Blood Law (31 page)

Tasha couldn’t help but feel partly responsible for Alex’s sudden change. It hadn’t taken long for Varik and Damian to mobilize their men into a task force, but Alex had a head start.

The Jefferson PD wasn’t a part of the team being sent after Alex, since the Bureau had severed their ties. She wasn’t there to join the hunt. She was there to relieve her own guilt. While she didn’t expect Varik or any of the Enforcers to understand why she’d given evidence to Harvey, she felt she had to confess. Her conscience wouldn’t let her rest otherwise.

She found Varik in the crowd and watched as he silently stood next to Damian, who continued to lay out the
group’s plans. Worry hunched his shoulders, and his dark eyes seemed haunted, their depths veiled in shadows. The memory of handing over evidence to Harvey hovered before her mind’s eye, and she looked down at the pavement.

When she looked up again, the group was disbanding, checking weapons and body armor as they headed for their Ford Expeditions. Clearing her throat, she approached Varik, who was adjusting the straps of his body armor.

He glanced at her as she approached.

“I need to tell you something,” she said in a rush. She felt as though she were drowning in her guilt, and she folded her arms in front of her, hugging herself.

Varik straightened his shoulders and faced her squarely.

“I—I …” She paused, took a steadying breath and released it slowly. “I broke the chain of evidence. I gave a Taser report to Harvey, knowing it implicated someone in his department—most likely Darryl—as an accomplice to Stephen’s kidnapping.”

He closed his eyes. A muscle jumped along his jaw. Tension pulled his spine into a rigid line. When he looked at her again, his eyes were the color of molten gold.

She waited for him to scream at her, to punch her, to do something, but he simply stared at her. “Varik, I know what I did was out of line, but I can—”

He held up his hand to stop her. “I don’t care why you did it, Lieutenant. All I care about is stopping Alex before she causes more damage.” He stepped closer,
violating her personal space, and his voice dropped to a deadly whisper. “However, if anything happens to her as a result of your actions, there will be nowhere on this earth you can hide from me.”

Tasha stood in his shadow, trembling and unable to respond.

“Let’s go, people,” Damian’s booming voice echoed over the parking lot. “Move out!”

She watched as Varik climbed into the backseat of the lead Expedition. The heat of his threat, of his
promise
, continued to burn into her brain long after the Enforcers had disappeared.

Her betrayal of her oath as a police officer wouldn’t go unpunished. Tubby Jordan had already paid the price for her treachery. More blood was going to be shed before this ended. That blood would be on her hands, and she could already feel it staining her soul.

Harvey lit one cigarette from another and looked at the closed front door of Darryl’s house. He still sat in his car, gathering his thoughts.

The paper Tasha had dropped on his desk when she’d come to see him—no, to
threaten
him—felt like a weight in his pocket. He snorted with the memory. She’d been the last person he’d ever expected to turn against the vamps, but apparently something had changed between her and Sabian. Whatever that something was, he wasn’t fool enough to forsake his good fortune.

He opened the car door and climbed out. Smoke
swirled around him as though he’d come from the pits of Hell. He adjusted his belt and checked to make sure his gun and handcuffs were within easy reach.

While Harvey had been careful not to have any direct physical evidence personally tying him to the arson, he hadn’t considered Darryl’s brazenness in providing him with a Taser stolen from his own department. He’d trusted Darryl to provide an untraceable Taser and the son of a bitch had betrayed him and the HSM cause. It was the only explanation for Lockwood’s report. The Enforcers knew by now that he’d planted the Midnight in Sabian’s Jeep and would be coming for him.

Everything was falling apart, and it was Darryl’s fault.

Harvey mounted the stairs and stepped onto the faded blue porch boards. The screen door creaked as he opened it and knocked on the closed wooden door. Smoke from his cigarette curled upward and tickled his nose.

“Darryl? You home?” He knocked on the door again. He listened for footsteps or some other sign of life within the house.

Silence.

Harvey tossed his cigarette into the yard and reached for the doorknob. His other hand rested on the butt of the Browning nine-millimeter at his hip. He took a deep breath and opened the door.

