Immortal (6 page)

“I’m afraid not, Fin.”

So that’s why Colin Meding hadn’t known what hit him when his throat was slit. A vampire had fed on him first, rendering him unconscious. Still stunned, Fin moved toward the door. He needed to get out of the tiny, claustrophobic room. He needed a breath of fresh air.

Two years ago, humans had come to their sleepy little town to kill vampires. It appeared that this summer, the vampires would be returning the favor.

“T
his is a bad idea,” Rob whispered from the shadows below. It was just after midnight and every window in the house was dark.

Kaleigh, hanging from the sill with both hands, wiggled her feet, dropping her flip-flops first. Then she let go and fell. She’d done it dozens of times, but tonight, of all nights, she twisted her ankle as she hit the ground. “Ouch!” She grabbed her ankle, rubbing it. “Sweet baby Jesus, that hurt. Why’s it a bad idea?” She tried to stand on the injured limb and winced.

Rob retrieved her flip-flops and arranged them in the grass in front of her. “Because you’re going to break a leg jumping out your second-story bedroom window one of these days.”

“It’s not broken.” She stepped into her flip-flops and hobbled across the lawn.

“Because we’re breaking curfew,
again
, and if we get caught
again
, there’ll be sanctions by the General Council.”

“They always say that. There never are. I’m the town’s wisewoman. I’ve got more power in my pinkie than some of these Vs have in their entire bodies,” she argued, wiggling her little finger at him. “What kind of sanctions could they invoke? I’m only seventeen,” she scoffed. “They going to take away my job at the Dairy Queen?”

“You’re not officially the wisewoman yet,” he argued, hurrying after her. “Not until you’re twenty-one. There’s going to be drinking there and you know it. We’re not supposed to be drinking, Kaleigh. It’s not safe at our age. Uncontrolled powers—”

“You’re such a worrywart.” She reached the sidewalk that ran along the edge of her parents’ well-manicured lawn and halted, turning to him. He was taller than she was now and his shoulders were getting broader. She clasped his cheeks between her palms and pushed, making him pucker his lips out. She lifted on her toes and kissed him hard. “Which is part of why I love you, I guess.” She let go of him. “You give me balance. You’re the yin to my yang. The white to the black in my black-and-white milkshake.” Chuckling at her own joke, she started down the sidewalk, limping only slightly.

The neighborhood was quiet and still, the already sleepy town nearly comatose. A warm, humid breeze rustled the sycamore trees that lined the picturesque street. It was a perfect night for a summer party.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he told her.

“So?” She put out her hand for him. “Come on, we’re going to be late. Katy won’t wait for us and I’m not sure which house it is.”

They had no trouble finding it. It was the house on First Street pulsing with music, every window lit up, the front and back doors flung open. Teenagers and young adults spilled out of the house onto the dilapidated front porch, into the driveway, and onto the lawn. A guy had turned on the garden hose at the side of the house and was spraying down two busty teenage girls. The HFs squealed in protest, trying to block the spray with their hands, but made no attempt to escape the impromptu wet T-shirt contest.

Kaleigh glanced at Rob, who walked beside her. “You sure you still wanna go home? Looks like the kind of party where some poor, drunk girl shows everyone her titties.”

He scowled, tightening his grip on her fingers as she tried to loosen them. “You know I don’t care about other girls. Humans. I love you, Kaleigh. I’ll never love anyone but you.”

“You’re loyal enough,” she quipped. “I’ll give you that. Now come on, smile. Have some fun.” She drew her face close to his, rolling her eyes playfully. “Or at least
pretend
you’re having fun.”

Katy greeted them on the front porch. She sat perched on the railing, bare legs dangling over the edge, a red plastic cup in her hand. “Where you been?” she called over the heavy beat of the music. “I figured you chickened out.”

Kaleigh limped up the front steps, Rob trailed behind. “Chicken out? Me? The girl who chases werewolves and lives to tell the tale?”

“Kaleigh,” Rob whispered, glancing uneasily around him. “Someone will hear you.”

She laughed. “No one believes in werewolves, silly. It’s perfectly safe.”

