“If she and Krustalus had a thing going.” Daemon shrugged. “You said her husband is with the force also.”
“He ordered the hit on her? And the chief? Had he known too?” Not in a millennium would she have guessed the chief had been involved in his sister’s death. But it made sense. What had Mandy said? The chief wasn’t the same, not his old jolly self for months, way before the police officers were killed. And the business about the police officers and their private meeting in the coffee room that Mandy had witnessed? Now she wondered if the meeting had taken place before they killed Jane Cramer or afterwards.
Maison relayed, “The police department says there’s no record of this badge number. Must be a fake.”
“Speak with the chief,” Daemon ordered. “We’ve just learned the woman is his sister. Tell him we know how she died. Find out if he was involved in the killing or just the cover-up.”
With tenderness, Daemon rebuttoned Jane’s blouse and shook his head.
Tezra found a diary in the box and flipped to the final pages. William knows about me and Krustalus. He said he wouldn’t allow it. He said I’d hurt his reputation, his good name. That I didn’t deserve to live after what I’d done. I have to get in touch with Krustalus, but I haven’t been able to get word to him.
Two days later, the final entry said: Krustalus has made arrangements to meet me in the warehouse district after my shift ends Friday night. He insists I have to agree to being changed or he can’t protect me from my husband. He’s certain William will kill me if we don’t take the next step in our relationship. I love Krustalus more than I have ever loved anyone, but the idea of becoming a vampire…well, I just can’t see myself as one, and I’m still not sure I can handle what Krustalus expects of me. I swear he’s ready to get on bended knee and beg if I don’t agree readily enough. I’ve never known anyone who cares so much about me.
Tezra could sympathize with the woman not wanting to be changed, but she couldn’t imagine Krustalus being capable of loving anyone that much. “Something must have delayed him in meeting with her. No further entries were written after this.”
“Here are three police officer badges,” Atreides said, pulling them out of another box near the table.
Daemon considered the numbers. “Have Maison identify who they belonged to and verify with the chief that these were the hit men. Also, have Maison find out if her husband ordered the hit.”
“Why would Krustalus not kill her husband and the chief if they were involved?” Tezra asked.
“Sometimes letting the rabbits run scared gives more satisfaction than terminating them. The game is ended too quickly then,” Daemon said.
Atreides handed him a file. “Yeah, well, here’s all about the woman who wasn’t in their records. Jane Cramer, twenty-five, special investigations. Here’s a note in police records about her disappearance. ‘After searching for the whereabouts of missing police officer Jane Cramer, and no new leads, the case was closed.’ If you notice, it was signed by Chief O’Malley, who ten years later denies she ever was a police officer.”
“Then a year later, they said she committed suicide.” Sickened by what the police had done, Tezra took a deep breath.
“Have you seen enough here, Tezra?” Daemon asked.
She nodded, but Daemon seemed even more disturbed than she was, and she couldn’t imagine anyone being more upset than her.
“Take Tezra back to Patrico’s,” Daemon suddenly said, his voice hard. “Now, Atreides.”
Atreides seized Tezra by the waist, but before she could ask what was going on—though she assumed Krustalus had arrived nearby and she just hadn’t sensed him yet—she found herself in the black void of vampiric travel.
As soon as they reached Patrico’s beach house, the overturned sofas and sword slashes in the walls and furniture warned her of a vampire struggle. Her heart filled with panic, Tezra screamed, “Katie!”
Patrico groaned from behind one of the sofas, and she dashed to him while Atreides vanished. “Patrico!” His head sported a bloody gash, and he was favoring his left arm, his face grimacing with pain. “Where’s Katie?” she asked, then heard someone in one of the bedrooms.
Unsheathing her wrist blades, she dashed down the hall only to find Atreides searching the rooms. “They’re not here.”
“Voltan? The guards out back?”
Atreides shook his head. “No sign of anyone.”
She knew as well as he did that if the men were killed outside, their ashes would have scattered in the wind. Her heart beat so hard, but the blood seemed to drain from her brain, and feeling lightheaded, she grabbed Atreides’s arm. “Did Daemon know about this?”
