Amaury's Hellion (6 page)

“There’s a witch who owes me a favor. I’ll talk to her on your behalf and see whether she knows how to release you from your pain. But I can’t promise anything.”

Amaury had shaken the doctor’s hand, grateful there was a glimmer of hope, no matter how faint. Over a week had passed since, and still there was no reply from Drake.

An angry voice pulled him back into the present. “Whoever it was, we’ll get the bastard,” Zane replied, rage rolling off him.

“You okay?” Gabriel asked suddenly.

Amaury jerked his head. “Yeah, sure.” But he wasn’t certain for how long he would be alright. Already the ride in the car had taxed his mind. If he had to spend another half hour with them and feel their agitated emotions invade his head, he’d go crazy.

“What did Oliver say?”

“He’ll be here in about twenty minutes. He said he had to MapQuest
the address first,” Carl assured him.

Amaury rolled his eyes. MapQuest
?
What would these young kids do if they didn’t have a computer? They wouldn’t find their way around their own back pockets. When Amaury had grown up, there had barely been any accurate maps of an entire continent, let alone a neighborhood.

Amaury shook his head and glanced at his colleagues. The four vampires from New York sat slumped in the chairs and on the sofa. Carl stood to the side as Amaury continued pacing back and forth. He needed to be alone and rest his mind.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Carl whispered to him.

He nodded.

“It wasn’t a coincidence that you had to park the car outside the garage. It gave somebody the opportunity to mess with it. Somebody planned this.”

Amaury leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. It was pretty evident. Somebody was trying to stop them from getting reinforcements in. Which meant somebody was watching them and knew their every move. They would have to be on their toes every minute of the day and night.

“You wouldn’t have any bottled blood on you, Carl, would you?” Yvette asked.

Carl pulled out a flask from his jacket pocket and handed it to her. “There isn’t much. It’s just my emergency stash.”

Yvette pushed the bottle back into his hand. “Keep it. I can hold out for a little while longer.”

“No, please, I don’t need it. I fed earlier,” Carl insisted and handed the bottle back to her.

To Amaury’s knowledge Carl had never fed from a human. He’d been
raised
on bottled blood and was comparably young. He’d been a vampire for only eighteen years, sired by Samson who’d found him dying after a vicious attack. Carl was the only vampire ever created by Samson.

“No, thanks, that’s okay.” When she tried to hand the bottle back to Carl, Zane jerked up from the couch and snatched it.

“Take the damn bottle, Yvette, and shut up! We all know how cranky you get when you haven’t fed, so do us all a favor and drink.” Zane gave her an exasperated look as he shoved the flask into her hand.

Inwardly Amaury had to grin. She could be an absolute pain when she was hungry. At least
he
didn’t have to be the one she would be annoyed with for the next few hours. Zane had just taken over that favorite spot.

Yvette grunted something incomprehensible and put the flask to her mouth. Amaury smelled the blood and felt his own stomach constrict. He normally fed only once a night, but the search for his mystery woman had drained his energy more than usual, and he hadn’t had time to feed a second time before he and Carl had left for the airport.

Amaury felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket and pulled it out. He wandered into the hallway and, after checking the caller ID, answered the phone, keeping his voice low.

“Samson, you heard?”

“Yes, Oliver called me. He’s on his way. What’s going on?” Samson’s voice sounded concerned.

“Somebody tampered with the car. I’ll arrange for it to be towed to one of our mechanics to check it out, but from what Carl’s saying, it pretty much looks like somebody didn’t want us to arrive at our destination. Quinn thinks it was explosives.”

“Damn! A mole?”

Samson’s guess didn’t come out of left field. After they had been betrayed by Thomas’s lover Milo only months earlier, nobody was above suspicion. Milo’s betrayal had resulted in life-threatening injuries to Samson, and only the quick thinking and selflessness of Delilah had saved his life.

“We can’t eliminate the possibility. I’ll look into it.”

“You don’t think that one of our New York crew did this?” Samson asked. “How did Quinn know it was an explosive?”

Amaury didn’t want to put a black mark against any of them, but anybody could be a traitor. “I noticed him sniff. Could have smelled the residue, especially if he’s familiar with plastic. Is he?”