Shadows shrouded the interior. Newspapers, empty beer cans, boxes, and used paper plates littered the living room. The only clean spot was along one wall, where
a photo of Claire Black in her wedding gown and veil hung above a makeshift shrine. Cheap bookcases flanked the television and overflowed with an assortment of magazines, books, and forgotten mail.

“Darryl?” Harvey called, slipping into the dim room and allowing his eyes to adjust. “You in here?”

A noise deeper inside the house made him freeze. Cold sweat trickled down his back as he tried to identify the source. He sighed. It was just the refrigerator’s compressor. He turned his attention to the shelves beside the TV.

Most of the mail was junk, credit card offers and advertisements. He riffled through a stack of pornographic magazines before selecting the most recent issue. He flipped through the pages, admiring the glossy photos of bare-breasted women and lingering over the more graphic shots before turning the magazine to gaze upon the glory of the centerfold.

Disgust and horror raced through his veins. The centerfold was a buxom blond-haired woman with small fangs and eyes the color of polished brass. But it wasn’t the photo that had dampened his enjoyment.

Someone had drawn cross-shaped stakes between the woman’s breasts and wide-spread legs and scribbled over her neck with a red marker so that it looked as if her throat had been slashed. Frenzied, handwritten words surrounded her:
Slut! Die, bitch! Vampire whore!

“My God,” Harvey whispered, and threw the magazine away from himself before looking over the shelves.

Textbooks on forensic science, medical references, how-to manuals for carving wood, and anatomy guides
lined the shelves. Bibles of varying sizes and colors were interspersed among the other books. A large scrapbook was jammed into the top shelf.

Harvey pulled the scrapbook free and opened it with trembling hands.

Newspaper clippings detailing Claire’s murder were pasted to the stiff black sheets. One of the articles sported a photo of Alex Sabian with a caption stating that still no arrests had been made in the case after three months. Someone—no, not some
one, Darryl
—had used a red marker to scribble “Fuck you, bitch” over the picture.

Harvey turned the pages. The articles about Claire dwindled and were replaced with articles focusing on Sabian, her brother, and Crimson Swan. Every photo of the two vampires had been scribbled over with curses or drawings depicting violence. Intermixed with the articles were computer printouts about the 1968 murder of Bernard Sabian.

Highlighted passages in some of the printouts detailed facts about the decades-old crime. A stake in the heart. Decapitated. Body dumped in a cemetery. University professor. A silver shamrock charm clutched in his hand.

Handwritten notes in the margins revealed Darryl’s elaborate plot to exact revenge on Alex Sabian for her failure to bring Claire’s killers to justice. The recent murders mirrored different aspects of Bernard Sabian’s murder. His stomach churned, and he slammed the book closed.

The scrape of boots on hardwood floors made him
stiffen. The sound of a bullet being chambered behind him was unmistakable. A bead of sweat rolled down the center of his back. He spun around.

Darryl stood in the doorway that led to the back of the house with a pistol in his hand, aimed at Harvey’s chest. A crazed glint shone in his hazel eyes. “Evening, Sheriff,” he drawled. “I wasn’t expecting company or I would’ve cleaned.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Darryl?”

“Looking out for what’s mine.”

“Put that thing away before someone gets hurt.”

Darryl shook his head and smiled. “Can’t do it.”

“Listen to me, Darryl.” Harvey fought to keep his knees from buckling. “You don’t want to do this. Killing me will send you straight to the state penitentiary.”

“I don’t think so.”

“This isn’t what Claire would’ve wanted.”

“How would you know? She talks to me, Harvey, gives me signs. A man knows what his wife wants.”

Harvey blinked and then noticed the blood staining the front of Darryl’s jumpsuit. His chest constricted, and he felt short of breath. “What have you done, Darryl?”

“Nothing that wasn’t necessary. ‘Separation by any means necessary,’ right? I thought you of all people would understand that.” The smile faded from his lips. “Guess I was wrong.”

Harvey’s eyes widened. “Darryl, don’t—”

Pain seared his leg. He screamed and crumbled to the floor. Blood, hot and sticky, poured from the hole where his left knee had once been. Fragments of bone
protruded from the gaping wound, and darkness crowded at the edges of his vision.

“Sorry about that, Harvey,” Darryl said as he knelt beside him and relieved the sheriff of his weapon. “But I can’t have you running back to that Enforcer bitch and telling her what you’ve seen.”

