SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (47 page)

She said nothing since she didn’t think an apocalypse was imminent, but as she walked away, she thought,
Please let it not be the end of my world.

Vampire Reborn
: Chapter Eleven

The two slayer novitiates at the door of the crematorium chamber moved shoulder-to-shoulder to block their way.

Ben glared at them. “Do you know who we are?”

One of the young men raised his chin a defiant inch and said, “A former elder.”

The one next to him tightened his hold on the grip of the short sword at his side and eyed Michaela. Muttering the word as if they were a curse, he said, “And his dhampir whore.”

With startling speed, Michaela had a dagger at his throat. The sharp edge of her knife cut his skin like a scalpel and a fine line of blood leaked from the deepest part of the wound.

“Not former and not whore. Council members and don’t you forget that,” she warned the upstart.

“Open the door.
Now
,” Ben said, his tone brooking no disobedience.

The one novitiate stepped aside immediately, but the other one hesitated until Michaela applied a little more pressure and a little more blood was spilled. Enough for him to finally do an awkward and careful step to the side to avoid any more damage to his throat.

Michaela whipped the dagger back, but held it at the ready just in case either of the two had a change of heart, although given their lack of slayer power and training, Michaela and he could deal with them easily.

He hoped that whoever was on the other side of the door could be handled similarly.

As they entered, he took note of two other novitiates standing guard at either side of the gurney holding Richard’s body as well as Anthony and Graham, one of the more quiet and usually more reasonable of the slayer elders. They were just about to start stripping Richard to prepare him for the slayer’s death rites, but paused as Michaela and he entered.

“What are doing here?” Anthony demanded and walked back around the gurney to block their path to Richard’s body.

“The Council charged us with finding out who murdered Richard. Since you didn't let our FBI friends take a look at the body before, we're here to rectify that mistake,” Ben said.

Anthony tucked his arms across his chest and with a smug smile said, “Do you really think you'll find anything that exonerates your undead friend?”

“You never know until you look,” Michaela said and jerked her head in the direction of the two novitiates and Graham. “Will you honor Richard?” she asked, commencing the start of the ritual.

The trio approached Richard while Michaela and he stood before the body, ready to inspect it. Graham was one of the lesser elders and in other times, he likely would have never been chosen for the Council. But with his own death and Aja's, who had trusted his brother and paid for it with her life, the Council had had to boost their numbers. Even the two novitiates attending the rites were fairly new.

The one, a mixed race girl named Rhiannon, had caught his eye months ago. Not only was she a stunning beauty, but she had natural grace, instincts, and power. She had quickly been moving up the ranks months earlier and she had been assigned to him shortly before his own death and turning. She had been re-assigned to Richard, but with his passing, she was orphaned again.

As her hazel-green gaze connected with his for a moment, he thought he detected pity there as it roved over the ridges and scars left by his brother's attack. Pity was the last thing he wanted to see in that gaze, but he'd leave that – and her – for another time.

In soft and patient tones, Graham directed the two slayers-in-training on handling Richard's body and what the next steps would be. A ritual cleansing of his body with holy water and blessing with fragrant oils. The laying on of hands by those in attendance who, if they were lucky, might be gifted with a touch of his slayer power. Finally, the presentment of a cross atop his body before he was incinerated.

The male novitiate lifted Richard's upper body so that Rhiannon could strip off his shirt. As she did so, the very visible hand prints on his arms, along with the bruising, cuts, and burns from the Taser blasts, became visible to all in the room.

Graham released a sharp gasp and urged the two novitiates away from the body. “This isn't possible,” he whispered as he bent to examine the hand prints.

“No vampire did that, Anthony,” he said and pointed at the marks.

The arrogant slayer sauntered over and examined Richard's body. “Not unless they were familiar with the dark arts,” he challenged.

Michaela released a harsh breath. “Really, Anthony. Tell me something. How familiar are you with them? Or any of the other slayers? These arts were forbidden millennia ago. Only a slayer with intense knowledge of our past would be capable of this.”

