The Wild Side: Urban Fantasy with an Erotic Edge (2 page)

The management offices along the west wall had received the same attention the central cubicles had. Rank had no privileges.

He nodded toward the steel mount that had held one of the destroyed cameras and then to Detective Dave Graham, his partner. “Dave, see if they got anything.”

“On it.”

The two security guards had been found by the employees’ lunchroom. Before it had been destroyed, the lunchroom had probably been a pleasant enough place—pale brown walls, a fridge, toaster oven, microwave, kettle and two coffee makers. There’d been—Mike paused to count the pieces—six round tables, each with half a dozen comfortable chairs.

EMTs surrounded the survivor. Male, early twenties, black, six one or two, packing impressive muscle under the ruin of his uniform. Whoever had taken him down wouldn’t have had an easy time of it. He was already up on the gurney, strapped in with an IV working but his eyes were open so Mike moved to him first, hoping to get some kind of a statement before they moved him out.

He shifted his coat far enough to expose his badge. “Can you tell me what happened?”

The injured man’s eyes opened a little wider, far enough for Mike to see his pupils were dilated. He rolled his head over, exposing what looked like bite marks on the side of his throat, and sighed. “So easy to fall into the darkness.” Long fingers clutched at Mike’s wrist. “You know?”

“Duncan Riley. Twenty-four. And you’re not going to get anything coherent out of him.” The EMT waited as Mike gently extricated himself from Duncan Riley’s grip. “He’s been babbling off and on about the seductive darkness since we got here.”

He seemed to be off at the moment, staring at the ceiling, smiling at nothing. “Seductive?” Mike asked.

The EMT sighed. “That’s what he says.” She stepped away as one of her team checked the straps. “And the evidence points to it being literally seductive, if you catch my meaning.”

Mike blinked. “He was . . .”

“He definitely had sex with a woman at some time after his uniform was ripped off him.” She shrugged. “Professional opinion from eyeballing the equipment.”

Mentally, Duncan Riley was obviously not one hundred percent. “Physical condition?”

“All things considered, not too bad. His blood pressure’s way down and, given the way he reacts to touch, I’m guessing there’s going to be some bruising coming up along both arms.” Her tone was frankly appreciative of those arms.

“And the injury?”

“The injury? On his throat? No, it looks bad but there’s no bleeding so it’s got to be a couple of days old. Looks like he got into a fight with a big dog or something, doesn’t it?”

It didn’t actually. Mike had seen dog bites and this . . . wasn’t.

Mike had also seen enough to know there were other things it could be.

He watched as they rolled him away.

So easy to fall into the darkness. You know?

Yeah. He did.

The other guard—Chris Adams, male, white, mid-forties—was dead.

“Not a mark on him.” The coroner stood and dusted off his knees as his people moved in with the body bag. “At least not one that’d kill him. If I had to make an educated guess, I’d say heart attack. He just wasn’t up to what he walked in on.”

Had he walked in on Riley and the darkness?

“Why didn’t he push the panic button?” Mike wondered aloud. “Call in the police?”

Dave snorted, moving into place at Mike’s side. “Who calls the police because their partner’s getting some?”

“Point,” Mike admitted.

“Not that one woman did all this,” Dave continued. “And whoever did do it, they took out the security cameras first. They all show the same thing, a blur then nothing.” Dave pointed toward the camera nearest the door. “That one first. Then that one. Then this one here. This kind of total destruction looks like crazy people did it but no, they were thinking.”

“A blur?”

“Yeah. Like . . .” Dave grinned. “Like the Flash. Like evil Flash on a rampage.”

“You need to cut back on your caffeine.”

“You got a better idea?”

Mike glanced around at the ruin of Droege Shipping, then down at the body bag and sighed. “No.”

Over the last few years, he’d become a very good liar.

* * *

One moment she was dead to the world, the next Vicki was awake. She drew in a deep breath redolent with sex and blood and remembered.

The freedom of not holding back.

Of strength and speed and letting the Hunter run . . .

The sound of blood surging below the surface. The taste of salt licked from firm flesh. The feel of terror turning to desire.

