The Vampire's Betrayal (20 page)

“When are you going to break up with her?”

“Tonight.”

“Good luck,” I said, and squeezed his shoulder.

“I’ll pick up your tab.”

“Thanks.” Looking like a man on his way to the gallows, Jack left.

The visiting vampires observed Jack’s departure and approached me to see what state he was in. Werm stepped out from behind the bar to join us. Without going into detail, I told them Jack was on a sad mission to prepare Connie, to try to influence her to support us, and to remove her from our midst if possible. They didn’t need the details of Jack’s scheme; it wasn’t a decision to be made by committee. Iban and Tobey stated their support while Travis said nothing.

Just then the other vampires turned toward the front door, sensing the presence of an unfamiliar blood drinker. “Ah, here’s your friend Mr. Blackstone,” I said to Tobey.

“That’s not Freddy Blackstone,” Tobey hissed, and we all moved as one toward the club entrance.

As soon as he saw us, the blood drinker fled. The dance floor was between us and the entrance, so we were impeded by having to dodge the other patrons. By the time we reached the outside, whoever was posing as Tobey’s friend had gotten cleanly away.

“Damn!” Tobey unholstered his cell phone and began to dial, presumably one of his clan members, while the rest of us fanned out across the parking lot. There was no sign of the other blood drinker or which way he had gone.

“How long has he been missing? Did he say where he was going?” Tobey asked the person on the other end of the line. After some additional questioning, he clicked off the phone and addressed us as we gathered around him. “They haven’t seen Freddy for weeks,” he said. “They assumed he was off on one of his wanderings, but now there’s the possibility of foul play. They’re going to put on a search for him at some of his hangouts.”

“Werm, in your conversations with this impostor, did he tell you anything about himself that aroused your suspicions?” I asked.

“Uh—about what?” He looked as if he also wished to flee the scene.

“Anything.”

“No. He just talked about stupid stuff—places he’d been, things he’d seen. Nothing you’d ever think twice about,” Werm insisted.

“Did he seem overly curious about us—here in Savannah, or any of the other clans in the Americas?”

“Not really, no. I mean, not that I can remember. If he started asking too many questions, I would have told you, honest. I didn’t tell him anything about you guys.”

“Very well,” I said. Werm would not have been able to lie to me if he tried.

“It looks as if your clan has been under surveillance, at the very least,” Iban said to Tobey. “It would take some research and knowledge of your people and their habits to determine which blood drinker would not be missed if he left suddenly.”

“So that another blood drinker could assume his identity,” Travis completed Iban’s thought.

Tobey, clearly flustered, ran a hand through his hair. “What did you mean by ‘at the very least,’ Iban?” he asked.

“I believe what Iban was getting at is the likelihood that your clan has been infiltrated by someone working for the Council,” I said.

“Like Will infiltrated my own clan, leading to their deaths,” Iban added bitterly.

“Let’s not jump to the worst-case scenario,” I said. “Tobey, have you ever seen that blood drinker before?”

“I don’t think so, but I couldn’t swear to it. I concentrate on my racing most of the time. I have underlings who do the administrative work for the clan—keeping track of them, keeping a roster up to date, that kind of thing. We don’t have all-hands meetings or anything. It’s possible that the guy himself has been circulating among us using another name altogether.”

“And another persona,” I suggested.

“I’ve got to go to them,” Tobey said, looking stricken. “Iban, will you come with me?”

“Of course,” said the Spaniard. Iban had joined Tobey’s clan since his own West Coast family had been wiped out. “Do you have any objections, William?”

I said that I did not, although the moment I spoke I felt another wave of what could only be described as impending doom. Perhaps it was due to all the recent talk of catastrophic scenarios.

If the Council did figure out how to strike out at us, who was to say their first target would be Savannah? There were only three of us here, not counting Reedrek. The clans elsewhere on this continent were much bigger targets. Was it a conceit on my part to presume that I was so prominent on their agenda that they would strike at me first? In any case, I could not ask the other vampires to stay with us in the east when their own people might be in danger.

