Tempted in the Night (27 page)

John checked his watch. It was almost
6:00 P.M.
now, so he hurriedly placed a call to the admiral. Mac answered the phone.

"John, you're alive," Mac said, actually sounding relieved. "What's your situation? Have you found Brody?"

"I found him, but he got away." John paused, wondering how best to proceed. "The situation here has changed."

"How so?"
He heard the sharp edge to Mac's voice.

"There's a cemetery here that is home to a colony of
chupacabras
and… there was an accident."

There was a pregnant pause before Mac finally spoke—a single word that spoke volumes.
"Who?"

"Me."

"I'm sorry. How are you now?"

How was he? Confused? Pissed off? Frustrated? But none of that really had anything to do with nearly being killed by a
chupacabra
. "I'm fine."

"And Jessica?"

"She's fine, too, for now."

"Brody?"

"I'll take care of him."

"You sure?
I can be down there in a couple of hours," Mac offered.

"Did you get your situation there resolved?"

He heard Mac sigh. "No, but it shouldn't be much longer."

"Stay there and finish," John told him. "I've got this." He could practically hear the other man thinking, and so he hurried to reassure him. "I'm a Night Slayer now—
isn't
that what Charles called you and Dirk? I'll find Brody, and when I do, this time I won't be stopped by a legal technicality." He paused, wondering how to broach his next topic. "There is something you can help me with, though. Tell me what you know about being a changeling—everything—especially how it affects your relationship with
Lanie
."

"Why would you need to know about me and
Lanie
…
oh.
You and Jess?"
He chuckled. "No shit."

For the next twenty minutes, Mac told him about the enhanced physical abilities that came with being a changeling. Most of them John had already figured out. He'd also known about the fatigue that came with daylight, though Mac seemed unable to explain the reason for it. He remembered the
chupacabras
he'd seen during the day and images of his internal organs and blood thickening as if they were trying to turn to stone filled his head.

Mac also told him about taking blood. "It has to be freely given," Mac warned him. "You should never take it by force."

"Not that I would," John said, "but why?"

"To be honest, I don't exactly know. There's a lot of this that can be explained by science and logic. Hell, probably all of it can. I was a pilot in my other life, not a scientist. All I know is that getting blood that is freely offered is like getting a boost of miracle cure. Not only will it cure what ails you, but you'll be high on life for a while; full of energy; feeling invincible."

"Do you drink blood often?"

"No. Most of the time, it's… uh… recreational." It took John a moment to realize that he was talking about when he and
Lanie
made love. "But I found that it keeps me up during the day, so I don't take blood that often anymore."

"Did it bother
Lanie
?
You biting
her?"

"No. She said it's different than a vampire's bite."

They talked a few minutes longer and then hung up. That's when John caught the
odor
of cooking food and realized how hungry he was. He went down to the kitchen, feeling as nervous as a schoolboy facing the parents of his prom date the morning after.

He found Jess standing over the stove and cleared his throat, not wanting to startle her.

"Oh, good morning—or evening, I guess," she stammered, sounding as uncomfortable as he felt. "Are you hungry?" She hurried on. "I made extra food, just in case, you know—" She shrugged. "In case you were hungry."

"Thanks. I
am
hungry." She was wearing ordinary jeans and an oversized button-down shirt, but damn, she looked good. His body remembered all too well holding her, kissing her, being inside her.

Suddenly restless, he crossed to the cabinet and got down plates. "How are you feeling?" He'd meant, how was she feeling after Brody's attack, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he realized he also meant about what happened between them. He needed to know that he hadn't hurt her in any way.

He turned to see her face when she answered. It was the only way to know if she was telling him the truth or not.

"I'm fine—really," she added, sensing he wasn't convinced. "In fact, I feel well enough to go back to the cemetery tonight."

He was shaking his head before she finished. "Not such a good idea. Brody's still out there, though he's no longer using the manor as his lair."

"How do you know?"

"I called Harris last night while you were in the shower and asked him to check it out."

"Harris has a cell phone?" She sounded incredulous.

"I put him on my plan. I figured it was well worth the extra expense to keep in touch with him. Anyway," he said, scowling at her, "back to the point I was making. The house is empty. Now that we know Brody was staying there, he's not likely to go back."

"And the bodies?"

"Bodies?
Plural?" He gave her a curious look. "Harris only mentioned one—white male, approximately thirty-five years old, dark hair. He was lying in the formal living room."

Jess was already shaking her head. "No, no. There was a woman there, too. What happened to her?"

"Harris never said anything about a woman."

She glanced at her watch. "We still have about thirty minutes of sunlight. I want to go back and take a look around."

John gave her a long, hard look, but then he nodded. "Okay, let's go."

Carrying both her backpack and the sword for her, they set off for the other house by way of the cemetery. As they passed it, Jess made a cursory search for the pregnant
chupacabra
, but it was hard to differentiate one creature from the next.
When they walked by the spot where the male creature had died the other night, her eyes lingered on his still,
granitelike
form.

Then they moved into the woods and Jess turned her attention toward the mansion. When it finally came into view, she thought that the place looked warmer and friendlier than it had yesterday under the overcast skies.