“No.” Atreides led her back into the living room. “Take care of Patrico. I’ve got to get some other men here at once.”
“But…why did Daemon send us here?”
“Krustalus sent him word he was meeting him there for a final showdown. He wants you, and he came to fight Daemon for you.”
“It was a ruse, dammit.”
“No. He was there, maybe beyond your range, but there nonetheless.”
“He’s got Katie!”
“We’ll deal with it when we can. For now, you take care of—” Atreides turned his attention to the back porch. “Dammit. Stay here!” He vanished.
Tezra nearly quit breathing. She could deal with this. Racing into the kitchen, she grabbed a roll of paper towels, then hurried back into the living room. Patrico was mumbling something but barely making any sense.
“Voltan went with them. The traitorous bastard,” Patrico suddenly said, sounding more lucid.
“Voltan?”
As loyal as he was to Daemon, she didn’t believe it for a minute. To keep Katie safe? To play along?
“Why didn’t they kill you?”
Patrico’s eyes drifted.
“Patrico!” She pressed the towels against his forehead. “Why didn’t they kill you?”
“Krustalus’s people told me to tell you if you want Katie back, you’ll have to go to Krustalus alone,” he blurted.
Swords clashed outside, and she said, “Hold this against your head, Patrico. Hold on. We’ll get help soon.” Then she ran to the window, and her heart took a dive. Four vampires targeted Atreides, two slashing at him with swords, the other two waiting in reserve. He’d never make it. Dammit.
“Bernard!” she called telepathically. “We need help. Don’t distract Daemon if he’s fighting Krustalus. Krustalus’s minions have taken Katie and Voltan. The others must be dead. Patrico’s severely injured. Atreides is outnumbered. Have someone send help to Patrico’s place—four-oh-five Seabreeze, Seaside!”
Without waiting for a response, she grabbed a sword out of a stand near the back door and ran outside. One of the vampires turned and hissed at her. Atreides jabbed his sword into him, turning him into ashes that blew away in the stiff breeze, his clothes remaining behind in a pile on top of the sand. A redheaded vampire appeared next to her. Tezra sliced at his shoulder, and he cursed but seized her sword hand and teleported her away from the house. She swore at him, at Krustalus and the world for her mistake.
***
When her senses stopped swirling, Tezra found herself in a lighted cellar. The vampire who’d moved her here yanked the sword from her hand. Two others appeared, and when she attempted to use her wrist blade on the redhead, another came up behind her and grabbed her wrists and tsked. The smell of her father’s cologne assaulted her. Krustalus.
Sliding around her, the vampire was tall like Daemon, dark-haired and eyed, only his eyes appeared fathomless, daunting. She didn’t think any vampire could mesmerize her, yet he stole her thoughts, her speech. Krustalus wore blue jeans and a simple shirt. He’d blend in with the ordinary Joe on the street, except for the cleft in his chin the size of the Grand Canyon, and didn’t look like the devil incarnate.
“Krustalus,” she breathed, her heart racing, irritating her. She didn’t want the monster to know how scared she truly was o
f him.
“Tezra, sweet. You have come to me as I knew you would.”
He released her, and she lunged at him, her wrist blade aimed at his heart. He vanished. Unable to stop her forward motion, she slammed into a rack of wine. A sharp pain radiated through her left wrist.
A scrawny young male vampire laughed—his eyes as blue as Bernard’s and hair straw blond like Maison’s. “Krustalus has other business to take care of before he can have you, but know this, your actions are seen as sexual foreplay to the ancients. He’s the most controlled vampire I’ve ever known, but you nearly made him lose that restraint. That’s why he left instead of playing with you further. It’s nice to know he’s kind of human sometimes. Next time you attack him, if he’s done with his other business, he’ll not hesitate to make you his.”
Before she could respond with a huntress’s fatal retort, he and the others slammed her against the floor, nearly jarring her teeth loose from her head when it smacked against the concrete. Dazed, she couldn’t fight them when they grabbed her wrists and removed her blades, then just as quickly they vanished.
