Urban Fantasy Collection - Vampires (9 page)

“So that's it.” Stearns's mind raced, flipping through possible courses of action. “What are you hiding in New Orleans?”

“You're fencing with the wrong person. Get your agent out.”

“One of your
projects
must be down there. That it?”

A rueful smile brushed over Moore's lips. “You know better than to ask that, Craig, you of all people.”

It hit Stearns, then, like a fist to the gut. One of Moore's projects and the CCK were one and the same. Why had Moore even allowed them to work the case? Maybe it hadn't mattered before because they were never close, but now they were. Wallace was
on
the bad guy's ass. Closing in.

“Wallace had better be all right,” he said, voice tight.

“Bring her in,” Moore said softly, “and she will be.” She switched off, the vid-mon going slate-gray with static.

Stearns jumped to his feet, kicked his chair. It rolled across the polished hardwood floor and thunked into the wall. He paced from the rain-misted window to the door and back again. Think! Wallace would never buy it if he just called her in. She'd want to go to Pensacola, check the evidence for herself. Moore probably expected that.

Let Wallace know that the case was officially closed. The CCK was dead. End of story.

Bracing his hands on either side of the window, Stearns stared out into the black night. His stomach churned. Neon flashed on the streets below; car headlights streaked along the wet pavement. Moore's request was simple.

All he had to do was bring an agent in. And let a killer walk. Again.

R
ONIN PULLED HIS
C
AMARO
over to the curb and switched off the engine. He glanced at the handheld GPS receiver. Dante's movement had stopped, then resumed, but at a much slower pace. So…the boy was now on foot.

Getting out of his car, Ronin stepped onto the sidewalk and tabbed his debit spike into the parking meter, then set it for two hours. He checked the GPS receiver, then started walking down neon-lit Canal Street, toward the Mississippi. Even here tourists and vendors crowded the sidewalks, and the four lanes of traffic gleamed with headlights. Horns honked as drivers warned strolling pedestrians as they hung rights or lefts across crosswalks.

Ronin kept his pace at a deliberate mortal-paced stride. He walked with a small herd of pedestrians, not wishing to call attention to himself. Blend, meld, become ordinary and therefore invisible. He didn't want Dante to see him. At least, not yet. The GPS receiver marked the young vampire just a few blocks ahead of him.

Another thing E didn't know—microchip-size GPS transmitters had been implanted at the base of the skull of each Bad Seed subject. Johanna had wanted to keep tabs on her experiments once they'd been unleashed.

Of course, most of the subjects—all ignorant of each other and Bad Seed's existence, let alone their own participation—were now dead or entombed in prisons. E and Dante were the only two still roaming free.

Ronin looked up and over the heads of some of the people encircling him. He saw Dante a block ahead of him, stopped in front of the light-filled and glittering Harrah's, next to the black iron fence near the entrance.

Muscles tightening in anticipation, Ronin slowed his pace, allowing his camouflage group to trundle across the street without him. A vendor sat on a metal folding chair next to a street-light, his wares—colorful MARDI GRAS! T-shirts, plastic beads, and other bits of cheap jewelry—displayed on a sheet spread out on the sidewalk.

Ronin stopped and looked over the vendor's goods, pretending a mild interest. What was Dante doing? he wondered, his gaze skipping from DRUNK ON BOURBON STREET Ts to 'gator charm bracelets. Meeting someone? Planning to play the slots?

“This one be real pop'lar,” the vendor, a black man in his midtwenties, said eagerly. He held up a shirt reading SHOW ME YOUR TITTIES! “Fresh batch. I keep sellin' out of 'em.”

“Ah,” Ronin murmured. “No doubt.” He glanced up the street.

Dante leaned against the fence, his hands gripping the railing behind him. He stood near the double-globed streetlight, but not directly beneath it, his face hood-hidden. Light danced across his leather pants and winked from his rings and hoops and bracelets. His head was bowed, his shaded gaze on the sidewalk.

People flowing in, out, and past Harrah's glanced at him. More than a few paused and stared until nudged into motion by a less-dazzled companion.

“Maybe this one's more to your liking? Sir?”

Ronin forced his gaze away from Dante. The vendor held up a shirt proclaiming LAISSEZ LES BONS TEMPS ROULLER.
Let the good times roll.
Ronin nodded.

“That one. How much?”

“Ten, sir. Cash only.”

