Riley Jensen 06 - The Darkest Kiss Part 7

The thick smell of wrongness and vampire rushed out, overwhelming my senses and making me want to gag. Or maybe that was a reaction to the sight before me.

A naked man hung from a ceiling rafter-not from his neck but from rope around his wrists. Rope as b.l.o.o.d.y as his shredded back and b.u.t.t.

The man causing all the damage was the source of both the vampire scent and the wrongness. And his scent was one I recognized.

"I told you-" he began, as he swung around, then stopped. His expression changed from one of annoyance to surprise, then, without the barest flicker in his bloodshot brown eyes to warn me, he turned and bolted for a doorway at the rear of the living room.

I sprinted after him, the smell of blood, sweat, and fear heavy in my nostrils as I ran past the naked man. The wrong - smelling vamp had disappeared into what looked like a bedroom.

I ran into the room just in time to see him leap for the window. Gla.s.s shattered, spraying outward into the night as he plunged through and down.

The drop wouldn't kill a vamp. It might damage him, but vamps were a resilient lot. Unfortunately, in this case.

I cursed and spun around. I might be able to take a seagull's shape, but hitting the ground from the height of a fourth-floor window would be a h.e.l.l of a lot harder than hitting it from the top branches of a tree. And while I had flown briefly -and successfully-today, I didn't feel like putting my life on the line to test out my new-found skills. As I ran past the bloodied and still- bound Ivan, I said, "He's running. I'll be back in a minute."

"Wait," he said, voice hoa.r.s.e. "Wait-"

I didn't. The vamps out in the corridor had drawn closer, perhaps lured by the sharper scent of blood.

"Touch him and you all pay the price!" I dragged my badge out of my pocket again and thrust it in front of me. I didn't know if it would actually help, and I couldn't afford to hang around and find out. Not if I wanted to stop the vamp.

Because a vamp willing to go to such extremes of torture before tasting his victim's blood was a vamp who would not stop at just one victim.

Once upon a time, I might have taken care of the living before chasing after the dead, but I 'd learned the hard way that such actions generally only resulted in more deaths-and I had enough of those on my conscience right now.

I just had to hope the vamps in this building feared the Directorate more than they wanted to taste Ivan's blood.

I pounded down the stairs and out the shattered gla.s.s doors. Even against the thick reek of vampire that clung to the night, the odd scent of my quarry was easy enough to pick up. I raced across the barren ground of what once might have been a playground, and out onto the street. The vamp was nowhere to be seen, but his scent pulled me on.

"Sal, the vamp is on the run." Headlights swept across the darkness, tearing away the shadows. The vamp became briefly visible-stringy hair flying, his legs almost a blur, arms pumping. "He's about half a block ahead of me. If Talvin's near, can you call him in as backup?"

"Will do."

The car moved past, the headlights sweeping onto me. I threw up a hand to protect my eyes and kept on running. I was getting closer. Slowly but surely.

He swung right into a side street. I reached for more speed, not wanting him out of my sight for long, and felt the twinge of protest in my bruised and battered leg muscles.

I ran into the side street. The rich smell of barbequing meat filled the night, making my mouth water. The vampire was nowhere to be seen, but his lingering scent suggested he'd crossed the road and wasn't that far ahead. I flicked to infrared, and realized the strength of the scent was misleading. His body was a fading blur up ahead. f.u.c.k, he was fast.

I upped my own speed again, and the twinges in my legs became outright pain. I ignored them and ran on.

The vamp swung left into another side street. It was almost thirty seconds later before I skidded around the corner. Who'd have thought a vampire with such skinny little legs could have so much sustained speed?

Under the glow of infrared, the street was empty of life. I frowned, looking left and right, seeing the glimpses of life in the houses along either side of the street, but nothing that indicated my would-be murderous vampire was anywhere near.

I couldn't have just lost him. No vampire could move that fast.

