Part 7 (1/2)

He sighed, shaking his head. ”I met Lydia the first time I picked her up for soliciting. I was a rookie, and she couldn't have been more than eighteen. I must have brought her in a dozen times over the years before she finally got herself straightened out. I didn't know Kimbra as well. But the two of them met on the streets, became best friends and helped each other start over.”

”That's the partner? The other half of the dynamic duo?”

He nodded. ”They got legitimate jobs, took cla.s.ses, and once they had themselves taken care of, they reached back down to help other girls like them. I think they'd both spent some time at Haven House before they took it over. Anyway, none of that matters right now.”

”Of course it matters. Just how close are you to this Lydia person, Lou?”

He sent her a look she rarely saw on him. An angry one that told her very clearly that she was crossing some unseen, unspoken boundary line and that she'd d.a.m.n well better back off.

She sighed and looked away.

”Kimbra Sykes is dead. Murdered. And Lydia has somehow got it into her head that some kind of supernatural forces were involved.”

Maxine was unimpressed. ”Did a lot of drugs while she was turning tricks, did she?”

”No. But she's always been incredibly superst.i.tious.”

She wanted to ask him why the h.e.l.l he thought she should care how superst.i.tious this ex-wh.o.r.e might be. She hated the woman. Instantly, automatically hated her. ”So what makes you think I can do anything to help her?”

He put a hand on her shoulder. ”Max, have I done something to make you mad at me?”

”No.” She didn't even look at him as she spoke.

”Well then, how come you're sitting there puckered up like a prune?” He only sighed when she refused to answer. Then he shook his head. ”I just thought that-h.e.l.l, you know all about this kind of stuff. Remember that woman who thought her house was haunted, and how she hired that Internet ghost-buster to come clear it out for her?”

”And it turned out he was the one haunting it? Yeah, I remember.”

”You knew. You knew right off the bat it was a hoax. And you were able to convince that woman, mostly because you knew so much about the subject. You went in there telling her that a real ghost would never behave the way hers was-remember? Had her eating out of your hand!”

She shrugged, warming just a little at his praise. ”I'm pretty good when I know my subject.”

”And you know this subject You and your skeptical mind, always having to dig into anything you come upon that doesn't seem quite right Learn all you can about it and then proceed to debunk it.”

She shrugged. ”It's not that I don't believe in the paranormal. I just know that ninety-nine percent of the ghosts, goblins, psychics and channelers out there are con artists. I believe what I can see with my own eyes, not what people tell me. And even when I see it with my own eyes, I don't believe much of what the government or any other authority figure tells me. If that makes me a skeptic, then I'm a skeptic.”

”You're a skeptic.”

She shrugged. ”I still don't see what you want me to do for your... friend.”

”I want you to convince her that her best friend was not murdered by a vampire.”

Maxine's head came up very slowly. She met his eyes, looking for the hint of humor that would tell her he was joking. But it wasn't there.

”Vampire?”

”Yeah. Is that the craziest freaking thing you've ever heard or what?”

She nodded vaguely, but in her mind, she was back at that burned-out building, five years ago, with the soldiers, the lights. h.e.l.l. She had always known it would come back to haunt her. She knew things she shouldn't know. Things no one should know.

”When can I meet this Lydia person?”

”Then you'll do it?” he asked.

She met his eyes, swallowed hard. ”For you? Sure, Lou. You know I can't say no to you. I just wish you'd get around to asking me for something a little more fun.”

He laughed uneasily, patted her on the head and looked away. Then he started the car up again and drove her back home.

Chapter 7.

*Dante woke in the sour-tasting darkness of his tomb and looked around, seeing everything.