As Ronin tugged his wallet free of his hip pocket, he darted another glance up the street. Two men in jeans and Saints sweatshirts paused near Dante. They leaned in close to one another, hands gesturing, their conversation intense. One pointed across Canal street toward the French Quarter. The other shook his head, then looked toward the casino.

Dante lifted his head, his pale hands pushing his hood back. He slid his shades off and looped them through his studded belt. The mortal froze, mouth open. A smile tilted Dante's lips, wicked and oh-so-inviting. The man gripped his friend's forearm and squeezed. Swinging his head around, the friend looked and went still also, mesmerized by the moonlit slice of sexual fantasy leaning against the fence.

Ronin looked away. Excitement shook his hands as he slid a ten out of his wallet and handed it to the vendor.

Dante was hunting.

Snatching the T-shirt from the vendor's hands, Ronin tucked one end of it into his hip pocket and started up the sidewalk. He forced himself to walk slowly. He still couldn't afford to call attention to himself, especially near a hyper-alert and, undoubtedly, territorial vampire on the hunt.

Both mortals had recovered enough from their first glimpse of Dante's breath-stealing beauty to sidle in on either side of him, their bodies nearly touching. Their hungry, somewhat predatory, stance amused Ronin. They spoke to Dante, smiling, their gestures friendly. One displayed a wad of cash.

Ronin paused at a store window. He was close enough now that Dante would feel his presence if he wasn't careful. He tamped his aura down tight, stilled his questing mind. Blood surged through his veins electrified, adrenalized. For a moment, his thoughts spun, and he shook his head, perplexed. What had come over him? He prized control—the essence of strength and self-rule.

Dante. True Blood. Vampire aristocracy.

He looked up the street again. Dante walked away with the mortals, one still on either side of him. The men glanced at each other. Winked. One squeezed a hand into a fist. Ronin watched as the threesome turned the corner onto Tchopitoulas Street. The mortals no doubt planned bad things for the young Goth hustler walking between them; planned to use him, then hurt him. And not necessarily in that order.

Ronin now knew why Dante had lifted his head and allowed those two to look at him and fall under his spell.

He'd smelled their filthy little hearts jittering away inside their chests. Had heard their fevered whispers. Seen their twisted thoughts.

Ronin grinned. Dante hunted the
evil-doer
. Or, at the very least, he preyed on predators. Ironic? Yes. Fascinating? Yes. Something Johanna and her squad of behavioral scientists had foreseen? Hell, no.

Ronin paused at another store window, allowing Dante and his new friends time to get ahead. One thing troubled him—S.A. Heather Wallace. Why was she investigating Dante? Was it possible she'd understood what Dante hadn't so far? That the messages were for him?

Ronin glanced at the GPS receiver. Dante had stopped. Looking up the street, he realized that Dante and the two Saints fans were no longer in view. Ronin dropped the mortal pretense and
moved.
He breezed through the sidewalk throngs with the ease of a man walking a deserted street. He touched no one and perhaps only a few mortals felt a cool rush of air as he passed.

The receiver showed Dante halfway down an alley just ahead and to the right. Ronin slowed to a walk. His heart pounded hard in his chest. He
felt
Dante, felt his hunger sharp as a double-edged sword. But underneath that he felt rage, unvoiced and wordless; a red-hot torrent rushing through Dante's veins.

Shielding himself with steel thought and glass illusion—
No one here. Look past. No one here. Look past
—Ronin dared a glance down the shadow-filled alley.

One Saints fan stood in front of Dante, pressing a pocket-knife against his pale throat while his buddy handcuffed Dante's hands behind his back. A dark smile crossed Dante's lips as the knife nicked his throat. Blood oozed from the tiny cut, trickling down his white skin and onto the collar of his mesh shirt.

Ronin breathed in the blood's fragrance, sucked it down into his lungs: rich and thick with pheromones and ripe-berry sweet. Hunger seized him. He hugged the building's edge, his fingers curling around weather-worn brick, and watched.

“Viens ici,”
Dante said to the mortal holding the knife to his throat.
“J'ai faim.”

The Saints fan narrowed his eyes, his smile turning brittle. “What the hell did you just say?”

His buddy grasped Dante's hips and pressed hard against him. “Who gives a fuck what he said? Talking isn't on the menu.”

“Can you take as good as you give?” Dante murmured.

He leaned forward and nuzzled the mortal's throat, licked the flesh over the fast-pulsing artery. The pocketknife slid away from Dante's throat, blood trailing from its point. The mortal closed his eyes. Dante sank his fangs into the man's throat.