She remembered seeing the security guard come through the door . . .

* * *

He hadn’t seen her yet; she wore the darkness like a cloak and she moved too fast for him to find, easily eluding the searching flashlight beam. Stepping out into the room, he tripped over a piece of the wreckage and swore, his voice a low rumble that rubbed against her like crushed velvet. As he reached for his radio, Vicki slid between him and escape, lightly running her fingers over the muscles of his broad back.

She ducked, his swinging fist passing over her head, and when they were face to face, she smiled, caught his gaze with hers, and had the darkness hold it.

His heartbeat quickened. His pulse throbbed at wrist and throat and temple and at the meeting of his thighs. She didn’t want terror, although terror had a flavor uniquely its own and it would take little effort to push his response toward it. She wanted the less primal, more personal response to her presence. She wanted to finish what she’d started in the club.

His name would make it faster to evoke a specific response but she didn’t want to know.

She wanted the heat and anonymity she’d left behind.

He was taller than the first young man. Built. With beautiful dark skin and eyes. And the seams of his cheap uniform parted so easily.

She pressed her face against the warm planes of his chest and breathed deeply. Taunting herself with his scent. Keeping the Hunger reigned in until she got everything else she wanted. When she looked up, he wrapped a hand around her cheek, his skin warm against hers. She caught his gaze again, her eyes silvered, and she let her desire draw up his.

“Say yes.”

He swallowed. She touched his throat, following the movement, then licked the sweat from the tips of her fingers. He exhaled, shakily, his breath smelling of mint and coffee.

“Say yes.”

“Yes.”

She slipped a hand behind his head as she took him to the floor, careful of her strength, careful not to damage him. His belt buckle jammed so she ripped the leather apart and threw it hard enough to sink it into the drywall.

When he bucked up under her, his rhythm gone, his fingers dimpling the flesh of her hips, she let the Hunger go. Curved her body over him, hands gripping his arms, and sank her teeth into his throat. Hot blood gushed into her mouth as he slammed up into her one final time. She drank without caring, drank her fill, drank until . . .

“What the hell is going on here?”

It was the Hunter who twisted in place to face him, lips drawn back off bloody teeth.

The second guard gasped, staggered, and fell, right hand clutching his left arm.

* * *

Vicki felt her hands curl into fists. “Son of a fucking bitch.”

Rage sizzled under her skin. Rage at the singer who’d used her. Rage at herself for being used. The wooden end of the packing crate splintered against the cinder block wall as she shoved it aside. Vicki had never been the icy cold anger type. Her anger burned and she only barely managed to keep it under control as she slid through the false wall and into Mike’s crawlspace.

Sunset came late enough this time of the year that he was home. Above her. In the kitchen.

She used his heartbeat—slow and steady, more familiar to her than her own—to find calm. Enough calm, at least, to allow her to get a handle on her emotions. By the time she’d showered in the basement bathroom and shrugged into the robe hanging on the back of the door, she’d managed to use the same techniques that hid the Hunter to bury the events of the night before. Bury them deeply enough that even Detective Sergeant Mike Celluci wouldn’t be able to find them.

Mike worked violent crimes; if this wasn’t his case, he’d have heard about it.

He’d know where the evidence pointed and at what.

Not who.

And Vicki intended to keep it that way.

He could know what vampires were capable of, he just couldn’t believe it of her.

Her clothing was in the master bedroom closet with his—because that’s what normal couples did and they fought to keep the line as close to normal as possible—but she could avoid the kitchen on her way through and delay facing him until she was dressed and ready.

To lie.

Hide the rage at being used. Hide the other emotions roiling about below that.

Show time.

“Any chance there’s another vampire in town?”

Vicki stopped and stared across the kitchen at Mike who watched her over the edge of his laptop, his expression completely police neutral. The question was a little more direct than she’d been expecting but infinitely preferable to what were you doing between midnight and four a.m. “Say what?”

“The offices of Droege Shipping were destroyed last night . . .”

“Destroyed as in blown up?”

He turned the computer around.

