Chasing Midnight (Dark of Night Book 2) (14 page)

SHANE

It would have taken a human about two hours to get from Charleston to Savannah, but Shane clocked it in less than one. Lead foot plus vampire reflexes made for a very quick trip, and he couldn’t help feeling exhilarated. It was more like flying than driving, and his sharp senses made every breath feel like pure bliss. When Shane pulled up to the massive, wrought iron fence that surrounded the San Lucas estate, it was barely noon, despite the time it took him to actually locate the old, remote address. The adrenaline was fading fast and the sunlight was beginning to take its toll on him, wearing thin his energy even from behind the dark visor of his motorcycle helmet. His eyes ached and his muscles were tense. Hunger gnawed at him like a million biting insects in his stomach.

He carefully hid his bike behind a patch of dense brush and grabbed the top of the rusted iron gate surrounding the property He couldn’t see any ruins of a house yet, but the foliage was dense and overgrown. The moss and ivy had already curled itself into the gate with such skill he doubted it would ever be opened again. With a simple flick of his wrist, he launched himself over, landing as gracefully as a jungle cat on the other side. There was the remnant of a cobblestone driveway cutting through the flourishing landscape. Still, he could see where there had once been a deliberate path of rose bushes and magnolias. Deciding to stay off the main path, he stuck to the outskirts just in case anyone—or anything—was wandering around in the jungle. Moving through the woods was effortless. He’d never been particularly athletic, but his vampire skills gave him the agility to move in complete silence, not a single crunch of fallen leaves betraying him. He moved like water flowing over stones as he hiked toward a large clearing.

Suddenly, a massive house rose out of the dying forest like a ghost. It was old, pre-Civil War at least. Huge columns and old brick betrayed its age, as did the heavy vines of ivy and tall oak trees whose branches hung haphazardly against the roof. Most of the windows were still intact, but the glass was so old it was warped and bubbled. Shane moved close and listened, waiting to hear the telltale heartbeat of another person in the area, but there was only silence.

“So much for the house being burnt down,” he muttered to himself as he walked across the long porch to the front door.

The paint was grey and peeling with age, the knob small, brass, and green with patina. He turned it, but it held fast. With a gentle push on the wood, the old door splintered and fell from the hinges, landing on the floor with a heavy thump and a puff of dust. Shane stepped into the foyer. The ceilings were high, and a grand staircase split the room in two. The rooms on the main floor were long abandoned. Antique furniture covered with dusty, white sheets and portraits removed from the walls and wrapped in old, brown paper. As Shane crossed to the kitchen in the back of the house, a long, black rat scurried across his foot, making him jump.

Some big, bad vampire he was.

There was more of the same in the kitchen. Cabinets open and bare, except for large cobwebs and about a solid inch of dust on every surface. He pulled open a tall pantry. Old cans and glass jars dotted the otherwise empty shelves. Shane was about to turn to leave when a sliver of light caught his eye. It was coming from beneath one of the shelves.

“What do we have here?” He leaned down, examining the bottom shelf.

There was definitely something behind the wood. He tapped on the backing, and it sounded hollow. As he gave it a shove, the whole wall of shelves rolled backward on wheels, creating an artificial hallway. He slipped in, closing the shelf behind him. The light was bright, but flickering. He paused, listening again. There was a small hum, nearly too faint for even his hearing to detect. He followed the glow until the hallway opened up into a massive room. For a moment, he was sure he was seeing things. Then, the reality hit him. He sagged against the wall, fighting back a powerful wave of nausea like he hadn’t felt since he was a human.

“Oh, Ambrose. What did yo
u
d
o
?”

SHANE

The hum was a large generator, fairly modern, that ran from a cable that dropped from a hole drilled in the exterior wall and probably led to a solar cell if he had to hazard a guess. Steel chains hung from bolts in the ceiling and an empty cage sat in the corner, only bones and scraps of fur still trapped inside. There were piles of bone and ash all over the floor. Shane took a step forward, kicking one of the skulls with the tip of his foot. The jaw fell open, revealing a pair of brown-white fangs. On the far wall was a gurney next to a silver instrument tray covered in old, blood-soaked gauze that had been nibbled on by rats, judging by the looks of the tatters and tiny, black pellets. There was also a table with scattered notebooks, beakers, large glass jars full of thick pink and brown slime, and a microscope.

Walking over to the table, he blew off a thin layer of dust and picked up a glass slide. The dust here wasn’t nearly as bad as the rest of the house. That and the more modern fixtures in this area meant this place was used recently, perhaps in the last few years. Shane put the slide on the microscope and looked into the eyepiece. He’d had to take biology labs in college so he knew enough to recognize that the sample was a piece of tissue, but it was old, dead, and corroded by time. Standing up, he moved to the journals. He picked up the top book. It contained notes on chemicals and records of tissue deterioration timetables. He flipped back to the first page.

Subject 7- Canis Lupus

Age- undetermined.

Subject Seven is the third Canis Lupus tested, the first compatible donor for subject three. I have isolated the chemical combination that will prevent transformation, but subject is still reluctant to communicate beyond fevered expletives and threats. I have infected subject seven with the V1 virus and I am monitoring for results.

