Daemon’s gut clenched with the tightness he’d felt when he first learned of his uncle’s death. Settling back against the couch, he attempted to release the tension in his spine and let go of the feeling of loss that swamped him all over again. “Tezra said Krustalus taunted her at the scene when Officer Stevens was murdered, but she was certain another vampire killed him.”
“It’s rare when serial killers work in pairs, but not unknown,” Maison said. “Also, Atreides told me Patrico identified Mustaphus as his hunter friend’s killer.”
“Lichorus said Mustaphus knew about the officer who was killed at Tezra’s apartment before anyone else did. If Mustaphus murdered him, it would stand to reason he killed the others.”
“But Uncle Solomon never spoke of Mustaphus,” Atreides argued. “If Mustaphus killed the policemen because they had murdered Uncle Solomon, he must have been a pretty close friend, don’t you agree, Daemon?”
“I agree. We need to discover if Uncle Solomon kept a journal among his effects. Have some of our men go through the boxes in my cellar—see if they can find anything.”
Soggy-eyed, Patrico dragged into the living room, combing his fingers through his tangled, shoulder-length hair. “I want a piece of him.”
Voltan lumbered behind him.
Ignoring the hunter’s comment, Daemon asked Maison, “Who did you speak to concerning the names of the police officers?”
“Chief O’Malley. He said when the officers killed your uncle it was a case of mistaken identity. They thought he was Mustaphus. Anonymous evidence was sent to the police department concerning the earlier killings and Mustaphus’s home address was given. Solomon was visiting while Mustaphus had gone on an errand. Maybe he knew the police were coming for him?”
“The bastard.”
“It’s possible he was fully aware of the situation.” Maison cleared his throat. “When the police arrived, Solomon opened the door to them. The chief said Mustaphus and Solomon were around the same age, both dark-haired, had dark brown eyes, same height and husky build. Solomon denied being Mustaphus, but the police officers believed he was the serial killer, trying to lie his way out of being terminated and knowing how dangerous an ancient could be, they took him down.”
Daemon shook his head, his temper building. “That’s not what the chief told us right after they killed Uncle Solomon. He said they’d gone to the wrong house, and he named some other vampire they were after—not Mustaphus. Someone we’d never heard of before. Since we could never locate the vampire, we assumed he had an alias.” He glanced at Patrico seated in a chair between the couches. “You wouldn’t happen to know who sent the police the anonymous information about Mustaphus, would you?”
Patrico’s brows furrowed. “I couldn’t let the bastard get away with any more murders. He never stopped, you know. He went after women who frequented bars, either alone or in pairs.”
“So you were the one who got our uncle killed,” Atreides growled.
“Hell,” Patrico said, waving his hand, “he shouldn’t have been friends with a serial killer.”
Atreides’s fangs extended, but Daemon held up his hand in warning. “Uncle Solomon wouldn’t have known about Mustaphus’s murders. You know how most serial killers operate. Their friends are often the last to know of their complicity in crimes such as these.” Daemon poured himself a glass of wine at the bar.
“When I asked about the policemen’s names, Chief O’Malley acted nervous,” Maison said. “When you spoke to him after your uncle was terminated, the chief’s explanation sounded reasonable. He was horrified by the mistake, probably because he feared retaliation. He would have done anything to bring your uncle back. But this time…” Maison lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t trust him. He shielded his thoughts from me. Filled his mind with police business unrelated to your uncle’s case, grocery lists, anything to keep me from learning the truth. So I used our form of persuasion and got the new answer.”
“I asked him at Cafferty’s Tavern if there was a connection between the vampire and his police officers, and he said no. Hell, I should have taken him with us and willed it out of him then, but in the ensuing fight he conveniently disappeared. So why was he protecting Mustaphus?” Daemon asked.
“Someone sent him death threats. Said they’d kill O’Malley’s family. The chief didn’t feel he had a choice,” Maison said.
