotten cabbage smell first. She tried to move
and accidentally kneed someone’s foot. That someone was huge. He howled like a
wolf.
 
As the van began to take
off, in the streetlight glare she could see a large, protruding, festering toe
and what looked like a thoroughly rotten toenail sticking out from a hole
crudely cut into a boot. The toe began to bleed.

“Sorry,” she said, out of reflex.

She was rewarded with a slap across the face that made the whole world go
dark.

Paolo lost her location just prior to arriving with Lionel at the square.
The only opened structure on the block was a bar. He ran over to the bartender.

“Have you seen a brown-haired woman, about twenty-six—“

“Yes, she was just here. A guy dressed in black broke in the women’s
restroom and took her. They took her in a black van.” He pointed outside. “They
went down towards the freeway.”

“Shit.” To Lionel’s wounded face he said, “They’ve got her. Damnit. Must
have done something to her, because I can’t get a read on her. We were that
close,” he held up his thumb and forefinger.

“I’m going to call on Huge and Jeb and some of the boys to meet us here.
We can trace the SEALs anywhere you say.

“Come again?”

“They dig the ride. Again, Paolo, long story. We don’t have time for
this.”

“Your little distraction will be among them?”

“Fuckin’-A, she will be.”

“You be careful. She could turn on you. Or be a secret ally of Dag.”

“Not likely. She’s killed his executioner, just remember that.”

Lionel radioed the rest of the teams, and a crowd of armed men in dark
glasses traced, arms in arm, to the nearly abandoned streets of the square and
quickly separated upon arrival. Paolo could hear a couple of
wa-HOOs
erupt from the crowd as he felt
the sizzle of their energy, pumped and ready for war.

In the middle of the group was a stunningly beautiful blonde warrior
woman, covered in camouflage face paint, wearing a skimpy top that showed her
flat, muscled midriff. She also wore a pair of cutoff jeans revealing long,
tanned thighs and muscular calves narrowing into steel-toed boots. Paolo was
taken aback.