It went on to describe the horrible reaction the subject had. Eventually, the person writing forced a transformation to try to heal the subject, but it failed, and he was ‘forced to administer a lethal dose’ of something he didn’t identify. Shane closed the journal, picking up the next one. In black marker on the cover
,
Subject Si
x
was scrawled.

This was it, Xavier’s dirty little secret. Shane looked up, noticing claw marks on the walls and dark spots on the stone floor. But why leave all this here? Why not just destroy it?

Unless he was planning to need it again.

Xavier Ambrose was experimenting on werewolves, and vampires too by the looks of it. He was the Conclave’s own doctor Mengele. Shane scooped up two of the journals and headed back through the house. He was almost back to the front door when he realized he still hadn’t made it upstairs.

He stopped, debating the wide, elaborate staircase. There could be more, he reasoned. With one long, unsure glance at the door, he headed for the stairs. In a blur of speed, he was on the second floor. There were three bedrooms. The first was empty except for an old wardrobe and a steamer trunk of musty, moth-eaten clothes. The next room held an oversize, ornate bed with four posts that nearly touched the ceiling. The mattress was shredded, the bits of cotton and fluff here and there, the sheets strewn carelessly on the wood floor. There was a fireplace with a line of framed black-and-white photos. Shane carefully picked up the first. It was a picture of Xavier as a young man, surrounded by other, younger children all bearing a vague resemblance. A combination of sharp, French facial features and darker Hispanic hair and eyes. There were a few more pictures of the children as they grew through the years, the last one a photo of modern vampire Xavier cradling a small infant in his arms. Shane turned to leave. A small squeak drew his attention to the bed. He paused, listening to the room, before grabbing the tattered blanket off the bed and tossing it back. A small mouse scampered across the floor, and a fine layer of dust rose into the air. When it settled, Shane saw a pile of bones, yellowed with time and splintered from being chewed on by rodents, nestled into a dip in the old mattress. He took a deep breath. The skull was intact. Gently, he rolled it to the side, looking for the telltale sign of fangs. There were none. He couldn’t make out anything else about the remains. Might have bee
n
wer
e
, maybe human. He let the skull lull back into place and re-covered it.

Tucking the journals tightly under his arm, he rushed back to the front door in a blur of vampire speed. Now he just had to figure out how to best use the information. As Shane climbed back onto his bike, he imagined what Isabel would say when she found out what Xavier had been up to. A satisfied smirk pulled up the corners of his mouth as he pulled away the camouflaging shrubbery. Stuffing the old notebooks into the front of his jeans, Shane brought the bike roaring to life and turned back onto the main road. He took off in a spray of gravel, still unsure of his next stop.

Joanne was a slip of a girl. A scant inch shorter than me but with the small, delicate features and pale coloring to pull it off. Her white-blonde hair was tucked neatly behind a thick headband that was almost the same shade of blue as her eyes. She smiled hesitantly as she invited me in and brought me the obligatory glass of sweet tea. I murmured my thanks and took a sip just to make her comfortable. To my surprise, it was very refreshing. I could tell by the texture it had been prepared the right way—in a glass jar sitting in the sunshine rather than by boiling it. Something about sun tea was more delicate, softer than other methods. It was how my mother always made hers, and it tasted like home and the warm summer days of my youth.

“So, what can you tell me about Katy?” I asked, cradling my glass as the ice clinked together in the thin glass.

She perched on the edge of her tan futon couch, the only other piece of real furniture in the room besides the old rocking chair in which I was now sitting. They had an old wire spool doubling as a coffee table and a threadbare denim beanbag in the corner. The only nice thing in the room was the glass cabinet that boasted a collection of booze that would make a functioning alcoholic weep with joy.

Is all that alcohol hers?

I shrugged. It was a pretty typical college pad.

Sue made a noise that was part disappointed, part indignant.

“Well, she was a political science major at Charleston University. We moved in together last spring. We lived in the same dorm before that, and we were in a few classes together.” She paused, her face pulling into a deep frown, as if debating her next words. “We weren’t… close anymore. I was doing my thing, and she was doing hers.”

I nodded and tried to look sympathetic. “That’s not uncommon. What exactly was he
r
thin
g
?”

Now she stood, still ringing her hands as she paced, avoiding my gaze. “Like I said, we weren’t close.”

Okay, the nice approach wasn’t working. Time to try something else.

Be gentle. She’s just a girl.

I shook my head. She was no younger than I was when my life fell apart, and no one was there to coddle me. Why should I hold her hand?

Because you are kindhearte
d
, Sue said softly.

“Wow, you don’t know me at all.” I sat my glass on the wooden spool. “Look, I’m not the cops. But I’ve been doing this a long time and I know when someone isn’t being honest with me. So, on the level, what can you tell me about the father of her baby?”

Now she was staring at me, her face losing its pallor. I stared her down until she began to crack around the edges. Finally, she flopped back onto the sofa, her head in her hands. “She said to never tell anyone. Her parents didn’t even know.”