“Put out the word that Mustaphus is to be eliminated on sight for the hunter named Fish’s murder. No need to involve the SCU in this one. If they learn he killed one of their hunters, no telling what the repercussions will be.”
Atreides turned his head and looked in the direction of the hallway leading to the bedrooms. Daemon followed his gaze. Tezra leaned against the doorframe, her hair tousled. The man’s black shirt she wore, probably from Patrico’s wardrobe, covered her to midthigh and looked pretty damned hot.
“The storm woke me.” She motioned to the crack in the front door where the wind continued to moan. “Then I heard a bunch of heated talking. Want to let me in on the secrets?”
Daemon poured another glass of wine and said to Maison, “I want the word to go out tonight.”
“You’ve got it.” Maison rose from the sofa, pulled on his trench coat and vanished.
“Voltan, return Patrico to bed.” Daemon crossed the floor to Tezra and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “I’ll protect you from the storm.”
She slipped the wine glass out of his hand. “This will help. But I want to know what was said.”
He lifted her in his arms. “I’ll tell you everything we know, but believe me, they’re not the kind of bedtime tales that will help you sleep.”
“If you have evidence concerning Krustalus and have put him on a termination list, it’ll help me sleep.”
She snuggled against Daemon’s chest, and he was overwhelmed with how good she felt.
Too good. And dangerous. But he never wanted to turn the one he loved to spend an eternity with her only to have to eliminate her shortly after their vampiric mating. Never again.
Chapter Twelve
In the middle of the night, Tezra touched Daemon’s chest, and he looked down at her. She seemed to be concerned about something. He certainly was.
“I want to know about Krustalus—when he approached you,” he said again, hoping this time she’d tell him the truth.
She sighed deeply.
“Tezra—”
“It was like…he only came to me when I…”
“Was defiant, broke the rules, became a rogue?”
She didn’t say anything, just continued to caress his chest with a light touch which was driving him mad. “Did he bite you, Tezra?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Bloody hell. Why wouldn’t you say so before?” Daemon wrapped his arms around her, but she stiffened in his embrace. “When did it happen?” He suspected the worst, but tried to keep his emotions from getting away from him.
She rubbed his arm, then looked away.
“A long time ago? Recently? When? Where?”
“What difference does it make?” she asked again, except her tone of voice sounded defeated this time, soft and vulnerable.
He tightened his hold on her but she seemed in a different world. “When did he bite you, Tezra? Tell me.”
She wouldn’t say, and he kissed the top of her head. “Tell me what happened.” He assumed she was reliving the memories, but when he attempted to read her mind, she kept him locked out.
“He came to you after your parents’ murders, didn’t he? He came to you when you were most vulnerable. Who took you in when Katie was admitted to the hospital?”
Tezra looked up at him, confused.
“Where did you live after your parents were murdered?”
She took a deep breath and looked away.
“You couldn’t have stayed with relatives?” he asked. He knew she lived in the home for troubled teens, but he wanted her to tell him the whole story in her own words
.
“I didn’t have any left. My aunt was killed on a hunt and though her lover wanted to take me in, the higher-ups at the SCU wouldn’t permit it.”
“Why not?” He touched her cheek, but she turned away from him.
“She wasn’t a blood relative.”
“Was she a huntress?”
“Yes.”
“So where did you go? Foster parents?” Which wouldn’t have made any sense since they wouldn’t have been blood relatives either, but he needed for her to tell him the truth.
She didn’t say.
“To an SCU home?” He’d heard rumors that they tried to create the perfect hunter corps—stripping the children of their emotions so they could take down renegade vampires without remorse.
She swallowed hard.
He wanted to lash out at anyone who was involved with confining her to the facility and the ill treatment she received afterwards, but he shifted to another tactic, hoping to gain her confidence. “When Atreides and I were thirteen, my mother died of a fever, and we went to live with our Uncle Solomon. He was a hard but fair man, and we cared deeply for him. But during a battle with the Turks, Uncle Solomon was taken prisoner and—” He took a deep, calming breath. It didn’t matter how many years he lived, he would never forget how terrified or isolated he’d felt.