“Perhaps I should go as well,” Travis said. “I should warn the blood drinkers in my territory to be on the lookout for strangers, as well as any signs and portents of trouble.”

“Of course,” I said with a conviction I did not feel.

“You must see to your own people.”

They left at once, and I as their host made to follow them, but Werm stopped me. “I’ve got an idea,” he said.

I told the others I would be there to see them off, and they went to make their arrangements. Then I followed Werm back into the club. He led me up to a perky-looking female drinking a fruity concoction at the bar.

Werm introduced me to the young woman, who was named Giselle and looked very much like the drawing of Heidi in one of Renee’s books. That is, if Heidi had been all grown up and sporting a full rack of double Ds, as Jack would say. She wore a blouse whose puffy sleeves gave it an innocent and feminine look, but whose neckline was cut low enough to show a generous amount of cleavage. All she needed was lederhosen to complete the look. Platinum-blond braids framed a cherubic and carefully made-up face. Her eyes were as pale a blue as any Alpine maiden’s.

“Giselle draws caricatures in the parks around Savannah,” Werm explained. “She’s a regular here. Giselle, you’ve met Freddy Blackstone, right?”

“Sure. I’ve talked to him lots of times,” Giselle said in a high little-girl voice. With this I got the gist of Werm’s plan, and had to admire his cleverness.

“Do you think you could draw him from memory if I got you some paper?” Werm asked. “Only not a caricature this time, but as realistic a drawing as you can do of him in a small amount of time.”

Giselle put her pert nose in the air. “I can do realism,” she assured Werm. “I
am
a graduate of SCAD, you know. And I’ve got my sketchbook right here.”

She reached beside her and produced a voluminous bag from which she took the promised sketchbook. I thanked her in advance and instructed Werm to put all her drinks for the night on my account. I then called Deylaud and told him to come to the Portal immediately.

In twenty minutes Giselle had produced an excellent likeness of the blood drinker who had passed himself off as one Freddy Blackstone. By that time, Deylaud had arrived. He was panting slightly, and I knew that he had run the whole way. He loved to run whether in dog or human form, and the excuse to do so had made him smile for the first time that I had seen since I’d broken the news to him about Eleanor. I was also delighted to see that he had recovered enough to feel like running once again.

“I want you to take this sketch and fax it to Olivia immediately,” I told Deylaud. “And follow up with a phone call. They will be in their coffins, but perhaps one of them will answer if you let it ring long enough. If not, leave a message. Ask Olivia if she or any of her vampires have ever seen the man in the photo. If so, have her tell you everything they know about him so that you can report it back to me. I should be home shortly.”

“Got it,” Deylaud said, and took the drawing.

Just as Deylaud turned to leave, Ginger stepped around a throng of customers with a tray so heavily laden with full beer mugs she had to use both hands to carry it. She was being careful, watching her step lest she trip over some obstacle, like Giselle’s gargantuan bag.

Then she looked up and made eye contact with Deylaud. My faithful half-canine companion went rigid, and the drawing floated to the floor. I stooped quickly to pick it up before someone trod on it, and when I stood once more I noticed that Ginger had frozen as well.

She looked as though she wished to run, but the tray and the throng gathered around the bar prevented her flight. She turned to the right, then left, spilling some of the beer from the mugs onto the tray, but there was no way out.

As soon as she knew she wouldn’t be going anywhere, she looked Deylaud directly in the eye. If I hadn’t known better, I could have sworn that she was trying to work glamour on him as a vampire would have. If that was her aim, it wasn’t working.

Deylaud’s nostrils flared and he stepped closer as if to get more of her scent. He stepped back again, confusion written across his narrow, guileless face.

By that time, Ginger had seen an opening between two burly customers and wedged herself through it as if she’d been greased.

“Deylaud, what is it?” I asked, handing him back the drawing.

He took it, still looking confused. The music, which had been mercifully absent for the last few minutes, started up again. “Nothing,” he said hastily. “The music just hurt my ears is all. You know how sensitive my ears are.”

Indeed. I also knew that the music hadn’t been playing when Deylaud’s eyes had met Ginger’s. “Very well,” I said. “Along with you then.”

