TangledHunger (7 page)

She didn’t waste any time and ran. For a second she wished
she’d continued flight training after passing basic training. Vertical takeoffs
were a bitch and with her so out of shape the lush greenery around her added to
the difficulties. As soon as she was back at the road she took a running leap
and was airborne. Her muscles screamed and the injured wing didn’t carry her as
well as the other.

Tanasha panted and strained against the wind. She managed to
contact the Guard. Anonymously. As annoying as they may have been, it was their
job to protect the inhabitants of the District. Ferals definitely qualified as
danger.

Her lessons came back to her. She found her rhythm. The wing
the Feral hit still ached, but overall her wing muscles warmed up and the
strain eased somewhat. Tanasha climbed higher in an attempt to stay out of
sight. It was bad form to show your wings. Actually flying was a whole ’nother
kettle of fish.

She aimed for the edge of the District. Crossing the border
would set off an alarm. Tanasha touched down in a secluded green area and
tottered for a few steps. Once she’d come to a standstill she just stood
gasping. Her knees weakened and reaction set in.

How did they know where she lived? How had they managed to
get inside the District without anybody noticing?

She called for a taxi transport and forced her wobbly legs
to carry her to the road. Her thoughts tumbled around in her head, the feel and
the scent of the Ferals dominating everything else.

She could have died.

Tanasha swallowed and staggered to the transport. Tucked
inside, racing away from her home, she rubbed her arms, battling cold spreading
into every part of her body. Where could she go? They knew where she lived.
They had to know where her family lived. She prayed that everybody was fine.

She took a deep breath and pulled the card out. Her hand
shook as she programmed her destination.

He would know what to do.

Chapter Four

Things weren’t adding up. He had no trouble understanding
why a Naema would betray his race and work with Vampires, but why would he do
it so openly? Marius felt very safe. He had to have some sort of backup plan as
security.

Why the Jade would he kidnap his own wife? He rubbed his
chin and in the back of his mind realized he needed a shave. Why would a con
man like Marius choose such a high-profile target to get involved with?

Duncan had no doubt that the Naema had planned to take over
Sydney’s family well before he met her for the first time. With everybody
believing him and nobody asking any questions, he had access to the family’s
fortune, could use the family’s influence.

Marius would finish his con soon. And at the moment only
Tanasha stood in his way.

He leaned back. Her image was burned into his mind. He only
had to think her name. Her lovely face, her gorgeous curves and the chemistry
between them that was volatile enough to create a black hole.

The Naema without a Gift.

Duncan no longer believed that to be true.

He pulled out his handheld comp and started a number of
searches. Luckily he’d hacked into the Naema Archives long ago, just for fun
and to prove that he could. He liked to read and knowing one’s opponents’
history or weaknesses was never a mistake. Duncan vaguely remembered an article
in a paper about the cleanup after the Human-Feral War. It had talked about a
young man with a rare gift. He couldn’t remember the details and ordered the
comp to find it.

It took a few minutes, but finally the comp beeped. “Ah,
here you are.” He flicked through the details.

The man had been described as a Null. A Naema unaffected by
magic, any kind of magic. After the war he’d helped to dismantle booby traps
left behind by Ferals when they were killed or pushed off planet. The article
didn’t go into much detail, but it speculated that the Naema sensed the Feral
magic left behind and directed and assisted with the disassembly of the traps.
His assistance reduced the death rate and humans celebrated him as a hero. The
article didn’t mention why a Naema took the time to assist humans.

Tanasha’s touch had cleared the fog building in his mind,
had helped him to fend off the overwhelming push coming from Marius. When
they’d stepped out of the house into the rain he’d tried to put up a magical
barrier that would keep her dry. His magic had rolled right off her and,
because he touched her, off him.

Duncan bet she was a Null. She strengthened his shield,
helped him to overcome whatever Influence magic Marius utilized.

He started another search on the young man’s history and
anything else the Archive had on being a Null. He wanted to give Tanasha as
much information as he could.

He couldn’t imagine her Gift as an active, measurable
ability. No wonder it had never been recognized.

Duncan dragged his thoughts away from Tanasha and the way
she made him feel. Despite her doubt, he was certain that Marius used a mixture
of Naema and Vampire magic. He had an idea how such a coalition may have come
together. He prayed that he was wrong.

Tanasha was right on point, both species tended to stay away
from each other.

Naemas surrounded themselves with high fences and open green
space. They segregated themselves in individual Districts, sticking together
and making it incredibly difficult for anybody to enter their world. They even
employed their own Guard.