Sitting up, she rubbed the back of her head where a lump had already risen and pain streaked through her skull. Rising unsteadily to her feet, she considered her prison. The concrete block cellar was filled with several racks of wine bottles, similar to the one beneath Daemon’s home, except there was no bed.
Torn between feeling trapped and not allowing herself the emotion, she listened for any telepathic voices or any other communication, but heard none. She crossed the small room to the barred window and stared out at the ocean waves crashing endlessly against the rocky beach. Against one wall behind a row of wine bottles, she saw crates stamped with the name Clam Diggers.
If she could reach Bernard without distracting Daemon… “Bernard, I’ve been taken prisoner by Krustalus’s people, and I’m being held at…”
The door squeaked open, and she quietly waited for the next vampiric confrontation she was sure she’d have, her heart beating at twice its normal tempo.
“Join your sister,” a blonde-haired vampiress said with a sharp tongue, then whipped around and slammed the door shut, the lock clicking afterwards.
Tezra rushed forward and ran up the stairs to greet Katie. “Oh, Katie honey, are you all right?” Wrapping her arm around her trembling sister, Tezra led her downstairs and hugged her close, thankful she was unharmed for the moment.
Katie’s face was ghostly pale, but she looked like she was holding up otherwise.
But suddenly Katie squirmed free, reached under her sweater and pulled out a sheathed dagger.
Tezra couldn’t believe it. “Where the hell did you get that?” Shaking her head, she took the dagger and attached it to her own belt, the weapon giving her a modicum of hope. “Stay right here.” She moved Katie between the row of wine bottles and the crates.
Tezra seized one of the bottles and slammed it against the window, shattering the glass and the wine bottle. The noise was sure to alert the rogue vampires, but she had to do something to get her sister out of here.
Reaching through the shards of glass dripping with burgundy wine, she desperately attempted to move the bars cemented across the window, hoping that at least one of them was loose, but they didn’t budge.
Katie gasped and Tezra whipped around. Her heart dropped when she saw the tall, thin, black-haired vamp dressed in ebony leather standing near Katie, who was wearing a white sweater and jeans. The contrast made Tezra think of an angel and the devil.
“Lichorus.” Tezra barely breathed, assuming that’s who the vamp was. Tezra dashed between her and Katie, shielding her sister.
The vamp’s ebony eyes flashed in irritation. “Lichorus? Ha! She has Mustaphus for her lover though she still wants Daemon. I am Ionia, and I will have Krustalus.”
“Good for you. Release us, and you can have every bit of him.”
The vampire bared her wicked teeth. “For years he’s stalked you, wanting nothing more than to have you. A test of wills. The perfect conquest, so he has often related. Only I will kill you first.”
Tezra held the blade behind her back, waiting for the vampiress to draw closer, trying to reason with her. Diplomacy worked sometimes, but she doubted anything she said would convince this vamp not to touch her or Katie. “He’ll know you murdered me. Then he’ll finish you off.”
Ionia smiled, the look pure evil. “I will make sure Krustalus believes it was Lichorus who did the deed. Easy enough to do. She truly lusts for Daemon, and she hates you for stealing his heart.” She ran her tongue over her sharp fangs. “The only reason she hasn’t killed you before now is she fears Krustalus’s retribution. He’s not one to betray.” Ionia took a step forward.
“But Krustalus can read your mind. He can find out what truly happened.” At least Tezra assumed he could if the vamp let down her defenses.
The vamp stopped, twisted her head as if considering the notion, then gave a wicked smile. “I’m leaving evidence incriminating Lichorus, and he won’t bother to read my mind.”
Enough of diplomacy. “As if he’d trust you.”
Hissing, Ionia flew through the air at her.
Tezra pulled out the concealed dagger and for an instant, the vampiress looked surprised. Tezra thrust the blade at the vampiress’s chest, but it glanced off a rib.
Ionia screamed and retaliated, giving Tezra a vampiric shove, knocking her onto her back against the unforgiving concrete. Tezra dropped the dagger while pain radiated through her spine. Ionia gloated.