“Rob! Hey, man, what’s goin’ on?” an HM they knew from school called from the other end of the porch.

Rob looked to Kaleigh.

She gave him a gentle push. “Go on, talk to the guys. We’re already stuck with each other for eternity, it’s not like you don’t know who I’m going home with.”

“I don’t want you drinking,” he warned. “Not here. Not in front of humans.”

“I’m not going to drink.” She gazed into his eyes. She meant it. Her drinking days had ended two years ago when she’d naïvely and inadvertently led vampire slayers right into Clare Point’s backyard. Kaleigh was just here tonight for a little fun. For the adventure. She knew she didn’t belong among these people, but it was okay to pretend for a little while, wasn’t it? Besides, it was the perfect chance to observe humans in their native habitat. The more she knew about them, the better she would fit in. Right? And if she was here, she could keep an eye on Katy. Her best friend had her a little worried these days. She just didn’t seem like herself.

“I love you,” Rob said.

“I love you.” Kaleigh gave him a quick kiss. “Now stop acting like you’re my mother.” She let him go. “Or my keeper.”

“Then don’t act like you
need
a keeper.”

She stuck her tongue out at him and walked away.

“Worrywart busy worrying?” Katy was wearing her red bikini top and a pair of itsy-bitsy surf shorts.

“Of course. It’s his job, right? Hard to break, these centuries-old habits.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Katy tipped the cup to her mouth.

Before Katy could take a sip, Kaleigh snatched it away from her. “What are you drinking?” She sniffed the amber liquid.

“What do you think I’m drinking? These boys are serious. They’ve got a keg in the bathtub.”

“No alcohol.” Kaleigh turned the cup upside down over the rail and poured the beer into the bushes.

“Hey!” Katy protested. “I had to pay a five-buck cover.”

“No drinking alcohol or using drugs,” Kaleigh warned. “You know better.”

“Sheesh. What’s with you, party-pooper extraordinaire?” Katy jumped down from the railing. “Bad day in the land of the vanilla chocolate twist cones?”

“I’m just trying to look out for you.” She glanced in the front door, propped open by a boogie board wedged under the knob. “Hot Italian guy here?”

“I don’t know.” Katy pouted. “I never made it past the keg. I was waiting for you.”

“So I’m here.” Kaleigh opened her arms. “Let’s check it out.”

Fin sat on the bench, his back to the boardwalk, and watched as the frothy waves lapped the shore in a sliver of moonlight. It was after one in the morning and the beach was deserted, the boardwalk and gated shops a ghost town. Word had gotten out that a man had been killed last night. The tourists, uneasy, had turned in early for the evening. Even the locals had stayed in tonight, or at least avoided the beach.

Fin dropped his head. He still couldn’t believe what he had seen in that examining room. Could one of their own really have done such a thing? Was one of them really capable of taking a human’s life that way? He didn’t want to believe it. But he hadn’t wanted to believe his brother had been addicted to cocaine, either.

Even vampires were not infallible creatures.

He rubbed his itchy, tired eyes. He’d gone home for a shower around eleven thirty with the intention of hitting the sack, but he hadn’t been able to sleep. He’d left Regan watching TV on the couch. Neither mentioned their argument the night before. When Regan couldn’t sleep, he watched old sitcoms. When Fin couldn’t sleep, he was drawn to the ocean. There was something about the rhythm of the waves that he found soothing, on any shore, on any continent.

Fin couldn’t get Colin Meding’s face out of his mind. The empty blue eyes. His macabre pose. The gaping neck wound. What kind of person would kill an innocent young man and then arrange his body against a Dumpster in an alley? No one had said it aloud in the station, not all day, but they had all been thinking the same thing. Fin knew what kind of man would do something like this, and the thought of such a creature in his own town again made him sick to his stomach. He knew this man; every man and woman in the sept knew him because they had vowed to God to rid the earth of his kind. Colin’s murder wasn’t the result of a drunken bar fight or an argument over a girl. Fin knew from experience that only one kind of human killed another human and left him posed. A man who would kill again. And again. And would continue to kill until someone stopped him. But that only applied to humans, didn’t it? Could a vampire be a serial killer?