Vampires on the other hand had mingled with humans from the
very start. The Vampire-human relationship had been rocky and at times they had
stood on opposite sides, but Vampires would rather surround themselves with
humans than members of their own species.

He studied the neighborhood through the transport’s window.
And Vampires didn’t mind dark alleys and corners filled with shadow. They
didn’t even mind living in a residence that was literally falling to pieces
around them.

Duncan sighed when the transport stopped outside an ancient
three-story building. At one point it would have been grand and polished, but
those days were far behind. Now most of the windows had been boarded up and the
few that still had glass had been decorated with laser bars.

He gently stepped around a pile of broken roof shingles and
jumped over the missing steps leading to the front door. Duncan never
understood why Hugo lived under these circumstances. The other Vampire was old
enough to accumulate wealth and move somewhere a little more upscale.

At least somewhere where the front door still existed. He
stepped through the empty doorway into a narrow corridor. It smelled of cooked
foods, human sweat and refuse and a dark, coppery smell.

Duncan tensed when he sensed the spilled blood. He took the
steps two at a time, sometimes three if some were missing, until he reached the
top floor. Unlike the lower floors, this one only had two apartments. Hugo and
his boyfriend lived in the one on the left.

Unfortunately, that was the one he could smell the blood
from.

He knocked but didn’t get an answer. He tried again, louder
this time. The third time his hand rattled the synth-wood door. “Hugo? It’s
Duncan.”

Tentative footsteps approached the door. The security chain
clinked against the inside of the door, which opened an inch. Pale-blue eyes
with deep rings underneath set in an unearthly white face met Duncan’s gaze.
“Duncan?” he whispered.

“Yes, Trurro, it’s me.”

Tears dripped down the human’s cheek. “Thank Jade you came.”
Trurro closed the door and unlocked the chain. He invited Duncan into the
apartment with a wave of his hand.

Inside the apartment looked nothing like one would expect in
a residence so run-down. Hugo and his human companion had gone to town with
lovely real-wood furniture, artwork Duncan expected to be authentic and
decorations that made the apartment look like a luxurious uptown abode.

Trurro just stood in the foyer, sobbing. Duncan sighed and
guided the thin boy to one of the comfortable couches in the living room. “What
happened?” he asked as he sat the boy down.

“H-he-he’s d-d-dead!” Trurro cried out.

Duncan wasn’t surprised. The scent of Vampire blood flooded
the apartment. “What happened?” he asked again.

Trurro gasped and panted, mumbling words Duncan couldn’t
make out. “Trurro, pull yourself together and tell me what happened.”

The boy nodded and took a couple of deep breaths. “I came
home from the theater yesterday night and…and…f-f-found him.” He buried his
face in his hands and sobbed some more.

Duncan patted him on the shoulder and rose from the sofa.
He’d have a look around and see what he could find. Maybe when he returned
Trurro would have settled down and would be more coherent.

The bedroom was at the back of the apartment. It was
lavishly decorated in gold and red, reminding Duncan of pictures he’d seen of
long-ago Earth bordellos.

The huge bed was covered with satin sheets. And had a
massive pool of blood in the center of it. Hugo’s body had been moved. Duncan
imagined the other Vampire had left strict instructions on how to deal with his
body should he die.

Duncan studied the sticky blood and discovered a number of
cuts in the sheets. He lifted them with care and discovered the cuts went all
the way through to the mattress. Hugo had been stabbed.

Duncan frowned. A knife wound, even a whole bunch of them,
wouldn’t kill a Vampire. And how the Jade did they keep him lying down? Hugo
should have struggled and fought against his attackers. It was definitely
plural. No way a single person, even a Vampire, could have killed Hugo.

Duncan walked around the bed and found proof. A number of
bloody footprints of varying shapes and sizes confirmed his suspicion.

Why didn’t he defend himself? Duncan leaned closer to the
bed. A large cut across the pillow told the story. They’d held Hugo down and
decapitated him. Even an old Vampire couldn’t come back from that. Duncan rose
and checked the rest of the room.

He vaguely realized that Trurro had stopped sobbing, but
continued his investigation, checking the wardrobe, the drawers and the
attached bathroom. The sink had blood smudges all over it, but Duncan doubted
the attackers used it to clean up. More likely Trurro had tried to revive his
lover and gotten blood all over himself.

Having checked all he could, Duncan returned to the living
room. Trurro still sat on the sofa. The boy had lost weight since he last saw
him. “Have you eaten?”

Trurro just stared at him, his eyes blank. With a small sigh
Duncan marched into the kitchen and made a ham-and-cheese sandwich. He plopped
the plate on Trurro’s lap. “Eat,” he demanded.