“Or a vampire who had stolen Richard's journal. Or had a slayer willing to share our secrets with them,” Anthony said pointedly and shot a look at him.

“I shared our history and nothing more because I do not know anything more. That's why Ryder and I came to see Richard. To see if he could explain what was happening to Ryder.”

Anthony laughed out loud. “That old fairy tale about becoming human again?”

Ben swept his hand across Richard's body. “Maybe it is a fairy tale, but this, what happened to Richard, wasn't about some vamp trying to become human again. This was done by someone with far more power than even a vampire elder would have.”

“You're saying it was one of the Council members?” Rhiannon said, earning a glare from Anthony.

“Silence, Rhiannon. You have not yet earned the right to speak before us,” Anthony said.

She dipped her head with reverence, but Ben could detect her anger. She had spirit, but also common sense. That was a good combination for a slayer. Now that she'd been orphaned by Richard's death, he'd have to claim her as his trainee at the next Council meeting. Maybe with his influence, she'd become a much more reasonable slayer than the likes of Anthony. He pushed that thought away and returned to the reason they were here.

“We'd like to take some photos of the wounds. Maybe they will assist in tracking down who did this,” he said and although Anthony seemed ready to protest it, Graham beat him to the punch.

“Proceed, Benjamin. Anything that will identify who did this would be welcome.”

Together, Michaela and he quickly snapped off some photos with her smartphone, making sure to take various angles of Richard's throat, chest, and most importantly, the markings on his arms.

Ben had no doubt that a vampire had not done that theft of power. He was well familiar with all the elders on the Vampire Council and he didn't think that any of them possessed the kind of power needed to overwhelm and drain someone like Richard. Or at least, not unless they had somehow discovered the slayer's dark arts and become masters of it.

But even more troubling was the prospect that a fellow elder was capable of such a deed.

After Michaela and he finished, they stepped aside to allow the other slayers to complete the ritual. Carefully they cleansed Richard's body and anointed him with the fragrant oils, respectfully spreading the oil across his forehead, hands, feet and then the area above his heart while Anthony chanted a sacred prayer, eyes closed and hands outspread.

Soon the aromas of sandalwood, frankincense, myrrh and patchouli filled the air.

The two slayers took up spots at Richard's head and feet while the novitiates stood at either side of him.

Anthony looked around and satisfied that everyone was in place, he said, “Place your hands on Richard at the spots where we have blessed him.”

The three did as they were told and once again Anthony closed his eyes and offered up a slayer's prayer, but after the first few verses, the tension in Anthony's voice was impossible to miss.

He stopped mid-verse and shook his head. “The font within him is dry.”

Ben recalled Nemesis's words from earlier that night.
Zapped. Wiped clean.

He repeated his earlier warning. “No vampire did this, Anthony. We'll confirm where Ryder and I were tonight, but you need to warn the Slayer Council – ”

“About what, Ben? You're quick to clear your new friends of any hand in this, but I'm sure it's not as impossible as you say.”

He was tired of fighting with the other man. “Do what you wish. You'll have the proof of our innocence soon enough.”

Michaela jumped in with her own warning. “I just hope that proof isn't another dead slayer, Anthony.”

* * *

Diana fast-forwarded through the video from the Blood Bank and did some screen shots confirming Ryder's entry and exit from the vampire club.

After printing them, she turned her attention to the video feeds that Helene and Miguel had taken from an ATM camera on First Avenue and the CCTV feed from one of the traffic cameras. As she had done before, she did screen shots and printed the materials.

Both confirmed Ryder's whereabouts and the timing of them made it virtually impossible for Ryder to have been at Richard's apartment at the time of his death.

She added those screen shots to the ones she already had from the condo's cameras which showed Ben's entrance into the building. Like Ryder, his alibi was looking solid.

