Last Vampire Standing (25 page)

Ice clinked in my glass of water as I went back to Saber’s office. Good thing I didn’t have a mouthful of anything because, as soon as I sat in his desk chair, my breath caught.

Three small picture frames with black trim sat to one side of the desk, partly hidden by the printer. One held a photo of me coming out of the ocean lugging my surfboard. He must’ve taken the picture during our first official date when we’d taken a picnic to the beach and Saber had insisted on watching me surf. That he had the photo on his desk made me go warm and mushy inside. Another frame displayed a photo of two couples standing side by side in their Sunday best. One couple looked to be in their fifties, the other in their twenties or thirties. The younger woman held a baby in her arms, and the photo had been taken outside a church with palm trees in the background. The two men were near clones, so I figured them for father and son. Was Saber the baby?

Nah. The ladies’ hats were from the 1940s.

The last photo made me smile. A boy, maybe three years old, was dressed in a cowboy outfit complete with a white hat, and a sixshooter like those I’d seen in old Westerns. The child stood in front of a Christmas tree, blond furniture I thought was from the 1940s showing in the edges of the shot. Little Deke Saber? I’d seen that fierce expression before. It was eerily similar to his cop face, in fact.

Something written at the bottom of the photo looked to be in Saber’s firm, slanted handwriting. I turned the frame toward the brightening light outside to read the script.
Remember, 1951.

Nineteen fifty-one? If the little cowboy was Saber, and he was three in the picture, that would make Saber—

No. It couldn’t be. We’d celebrated his birthday on April fifth, and though I hadn’t asked his age because I didn’t want to feel like an ancient cradle-robbing hag, he couldn’t be much over thirty-six. Not with his washboard abs, tight butt, and a whole list of muscle groups that
so
were not sagging.

The photo must have been of Saber’s dad, and the other one of his grandparents and great grandparents. Had to be. Right?

I chewed on my lip as I replaced the frame. I considered going to the bedroom to look for Saber’s driver’s license, but a glance out the window at the growing day changed my mind. I had research to do, about two hours to do it, and I’d promised Saber printouts of all the data I could find.

I logged into the protected part of the VPA site with Saber’s user name and password and pulled up every file on everyone in Ike’s nest, starting with Ike himself.

Born in the late 1860s, Ike was reportedly the product of a black mother and Chinese father, and had resided in California until some point in his mid-twenties. The facts pretty well fizzled after that, other than to note Ike had been in Florida since 1955, and in Daytona by 1979.

Miranda and Charles were listed as being one hundred and twenty and twenty-one years old, respectively. Both had been born in Devonshire, England, had met while serving on an earl’s domestic staff. They’d been married and had one adult child at the time they were turned in their early forties.

Coach, the guy who looked thirty, was ninety in combined human and vampire years. He’d been turned in 1949, and had really been a football coach, though the records didn’t say where. Suzy was forty-five and had been turned at age nineteen while in college. Again, the records didn’t reveal where Suzy had gone to school, but her favorite food had been a Frito pie served with a Dr Pepper. Ooookay.

The information on Tower and Zena was sketchy, but they were listed as being over three hundred years old. The record did mention that Tower had known Laurel for many of those years, and I wondered how close they might have been. Would Tower aid and abet Laurel if she came to him for help?

Ray’s fact sheet held the most information. At close to two hundred thirty, he was a few years older than me and was of direct Spanish descent. He had, in fact, lived in Alta California in the days that made me think of Zorro. He had studied medicine in the 1800s, law in the early 1900s, and still held his license to practice law. Had Ray known Ike back on the West Coast in the old days? Was Ray Ike’s sire?

I pulled up Laurel’s information last. A former slave, she’d been turned in 1863 while escaping in the Underground Railroad system, and had lived in the North until the late 1980s. She’d come south gradually, joining nests, then moving on. She hooked up with Ike ten years ago.