“We’d always had a loving family’s support up until then. But when our uncle’s castle was besieged without him to lead his men, the castle finally fell and the Turks took Atreides and me prisoner along with a score of other men, including Maison and Voltan. We were confined in separate cells in a dungeon below a fortress. Imagine being immersed in the dark for days on end with the only sounds the squealing of rats scurrying across the cell floor and the groaning of fellow prisoners dying slow and hideous deaths.
“The rats carried the plague that changed us, you know. For a long time, I had no idea why I could hear the prison guards speaking on the other side of an iron door, or why I could suddenly see in the windowless cell below ground.”
He paused. Tezra seemed to be immersed in his story.
“I grew weaker from the wormy gruel they fed us, but one day in desperation, I caught and killed a rat. After that, I asked Atreides—in my mind—if he was all right. ‘I can’t make it much longer,’ he relayed to me. He sounded on the verge of death and something inside me snapped. I had to do anything I could to save him, to save myself. Somehow, I managed to coax the guard who brought the next meal into the cell. I felt no remorse. In an instant, he was dead. I didn’t even remember how he died, but just that he was standing one minute, the next he was lying lifeless on the floor.
“With the keys to the cells, I freed my brother, Voltan and Maison. Before long, we had freed all our men. We didn’t leave any of our captors alive. I knew either they died, or we did. The choice was as simple as that.”
“They…they couldn’t stop me either,” Tezra said, her voice whisper-soft, her head settling back on his chest.
Her touch was making him hot, but he squelched the rising lust for her and encouraged her to tell him what he wanted most to know—how intimate had Krustalus been with her? Was she his lover?
When she didn’t say anything further, Daemon prompted, “They?”
“The…SCU home where I lived. I…I had to see my sister. But—but they said I…upset her. And they—they locked me in a padded room without windows down beneath the home. I could smell the damp earth around me, but I could hear nothing but my own screaming, demanding to be let out of the tomb.”
She grew quiet, and he was about to ask her if she’d tried to run away when she said, “One of the caretakers invited him in.”
“Krustalus? Hell.”
“I didn’t know that was his name. I couldn’t see him for the dark. He tried to control me, to control my mind.” She looked up at Daemon. “Like you did. But he couldn’t either. Whereas you were frustrated, my fighting him and succeeding amused him.”
“He bit you while you were confined in the home’s basement?”
“I don’t remember.” When he didn’t conceal his disbelief, she scowled at him. “I don’t…remember. I would have, wouldn’t I?”
Daemon considered the situation for a moment, then said, “Normally if he didn’t want you to recall, he could wipe your mind of the incident. But since you can fight mind control, no. But what if the SCU staff drugged you? You might not have been able to keep your shield up. Or what about when you slept?”
She stared at him. “Did you get past my barriers when I was sleeping?”
He remained silent.
“What did you find out about me?”
“You were having a nightmare—a recollection of Krustalus’s threatening you and your response to him.”
“I don’t remember.”
Daemon nodded. “Which is why I think he bit you while you were sleeping or drugged, and you only vaguely recall the experience. Or maybe you’re repressing the memory. Did he only come to you the one time?”
“Several.”
Daemon swore under his breath. “Then in his mind, he has claimed you. And he really won’t like it that I took you under my protection.”
“Too bad.” She snuggled closer and wrapped her arm around Daemon’s chest. “Too damned bad.”
Daemon knew then he had to destroy the vampire at all costs before he had another taste of the huntress. Krustalus had claimed Tezra from the beginning, and he’d never give up wanting her.
