Absolution (5 page)

He threw his bag on the living room sofa and walked to the front door, swinging it open but blocking the view inside. “Verandah, lovely to see you.”

She stood on the low, broad front porch that spanned half the house, looking out over the dark lawn. “Lovely to see you too, Willy Wonka.” Randa turned and gave him a blatant going-over, her hazel-eyed gaze pausing on the shoulder holster. “Something I need to know about?”

Like he was sharing anything with this witch? “Nope, just going for a drive. See you later.”

He began closing the door, but she pushed her way in, honing in immediately on the overnight bag. “I knew it. You’ve figured out where Mirren is and are going after him. I’m going with you.”

Over his cold, staked body. “Go home and play with your toy soldiers, little girl.” She was a young vampire, so she broadcast her intent before trying to slap him. Aidan had thought her military training

would make her ready to be a lieutenant, but Will disagreed. In a move honed through plenty of combat training he’d undergone while hiding out with a military unit, he quickly grabbed her wrist and twisted it behind her, then landed a hard chop to the side of her neck, just below her ear and slightly to the front. She crumpled like the bones had been removed from her legs.

Nice little move. Worked as well on vampires as it did on humans.

“Sorry, Verandah. I’ve got places to go, big bad vampires to rescue.” He picked up his bag and strode toward the door, but guilt pulled his glance back to the woman lying in a heap on his area rug. “Hell.”

He set the bag down, picked her up, and deposited her on the sofa. Before he realized what he was doing, he’d stretched out a hand to brush a brilliant red fall of hair away from the creamy skin of her face. She was really beautiful when she was unconscious. Too bad it disappeared when she opened her razor blade of a mouth.

Will got in the car and drove east toward Georgia. The Penton scathe had a safe house just north of Durham, North Carolina, where he could take his daysleep before driving on to Virginia the following night. As he passed the old Welcome to Penton sign on the east side of town, he took out his cell and called Aidan’s home phone. He’d already begun a terse voice-mail message when Aidan intercepted.

“What do you mean, you know where Mirren is?”

Damn. He’d hoped to get out of town without a real conversation—or Aidan’s insistence on him taking his annoying new partner along. “I think if Daddy dearest has him, it’ll be at the estate in Virginia. I spent almost every summer there growing up before I was turned, so I know it well.”

“I’m going with you.”

Yep, which was exactly why he didn’t want to talk to the man. “Negative. This is a solo mission—you need to stay in Penton. People will freak out if you leave. They’re already jumpy enough after all the shit with Owen.”

Aidan growled, and Will heard his mate Krys talking in the background. Smart woman, Krys. She was probably telling him the same thing.

“Fine.” He didn’t sound happy. “But at least take Randa with you.”

Will laughed. “Oh yeah, that’s the other thing. Randa’s indisposed and unavailable. In fact, she’s laid out on my sofa—you might want to have someone check on her if she doesn’t show up raising hell in a half hour.”

During the long moments of silence that followed, Will could picture Aidan shaking his head, probably uttering a few fine Irish curses. “What did you do to her?” he finally asked.

Will grinned. It had felt good to get one over on his unwanted partner. “She’ll live. I’ll call you from Virginia and let you know if I found our missing vampire.”

CHAPTER 4

W
hat was Matthias thinking, throwing a woman in the cell with a vampire who hadn’t fed for over a month?

Mirren waited on the bench, his back against the wall, his head down. Waited until Matthias climbed the steps, slammed the door, clicked the dead bolt home. Waited until he could get control of the hunger that had begun raging the second the woman stumbled down the stairway. She was unvaccinated, and he wanted nothing more than to take her, blood and body, until there was nothing left.

If he did that, he’d be no better than the version of Mirren Kincaid he’d tried so hard to leave behind. He’d be the Slayer again. He was weakened, and it would be easy to slide back into old habits, but if he killed this woman, he wasn’t sure he could stop. The cold darkness would come back, and he’d lose himself in its seductive power. His hands could too easily remember the mindless sweep of the sword, the heavy fall of the battle-ax, the controlled back-thrust of a heavy firearm. If the cold darkness ever fell over him again, he feared he’d embrace it.

“Mister, you awake?”

Shit.
She would have to be a talker. Mirren hated a talky woman. They always expected you to talk back.

He raised his head slowly and caught his breath. She was young, maybe early twenties, and pretty in a rode-hard kind of way. Reminded him of little Hannah, if Hannah had been born in modern times and lived a long enough human life to reach adulthood. And run with a rough crowd for a year or two.

A really rough crowd. The girl’s black hair hung matted and tangled to her shoulders, and her dark, dark eyes looked haunted, frightened, and more than just a little unfocused. If Matthias treated his feeders this way, no wonder the man was on the scrawny side. Or maybe she was just a junkie blood whore. God knows he’d encountered more than a few of those over the years—men and women who’d sell their blood and body in exchange for their next fix. And he definitely smelled drugs on her. Heroin. Nasty stuff.