It wasn't really a tomb. Not exactly, though all it would need to make it mirror one was a rotting corpse or two. The square concrete room was large, windowless, airless. Down here, one inhaled stagnant dankness and mold rather than oxygen. The subterranean room held only a handful of items: a kerosene lantern on a rickety old table and a coffin. And while he found sleeping in the thing to be a laughable cliche, it had its advantages. First and foremost, it would discourage anyone who might somehow find his way in here. Anyone other than a vampire hunter, that was. Secondly, coffins were built to last This one was as well preserved as it had been when he'd been here last. The padding inside was still soft and intact, if a little less-than-fresh smelling. It sat on a bier that was a rectangle of concrete, rising up from the floor. Built for just that purpose, the bier was the third advantage. Hollow inside, it led to a secondary tunnel. He had never yet needed to use the trap door in the bottom of the coffin, but it was good to know it was there, should he need it.

This place was secure. Safe. But it had never been meant for habitation. It was a last resort, nothing more. That he had been forced to retreat to this place should only spur him to take action that much sooner.

He needed to learn who these new vampire hunters were, where they were getting their information. He needed to stop them.

Smoothing the wrinkles from his clothes, he glanced just once at the cement spiral steps that led up to a solid ceiling. There was a hinged doorway in the floor there, completely invisible from above. But when he'd opened it, curious to see what the woman had done to his house, he'd found a wooden barrier. Someone had apparently laid a new hardwood floor over the old one in his study. Oh, he could have smashed through it easily enough, but announcing his presence was the last thing he had in mind.

Bad enough she had glimpsed him that first night, just before dawn.

Looked right at him and whispered his name. He'd heard her clearly, despite the distance. His senses were honed by centuries of immortality and, he thought, blood drinking. Living blood was raw power to his kind.

She had said his name. And he'd heard her, physically heard her, but also heard her mentally. He had felt that whisper echoing within his mind. And he'd felt the intense yearning that had been wrapped around it. He had even felt an answering tug at his own heart, and yet that made no sense. He didn't even know the woman. But she, apparently, knew him.

He wondered about that. It ate at him. Had she seen his name on some stray sc.r.a.p of paper that had been left lying around the house? It wasn't on the deed-he'd used a false name then.

And if she had simply seen his name somewhere, that did not explain how she could connect that name to the stranger she had glimpsed standing on the sh.o.r.e in the dead of night. She had recognized him. How that could be, he didn't know.

She was one of the Chosen, those few special mortals with the rare Belladonna Antigen in their blood. The same antigen all vampires shared. They were the only mortals who could be successfully transformed. And they drew his kind like magnets. Many vampires found honor in watching over the Chosen. Protecting them. To Dante's way of thinking, that was foolhardy in the extreme. Being drawn to mortals, caring for them in the least, would only make a vampire vulnerable, weak. It was said that it was nearly impossible for a vampire to harm one of them, unless he were insane or mad with pa.s.sion. The bloodl.u.s.t, perhaps.

He knew he had to find out all of that and more about the woman in his house. Despite the fact that he felt, already, that legendary attraction between her kind and his. He could fight that. It was information he needed from her.

She probably didn't even know about the antigen in her blood that made her different from other mortals. He didn't know much about it himself, except that all vampires shared it. And that there was a psychic attraction between mortals with the antigen and the vampires who could smell it on them like a perfume.

He smelled it now!

Footsteps padded across the floor over his head, and Dante looked up sharply, listening. It was her. He felt her. Her feet were either bare or clad only in something soft, socks or stockings or thin cloth slippers. She stopped walking, stood in place. Right in front of the fireplace, if the fireplace were even still there.

Unable to resist, Dante moved directly beneath the spot where she stood and lifted his arms over his head. He pressed his palms to the ceiling, closed his eyes and opened his mind.

Morgan leaned over to turn the k.n.o.b on the gas fireplace. It flared to life, and she stood there for a moment, admiring the flames. And then, suddenly, the bottom dropped out of her stomach. The blood seemed to drain from her head, and a rush of s.h.i.+vering cold shot up her spine.

She braced her hands on the mantle, leaned forward and dragged in one ragged breath after another. ”What the h.e.l.l was that?” she whispered.

Then she went very still and lifted her head slowly. Blinking, she turned and glanced behind her. ”Who's there?”