Feeling the bottom half of the broken bottle where she’d dropped it, Tezra grabbed it. She jumped to her feet and shoved it into the woman’s chest, desperate to kill her before the other vampires could come to her aid.
Clutching her bloodied chest, the vampiress howled. Tezra dove for the dagger on the floor nearby, her fingers gripping the blade’s leather handle. As soon as she had it in her grasp, she stood, but Ionia seized Tezra’s hair and yanked her backwards. Twisting around, Tezra jammed the hunter’s weapon between the vampiress’s ribs and into her heart before Ionia could react.
Ionia shrieked, then her body dissolved into ashes. Before Tezra could breathe a sigh of relief, four vampires appeared in front of her, all males bearing fangs, and all looking famished, especially the blue-eyed blond.
“You, we’re supposed to keep alive, but her,” he said, motioning to Katie, “she’s of no consequence.”
“No!” Tezra screamed and thrust her blade at the blond.
Chapter Thirteen
In the middle of the battle with Krustalus’s minions at the warehouse, Tezra’s telepathic voice reached out to Daemon.
“Dae…mon.” Her voice sounded weak, broken, desperate.
Tezra. His heart nearly stopped as his thoughts shifted to where she was supposed to be, safe with Atreides and Voltan at Patrico’s place with her sister. “Tezra, what’s happened?”
Silence.
Shit! Daemon’s blood pressure elevated, and he wanted to leave for Patrico’s house at once, but couldn’t abandon his people to fend for themselves without putting another ancient in charge.
“Bernard,” Tezra called out, not focusing her message.
Daemon glanced at the bulldog of a man who was fighting a vampire, their swords striking at each other, but Tezra’s communication distracted him. Daemon finished off the vampire he was fighting, then went to Bernard’s aid.
“What did you say to her, Bernard?” Daemon growled through clenched teeth.
“Nothing. Hell, she’s supposed to be safely at Patrico’s house, isn’t she?”
Daemon sent a message to Atreides. “Where the hell is Tezra?”
When his brother didn’t respond, Daemon forced himself to remain focused on the vampire danger in front of him. After getting the best of Krustalus with two wicked slices to his sword arm, but not terminating him like Daemon would have liked, the vampire had made a hasty retreat to lick his wounds somewhere else. But several of his minions,
though not turned by the earlier plague, were well over hundred years old and formidable enough.
“She’s all right, isn’t she?” Bernard asked, his tone murderous, and he sounded like he was ready to kill anyone, including Daemon, if he found Tezra was in danger.
“Maison, I need your assistance in the warehouse district, now,” Daemon transmitted to his friend. “Voltan, what the hell’s going on?”
No one responded, and Daemon felt he’d been dropped into a black void where none of his telepathic communication could be heard.
“Where are you, Tezra?” he asked again, trying not to sound as panicked as he felt.
“Daemon, I’m here at the warehouse now, but someone needs to invite me in,” Maison said, sounding frustrated.
“Come in, Maison.”
In a split second, Maison was swinging his sword at the dwindling number of renegade vampires. “What the hell’s happened?” he asked from between clenched teeth while he struck another vampire down.
Daemon fought one at his back. “Tezra’s supposed to be with Atreides and Voltan at Patrico’s home, but she called me and she sounded like she was in pain. I can’t get any response from either my brother or Voltan.”
“Hell, I’ll take care of this rabble and—”
“Daemon, your…your trust was misplaced.”
Daemon didn’t recognize the telepathic message and glanced at Maison to see if he did. He raised a brow, evidently not knowing who had spoken either.
“Musta—Mustaphus t-took Katie. And…” The man grew silent.
“Who the hell is this?” Daemon asked, thrusting his sword at one of the last of the vampires.
“Pat-rico. Voltan not—not only let him—him have her, he went with him.”
Shit! “What about Tezra? Atreides?”
Patrico didn’t respond.
Daemon stabbed the last of the vampires in the heart, then said, “We go to Patrico’s house, now.”
When they reached Patrico’s house, they found the place in a shambles, no sign of anyone except Patrico passed out on the floor, his head bleeding.