“Your eyes are silver—I’ve seen enough vampires in the last month to know when your eyes get lighter, it means you’re hungry. But I’ve never seen any like yours. How long has it been since you ate? Umm…make that how long since you drank?”

If the stupid woman kept walking toward him, he wouldn’t be held responsible. “Stay where you are.” He narrowed his eyes at her, thinking. How could she help him without sending his need so far over the edge he lost control of it?

She
eeked
when he shifted on the bench and turned his back toward her. “Untie me.”

She stumbled a little when she reached the bench and sat hard. The woman was stoned out of her gourd.

“Your wrists are all torn up. That has to hurt.” She sat on the bench behind him, and Mirren breathed in her scent with his eyes closed. Damn, but he wanted to feed so badly his muscles ached.

She muttered as she worked, her drug-addled fingers slipping off the rope. “You’re so big that I’m surprised this rope could hold you. I should be able to…Let’s see here, it’s too dark. Man, this is funky rope.”

“Stop yapping, start untying.” She had that broad, soft Southern accent he found sexy, but she used it way too much.

“Yeah, yeah, OK.” She tugged harder on the ropes, burning his sensitive wrists with each pull. “Sorry, sorry. Why is it burning your skin like that?”

Mirren growled and spoke through gritted teeth. “It’s laced with silver, and I’m a freaking vampire. Just untie me.” Damn, he had to get himself under control, or he’d scare the woman to death and she wouldn’t finish freeing his arms or feed him.

“Almost there…but wait.” The girl paused in her fumbling. “You are a vampire, right? You have those eyes that are about four shades too light, and I’ve been here long enough to know what that means, even if I don’t see any fangs.”

God help him, he’d show her some fangs. “I said I was a vampire. Now finish untying me.” Mirren twisted his wrists and felt the rope give way—the girl had gotten it loose enough that he didn’t need her help.

“But wait, how do I know you—”

She gasped as Mirren pulled his wrists apart, popped the rope onto the cell floor, and shifted around to face her.

“Can you…?” She paused and swallowed hard, edging away from him on the bench. Mirren’s gaze dropped to her mouth. “Can you feed without killing me?”

Mirren nodded slowly.
Maybe. Maybe not.
He’d never gone so long between feedings before. “Who are you? Why are you with Matthias? He must not take very good care of his blood whores.”

She flinched and a wash of pink tinted her cheeks. “Don’t call me that. I’m not a whore. I was taken and locked up, just like you were. Except they shot me full of drugs, and they…”

Oh, bloody hell, she was gonna cry. If there was anything worse than a talky woman, it was a crying woman.

She sniffed. “And they fed off me, and passed me around like I was nothing, and they…they…”

Aw, fuck me, she’s crying.
Mirren reached out and took her arm, then jerked away.
What the hell?

His hand tingled like he’d wrapped it around a live electrical wire. Only one person had that effect on him—Hannah, with her creepy psychic powers. “You’re a psychic? Or a witch? What are you?”

Mirren reached for her arm again and pulled it toward him, ignoring the tingle. He pushed up the sleeve of her filthy red sweater. Track marks—some new, some old—trailed up her inner arm. “How often you shoot this shit? How long you been doing it?”

She looked at her arm and shook her head. “They come a couple of times a day. Three times a day? I don’t know. Sir says it keeps me pliant—no,
com
pliant. I don’t take drugs. I never did before he took me. They made me…” A tear seeped out from the corner of her eye and trailed down her cheek.

Mirren frowned and released her before the waterworks started again in earnest. “Who is Sir—you mean Matthias? Guy who brought you down here?”

The girl closed her eyes and leaned against the wall. “I never knew his name. I thought he would eventually let me go home…” She trailed off, and damn it, she was crying again.

“What’s your name? How long’s he had you?”

“G…Glory. He said you were going to kill me, that you liked to kill people and needed to remember it—are you going to kill me?” She kept her eyes closed, tears cascading down her cheeks from beneath her closed lids. “It’s OK if you do kill me, really. I don’t want to live like this anymore. Just do it fast, OK? I mean, he’s had me…God, I don’t know—a month? Wants to use my…wants to use me for something, but I won’t do it.”

She turned her head and gave him a hard glare out of black eyes that might have been scary if she’d been sober and her cheeks weren’t glistening with tears. “I won’t be used as anybody’s weapon. So if you’re planning to kill me, Mr. Whoever-You-Are Vampire, do it now and do it fast. Please. At least give me that much.”

“I don’t plan to kill you.” Matthias was another matter, but Mirren had to get his strength back first. “I need to feed once some of the drugs are out of your system, but I won’t hurt you.”

“Yes, you will. You all do.” Glory pulled her hair away from her neck, and Mirren exhaled through clenched teeth. She’d been fed on heavily, and by vampires who hadn’t taken the two seconds needed to anesthetize the wound and heal it.

He reached out and turned her head to examine the other side of her neck. Just as ravaged. Matthias Ludlam was a pig, and as soon as Mirren could get to him, he’d stake him with a spit and roast him.

CHAPTER 5