Vicki moved closer, frowned down at the pictures, and remembered strength and speed unchecked. “Messy. Explosives aren’t out of the question. Anyone hurt?” The logical question to ask. Cop question.

“One security guard dead. One”—Mike reached around and changed the screen—“used.”

She remembered the heat of his flesh under her mouth. Remembered the cry he’d given, caught somewhere between pain and pleasure. She hadn’t been careful. If not for the coagulant in her saliva, he’d have bled out when she pulled away.

“Vicki?”

She forced her lips down off her teeth and made sure she had her anger under control before she looked up. “I can see why you asked.”

“And?”

“I’ll look into it.”

He had a small scar on his inner thigh where she’d gotten a bit enthusiastic and a puckered ridge across one shoulder where she’d shot him, accidentally, in another life. He met her gaze, not fearlessly because Mike Celluci was no fool, but in the full and certain knowledge that he was in no personal danger. “A man died, Vicki, I’ll be looking into it too. You share what you find.”

Oh, she knew what she was going to find and she knew where to find it.

Mike sighed as the edge of the table cracked under her grip. He lifted his arm, then let it fall back, clearly reconsidering reaching out for her. “Vicki?”

“When I know something . . .” He wouldn’t believe a smile so she didn’t try one. “. . . you’ll know something.”

* * *

Mike sat at the kitchen table listening to Vicki’s car pull out of the driveway, his hands curled into fists. She’d always been a terrible liar. She was better now than she used to be, but then her condition gave her plenty of opportunity to practice.

Sometimes she forgot that while he couldn’t hear blood moving under the delicate skin of her wrist, he wasn’t deaf. He’d heard the crash when she opened the packing case. Heard the way she moved as she showered and dressed. She’d been furious from the moment the sunset had wakened her. Furious and trying to hide it from him.

Why?

She’d have told him if she’d known there was another vampire hunting in her territory.

What else could have gotten her so angry?

Vicki could have . . . was capable of . . .

He forced his hands flat on the kitchen table.

. . . was physically capable of doing the damage, all the damage, Droege Shipping and its employees had suffered last night.

* * *

Millennium Ten opened at nine. At eight-forty, Vicki ripped the lock off the back door, snarled, “Forget you saw me,” at the young man stacking cases of empties at the bottom of the stairs in the back hall, and made her way down the corridor to Lorelei’s dressing room. She could hear a familiar heartbeat, smell the sea, and had reached nearly full speed when she charged through the open door.

Only to be stopped by a single note that hung in the air like an invisible wall.

“Why so angry, Nightwalker? Didn’t you enjoy yourself?” Lorelei sat in the chair combing her hair. Same position she’d been sitting in the night before. Same comb. Same languid movements. The cuffs of her jeans were wet, the denim dark against the pale skin of her feet.

Vicki threw herself against the barrier. The seawater smell was stronger up against it. “A man died!”

“And you’re surprised?” Her brows rose. “Oh, don’t tell me; you’re one of those good vampires. Tortured. Tormented. Misunderstood. Sparkly. You’d have given that young man in the club last night a choice.”

“He’d made his choice,” Vicki growled, her eyes silvering.

“Did he know what he was choosing?” She laughed, unaffected by the Hunger as Vicki struggled to get closer. “You killed because that’s what you are. All I sent you to do was destroy the office.”

“Of Droege Shipping.”

“Yes.”

“What’s your connection to a shipping company?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.”

She paused the constant motion of the comb. “I suppose you do. Well, all right then. A long, long time ago . . .”

“How long?” Vicki demanded. She knew she should just let the woman talk but anger made it hard to keep silent.

Lorelei met Vicki’s gaze and Vicki found herself sinking into blue-green depths. Deeper. Deeper. This sea was confined but no less deadly for all of that. Anyone else would have drowned, but Vicki had the Hunger to pull her back to the surface.

“That long?”

“That long.” Lorelei’s grip tightened on the comb, her knuckles white. “Year after year after interminable year.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I had a lover once. He betrayed me. Heartbroken, I gave myself to the river and the river changed me, tied me to it with the curse of lost love. Still grieving, I sang.”