Groaning, the Saints fan stumbled back into the wall. The knife tumbled from his fingers and hit the concrete with a sharp
ting.
Dante pressed against him, snugging one leather-clad leg between his, pinning him.

The other mortal had moved with them, one hand still clutching Dante's hip, the other wriggling between his buddy and Dante in an effort to unbuckle Dante's belt.

Ronin's muscles tightened, his breath coming hard and fast. His lips parted. He felt the whisker-stubbled flesh beneath his lips, tasted the hot blood gushing into his mouth. He closed his eyes. Listened to his own thundering heart.

True Blood. Destiny.

Opening his eyes, Ronin smiled, then hunkered down.
Let's see how the True Blood, child that he is, gets himself out of this alley…alone.

The mortal Dante feasted on suddenly started to struggle. His eyes flew open. He lifted a trembling hand, seized Dante's shoulder, and shoved. But Dante didn't budge.

“Andy,” he slurred, his voice thick and panicked. “Help me. Andy…”

With a casual shrug, Dante snapped the handcuffs. Metal
tink
ed off brick and stone. His hands latched onto the mortal's shoulders and held him still, burrowing his face deeper into the mortal's throat, ripping into the flesh.

The other mortal, Andy, jumped back when Dante snapped the handcuffs, astonishment on his face. “What the…”

Dante released the Saints fan, who slumped to the ground in a boneless heap, his eyes already glazing. Licking the blood from his lips, Dante swiveled around and looked at Andy. He lifted his arms and glanced pointedly at the handcuff bracelets on his wrists.

With a tiny shriek, Andy whirled around, and ran—

Right into Dante.

Ronin shook his head, marveling at Dante's speed. He wondered if the boy had any other surprises.

Dante embraced Andy, locking his arms around him as his fangs pierced his throat. Andy's legs gave out and they both went down, the mortal sprawling on the rain-puddled alley floor. Dante straddled him, sitting on his belly and pinning his arms to the concrete. Dante fed, swallowing mouthful after mouthful of hot blood.

Ronin realized he'd stood at some point and had moved into the alley without being aware of it, his gaze locked on Dante's slender coiled form, his thoughts hunger-fevered, craving only the blood burning through Dante's veins.

Sliding to a sudden halt, dirt gritted beneath Ronin's snake-skin boots. He held his breath hoping the boy hadn't heard—

But he had. Dante looked up, his dark-eyed gaze locking onto Ronin. Wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, he uncurled from the mortal's body and stood. Behind him, Andy twitched, then lay still.

Ronin held Dante's gleaming, hostile gaze for a single time-stretching moment, then the boy
moved
.

Ronin danced aside using a change-body technique, sucking in as he whirled. Dante passed so close mesh whispered against denim, and heat radiated against Ronin's night-cooled flesh. Dante's scent swirled through the night air—blood and deep, dark earth, heady and sharp. And dangerous. Ronin forced himself to focus. His aikido-trained muscles relaxed, ready for Dante's next charge.

“Hey,” said a low, husky voice to Ronin's right.

Turning, Ronin met Dante's dark gaze again. The boy stood not five feet from him at the alley mouth's other edge. He watched Ronin through his lashes, his hands curled into fists, his muscles taut. He had a street fighter's posture; deceptively still. His fighting style would be down, dirty, and vicious, but easy to handle with the calm focus of aikido.

“Who the fuck are you?” Dante tilted his head and sudden knowledge lit his eyes. “You were in the club last night—you're the one Lucien and Von told me about.”

Ronin smiled and nodded his head in acknowledgment. “That I was.”

“Where's your mortal buddy?”

“My assistant, you mean?” Ronin asked. Dante's fists hadn't relaxed. “I gave him the evening off.”

“Assistant?” A half smile tilted Dante's lips. “That's a new one.”

“I'm a journalist,” Ronin said. “Crime journalist, actually.”

Tugging his wallet free, he looked up into Dante's dark, red-streaked eyes. He now stood only a foot away. Ronin hadn't heard him move, hadn't felt him. He slid a black card from his wallet, extended it to Dante between two fingers.

Dante plucked it free and read its silver-lettered surface. “Thomas Ronin,” he murmured. “So, what are you doing here, Peeping Tom?” He flicked the card into the rain-filled gutter.

Ronin watched the sodden card float to a sewer grate not half a block down. He met Dante's sardonic gaze and held it. In that moment, he had one regret—that Johanna had discovered this child, born of unwilling vampire mother, and he hadn't.