The boy looked as if he wanted to protest, but Duncan stared
him down. Trurro began to nibble on the sandwich.

Duncan dropped into an armchair and waited for the human to
finish.

“They killed him,” Trurro whispered between bites.

“Who did?” Duncan kept his voice gentle.

“The Ferals.”

Duncan’s brows shot up. He’d always suspected that Hugo had
links to Ferals, but he’d never been able to prove it. The few times he tried
to track and follow him, the other Vampire had lost him in the middle of
nowhere.

“What Ferals?”

Trurro took another deep breath. Guilt filled his eyes.
“Once in a while the hunger would become too much. Synth-blood gave him the
nutrition he needed, but he didn’t feel the same satisfaction that human blood
gave him. One of his oldest friends, a Vampire called Jefferson, had turned
Feral after the War. Hugo and he stayed in touch,” he waved his arms, “through
channels. He never explained them to me.” Trurro hiccupped a sob. “And now he
never will.”

“Hugo and this Jefferson would meet up once in a while and
Hugo would go hunting with his old friend, killing humans?”

Trurro’s gaze dropped to the ground. He nodded. “It didn’t
happen very often,” he defended his lover.

“What about you? Didn’t he drink your blood?”

The boy’s expression changed. He dropped his head back and
closed his eyes. “Yes,” he whispered, a smile crossing his lips that could only
be described as beatific. “Yes, he did.”

A Vampire’s bite during sex was one of the most erotic
things that could happen to a human.

“Then why did he have to go hunting?”

The smile slipped away and Trurro dropped his gaze again.

This time Duncan’s silence didn’t drive Trurro to talk.

“He needed the kill, didn’t he?” Duncan asked.

Trurro nodded. “He once told me that the high he achieved
from draining a human dry is incomparable to anything else.” He wiped the tears
trickling down his cheeks away. “Even being with me couldn’t make up for that
need. But he didn’t want to risk hurting me, so he would go and meet
Jefferson.”

Duncan’s little finger tapped against his thigh. They were
back where they’d started. He suppressed the tapping and tried to get Trurro to
talk more. “What happened the last time he met Jefferson?”

Trurro shrugged. “I’m not quite sure. All I know is that
Hugo came home in a tizzy. He was scared and said that he’d never thought
Jefferson would go that far. According to him, Jefferson and his followers were
going to start another war.” Haunted eyes focused on Duncan. “I had never seen
Hugo so frightened. He changed the security system close to hourly. Twice he
packed and said we had to leave, only to change his mind saying they couldn’t
make it onto the planet.

“He didn’t leave the house in the week and a half since he’d
been back. He didn’t sleep and spent a lot of time in his study.” Trurro
sobbed. “Yesterday he was even more agitated than usual and sent me away. He
told me to go shopping and not come back until he phoned. But he never did.”

“So you came back against his wishes.”

Trurro nodded. “Yes, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I found
him in the bedroom.” He covered his face with his hands. “They cut off his
head. Duncan, they killed him.”

Duncan grabbed his shoulder. “What did you do?”

“His instructions had been very clear, so I called the
undertaker and followed Hugo’s final wish.”

Before the boy could succumb to another wave of grief,
Duncan pulled him back. “You said he spent a lot of time in his office. Doing
what?”

“I’m not sure, he kept the door closed most of the time.”

Duncan rose and strode inside the study. The room was as
lavishly decorated as the rest of the apartment. A massive real-wood desk stood
before French doors leading to a balcony. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were filled
with books, real paper books.

Nothing seemed out of place. The small personal comp hummed
on the desk. Duncan instructed it to show him the last transactions and was told
that it had been wiped clean. Knowing Hugo’s attention to detail, chances of
recovering any data were slim to none. He paced up and down, hands on his hips,
trying to imagine where Hugo would hide his information.

He’d been afraid and sent his human lover away. Hugo knew
the enemy was coming for him. He would have found a way to leave something
behind to avenge his death.

Duncan had heard rumors about Feral activity that crossed
the line and could lead to another galactic war between humans and Vampires. Vampires
might be the stronger, more advanced race, but their birthrate was far slower
than humans. Unless Vampires started turning humans left, right and center,
humans would always outnumber Vampires, making an all-out war deadly for the
Vampire race.

If Hugo had evidence of the Ferals’ actions, Duncan had to
find it and see what he could do to stop it from getting out of hand.

He stared at the classic books lined up on the shelves, all
neat and tidy. At the decorative statues lined up like soldiers. One closer
look showed him the figurines were based on book characters. He studied one
more closely. The Tin Man had a brain around his neck and that was wrong.