Yet his scent was not only fading fast, but dispersing in all directions. As if he 'd stopped, and something had scattered the smell of him.

I looked upward. No vampire in the nearby trees, no unusual shape in the sky. Not that vampires could actually fly-not unless they'd been a bird-shifter in life, anyway.

Though with the sheer wrongness of his scent overwhelming everything else, it was possible for me to have missed the scent of shifter on him.

But if he was a bird-shifter, why hadn't he taken flight when he'd jumped out the window? He could have gotten away much easier and cleaner. Unless his intention all along had been to drag me far enough away so he could go back and finish what he'd started?

"Sal," I said, as I turned and ran back as fast as my aching legs would allow. "My target has flown the coop and I've lost him."

"Well, s.h.i.t, Riley, that's slack."

No doubting that. "He's five ten, gaunt build, with brown eyes and stringy hair. Can you put out a bulletin? I 've got a bleeder in an apartment block of vamps to attend to. Send an ambulance ASAP."

"What about Talvin?"

"Can you ask him to patrol the building's grounds? Just in case our rogue decides to return?"

"Will do."

The graffiti-strewn building felt no safer going in the second time than it had the first. The vamps still hovered, their hunger stinging the air.

At least there was no sense of a feeding frenzy. No overwhelming aroma of blood filling the air.

I pounded back up the stairs, wondering if I was even going to be able to walk tomorrow after everything my poor muscles had been through today.

The vamps on the fourth floor had stayed back, as ordered. I slowed as I neared the end apartment again, my breathing short, sharp gasps that filled the air. I raised an arm to swipe at the sweat trickling down my cheeks and entered the apartment.

Ben's bloodied friend still hung by his wrists, and the odd-smelling vampire was nowhere nearby. Relief filtered through me.

For once, fate hadn't chucked me a curveball.

"Please," he croaked, "get me down."

"There's a knife in the kitchen?"

He shook his head, sending droplets of blood flying from the cut on his cheek. "Not strong enough. Bedroom."

I raised an eyebrow, though given his living arrangements, I guess it wasn't such a bad idea. Personally, I'd be keeping a few handy stakes within reaching distance, too.

I found several large hunting knives in the bedside table, along with several smaller throwing knives. I picked the biggest and headed back out.

To find we were no longer alone.

"f.u.c.k," Ben said, his expression both shocked and angry as he stopped just inside the doorway. "I didn't expect this."

"No," I agreed. I waved the knife in the direction of his friend. "You want to support his weight while I cut him down?"

He moved forward quickly, his big arms going around the waist of his smaller friend and taking the weight off Ivan 's torn and b.l.o.o.d.y wrists.

Ivan groaned, though I wasn't sure whether it was in relief or pain. I dragged a kitchen chair up to them both and climbed up.

"There's an ambulance coming. It should only be a few minutes."

"Good," Ben muttered. "But what about the vamp who did this?"

"Lost him."

"s.h.i.t."

"Putting it politely, yes."

I raised the knife and began to cut. The blade was razor sharp, and sliced through the thickly twined layers of rope with little effort. Ivan didn't say anything, and his gaze seemed a little unfocused. Maybe shock was starting to set in, either through blood loss or the sheer trauma of what he'd been through. His body had been shredded front and back, the rents jagged and uneven. No knife had caused them, that's for sure.

The last of the rope strands gave way. Ben carried his friend over to the ratty-looking sofa and gently put him down. Ivan hissed, his expression contorting with pain.

"Sorry, mate," Ben said, then looked at me. "You think he's going into shock?"

"Yeah." I glanced at my watch. "The ambulance shouldn't be far, but maybe we should give him some water to sip. If it's the blood loss causing the shock, we need to replace some of his fluids."

"I'll go get some." He rose and walked past me, smelling of blood and anger.

I knelt down in front of Ivan. He didn't react, so I touched his swollen fingers. He jumped, and his gaze swung to mine, momentarily filled with fear before he realized who it was and that he was still safe.