Deylaud ran out of the building, startling the club-goers he brushed past. Ginger, for her part, was out of sight. I had remained at the Portal rather than taking the sketch home myself in case the opportunity for a quick tryst with the redhead presented itself. I thought perhaps it was time to seek Ginger out and see what developed.

I stood and made my way around the little crowd of people that Ginger had squeezed through and found her standing at the computer set up against the back wall. I slipped my arm around her waist, lifted her barely off her feet, and spirited her away and into the establishment’s back meeting room.

“Hey, I have to run tabs for some customers,” she protested.

“Not until you tell me what went on with Deylaud just now.” I set her on her feet.

“Who?” She blinked her wide eyes, but I could tell she knew very well whom I was talking about.

“I refer to the slender young man who was just here. The one I handed the drawing to. You two made eye contact, and he ran out.”

“Oh, William,” she purred. “You don’t have anything to be jealous about. I don’t even know him.”

“I’m not—” I began, but then decided not to play along. I knew she would not admit to anything unless I tortured her, which I could surely do. It was unnecessary in any case; when I got home, Deylaud would tell me what I wished to know. Still, I could not let the young woman off the hook. Human or vampire, no one lied to William Cuyler Thorne and got away with it. “I don’t like being played,” I said.

She had the good sense to look properly chastened, but in an instant her expression turned coquettish. “Don’t you?” She put both palms against her thighs and slowly slid her skirt upward, revealing one of the pairs of panties that I had given her the other night. “Does this count as being played? Or being played with?”

I reached her with such preternatural swiftness that she would not have been able to see me move. I invaded the wispy undergarment with one hand while I freed my erection with the other. She gasped as I raised her off her feet and entered her, pinning her against the wall with the force of my shaft. I bore down with punishing strokes, causing her to issue little rhythmic cries with each one. “Tell me,” I said. “What dealings have you had with Deylaud?”

“I told you,” she said, her hands against my shoulders. “I don’t know him.”

“You lie.” I grasped her by the waist, trapping her between my rock-solid frame and the wall. She pressed down against my shoulders, whether to urge me closer or to try to work her way up and away from me I neither knew nor cared. She arched back from me, which only served to afford me access to her breasts. I pulled at the elastic neckline of her peasant blouse, hooking my fingers into her brassiere at the same time, dragging them both downward. Her right breast sprang free as if it had a mind of its own.

I pulled hard on her taut nipple with my lips and tongue, grazing it with my fangs, causing her to cry out louder. My cock felt as hard as a jackhammer, working in and out of her tender flesh. “I can keep this up all night,” I whispered cruelly. Perhaps it would be fun to torture her a bit after all. I wondered if she had a taste for it. As a seasoned prostitute, she would have been asked to participate in all manner of deviant scenarios. But I had no doubt she would never have experienced a night as brutal as I could give her. The only instrument of torture I needed was between my legs.

The betrayals I had suffered at the hands of Eleanor and Diana came back to my mind in vivid relief and stoked my anger. I didn’t yet know what Ginger was playing at, but I soon would, by the gods.

“Oh!” Ginger cried out once more and collapsed against me, sagging like a wilted flower against my chest, her legs limp and dangling. I came in bucking spasms, struggling to remain on my feet to support us both. What a shattering orgasm it was to have robbed me of my strength if only briefly, I thought, shaken. With my vampiric might, Ginger’s weight was as that of a fly, but I staggered a moment before I could remove myself from her and set her down. I couldn’t determine why I felt so strange. I certainly hadn’t had that much to drink.

Ginger came back to herself quickly and I suspected that, unlike me, she’d been faking her sudden weakness. Setting her clothing to rights, she managed a sly grin. “You were like a beast,” she observed. “Where did that come from?”

“Let’s just say it’s the real me,” I remarked, fastening my trousers.

“Eleanor said you were kinky.”

“Oh? What else did she tell you about me?”

“She said you like to play blood games.”

Eleanor had procured swans for me on a regular and discreet basis, but they weren’t selected from the ranks of her regular girls. I wondered how many of the other women in Eleanor’s stable knew about my proclivities. “And what games would those be?” I asked.