“Shouldn’t you be in bed, Officer?”

The female voice startled Fin so badly that he whipped around, rising off the bench.

It was Elena. He’d never even heard her approach.

He glanced up the boardwalk and down. It was devoid of human or spirit, and eerily quiet. Where the hell had she come from? How had he been so engrossed in his thoughts that he’d allowed a human to approach without being aware of her? It wasn’t like him and it was dangerous.

It took him a second to find his voice, but she didn’t seem to notice. She sat down on the bench. She was wearing a pair of shorts and a sweatshirt with CLARE POINT BEACH printed across it in bold graphics. And she was barefoot. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t heard her. But he should have sensed her approach even if he didn’t hear it.

“What…you shouldn’t be out here this time of night. Alone,” he said, sitting down again.

“I couldn’t sleep.” She drew her knees up and rested her feet on the wooden slats of the bench. “I didn’t want to wake anyone in the house with my prowling.”

She sat close enough that her sleeve brushed his bare arm. He could feel the heat of her body in the cool night air. Suddenly he felt chilled and was drawn to her. “I know you know what happened here last night. You shouldn’t be out here alone.”

“I’m not afraid,” she said softly, her voice reflecting some tragedy that made her bold or stupid, though which he wasn’t sure.

“It’s not about being afraid, it’s about being smart.”

“You’re here. What makes you safe?”

The fact that I’m not human
, he thought. He didn’t say it, of course.

“Because you’re the law?” Her voice was teasing now. “Or are you—how do you Americans say—packing heat?” She slipped her arm around his waist and felt for a weapon. In the process, she moved closer, pressing her body against his.

He turned to her to answer and found himself looking into wide, deep, dark eyes. Her full lips were pursed, moist, and begging to be kissed.

Fin knew he shouldn’t, but the pull was as strong as that of the moon on the earth’s tides. Suddenly he was desperate for her warmth. Literally and figuratively.

Just one kiss
, he told himself as he leaned toward her. To satisfy his curiosity.

As his lips met hers, she sighed, her breath mingling with his. Her lips were soft and pliable, the scent of her perfume utterly intoxicating.

Fin couldn’t stop at one. His first kiss tested the waters. On the second, he waded in. She tasted as good as she smelled and his fingertips found her slender neck as he deepened the kiss.

This time she moaned, first rising on her knees on the bench, then climbing into his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and curled her body around his. He kissed the side of her mouth, trying to catch his breath. His lips, of their own accord, slid downward, over her jawline to the slender length of her neck.

He felt the prickle of gooseflesh rise on sweet-scented skin and she stretched like a cat, baring more. Her pulse beat against his lips, throbbing with life and that which gave him life.

Fin was breathing hard. Harder than he should have been after a couple of relatively innocent kisses. He was rock solid beneath his gym shorts and straining against the fabric. She couldn’t have not known, not the way her shapely buttocks pressed against his groin.

He tasted her skin with the tip of his tongue. It would be so easy, just a tiny nip of the skin…Just a taste. It had been a long time since he had sampled human blood. And he had always had an affinity for Italian blood.

He drew back, his head buzzing. He was dizzy with the ancient, cursed longing that would never be entirely satiated until he was dead. He couldn’t understand why Regan needed drugs; this feeling was a better high than any chemical.

He pressed his mouth harder against her neck and she sighed again. No, it was closer to a moan.

Do it
.

The voice in his head startled him and he drew back, looking down at her, cradled in his lap. He knew she had not spoken, but it had been her voice in his mind.

Hadn’t it?

“What did you say?” he whispered.

She smiled, her mouth sexy, sultry. “I didn’t say anything.” She lifted her chin to kiss him again.

Fin resisted. He couldn’t do this. Not here. Not now. Not when there was a dead man in the cooler in Dr. Caldwell’s office. A dead man who was, by forfeit, Fin’s responsibility. “You should go home,” he said, still holding her in his arms, not meaning it, but wanting to.