I stood, moving deliberately so I was looming over her, and folded my arms across my chest. Maybe this girl was young enough that the disapproving parent act would get me further than anything else. “A name. I need a name.”

She shook her head, hugging herself around the middle. “If she finds out I said anything, she’ll kill me.”

She doesn’t know her friend is dead.

I squatted down so she could see my face without having to look up. “Look, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but she’s not going to find out, because she’s not coming back. Katy’s dead.” I paused, letting the words sink in. “I wish I had the time to do all this more gently but right now, I have to catch the person who did this, you understand? Every day that passes, the trail gets colder. All we can do for her now is find the person who took her life away and make them pay for it.”

The shock was clear. Joanne’s body went slack, her arms falling to her sides. “I can’t be sure who the father was—she never told me—but she was crazy about Colton Harris. She was an intern working on his Senate campaign. She talked about hi
m
all the tim
e
.” Her last words were barely more than a whisper. I could see the girl slipping into the early stages of shock. I shook my head. Had I ever been so innocent? I pulled the red chenille blanket off the back of the futon and wrapped it around her shoulders.

Probably not.

“I’m going to go look around her room.” I waited for her to respond and when she didn’t, I snapped my fingers in her face. I didn’t have time for her breakdown. The world was a cold, hard place, better she learn that now.

She blinked and looked up at me. “Yeah, okay. First door on the left.” She pointed to the hallway before tucking the edges of the blanket under her arms. I patted her on the knee and went to have a look.

Compared to the rest of the apartment, Katy’s room was a pigsty. Clothes littered the floor next to the overflowing wicker hamper, and there were papers, empty soda cans, and fast food wrappers covering the small desk by the window. Even the twin bed covers were thrown back haphazardly, pillows rumpled. There was a beer can cut in half being used as a makeshift ashtray full of old butts. The walls were covered with flyers and photos. Pictures of Katy at various concerts, rallies, and events. She looked so different from the girl I saw being killed.

The girl in the photos was smiling, not a care in the world. She practically beamed with the glow of youth and the endless possibilities of the future. I pulled one of the flyers off the wall. It was an announcement for a political rally on campus back in March. Colton was the key speaker. I tossed the flyer onto the pile in the desk and picked up a crumpled sheet of paper, smoothing it out against my leg. Huh. The draft of a speech maybe? It read something like a career politician might say to whip up frenzy in a crowd. There were red ink lines throughout. Whoever wrote it was given the red pen of death by someone. I balled it up and tossed it in a tiny trashcan near the desk when something caught my eye. The corner of a photograph peeked out from the bin. I plucked it out. It was a smiling Katy standing arm in arm with the senator. She was looking up at the older man as if he personally hung the moon. The roommate was right. He might not be the father, but she was obviously head over heels for the guy.

You think this man was the father of her child?

“It would be my guess. It’s a pretty good motive for murder, as far as those things go.”

He would kill his own child?

“Maybe not,” I said, looking closer at the photo.

Also in the photo was the senator’s wife, who from the very corner of the image, was glaring at Katy. If looks could kill, the girl would have burst into flames right then. I tucked the picture into my back pocket. “But somebody wanted her and that baby gone in a bad way.”

I moved to the small, attached bathroom. Above the porcelain pedestal sink was an oval medicine cabinet just a few inches deep. I pulled it open. There were a few normal things, toothpaste, floss, and deodorant, but there was also something else. Two orange prescription bottles. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I snapped a photo of each bottle. Both were issued by the same doctor.

I poked around a while longer but came up empty. There was no laptop, no notebooks, and no backpack. Nothing you’d expect to find in the bedroom of a college student. The only book was an antique copy of poetry by William Blake.

When I closed the door behind me, I saw the roommate was up and walking around in the kitchen. That was a good sign. She was moving. That alone would keep the shock at bay. Maybe she was a little tougher than I gave her credit for.

“Thank you,” I hollered down the hall.

“Hold on, there’s one more thing,” she called back.

I waited, not sure what else she might need.

When she returned, she held out a small rectangle of plastic. I took it, finally realizing what it was. A USB drive.

“Katy was adamant about backing up everything. Her laptop crashed a few months ago, and she lost everything. Ever since then, she’d been backing up every week. The police didn’t find her laptop. But there might be something on this.”

I tucked it into my pocket. “Thanks.”

Handing her my card, I added, “If you think of anything else, give me a call.”

She nodded, taking the card. I left her at the door, the blanket still draped over her shoulders.

Do you think there is anything on that device
?
Sue asked in my head.

I could feel her in there, draped across the curtain of my thoughts. “Dollars to doughnuts.”

I don’t understand that phrase.

“It means, chances are good. Whoever killed her went through the trouble to take her laptop, so they must have been afraid there was some kind of evidence on it. Evidence that just might be on this. Even if there’s nothing, it could be leverage.”

How so?

“Well, they don’t know what’s on it either, right? But if you wave around something that might be dangerous, people tend to assume the worst. Especially when it comes to senators and sex-scandals.”

What do we do now?

I reached for my car door and pulled it open, slipping inside before answering. “Now we develop an interest in politics.”