***
Early the next morning, Daemon mysteriously slipped out of Patrico’s beach home without a word before Tezra woke, and no one would say where he’d gone. She couldn’t help thinking he was trying to solve the crimes without her, as weak as she’d been when he’d tried to transport her his way. Instead of being a help, she was nothing more than a hindrance, which curdled her blood. She fingered a cup of coffee while she sat at the glass-covered dining table and studied Katie seated across from her. Patrico made omelets while Atreides served up toast. She choked down another mouthful of coffee.
Voltan was nowhere in sight either, and she assumed he was serving as Daemon’s bodyguard, which didn’t help to alleviate her concerns.
The storm had abated but the steady ocean breeze blew against the house and lowered the temperature. Before she could ask Patrico where the thermostat was so she could turn on the heater, it flipped on.
She considered Cynthia Stevens’s words concerning her husband’s death—he’ll kill them all. Wanting to know if Cynthia knew anything more, Tezra left the table and lifted a handset from its stand. First, she called Mandy for Cynthia’s number since she didn’t have it on her, and then she called Cynthia.
“Hello, Cynthia? This is Tezra Campbell investigating—”
“Yes, yes, go ahead.”
Tezra glanced at Katie who stared at her blue and white striped placemat, sipping her coffee. Atreides was watching Tezra, and even Patrico glanced in her direction.
“You said he’d kill them all. Could you elaborate?” Tezra assumed they knew now it was Mustaphus who had killed the men for revenge because the police had murdered Daemon’s uncle. But she wanted final confirmation in any event.
“My—my husband was just doing what the chief told him to do. I warned him that he shouldn’t have gone. That the police department should have turned the job over to the SCU—let them handle a rogue vampire. Let them make the mistake and kill the wrong vampire. But nooo, he had to go along with what the rest of them were ordered to do. The chief wasn’t there. He didn’t have to pay the consequences for his actions.”
“Why didn’t the chief turn it over to the SCU?”
“The chief wanted to make a name for himself with the department. He wanted to prove that they could do more than just regular policing. He was sick and tired of the SCU acting as though they were superior—that only they had the ability to deal with a vampire threat. The chief’s feelings were infectious. Every man on the force felt the same way. But I think it went deeper wi
th the chief, and my husband knew something about it. He would never say though when I’d question him about it. It was almost like the chief had a personal vendetta against this Mustaphus and didn’t want to give up the kill to the SCU.”
“Because he had killed his police officers?”
“Something that affected him years before this.”
“But you don’t know what?”
“No, I’m sorry, Tezra. I wish I could be more help, but watch out where the chief is concerned. I don’t believe he’s to be trusted. And it’s more than just that he got my husband killed.”
“All right. Thanks so much for your help. I’ll call you later.”
She hung up the phone and said out loud, though not to anyone in particular, “I need to talk to Chief O’Malley.”
Atreides peered out the kitchen window. “You can ask Daemon when he returns.”
She didn’t need Daemon’s permission, dammit!
Unable to decide what to do about Katie either, Tezra felt at a loss. Shouldn’t Katie be in the hospital? Tezra couldn’t watch her twenty-four, seven like the staff there could. And if Daemon wasn’t going to turn her so she could help Katie, then she needed to return her to the facility. Yet she wavered about that too. Usually, she knew just what she wanted to do. See Katie, help Katie, find and prove a vampire was a rogue, notify the SCU that he or she needed to be terminated, locate and kill Krustalus.
Making love with a vampire—twice—was not part of her ordered way of life, and she still felt guilty for allowing herself any pleasure while Katie… She shook her head. She hated how indecisive she was concerning her sister.
She tapped her fingers on the table. “Do you have a car, Patrico?”
Atreides and Patrico looked at her, their expressions surprised.
“I…I should return Katie to Redding.” The lump in her throat grew. She didn’t want to return her to the hospital. Just having breakfast with her sister had brought a little sunshine into her life on the typical gray autumn day. But the SCU wanted to arrest Tezra, Krustalus taunted her at the most inopportune times, and well, there was no way she could physically care for Katie as much as she wanted to. She couldn’t take her on investigations, and she wouldn’t be safe home alone.