“He did a stint with a bomb-disposal unit a few years back if I remember correctly,” Samson confirmed. “How about the others? Anything suspicious?”

“They were in just as much danger as Carl and I, unless one of them had an alternative plan. Zane sure was eager to break into any house to beat sunrise. Thank God, it wasn’t necessary. I had my lockbox key.”

Samson chuckled. “I can always count on you to multitask. So, what’s the house like?”

“Definitely worth a look. I think you and Delilah should check it out. Only, it’s a little suburban. Is Delilah up for that?”

Samson let out another soft laugh. “If it was up to Delilah, we’d be staying in our current house even if we had five kids, which frankly, could happen. But we’ll need the space, so this will be one decision I’ll be making.”

Amaury let his grin spread over his entire face. “Sure, if you say so.” Like his friend had any chance once Delilah made up her mind about something.

“Not funny, Amaury.”

Of course it was funny. Ever since Samson had bonded with Delilah, he had softened when it came to anything to do with her. In business he was still the tough guy he’d always been, but his wife was definitely his soft spot.

“I’ll check in with you later.”

He disconnected the call and walked back toward the den when he heard the engine of an approaching vehicle. Quickly, he went into the living room and slid back the curtain to peer out the window. A ray of sunshine grazed his hand.

“Ouch!” he hissed and jumped back, letting the curtain fall shut again. The smell of singed body hair filled the air. He glanced at his burnt hand. It shouldn’t have happened. He was getting sloppy.

Somebody had to go and open the garage door from the inside, so Oliver could drive the van in. Throwing a look back at the den, Amaury shrugged. If he wanted something done, he’d better do it himself.

He opened the door to the garage and hit the electronic garage door opener just to the left of the door. Expecting the garage door to lift automatically, he instantly stepped back into the hallway and closed the door behind him.

Nothing happened. Amaury waited several seconds, but the expected sound of the garage door lifting didn’t come. Impatiently, he went back into the garage and pressed the button again. Nothing.

Then he noticed the sign next to the switch.

Fellow Agents,

Please do not use garage door opener. Garage door is jammed and has been bolted. Repair is scheduled for Thursday.

Amaury pulled out his cell and dialed Oliver’s number.

“I’m outside, Amaury. Can you let me in?” Oliver’s voice answered immediately.

“That’s a problem. The garage door is broken.”

“Oh, boy!”

Yes, oh, boy.

He and his fellow vampires wouldn’t be able to board the van in the safety of the garage, away from the burning rays of the sun. This day sucked—major.

His colleagues liked the news even less than he did when he explained the situation to them.

“You can’t be serious,” Yvette grumbled, pulling herself straight in her corner of the couch. “I’m not going outside while it’s daylight. Pick me up at night. I’m staying here.” She crossed her arms over her ample chest and pouted her lips.

“I’d like to see you try,” Zane provoked her. “Already now you’re thirsty. How long do you think you can hold out without blood? Or are you planning on sucking on one of us?”

“Fuck you!” Yvette hissed.

Amaury growled. He was sick of the bickering. No matter what anybody said, he and his colleagues wouldn’t be able to remain in the house for long.

“Staying here is not an option. There’s a broker’s Open House starting at nine thirty. The listing agent is going to be here by nine o’clock. We can’t stay,” Amaury informed them.

“We can wipe his memory when he gets here and do the same with any of the buyers who’re coming. They’ll never remember we were here,” Yvette suggested.

Amaury let out a mirthless laugh. “I guess you don’t go to a lot of Open Houses, Yvette, otherwise you’d know that the first thing the broker will do is open the curtains and let the light in. You don’t show a house in the dark.”

Yvette’s mouth turned into a thin line. He knew how she hated to be outsmarted.

“Amaury is right. We can’t stay,” Gabriel’s calm voice responded. “It’s just a short dash. Yes, we’ll have some burns, but we’ll survive. When did you all turn into wimps?”

“Can’t we fix the garage door?” Yvette asked.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m not an electrician,” Quinn remarked without malice.

