Cunningham, Pat - Legacy [Sequel to Belonging] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (24 page)

“C’mon, sweetheart, you know I know better. You’re not the kind of girl who gets handed around. You’re too tough for that.” He grinned. “You’re a female me.”

“That isn’t a compliment.” She renewed her struggles until he relented and released her. Colleen stepped out of reach. “So, how would it work? Would you bite me, too? Make me your slave? Breed us like a couple of pedigreed dogs? How’s that any different from what the other vampires want me for?”

She regretted it the instant she said it, even before Wallace’s expression hardened. Of course it was different.
He
was different. She looked away from the flash of red in his jungle eyes.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“The hell you didn’t. You’re scared. I get it. You don’t like bats. There’s not too much to like about us. I told you, this isn’t about me. It’s about Scarecrow. Do you love him? Do you want to make him happy?”

That was only half the question. She caught the rest like a desperate whisper inside her mental ear. “What about you?” she said. “Would my being here make you happy?”

Wallace took her hand and placed it against his chest. “I don’t know if you can feel it, but my heart’s beating. It does that when I’m around you. Sometimes it’s a once and done. Right now it’s going full out. It’s never done that with anyone else but him. When I’m near you, it’s almost like I’m alive again.” His mouth twisted slightly. “Not that it matters. We both know I’m not. And you’re mortal, too.”

She looked into his face, the face that had been thirty-two years old for over three decades now, and would go on being thirty-two for possibly decades more. Without Jeremy. Without Annie and Gus. Without her. She swallowed hard. “I have to think about it.”

“Fair enough. It wouldn’t be an Ozzie and Harriet white-picket-fence kind of life. More like Ozzy and Sharon. Scarecrow, you, and the Prince of Fucking Darkness.” He snorted. “Maybe if we paint the picket fence black it’ll work.”

“There won’t be children. There just won’t. There can’t be.”

He raised a brow. “Hey, it’s not like I’m forcing you. It’s just, you and Scarecrow together, y’know. Nature does tend to take its course.”

“Not with me.” She looked away. “There won’t be any children.”

“Okay.” He let go of her hand. “Just stay with him. That’s all I’m asking.” He glanced toward the clock above the sink. “Gus should be getting off work about now. With the drive time, and the way he dawdles, we’ve got maybe forty-five minutes to make ourselves presentable.”

She started to speak when she heard Jeremy moving around upstairs. He must be out of the shower. When she turned back to Wallace he’d put the length of the kitchen between them. He bent to pick up Jeremy’s shirt. Colleen headed for the front door. The groceries she’d left there made an excellent excuse.

“Don’t forget to wash your hands,” she tossed back over her shoulder.

“Pushy bitches everywhere,” he grumbled. “I’m surrounded.”

Chapter 13

Gus arrived twenty minutes later than Wallace’s generous estimate. Wallace looked pointedly at the kitchen clock. “Kiss my balding bean,” Gus said. “You try walking out on a teenage girl who’s convinced her whole world is ending. For ‘whole world,’ read ‘dick of a boyfriend.’ Her parents are acquaintances of ours, so they dumped her and her drama in my lap.” He thumped Jeremy on the back. “You’re doing teen counseling now, right? I think I’ll dump her in yours. One look at you and she’ll forget all about Mr. High School Running Back Dickwad. I’m pretty sure that isn’t his real name.”

“Thanks,” Jeremy said. “How soon should I tell her I live with a man?”

“Wait for Daddy’s check to clear. Mmm.” He’d spotted the sandwiches Colleen and Jeremy had opted for in place of cooking. “Those look good.”

“We figured you’d want to eat on the run,” Wallace said. “What have you got for us?”

“Not a whole helluva lot. The little we pieced together, though, doesn’t look good.” He plucked a turkey sandwich from the tray and crammed a huge bite into his mouth while he dug papers out of his briefcase. “Annie typed it up to save your eyes. I’ll take one of these home as a thank you.” He handed the papers to Colleen with a fatherly pat on the arm. “Good, you’re already sitting down. You’re not going to like this.”

“What’s the bad news?” Wallace asked.

“In a nutshell? Hang on to your hats, kids. We think the commune may have been way older than a once-and-done blood bank, and it may have been more than just a blood bank.”

“What do you mean, older? Like, back to the sixties?” Colleen said, thinking of hippies.

“Try 1860s,” Gus said. “Maybe farther back. For vampires, that’s not such a big deal. Barring stakes and sunlight, they can hang around a while. That isn’t the kicker. This is—we think it may have been the same women.”

“The women?” Colleen’s throat went dry. “No. My mom was human. All the moms were human. They went out in the daytime. I saw them.”

“Let me rephrase that. Of course the women were human. However, there were earlier blood banks. We were checking for similarities when Annie spotted this.” He flipped through the papers until he reached a copy of a newspaper article with a dateline of August 17, 1903. “This was from Billings, Montana. A group of women held captive in an isolated spot. One was a prominent rancher’s wife and another was a judge’s daughter, that’s how names got in. Here’s the list of rescuees.” Gus tapped his finger at the end of a column. “Any look familiar?”

They all did.
Oaks
.
Lake
.
Waters
.
Waterson
.
Forrester
. Colleen refused to read beyond “Forrester.” She felt sick.

“Woods and waters,” Jeremy murmured.