Harvey gasped and writhed on the floor. He watched as Darryl raised the pistol once more. “No—”

The hot steel of the gun’s barrel struck his temple, and the world turned black.

Fading sun filtered through the trees like a chaotic strobe light. Wind rushed past the car’s open window and brought a mixture of scents: the sharp bite of hot asphalt, the bitter tang of smoke from someone’s fireplace, and the clean smell of pine after a storm.

Alex’s silver badge lay forgotten next to her cell phone on the passenger-side seat. Part of her knew she’d crossed a line and returning from it might not be possible, but the rage that held her in its sway was stronger than reason.

Darryl Black was the man responsible for Crimson Swan’s destruction and had at least played a role in Stephen’s abduction, even if he wasn’t the mastermind of the plot. Instead of venting his anger on her directly, he’d targeted the one person she trusted most in the world.

Now she was going to make him pay.

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony played as she swerved around a pickup. Her cell phone bounced to the floor
when the car’s tires skidded off the pavement and lost traction in the loose gravel along the road’s shoulder.

“Damn it,” she muttered, and righted the sedan. She wouldn’t be much use to Stephen if she got herself killed.

Classical music continued to filter up from the floor, and she ignored it. She knew it was Varik. The blood-bond vibrated within her mind, its pitch high and urgent. She ignored it.

She wanted revenge. She wanted—

Justice
, a voice echoed in her mind.

“I’m coming, Stephen,” she whispered. “I’m coming.”

Emily sat on the couch in her empty hotel suite, a pillow clutched to her chest for comfort, and staring at her cell phone. Dweezil lay belly-up under the coffee table, snoring softly and paws twitching, in the throes of kitty dreams.

She envied the cat. She hadn’t slept since arriving in Jefferson. Worry for her children kept her going. She couldn’t rest until they were safely returned to her.

And they would return to her. Both of them. She couldn’t bear considering the alternative.

She opened one clutched hand to reveal a small plastic bag sealed with red tape. A silver shamrock charm slid along the bottom of the bag when she held it up for closer inspection. A few light scratches marred the charm’s surface, and the loop intended for a chain at the top of one leaf was broken.

Emily reached beneath the neckline of her blouse and pulled free a delicate silver chain. A silver four-leaf clover charm dangled before her, and she held it beside the charm in the bag.

The two were identical.

Dread filled her. The one she wore had been the charm Bernard held in his hand when Alex discovered his body. It had been a symbol of his affiliation with the Hunters, with his being marked as a Talent.

Had the vampire whose body was left at the high school been another Talent? Another former Hunter? There were too many questions she couldn’t answer, but the sense that Alex was in danger rooted itself in her mind and heart.

She hid her necklace away and returned the bag and broken charm to her pocket. Clutching the pillow tightly to her chest and thinking of Alex, she sighed. “Oh, Bernard, she’s so much like you, and she needs you badly.”

For a brief moment, Emily thought she smelled tobacco, coffee, and chalk—scents heralding Bernard’s presence—but then the moment passed, and she was left alone to stare at a silent phone and wait with only the ghosts of the past to keep her company.

Varik listened to the rapid ringing in his ear, wishing for Alex to pick up. “Goddamn it to Hell.” He snapped his cell phone closed. “She’s not answering.”

The driver of the Expedition took a curve a little too
fast, and Varik found himself pressed between the rear passenger door and Damian.

“Did you really expect her to answer?” Damian asked, as he straightened up and once again adjusted the straps of the bulletproof vest that barely covered his broad chest.

“No.” Anxiety made his stomach churn, and it worsened as he watched Damian pull a pump-action shotgun from the Expedition’s cargo area and began loading it. “What are you doing?”

“Going after a murder suspect and a rogue Enforcer.” Damian twisted in the seat once again and secured the shotgun in the cargo area.

“This is Alex we’re talking about, Damian.”

The big Enforcer settled in the seat once more with a .357 Glock in his hands. “She’s gone rogue. We may not have a choice.”

“I always have a choice.” Varik stared at the firearm in Damian’s hand. He felt the weight of his own pressing against his right hip like a cancer he couldn’t excise.