The records didn’t list any known regular companions for Laurel, or for any vamps in Ike’s nest—except each other. I left the printouts on the desk and then almost went back into the VPA files to research Saber. I wanted to. My hands poised over the keyboard, but a glance at the clock changed my mind. It was nine thirty in the morning, and I was fading. Instead, I e-mailed Old Coast Ghost Tours to tell them to take me off the schedule for the next three days. Probably more time than I needed, but I’d been working almost nonstop for months. I could use the break. And, yes, I did feel the tiniest bit guilty for the short notice, but I squashed it. I’d filled in dozens of times for other guides. Someone else could jolly well fill in for me. With a last glance at the photos, I tiptoed into the bedroom to close the blackout drapes, quietly opened drawers until I found what I wanted, and traded my jeans and top for one of Saber’s T-shirts.

As I crawled into bed, I kept wondering about the boy in the picture. Should I ask Saber about it? Could I admit to being that nosy? Would he tell me about it on his own?

Should, could, would swirled in my head for only a few minutes before I drifted to sleep. I bolted out of bed at three in the afternoon, just as soon as I realized Saber wasn’t in bed with me. I charged down the hall toward the living room, only to come to a whiplash halt at the office doorway.

“Where’s the fire?” Saber flashed a tired grin.

He was dressed in shorts and a short-sleeved button-up shirt, sans his sling. He looked worn but not unwell. I sagged against the door casing, my heart still racing. “Geez, Saber, I was worried you’d gone out.”

“I did, but only for some Starbloods. It’s in the fridge.”

“You drove with your cast? On pain meds? Saber, I could’ve picked up Starbloods later. And where’s your sling? You’re supposed to keep your arm elevated so it doesn’t swell.”

He looked at his swathed arm where it rested on the desktop. “It is elevated.”

“It’s supposed to be higher than your heart.”

He slouched down in the desk chair until he was in danger of sliding out of it. “How’s that?”

My lips twitched, but I shook my head. “Not good enough. Come on, at least lie on the couch.”

“Don’t you want to hear my report?”

“Absolutely,” I said, marching over to him. “But you can tell me in the living room.”

I went to take his good arm to get him moving, but that close to the desk, I couldn’t help but glance at the photos. When I looked at Saber, he met my gaze in silence, and I saw the wheels spinning in his head. Then the moment passed.

“I’ll come peacefully as long as you’ll leave that shirt on.” He winked. “It’s making me hot.”

I laughed as he wanted me to do, and settled him on the couch with pillows from the bedroom. (Note to self: Add throw pillows to the shopping list). After downing the Starbloods he’d made a special trip to buy, I cleaned my teeth to a minty fresh shine and rejoined Saber for my briefing.

“Good work on the research last night,” he said when I plopped in the chair opposite him and tucked my legs under me. “I’ve learned a little more this afternoon, and we just might catch a break.”

“Well, don’t leave me in suspense. What did you get?”

“First, I called Jackson. The carving on the weapon is too intricate to give him a good print, and the techs haven’t found unaccounted for hair or skin or anything else I can compare with DNA samples the VPA keeps.”

“Any word about the carvings on the knife?”

“Nada. Jackson sent an e-mail with some good shots of it, and I forwarded those to Neil.”

“I doubt Neil’s checking his mail.”

“He’s checking. He gave me his cell number in case anything came up with the house, so I gave him a heads-up.”

“Can I see the photos?”

He passed five sheets of paper across the coffee table, and I quickly examined each one.

“Does the style look familiar?”

“They’re not particularly Spanish, Italian, British, or anything else I’d recognize.” I looked up at him. “If Neil can’t give you any leads, will Jackson send these to other experts?”

Saber took the papers I passed back. “Yes, but I also e-mailed these to Jo-Jo on the chance he might recognize the weapon itself.”

“You mean recognize it as belonging to Atlanta Marco?”

“Makes sense to ask. If Jo-Jo can verify it’s Marco’s, then we can tie the murder weapon to him.”

“But if Marco is out of Atlanta, shouldn’t his tracker readouts show that?”

“Yep, which is why I’ve also talked with Candy again.”

I blinked. “You have been busy. Exactly how long have you been up?”