Still, when it came time to open the door and go inside, she hesitated. The images of the bodies and her name scrawled across the wall were too fresh in her mind. To her immense relief, John opened the door and went inside first.

Harris hadn't bothered to close the drapes when he left, and there was enough sunlight filtering in through the windows that any lurking vampire would have been turned to stone.

She braced herself to face the bloody writing on the walls and stepped into the formal living room. To her surprise, the walls were clean. She was grudgingly grateful to Harris for that small act of kindness.

It didn't take long to tell the room was empty. She walked the perimeter of it anyway, looking for some evidence that there
had
been another victim.

"The woman's body was right there." She pointed to the corner.

"Were the drapes open or closed when you were here?"

She knew where he was going with his question. "I opened the drapes, and even though it was overcast outside, it wasn't that dark. There were two bodies in this room—one there and one there." She pointed to each corner as if that would make things clearer. "Maybe Harris didn't want to tell you about the female because he's lonely and wants female vampire companionship."

"No, Harris wouldn't do that."

"How do you know?" She wished she could trust Harris like John did, but it still bothered her that he had tried to kill Mac and
Lanie
.

"I just do."

His blind faith frustrated her, so she walked out of the room and into the next, wanting to inspect the entire house while John was there with her. She wandered from room to room, flipping on the flashlight she'd brought with her as the sun slowly set outside.

"It was a great old home once, wasn't it?" she said, sounding dreamy as she imagined what it must have looked like a hundred years ago. "I wonder what it would take to fix it
up?
"

John turned to stare at her. "You're not seriously thinking of buying this place, are you?"

She gave him a defiant look. "Maybe I am." Moving to the States would be a big change—but the
chupacabras
were here, and she wanted to study them.

Lost in thought, she'd wandered from the sitting room into the kitchen and was casually walking around, running her finger along the countertops, imagining how her things would look in there, when her finger touched something. Shining the beam of her flashlight down, she saw that a business card had been left on the counter.

She picked it up. "This is her!" She stared at the photograph of a dark-haired woman.
"Clara Parker, with Southern Bayou Real Estate Agency.
She must have been showing the house to the man."

John took the card from her and studied it. "This doesn't prove that the body you saw was her."

"It's her, I know it. They must have come out the other evening to look at the house. Brody woke up and killed them both."

"As far as theories go, it's plausible," John admitted. "But I don't think Harris lied about finding only one body. And where's her car?"

"Her car?"

"Yeah.
They didn't walk out here."

"Would Brody have taken it?"

John shrugged. "Hell if I know, but if you're right, then we've got another vampire loose in the area. I wonder how many this makes."

No less than fifty vampires filled the old warehouse. Harris wandered among them, unnoticed in the crowd, hoping to find out as much about them as he could.

It had been sheer luck that he'd found this group. After leaving the cemetery the night before, he'd gone back into
New Orleans
and wandered the streets until dawn, searching for a vampire but finding none. Tonight, he'd done the same thing, only this time, he'd gotten lucky.

He'd picked up the focused thoughts of another Prime in the area. Luckily for him, the thoughts had revolved around finding the very warehouse he now stood in.

He'd counted fifteen Primes in the group. The rest of the vampires were second- and third-generation Progeny in various stages of regression.

The fact that there were other vampires in the area wasn't a surprise to Harris, but he found the sheer number of them unexpected—and daunting. His first thought had been to call John, but then he thought a little reconnaissance might be beneficial.

"You're new here," a male said as he approached, eyeing him with the intelligence of a Prime.

"Yeah.
I'm from out of town," Harris replied, deciding it would be better to stick to the truth as much as possible.

The other man looked surprised. "I didn't know there were any of us outside
New Orleans
."

"We don't have anywhere near the numbers you have."

The Prime smiled and flashed his fangs. "We've got Hurricane Katrina to thank for that. Those of us who stayed behind when the hurricane hit soon found ourselves starving, with no help coming, so we went hunting for our own food. It was easier to hunt at night, when it wasn't so hot, but even then, most of the livestock had either run off or been killed. Then a couple of us found the gargoyle-looking creatures. We'd never seen anything like them, but starving people aren't too picky, and we were determined to eat. That was our mistake."

He shook his head. "I'm not sure how we managed to sneak up on the two creatures, but we did. Brought them back to camp, still alive—we were going to have us an old-fashioned pig roast. We had the fires lit and were trying to figure out how to kill them when all hell broke loose. The creatures went berserk and started attacking us. And it wasn't just those two. Suddenly, the sky was filled with more of those creatures. In less than twenty minutes, it was all over—literally. We were all dead."

"Two days later, you woke up." Harris made it a statement.

"You got it. Sixteen of us—we all woke up with a gnawing hunger and no idea of what had happened. We turned on each other but soon realized that wasn't going to work. Max
Caine
—the guy over there with the dark hair and scar along the side of his cheek?—decided we needed to get organized. He's a former inmate. He and a few of his buddies escaped when the prison evacuated for the hurricane."

Harris glanced across the opening to check out the man that the Prime had indicated. His arms were muscular and covered with tattoos. Running down his left cheek was a jagged scar. He was busy talking to several other vampires at the moment, but Harris made a mental note to keep an eye on this one. "So
Caine
took over?"