“The same names,” Gus agreed. “The same families. Of course the paper didn’t mention vampires, but I’m betting that ‘posse’ that freed them was made up of slayers. There’s another story in there, too, somewhere. Nevada, 1947. This time a senator’s daughter made the news. Same setup, remote hideout, group of captive women. The girl’s name was Jeanette Bollinger. Her mother’s maiden name was Woods. There could be others. It’s hard to tell. Most of Allen’s info was secondhand, and names didn’t always get mentioned. We got lucky with these.”

“Is this normal?” Colleen asked. “I mean, when vampires put together a–a blood bank, do they keep going back to the same families? Like a tradition or something?”

“I’ve never heard of them doing that,” Gus said, “but vampires do tend to fixate. If this is the same flock, and it’s starting to shape up that way, then for some reason they’ve fixated on these particular women. So far, it looks like we’ve got at least three instances involving the same bunch. Each time there’s a break in the operation, they pick up again with their victims’ descendants. That’s fixation plus.”

“Why? Why us?” Colleen aimed this at Wallace. “What’s the attraction?”

“How the hell would I know? It’s not like they send me the newsletter.”

“The same families,” Jeremy said. “The same bloodlines. Always women, so they can reproduce. Like—” He caught Colleen’s expression and snapped his jaw shut.

She finished for him. “Like pedigreed livestock. For a breeding program.” She looked to Gus. “Breeding for what?”

“You got me,” Gus said. “I’d say blood, since that’s all a vampire’s interested in. Even that’s a stretch. Blood is blood to them.”

“Not always,” Wallace said grimly. “There are different degrees. Some people really do taste better than others. Maybe they’re aiming for more iron. Or low-cal. Maybe after centuries of sucking on cholesterol-choked vics they want to shuck some weight.”

“Not helping,” Colleen muttered.

“We can rule out docile temperament.” Wallace patted her shoulder. Even his touch had a smirk in it.

“It may not be blood at all,” Jeremy said. “What about your psychic powers? You can hear vampires. Maybe that’s what they want. And look at the relatives of some of the victims. Judges. Senators. Rich men. Women vampires could telepathically control, who could give them access to money and power, would be worth more to them than blood.”

“An excellent theory, Dr. Watson,” Gus said, “except none of the women from the Woods and the Waters fit the high-society category. As near as Annie and I could dig up, they were all just average girls from average families. Not a Lucy Skywalker or Harriet Potter in the bunch. Same thing goes for their daughters. Unless,” he added to Colleen, “you plan to marry the president.”

“It doesn’t matter. None of it.” Colleen caught the flatness in her own voice and snorted bitterly. “They’re wasting their time. Whatever they want, they won’t get it from me. I can’t have children. The Forrester bloodline ends here.”

She focused determinedly on the table. She didn’t need any psychic prickle to feel the men’s stares on her. “Yes, I’m sure. The doctors I went to were sure. I can’t conceive. No children for me. No parent-teacher nights, no play dates in the park, no high school graduations.” She glowered up at Wallace. “No white picket fences.”

Silence settled over the kitchen. Gus awkwardly cleared his throat. “That may be true, but the vampires don’t know it. I doubt if they’ll care, either. You’ve still got blood in your veins. I guarantee they’ll find a use for you.”

“Like hell,” Wallace snarled. He took her hand. Jeremy took the other. “They’re not getting anywhere near you. This little operation of theirs is decades overdue for a busting.”

“What about the title search?” Jeremy asked. “Any luck?”

“Theo’s still working on it. You were right. The commune land was privately owned, by—get this—Stoker Unlimited. A dummy corporation, of course. And I thought bats didn’t do cutesy. You ask me, Theo’s having a ball sifting through the paper trail. Talk about fixation.”

“So you don’t know where they are yet,” Wallace said.

“Only where they’ve been. Which brings me to my other bit of news. Remember that slayer I told you about? I finally tracked him down. He’s in Sacramento. Close by your old commune, in fact. Maybe he’s already working on this. It sounds like it’d be right up his alley. His street name’s the Preacher.”

“A slayer,” Wallace muttered. Colleen didn’t miss the nervous look Jeremy shot at him. “Hell, I can do the teamwork thing. Be just like old times. How do I get in touch with him?”

“Wish I could tell you. If slayers were that easy to pin down, the vamps would wipe them out. I’m sure he’s got a network set up. The folks in the fang bars will be tracking his movements for sure. Just be careful if you put yourself out there. He’s liable to say hello with a stake through your chest.”

“No biggie.” He released Colleen’s hand. “Looks like I’m off to Sacramento. I’d better pack a couple of those sandwiches.”

“And stakes,” Gus advised. “No telling how many bats are involved. Could be one, could be over a dozen. The other slayers who went after this outfit always travelled in packs. Try not to do anything stupid.”

“C’mon, Gus, you know me.”

“Exactly my point.” Gus selected two of the sandwiches. “Can I have these to go?”

Gus’s departure left them with several elephants in the room. Wallace chose to address the least of them. “It’s too late to take off tonight. I’ll need transportation. Can you rent me something? A van, or a pickup with a closed bed. I’m sick of sleeping in the trunk.”

“We’ll stay in motels,” Jeremy said. “Yes, I said we. We’re coming with you.”

“Like hell,” Wallace said. “You heard Gus. We don’t know how many bats are up there. You want to throw yourselves right in the middle of it?”

“I’m already in the middle of it,” Colleen said. “Since you’re so big on teamwork, we’ll all go together, as a team.”

“No, we won’t. I can’t hunt up a slayer, dodge bats, and watch out for you two to boot. You and Scarecrow are staying here, where you’ll be safe.”

“But I’m not safe. I’m in hiding, remember? What’s the difference whether I’m here or with you in Sacramento? They’re going to come after me anyway.”