“A while. You want to hear what Candy said?”

“I do. Is Marco in Atlanta or not?”

“He is. Maybe. Candy and Crusher are putting a task force together. That may take a day or two, but they’ll go back to Vlad’s and demand a little habeas corpus action.”

I read and watch enough mysteries to know what that means. “They’re going to get Vlad to turn Marco over to them?”

“They’re going to find out if Marco is really there at all. His tracker still indicates he is, but he’s been stationary for ten days. We’re thinking he’s removed the tracker.”

“And just left it at Vlad’s place? I thought there was a body mass sensor or some kind of fail-safe in the trackers.”

“There is, but Marco could’ve gotten around that by implanting it in someone else.”

That thought made the Starbloods sour in my stomach.

“Candy can’t raid Vlad’s nest any sooner?”

“She can’t do that and ensure the team’s safety, much less meet their objective. They need to go in full out this time.”

“What about Laurel’s tracker records? Is the GPS working?”

“She’s completely off the radar as of last night. The tracker has been removed. The past records show that the flatline signal started six weeks ago, while she was in Atlanta. So, besides making Ike’s payoffs to Vlad, she was up to something else. What, we don’t know.”

“So, she knows immune-to-silver Marco, too, and she knew Jo-Jo was in town almost before we did, though I don’t understand how she pulled that off.”

“It was Jo-Jo, indirectly.”

“What?”

“I’m pretty sure his computer and cell phone were bugged. I told him to check out my theory first chance he gets. I also suspect that Vlad has had someone hack into the VPA site.”

“Did you tell Candy? The VPA should get security upgrades, like, fast.”

He nodded. “I told her we need to upgrade the trackers, too, but let’s go back to what we know. Assume for a minute that Laurel wants to take over Ike’s nest. Especially after Ike hooks up with Donita. Laurel causes problems but doesn’t swing the rest of the vamps to her side, so she gets Vlad to send backup.”

“Enter Marco the muscle.” I paused and frowned. “But if he killed Ike, why snatch Laurel?”

“He needs her for some reason.”

I nodded. “Saber, are we sure the other vamps weren’t involved in Ike’s murder? Or even Donita?”

“You have doubts about Donita?”

“Not really, but I want to talk to her.”

“We’ll hit her place early, then go to Ike’s residence so we’ll be there when the gang wakes up.”

“Fine, but you need to rest before we go.”

Saber grimaced. “Actually, what I need is a shower and shave. Can you tape a plastic bag over my arm?”

“As long as you put the sling back on afterward.”

Fifteen minutes later, Saber had shaved, and I had his cast wrapped tight in a white kitchen trash bag. Then, of course, he couldn’t reach his back, or wash his hair, so I got in the shower stall with him. My little voice kept nattering about something, but I tuned it out when our slippery bodies rubbed each other in all the
oh, there
places. We barely toweled off before we kissed each other to bed.

Ten minutes after Saber drifted to sleep, I heard what my little voice had been telling me in the shower. The scrapes and bruises that had been on Saber’s back and arms last night weren’t there now. They had healed. Overnight. That just wasn’t possible. Not for a human.

A bone-deep hum started in my solar plexus and spread to my chest, as if every cell vibrated with . . . what? Not fear. Anger?

Betrayal? Hurt?

I lay stiff beside Saber, not wanting to disturb him yet dying to lift the sheet from his arm to see if I was right. To see if the nicks and dings in his bronze skin had truly healed. The blackout drapes were still drawn against the Western sun, but I could see with vamp vision. If I had the courage to look.

I didn’t. I lay quietly, trembling and remembering.

Like book pages being fanned, images flipped through my memory. Saber moving incredibly fast to tackle Laurel last night. Pulling his gun on her Saturday night before I could blink. Firing on the sniper before I saw him draw his gun. None of those movements had been quite preternatural, yet they seemed speedier than a human could manage. The tremors shook my body like a severe case of chills now, and I couldn’t stop the whimper that gripped my throat. Saber shifted. Next thing I knew, his tanned hand lay on the sheet over my belly.