"I need to know what happened," I said softly.

He licked his lips and swallowed heavily. "He came in about an hour ago. Said he needed to talk."

"So you know him?"

He shook his head. "But he looked vaguely familiar, and Vinny had cleared him, so I thought he'd be fine."

I frowned. "Who's Vinny?"

"The head of the vampire group living here," Ben said, as he came back into the room. He squatted down beside me, the heat of him rolling over me, thick with the scent of barely controlled anger. He dribbled some water onto Ivan's lips, then looked at me. "Ivan's undergone the blood ceremony to become a vampire, which is why he's living here with Vinny and the vamps."

Confusion swirled through me. "Taking the ceremony doesn't mean he's going to die straightaway. Not unless he intends suicide."

And I very much doubt that had been his intent here. He wouldn't have called Ben for help, if that were the case.

"He's got cancer. Inoperable. He's been given a year to live, at most."

"Ah." At least that explained his living arrangements. It made sense to be close to his maker if he went sooner than expected. I glanced at Ivan. "So Vinny might know who the vampire is?"

He closed his eyes, took a shuddery breath, then whispered, "I don't know. But there was no intervention."

And that was the cruncher.

The majority of vamps tended to be protective of their young-or soon-to-be young-at least until they were old enough to control the bloodl.u.s.t and know the tricks of the trade, so to speak. They had to be, because the Directorate held them accountable for their young's actions. It was only once they had a handle on being a vampire that the young were let loose into the big wide world. Vampires tended to be territorial, and two fully grown vamps generally couldn't live together. Which made what was going on here a whole lot stranger. They simply couldn't be all young ones. No vampire alive could control this many young.

Or so I'd thought.

Ben gave Ivan a few more drops of water. I waited until he'd swallowed, then asked, "Why did you invite him over the threshold if you didn't know him?"

"Because he went through Vinny. I thought he was okay."

Seems Vinny had a few answers to provide. And maybe it was Vinny, rather than my badge, that had kept the younger vamps at bay. Which meant, given the number of vampires living in this old building, he had to be fairly powerful.

But it was interesting that our rogue vamp had known enough about this building and its occupants to go through the protocol. Unlike me, who'd just charged in.

Of course, that's what we guardians were supposed to do. Charge into places the dead feared to tread. Lucky us.

"Has Vinny got a last name?"

"Castillo."

Hopefully, Sal hadn't become bored by proceedings and was now doing a check to see what we had on one Vincent Castillo.

"Did your attacker say what he wanted to talk about?"

"No, he just started attacking, telling me he'd make me pay for hurting him."

I raised my eyebrows. "So you do know him?"

"No. He was f.u.c.king crazy. I've never seen him before in my life, I swear."

I could sense no lie in his words, but that didn't mean there wasn't. I mean, why would a vamp go to so much trouble to get in here just to attack a complete stranger?

"So if he attacked you straightaway, when did you get the chance to call Ben?"

He closed his eyes. "I didn't."

I looked at Ben, who said, "Maybe the shock and blood loss is affecting his memory."

Maybe. And maybe he was telling the truth and something strange was going on.

Footsteps echoed down the hall, and as I looked toward the doorway, a voice said, "Ambulance officers. Who needs the help?"

"Down here," I shouted.

The footsteps drew closer, and a second later two men appeared. "Well, that was a hairy experience," the first man said.

"Never been in a place where so many vamps haunted the shadows." He glanced at Ivan and clicked his tongue. "The vamps do this?"

"No. They just didn't stop it."

"Vamps tend to be like that," he said philosophically. "It's all about their needs, not others'."

And that, I thought, as I rose to get out of his way, was the best summation I'd heard of vamps in quite a while.

I followed Ben across the living room. He crossed his bare arms, his blue T-shirt straining across his chest as he leaned a shoulder against the wall. He must have left the bike leathers at home in his haste to get here, but the T and the jeans were a d.a.m.n fine look.