Michaela had messaged her the photos they had snapped before Richard was cremated. The hand prints on Richard's arms were very similar to those on Ryder, only these looked much more pronounced, almost like they had been burned into the dead slayer's skin.

The size was different as well, judging from the photos. The pattern was larger, with a more pronounced hand print in the center as if that was the initial point of contact. From there the edges leaked outward like a tie dyed design.

She hoped Maggie, her best friend and the FBI's Forensics expert, could make sense of it as well as the photos of the blood patterns. With it being a full moon, she and David were still in their shifter forms and roaming the night, but in a couple of hours, they'd be back to being human and at work down at the FBI's headquarters in Federal Plaza.

Satisfied with the new information she had just received, she exited her office and marched to the living room where Ben, Michaela, Jesus, and Ryder all waited for her.

Michaela was tucked against Jesus on the couch. Ben was across from them in one of the comfy leather chairs. Ryder was on his feet, pacing back and forth anxiously before the wall of windows leading out onto their balcony. He whirled around as she came back in, the look on his face expectant, but also troubled.

She held the papers up and said, “We've got enough to dispel the Slayer Council's allegations that either you or Ben were somehow involved with Richard's death.”

The tension in Ryder's body dissipated, but didn't totally leave. He stalked over to the group and stood there, fists clenched at his sides. “But what you have doesn't tell us who killed Richard.”

She shook her head. “No, it doesn't, but it does point the investigation toward someone connected with the slayers.”

“Not necessarily,” Ben said and shot a worried look at Michaela.

“What do you mean by that?” Ryder asked.

With a shrug, Michaela offered up the explanation. “Those wounds on Richard's arms are from the theft of his life energies, including his slayer power. The most likely assailant would be someone with knowledge of the slayers' dark rituals. Rituals that caused the fall from grace of one of the first slayers.”

“And which possibly created the first vampire,” Ben added.

“So anyone, including a vampire, could have done this?” she asked, just to make sure she was understanding where they were going with their assertions.

“It would have to be a powerful vampire,” Michaela said.

Diana didn't fail to miss the glance she gave Ryder from the corner of her eye. A glance that worried her because she needed all of their team on board to handle the slayers.

“And one who somehow had gained access to the slayers' practices which would be hard to do. It's why the slayers terminate those who fail out of their program,” Michaela added.

“Very humane,” Jesus said and hugged Michaela hard. “It makes me wonder why you ever joined up with them.”

“For survival, J. Without what I learned from the slayers, I could never have faced Connall on my own. But I also couldn't have defeated him without all of you,” she said with a grateful smile at all of them, Ryder included.

Ryder tensed up again at the mention of Michaela's father, the ancient vampire who had nearly killed him a month earlier. To draw attention away from that, she said, “But we know that termination orders are sometimes not fulfilled, like with your brother, Ben.”

“That was a rare occurrence, Diana. And one which cost us dearly,” he said.

“How else could someone know the slayers' rites?” Jesus asked and both Michaela and Ben answered at the same time.

“Slayer journals.”

Ben quickly added, “Richard was in possession of one of the oldest slayer journals. According to Anthony, it's missing.”

“Could this journal have information on those dark rituals you mentioned?” she asked.

Ben nodded. “It was one of the oldest, predating the fall from grace. Because of that, it might contain a number of practices that have since been banned by the Slayer Council.”

“So if we find the journal, we may find the killer?” Jesus asked.

“Possibly,” Michaela answered.

“Why only possibly?” Diana pressed.

With another shrug, Michaela said, “Because we don't know when the journal was taken. Considering how Richard was killed, it may have been taken before his murder – ”

“Because whoever killed him used one of the rituals in the journal,” Ryder finished for her.

“I guess we'll deal with that possibility once we know more. For now, will you provide the information about the alibis to the Slayer Council?” she asked Ben and Michaela.

“We will,” Michaela said and rose from the couch. “It's time we went home. You've got work in the morning.”