“We’ll stick with Amaury’s plan, and that’s that.” Gabriel put his foot down.

At least one person was on Amaury’s side. He knew his plan wasn’t great, but the alternative was worse. Even if they prevented the broker from opening the curtains by using mind control on him, somebody else might slip through the cracks. Staying here was too risky.

Amaury turned to Oliver. “Back up the van as close to the front door as you can, then open the back doors.”

“There are rose bushes blocking the entryway,” he advised.

“I don’t care. Drive over them.” He could send somebody later to take care of the damage and have everything rectified before the listing agent arrived. “Call my cell when you’re ready.”

Oliver turned to leave.

“I could slap you for getting us into this situation. I should have known you’d screw up.” Yvette jumped up from the couch and trained a sour look on Amaury.

“Oh, go ahead. Take a swing if it makes you feel better. As if I give a shit.”

He shrugged his shoulders as he listened to the front door opening and then closing again. He knew Yvette all too well. She was all talk and no action. Soon she’d run out of steam and deflate again. It wasn’t worth wasting his breath on it.

The kick to his stomach had Amaury revise his opinion of her. He doubled over. She’d obviously perfected her karate moves and decided to hand out the beating he’d been due for years.

“Bitch!” He didn’t have enough breath for a wittier response while his body dealt with the unexpected assault.

“Yvette, that’s enough,” Gabriel reprimanded. “We all know what this is about.”

Amaury pulled himself straight. His stomach muscles readjusted. Her kick had nothing to do with the present and everything to do with the past.

He made a mental note never to fuck a colleague again, no matter how desperate he got. It was definitely better to stick to nameless, faceless women whose memories he could erase and who he would never see again.

“Guess we’re even then,” he said and nodded to her.

“We’ll see,” she hedged.

The woman sure could hold a grudge. Same damn long memory as an elephant.

“I’ll go first,” Quinn volunteered cheerfully as if to diffuse the tension. A few seconds later, Amaury’s cell phone rang. Oliver was in place.

***

An hour later, Amaury was back in his top-floor apartment in the Tenderloin, tending to his second- and third-degree burns. The dark in his place soothed him. His electronic blinds had closed automatically seconds before sunrise. They were programmed to lift again shortly after sunset.

The neighborhood was sleazy, but it suited him. At least here, the chance of constantly being surrounded by people in love was remote. Anger, despair, and hunger were the predominant emotions circulating in the neighborhood.

His physical wounds would heal while he slept during the day, but he needed blood to help the process. Unlike many of his friends, he’d never taken to bottled blood and therefore had no ready supply in his home.

But there were tenants in the building. Most of them would be out during the day, but there was one who was almost always at home.

Amaury dragged himself through the dim and windowless stairwell, commanding his aching legs to make it down one flight of stairs. He rang the doorbell and waited. It seemed to take forever until he heard the shuffling of footsteps on the other side. A chain was released a moment later, then the door swung open fully.

The old lady looked like she’d just woken up. She tightened the belt of her bathrobe around her waist.

“Good morning, Mrs. Reid,” Amaury greeted her.

“Oh, Amaury, did you just come back from night shift?” Only now she seemed to take a good look at him and flinched instantly. “Oh, dear, another accident at the factory?”

He’d made up a cover story many years ago, telling her he worked as a night supervisor at a foundry on the East Bay. It would explain why he slept all day and would occasionally come home with injuries.

He nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

“You look terrible. Have you seen a doctor?” The old dear was all concerned and sweet.

 Amaury hated himself for what he had to do, but he had no choice. He needed blood to heal.

He would make it up to her later. He could lower her rent and even cook her one of his best French dishes. She would like that.

Amaury employed mind control and let himself into her apartment. As soon as he closed the door behind him, he sank his fangs into her neck. Only when her rich blood coated his throat did he realize the extent of his need to feed. Desperate to still his thirst and regain his strength, he took big gulps from her vein.

Six

Nina blamed her informant. He’d clearly sold her out. Why else would she be standing in an alley, staring into the ugly faces of two vampire dudes flashing their fangs at her and bent on kicking her ass? She’d unknowingly walked into a trap.